a whole new world — Summer of Rove

It started to feel real when I spotted the sign. We’d just moved overseas, to an English city none of us had ever set foot in. All we knew of Bristol was what we saw while trawling Google maps and local Instagram feeds before we left NYC. We were spent, physically and emotionally, from the move — which, as anyone who has ever moved knows, is not so much about moving day itself but all the exhausting preparation and the feels that come with pulling up deep roots and putting them down somewhere new.

The ‘hedgehog crossing’ sign was a screaming reminder that we weren’t in Kansas (or Washington Heights) anymore. Gone were the tall buildings, the subway, the constant noise from a stompy upstairs neighbor, the obstacle course of dog poop on the street. But lest Bristol sound like a sleepy, hedgehog-filled hamlet, we soon found that it was a vibrant place humming with an energy I hadn’t felt in New York for some time.

Bristol’s a little city with a love of food, an independent spirit and no shortage of art. (Maybe this is why someone described it to me as “the Brooklyn of England” though I’ve never lived in Brooklyn and probably never will.) It’s got three Michelin-starred restaurants and the oldest continuously operating theatre in the English-speaking world (the Bristol Old Vic, built in 1766), and yet you can walk almost everywhere in under an hour. Within 30 minutes from our house, by foot, we can:

stroll past well-appointed stone houses with names like Fernhurst, Graceville, Sandringham, Hurlstone, Stokeleigh, Mordenhall and Brompton Villa (just looking at them makes me want afternoon tea and a fancy accent)
go for a round of ping-pong in the park, visit a multitude of playgrounds, swim at the leisure center, play tennis, rock climb in an old converted church
explore Stokes Croft, an edgy, arty neighborhood with a history of counterculture (and known locally as the Peoples’ Republic of Stokes Croft), where riots broke out a decade ago over the opening of a small chain store
feed pigs, goats, sheep and chicken at a working farm
meander through vast grassy hills and fields — or downs, as they are called — that stretch farther than the eye can see
shop our asses off on what locals bill as the U.K.’s “longest independent shopping street” (it is a wondrous street of independently owned shops, restaurants and cafes; though in the spirit of full disclosure there is a Subway sub shop whose presence mystifies me).
eat our faces off — Caribbean, Turkish, Sri Lankan, Middle Eastern, Thai, Indian, Cuban, Italian, Spanish, vegan, the opposite of vegan (the meaty English Sunday roast) and classic local fare like fish and chips, sausage rolls, Cornish pasties and cakes worthy of the Great British Baking Show

I could go on. What a joy it is to explore. As we do, I have the strangest sensation, alternately feeling like a tourist masquerading as a local and a local masquerading as a tourist. I suppose I’m both.

***

You know that feeling you get when you visit somewhere new and exciting? Your vision seems sharper, things taste better, long walks don’t feel like hard work, even a trip to the grocery store can be interesting (prawn cocktail- and roast chicken-flavored potato chips: who knew?). That’s how I feel much of the time, even as I go about my business as a “local” — submitting secondary school applications, buying necessities like toilet scrubbers, cooking oil and laundry detergent, figuring out my British bank account (still working on that one). It can be odd trying to balance day-to-day responsibilities with the desire to wander around with my mouth wide open, sampling all the food and taking pictures of pretty parks and hedgehog signs.

Of course there are frustrations, confusions, disappointments, occasional moments of classic American rage. Adjusting to life in the U.K. actually may be harder than in a place where everything is new and different, starting with the language. But we all speak English (says the mother who had to google her kids’ new school uniform needs: pinafores, jumpers, plimsoles, trainers) and watch “Ted Lasso” and fight with our kids about when they’re old enough for an iPhone. So the differences are real but subtle, if not invisible. There will be ample time to get into those. For now, while I’m in my honeymoon phase with this city, here are 12 Things I Love About Bristol:

12. The contrasts. One photo below was taken from a vegetable garden in the City Farm (that church in the background is the rock climbing academy). The other photo was taken half a block away, at the mouth of a 200-foot tunnel that’s a popular legal street art site.

Miles of fruit and vegetable gardens, with their own cafe and pub, right in middle of the city, sharing space with graffiti that reminds me of my local subway tunnel in Washington Heights (minus the needles on the ground). Contradictions? Complements? Whatever it is, I’ll take it.

Walking through Stokes Croft, an edgy, arty neighborhood with a history of counterculture. Riots broke out in 2011 over the opening of a small Tesco market.

11. The tea cart. This spot in our local park was instantly one of my children’s favorite spots. A few weeks after we arrived I let them go by themselves, with a few pounds in their pockets for ice cream, pastries or toasties, aka grilled cheese. This sudden independence made me uneasy (remember when we lost Lulu in Paris?) but they seemed ready. Thank you, tea cart, for pushing me over that parental hump and being such a welcoming destination for my kids. And also for your flat whites, which are better than Starbucks’.

Queuing behind a community support police officer, who — like most authorities here — doesn’t carry any firearms.

10. Hot air balloons. Bristol is famous for them, for good reason. Hundreds fill the air during the annual international Balloon Fiesta in August. But we’ve learned to always look up because you never know when you might spot a colorful surprise drifting overhead.

9. Street parties. How can you not love an annual two-day celebration where your neighbors close the road to traffic and host nonstop activities including face-painting, kids’ games, a “slow bike race” (it’s what it sounds like: who can get to the finish line slowest without falling off?), potluck meals, a disco, and a baking competition so intense there are adult and junior categories with different judges for each? Or where the schedule of activities mandates “Cake Consumption” at 3:30pm?

8. Small surprises. On the sweltering day we ended quarantine and moved into our house, my husband spotted some people walking past our place on the way to the park with a cooler full of colorful pouches. Homemade cocktail slushies, they explained. He grabbed a few, lime for him and passionfruit for me, and gave them a few pounds. In NYC, we probably would have looked — if not run — the other way. But, like the hedgehog signs, these adult otter pops handed out by strangers felt like a happy reminder that we were in a whole new world. I had two.

On a walk through the park I noticed a laminated sign zip-tied to one of the benches. Closer inspection revealed this was the Happy Bench, where taking a seat means you’re open to chatting with strangers. In New York, I had some unhappy experiences in local parks and probably would not sit on a bench that purposely invites attention from strangers.

7. Free stuff. The circular economy is alive and well in Bristol. Besides the countless charity shops (where on any given day you might pick up, say, a winter hat or a ball of yarn or a leather sofa or tea set or board game) are the used objects you find sitting on walls all over the city. They are free for the taking, left by people who no longer want them, don’t want them to become landfill, and might not have time to donate them to charity or gift them on sites like my bonkers obsession, the Facebook Buy Nothing group. The kids love them too — they’ve scored a working stomp rocket and piles of back issues of their favorite British comic book, Beano, on strangers’ front walls.

6. The library. Public libraries have always made my stomach feel warm and tingly — the overwhelm of all those books, the anxiety of knowing I could never possibly read them all, the promise of finding one that will be enjoyable or transporting or even life-changing, all neatly stacked on shelves and available for immediate consumption. Our library in NYC was functional. Our new library is a genuinely warm, inviting place where the staff are enthusiastic and helpful, the books we reserve online show up promptly, checkouts and returns are done on surprisingly easy-to-use machines, and children’s books are treated with respect, each one carefully laminated and shelved in pole position on the ground floor. Children are treated like VIPs here; the day we visited for the first time, I didn’t have my U.K. identification card on me and could not get a library card or borrow a book until I presented it. The kids, however, gave the librarian their names and addresses, were handed brand-new cards right on the spot, and came home with a bag full of books.

5. The garden. I have one for the first time. I could have achieved this by moving to, say, a New York suburb, but having a garden in England just feels so appropriate. This summer it gave us sunflowers, apples, rhubarb, and zucchini so massive we had to document them with multiple photos.

4. Day trips. We’ve gone swimming at a lido (a fancy word for open-air pool) in Cheltenham. Checked out the giant infinity marine pool and penny arcade at Clevedon. Shopped at a cute Saturday market just across the Severn River in the old walled city of Chepstow in Wales. Visited new friends on their smallholding (a house with more land than a garden but less land than a farm) in the Forest of Dean, where they grow and raise their own food and have a killer tree swing. Explored an ancient Roman bath house and sampled the famous local buns — they’re a thing — in Bath. Hiked a massive gorge and ate cheese in … you guessed it, Cheddar. England is so small, and so packed with interesting stuff (historical, natural, commercial) that every place you might want to go is just a drive away.

A well-preserved ancient bath house on the site of a Roman temple built around 60 AD

3. Treats. They’re everywhere and take every conceivable form. For my son, the local toy store sings its siren song, an intoxicating tune about Legos and Nerf Guns and old-school pranks like rubber pencils, fake cat poop and electric shock handshake buzzers. After school on Fridays my daughter likes to spend some of her allowance (called pocket money here) by choosing carefully from dozens of containers of candy and filling a little paper bag with gummy worms, marshmallow mushrooms, sour laces, chocolate balls and more. The store staff are very happy to weigh the bag as many times as a child asks during the process, so the child can spend exactly the amount of money they wish. There are literal penny-candy options too, jars of treats that go for as little as 1p each.

Big kid in candy store — Big kid in his candy store (a beer shop)

In the name of research I will try all of these at some point

2. Kid-friendly activities. For the first few months we didn’t hook up our TV (highly recommend!) and instead spent time checking out playgrounds, feeding animals, playing ping pong in the park. There’s a never-ending supply of diversions, including the pub darts that Lulu played to celebrate her first day of school.

1. The colors. Bristol is home to Upfest, the biggest urban paint festival in Europe. But the colors extend far beyond the walls of buildings and traffic tunnels. They’re everywhere. Or maybe it’s that tourist’s eye of mine, finding meaning and beauty in even the most mundane. And maybe that’s one key to fulfillment: feeling like tourists even as we live like locals.