Author Archives: Sara Lieberman

From running to stunning

Posted on by

Seeing as my flight was at 1:15p.m. today, there was absolutely no reason for me to be late. I was not drunk the night before. I was not coming from work. It was not rush hour.

And yet, there I was sitting on the Stanstead Express as it slowly ch-ch-chugged along to the airport at nearly 12:40p.m. We arrived and I flew out the doors, up the ramp and toward security. I had half-hour to get through and make my flight to Ljubljana, Slovenia, which was leaving from an unknown gate in less than half-hour. Oh and I had to “wee” (as they say in London) like freakin’ Seabiscuit.

I took off my bangles and my jean jacket, and removed my laptop and the two clear pastic bags of liquids (aka, creams and gels). I thought it’d be smooth sailing.

Then it happened: The guy sitting behind the scanner casually dropped a laminated red “flag” that didn’t at all look like a flag into my bin.

“Excuse me!” I said to one of the security officers.

Oh yeah. I was going full American on them.

“What is that? Why is my stuff on that side of the X-machine?”

“I’m sorry miss, it needs to be checked. You’ll have to wait.”

“But my flight! It leaves in 15 minutes!”

“Well, I guess you should’ve left yourself more time to get here then.”

Right. Thanks. So my things sat in a queue. (And there’s no jumping queues in London!)

I stood there tapping my Nikes, watching as five — FIVE — other bags were searched before mine.

“You going to Ljubliana?” asked a guy, also rushing, but gathering all his things.

“That’s the plan,” I said, gloomily.

“It’s not looking good. For either of us.”

Then he was off.

When they finally got to my bag, I was reprimanded for not removing my Kindle from my handbag and for having not one, but two clear pastic bags.

Oh.

Right then and there I had to go through my “liquids” and decide which of my carefully curated beauty products were coming with and which ones were about to be banished to the “hazardous waste” bin of Stanstead Airport.

I tossed the Charles Worthington shampoo and conditioner (they were free samples and I had washed this morning), my Jurlique cuticle cream (just had my nails done), and body lotion (I kept the SPF). The rest of the “liquids” were either too expensive (Clarins face lotion and SPF, Bobbi Brown eye cream) or too important for my hygiene and vanity (toothpaste, contact lens solution, Korres lip gloss).

Just when I thought I was in the, er, clear, I had to make sure the bag completely zipped, which took some rearranging.

Thankfully, they all came out from the scanner a second time without a laminated red non-flag and I tossed it all back in my luggage and ran like Forest Gump in search of my gate. All the exercise I haven’t been doing was pretty damn obvious as I huffed and puffed my way to…

Oh no. I had to get on a shuttle train!

Breathe. Believe. Receive. 

I wasn’t giving up. I was getting to Gate 7.

Thankfully, gates 1-19 were accessible from the first stop on the train.

Not-so-thankfully, I wasn’t getting there without first going up two sets of escalators. (Actually not very escalating when in a rush with a rollie!)

Finally, I reached the top, rounded the corner and actually yelled, “Wait! Please wait!” as I ran toward them, my DVF rollie trailing behind me and my passport and boarding pass in the crook of my elbow.

They waited.

I couldn’t believe it.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only latecomer to arrive shvitzing and out of breath. Seems security was super tight today and Easy Jet had some “check in” problems.

I was so verklempt that I didn’t even really notice the handsome man with piercing blue eyes sitting in my seat.

Just kidding. I totally noticed. But had absolutely no game whatsoever. Instead, I was unabashedly flustered and all, “Ohmygod, I can’t believe I made it!”, disrobing my scarf, my jumper and then my jacket until I was down to a tank.

He offered me some solace in the form of a smile, and then moved to the seat behind me.

Before I sat down, I caught a glimpse of the guy I saw at security. We silently smiled and gave each other the Travel Recognition Nod. You know, the one where no words are needed, just a casual acknowledgement that you’ve either seen each other before, or are complete strangers  on a similar path. Love those.

Eventually, we were up, up and away and I was able to relax a bit. 

Two hours later, I arrived in sunny Ljubljana, where the skies were blue, the mountains snowcapped and the language hard to pronounce without sounding like a complete fool. The insanity of the last few hours were now a mere giggle-inducing memory.

Just as I got to the shuttle to take me to Lake Bled, about 45-minutes north, I saw them: The Eyes. The guy from my seat! Unfortunately, he wasn’t going to Lake Bled, but rather a small city in Austria where he lives and works. So small, that the only way to get there is to fly into Slovenia and take a shuttle (MY shuttle!) to a train to a car.

This time, we talked travel and work and Croatia and Budapest, where he’s from. He spoke English really well. And those eyes!

When he got off to continue on his journey, a mere 20 minutes later, he asked me how long I was in Bled and whether I was on Facebook. I told him, and am awaiting a friend request.

But even if it doesn’t come, it’s little moments like those that make the journey — albeit a sometimes heart-palpitating-rush-of-a-one — even more stunning than the destination.

Though, the one I reached ain’t half-bad.

Lovely Lake Bled

Lovely Lake Bled

**Addendum: For those curious, I’ll be New Girl-ing About several different towns over the next few weeks. After Slovenia, I’ll be cruising the Dalmatian Coast in Croatia, followed by a quickie jaunt in Stockholm (random layover!) before landing in Tel Aviv where I’m meeting my mom before returning to London for two nights prior to heading back to the states. I hope to continue to update along the way, so please do come along for the ride!

Rock-in’ out

Posted on by

Whatdayaknow? I went to Brighton and it brighton-ed up my week. I was totally having one of those left-my-umbrella-on-the-tube, spent-three-hours-in-Apple, missed-my-yoga-class-by-10-minutes weeks. Oh, and it’s been raining and cloudy and cold. You know, it’s been London. (See? I’m totally starting to fit in now.)

I needed a pick-me-up. I needed some sunlight.  I needed the sea.

Upon arriving in Brighton, I went straight for it. “You can’t miss it,” said Clare, as I left the flat early in the morning. She was right. You could see it from the station. Oh, how I love to be by the seaside! I practically skipped down to it. (Thankfully, the sun was on my side. Skies were blue and bountiful with white fluffy, but not gloomy, clouds.)

On my way, I stopped at this cute market of food stalls and picked up a Scotch quail egg breaded in apple and onions for breakie. There were other yummy delights, but I was saving room for my main sustenance: the salty air, the squawking seagulls and the glistening turquoise sea. Oh and how it delivered in satisfaction! I honestly couldn’t believe how beautiful and tranquil it was. THIS was so close to London?! Just an hour by train?!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

As I approached the shore, I was also surprised by the “beach” itself. Rocks! Big ones, too. I think us New Yorkers don’t realize how spoiled we are to live by soft, sandy shores. (Say that five times fast!)

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

But I didn’t mind the rocks. Aside from the fact that it was still a bit chilly to take off my shoes and dig down deep as I love to do back home, I liked the sound of them: a click-clack-swish. The sound of Rock.

Little did I know the rest of the day, I’d hear more Rock. Not by the seaside, though. Rather inside many of Brighton’s “toilet venues,” a.k.a. dingy, but awesomely authentic houses of R&R.

It just so happened that it was the first day of The Great Escape, Europe’s largest independent music festival. Their SXSW, if you will.

I’ve written about my love of music, and I how I had planned to see several live shows while here in London. But what I loved most about this was  how I didn’t plan any of it. That’s something I’m not used to. At all. Me and spontaneity? Yeah, not so much. But the more we get to know each other… the more I see the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Now, I will admit, it felt a little odd to be so clueless about what was going on around me — and there was A LOT going on around me. But it was also super fun to just pop into a venue, listen to a few songs, charge up my phone while having a lager shandy (that’s fizzy lemonade and lager, for those who don’t know — delish!) and then be on my merry way to another (free) gig.

Not all gigs were free, though. Actually, for most you needed a pre-paid wristband. But there were plenty smaller, alternative venues offering gratis shows. I think I saw about 5 in total, including one I’d actually seen before two years ago in New York: VV Brown, and another I know I’ll see again cause they were epically awesome: We Were Evergreen. I know it’s a band’s worst nightmare for people to say they “sound like someone else,” but I swear as I walked toward them playing outside at dusk, I thought they were Vampire Weekend. They’re catchy, instrumentally experimental and totally head-bop inducing. Sandweaver was another band I happened upon and immediately fell into. The lead singer was pregnant and sharp in sound and sassy in boddy with her burgeoning belly and feather earrings.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Preggers singer of Sandweaver = totally rock ‘n’ roll.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

The crowds at The Mesmerist’s “Day Escape”

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

We Were Evergreen playing outside at fest headquarters but inside an airstream trailer.

After bouncing from one gig to another, back to the beach, and then back to another, I considered being as rock ‘n’ roll as one could be by booking a hostel and staying over in my same clothes, without even a contact lens case or a toothbrush. But I also didn’t have a wristband, and it was becoming clear that my access to some of the larger evening shows was about to become limited.

But wow! What a full day. A day of sunlight, the sea and the click-clack-swish of Rock.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Forward thinking

Posted on by

I am going backwards. My seat on the Eurostar is facing Paris, not London. I hate sitting backwards on a train. Aside from the fact that it makes me a bit queasy, there’s something metaphorically unsettling about it, too. It’s like I can’t move forward. And I need to be able to move forward.

It actually makes sense that I’m sitting this way today, though. Leaving Paris is hard. I’m feeling a bit like Sookie Stackhouse from True Blood: Someone’s taken a bite outta me, left a mark and now I’m conflicted about where to go and what to do next. Luckily, it wasn’t a bloodthirsty vampire (though, there was a lovely French man…) but rather Paris itself.

I travel a lot, but only a few cities have left such marks: There was Ubud in Bali, a small city in Indonesia surrounded by rice paddies and wide, dewy Banyan trees; Antigua, Guatemala, a colonial town with cobblestone streets and crayon-colored stucco buildings; and finally, Buenos Aires, a large cosmopolis steeped in history, yet gentrified in chic-ness by way of its Palermo parillas and milongas.

So what about these cities make them qualify to leave such a mark?

I recently professed my love for Paris in detail, but there is a more general reason, too: See, each of these cities provoked a sense of bewilderment upon first arriving; a Where-Do-I-Go?/How-Does-This-Work?/Oh-Look-At-That! sense of newness and innocence. Everything was just so… extraordinary: The way the alarms sounded on an ambulance roaring through the unfamiliar streets; the way the crosswalk signs lit up, the way the water ran from the faucet, the way the windows opened. But then, within days, each of these things suddenly became… ordinary. They lost the “extra.” Not in a bad way or else the mark wouldn’t be left. But rather in a way that was settling; that was comfortable. It’s because I had learned them. I now knew where to go, how to work things and have “looked at that” already. Suddenly it was no longer a fleeting place, but a place stopped in time. A place I could stay and call home. A place other people call home and think is no more “extra” than you think wherever you come from is.

Surely, any city can do this, and often does the longer one stays. But whether it leaves a mark is unique to the individual and what they experience, I suppose. Paris and Ubud and Antigua and BsAs. They’ve marked me. I suspect there will be others.

Remember a few weeks ago when I declared my I Am-ness? I said, I Am a Writer. That’s still true (and, in fact, even more so then when I first put it out there). But I am also a Wanderer. Sometimes I think I’m just not meant to stay in any one place. Yes, my “home” will always be New York because that’s what it says on my passport; that’s where my family lives and all my handbags and shoes and books are shmushed into a studio apartment in the West Village (and a storage space in Chelsea).

But I love showing up somewhere, delighting in its differences and foreign frivolity, then “fitting in” so easily that tourists start asking me for directions in their language and I sheepishly have to admit Je ne parle pas Francais. But oh, how good that feels!

Like Sookie who can’t choose between daylight and humans and night time and vamps, these cities present a conflict and beg the question that The Clash once asked: “Should I stay or should I go?”

If I stay, I can find a local wine bar like Gottino on Greenwich Avenue in NYC or a coffee shop like White Mulberries at St. Catherine Dock in London where they’ll know my name and drink of choice. I can find a Happy Place to sit and read my book like Jefferson Market Garden in NYC or Jardin Villemin in the 10th. I can allow myself to go on a bender and sleep the whole next day without feeling The FOMO like in, er, all of the above.

If I go, I get to roll around in the novelty of wherever I am again and again and again.

As I’m writing this, I’m looking outside the window at fields upon fields of bright yellow flowers. There’s so many of them. It’s like the field of poppies in Oz, but in my favorite bright, joyful color. I can’t help but think somewhere there’s a wizard waiting for me to arrive so he can declare, ‘Oh, you already have a brain and heart and courage!’

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

I want to tap the person next to me and say, ‘Look how pretty!’ But there is no one next to me. And so there’s the rub. That’s why I choose freedom and I choose to Go, rather than to Stay. There is no one to share that gasp of air with.

I know what you’re thinking: If I Stay (anywhere; somewhere), I’ll have a better chance of meeting someone to Go with. You could be right.

But then I’m waiting and hoping and wondering as I’ve been doing in NYC for so many years (ahem, still single), rather than looking and meeting and wandering along the way. To where, I do not know. It changes daily. But between the start of this blog post and the end, I switched seats to face forward. And that’s about all I can count on for sure.

J’adore Paris!

Posted on by

OK, I’m about to get all cliche up in here. But I really really really love Paris. Like, really. (Just in case you didn’t get that.) Since it’s 3:30a.m. and I’m tres exhausted, here’s un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq…. reasons why J’adore Paris.

Un: You can walk this town. All of it. Yes, you’d be tired and it may take you longer. But it’s feasible. You know how in a rearview car mirror it says, “Objects in mirror are closer than they appear”? Well, it’s sorta like that in Paris. You look at a map and think, “I have to walk to the 10th and the 7th by way of the 3rd? (I’m talking arrondissements, here.) But it just happens. Those little blue and white street signs suddenly change and you’ve made your way around the clock, you rockin’ robin you!

Deux: That said, the metro rocks. It’s not as clean as the tube, but it’s damn near as efficient. Trains run often and on time (stations even have the countdown timers telling you when one’s coming!) In just 20 minutes, I went from the Marais to the Eiffel Tower, which would be the equivalent to going from East London to Balham or the West Village to the UES, the latter two of which would take at least double that time. I also love that in one station there was a fruit stand (take that, er, Subway!) and in another there was what seemed like an art installation.

Trois: The Light. There’s the cliche. But it’s true. I get why it gets its nickname. And it’s not the artificial twinkling of that famous tower lit up at night; or the iconic red signs touting a tabac or brasserie, but it’s how the natural sunshine — or even lackthereof — hits a graffiti wall or a historic monument or a budding tree in such a way that makes the scene so unique, so stunning and so timeless.

IMG_6812

Quatre: They smoke without abandon here. Don’t get me wrong: I am not a fan of The Smoking. But somehow, Parisians not only make it tolerable, but they also make it seem appealing. The way they light one cigarette before even finishing their last; the way they hold it so effortlessly between their pointer and middle finger, pursing their lips with such ease to inhale and then exhale, blowing the smoke away as if it were the most pleasurable bother in the world. Paris wouldn’t be Paris without fumeur.

MidnightInParis-Stills-AG

Cinq: It can feel so foreign, and so familiar at the same time. One minute you’ll be walking around going, “This is not my city, not my language, not my clean air being polluted by cigarette smoke that manages to smell sexy” and then BOOM, you see something that reminds you of home and makes you go, “Oh wait, but it can be.” Case in point: This brasserie called Sarah Bernhardt brought me back to standing on top of the mustard-yellow carpeted steps of my grandparents’ house crying while my grandpa yelled, “Stop your whining! You know who you’re acting like? Sarah Bernhardt.” (I had no idea who that was, but I eventually found out he was calling me a drama queen.)

Who, me? Couldn’t be!

IMG_6836

C’est finis. Bon soir!*

IMG_6893*There was no Google Translate used in the making of this blog. Holla high school French!