Issue 2151
Happy Monday!
After over a year of not travelling, I got it all out in a whirlwind binge session over the past couple of months. I spent three weeks stateside in Western New York, went back to the UK for five days before heading off to the south of France for another three weeks. It was absolutely exhausting. I ended up busting out of France six days early when the UK started changing travel rules again. I’m glad I did because in the time I came back, the rules changed once again. I am also glad I went. The weather in France was just about as cold or even colder temperature-wise. The difference was that it was sunny for the majority of the time I was there whereas in England I barely saw the sun during the time between trips nor since I’ve been back. The random thoughts in my head have been plentiful since the last issue of the newsletter so here we go.
Speaking of issues of the newsletter, this is lucky number thirteen! I had envisioned myself either losing interest or skipping an issue for some reason and then never picking it back up, so this momentum is really exciting for me! Thank you all for reading and sticking with me. This will be the last issue of the year and it will remain in an experimental phase when I pick up in January.
I spent the majority of my NY trip in Buffalo which had some of the best food I have tasted in a long long time. There are many reasons I moved away from the US but one of the things I miss is the variety and number of amazing food establishments at a reasonable price. I miss it. Fun fact about Buffalo, at the turn of the 19th century it had the world’s highest concentration of millionaires. I had a private tour at one of their homes built by Frank Lloyd Wright which I chronicle in this article.
I am on a reading sprint at the moment. I have 89 completed at this moment, so eleven more to go by the end of the year. It doesn’t really matter if I hit the goal or stop right now. It is an accomplishment either way. The one I just completed was called The Spy and the Traitor and it had a fascinating biography about a Cold War double agent who escaped detection for over a decade. In this book I found out that the Kremlin thought that the US was so thoroughly steeped in capitalism that the Soviets thought that they were like actual banks where citizens could buy and sell blood for money. The entire upper echelon of the government of an entire country and nobody bothered to send an agent in to check it out. Hilarious.
That’s all I have for now. Have a wonderful end of year!
-Mandy F.