This is the end

Oh, hey! Just to catch you up: we moved back to the United States, and they had an election yesterday.

Thank you for reading my blog. I started it, and continued it, mostly to keep my Mum up-to-date, but also to have a nice chronicle of all the fun things we were up to Stateside. Hannah got into Berkeley in 2008 through herculean effort and was kind enough to bring me along, to embark on various adventures with her, and with notable co-conspirators in fellow MBA spouse Dana and borrowed-baby Claire (who just turned 16!!) and everyone else unwittingly pulled in to be featured.

Then we got to try out the US healthcare system by having an American baby of our own, who we subsequently dragged to Vancouver, Maryland, Texas, Belgium, then back to Texas. Pete claims to be 100% American while sounding 110% British, but I'll pay for his therapy when it comes.

Through it all, I've presented myself as the witty, bumbling English(Welsh)man abroad, taking a jolly tour around this great nation, like Michael Portillo but less Tory, like Michael Palin but less funny. Oh how I laughed at the scrapes I got into, deploying my accent to charm those I met, a perennial tourist enjoying a ridiculously long vacation. I've worked to give you an amusing but factual window into the culture over here, and hopefully kept you (and my Mum) interested.

Things changed when we got a green card and permanent right to stay. After that I had to admit we'd planted ourselves, and committed to a large chunk of life overseas. We can't vote but we can vote with our feet, and had made a choice. But had we? We were quickly whisked to Belgium for fun socialist times there, and moved back while a Democrat - albeit an old white male one - was in the White House.

And now another old white male is going to follow him. The first time Trump was in power, it was all still a bit ludicrous. We were living near DC and went as political tourists to an inauguration ball, then to the women's "pussy" march the day after. We were on time-limited visas still, and wanted to witness this strange blip of the US sending a bankrupt reality TV star to power. What playful chaos! How the famed checks and balances will defeat him! And it was still not as bad as Brexit.

This second time, it's very different. We still can't vote, but here we are complicit with our presence. Trump is victorious, and I won't bother to list what he's said and done; we all know it, and everyone who voted for him knows it. With all that knowledge, he's the President again, with a Senate and a high court and probably a House to match. Worst of all, he won the popular vote. Most of the country agrees with him.

So I have misled you for a long time. I've been wrong about over half the people I've met during 15 years in the USA. Either that, or I've been floating in a hypocritical bubble of my own making, failing to pop it. I've been unwise to wittily comment on the differences I've come across, to play down the racist and sexist challenges of living here, to happily describe the experience of a white, English-speaking male as though it's the same for everyone. And I'm still doing it! "I'm just off to eat my neighbour's cat," I joked to friends after that debate, knowing exactly the group Trump's words were targeting, and not being in it.

Granted, America was always founded on myths. "All men are created equal," wrote the slave-owning authors of the Declaration of Independence. But the idea of a fundamental goodness, a sliver of the American Dream's opportunity that was actually true and not just a way to make minimum wage workers compliant, that "equal" and "freedom" were words that really did have meanings for most people, was something I naively, honestly believed. I can't believe it anymore.

So, this is the end of my blog. I'm sure it has been a bigger pleasure for me to write than for you to read, but I've been honoured by every comment anyone has ever made. I haven't been updating it much recently - my days of being an young adventurer who uncannily resembles Hugh Grant evapourated a while ago. I also, in a shock to myself, have been spending more time writing stuff that people pay me for. But thank you so much again for being here; this stands as a journal and a testament to what I thought this country was. 

That's really the reason I have to stop. My blog existed to answer the question: what's America like? And my only answer now is: I don't know.

High on a hill stood a lonely goatherd

Of all characters in fiction, it's Maria from The Sound of Music that I most closely resemble - we both sing, we both dance, we both hate Nazis. While in Europe, I was determined to find an alpine meadow to run around in. 

So like the von Trapps, we escaped to Switzerland under the cover of darkness, although our transportation was the night train from Amsterdam to Zurich. We've done this before, and it's always fun to fall asleep while trundling along and then wake up somewhere else, but trying to get washed/dressed in a tiny cabin with three bunk beds is a challenge. We left The Netherlands at 9pm and, being a Swiss train, arrived right on time twelve hours later.

Zurich is a fabulous, clean, open city, and quite cheap if you refuse to buy anything. We were soon on another train that looped its way up and up into the mountains, towards our final destination of Andermatt. It was around this time that I realised the flaw in my plan: there was snow. Lots of snow. And not nice, powdery, fun snow, but slushy and icy grey stuff, covering all the green fields and edelweisses.

We had arrived on the last day of ski season, heading in entirely the opposite direction as every other holidaymaker. Not necessarily a bad thing when you enjoy peace and quiet, but everywhere (including the hotel swimming pool) was shut. "Why did you come here...?" asked the lady in the tourist information when we inquired about nearby hiking trails. "The cable car is shut, but you can walk up the mountain if you like. It's not super dangerous," she added confidently.

But, in the Davies manner, we made the best of things! We took a train up to a ski resort, which was entirely abandoned, a sort-of post apocalyptic horror film setting, with the remnants of humanity poking menacingly out of the snow. Things were beginning to melt down in the valley, with the first buds of spring breaking through, but then the next day it snowed - like, really snowed. 40cm of the stuff, making me wonder why they'd stopped ski season in the first place. Luckily our hotel (which was as populated as The Overlook from The Shining) had sleds we could borrow, and where better than an abandoned ski slope to do that?

As quickly as the snow came, it left, making me appreciate that people who run ski resorts know more about ski seasons than me. Finally there was a chance to cavort and gambol through (quite soggy) pastures, as well as purchase myself a Swiss Army knife; surprisingly, one of the cheaper things you can buy in Switzerland.

Then it was time to say goodbye to the peaks, valleys, and clear mountain air, and take multiple trains all the way back to Brussels (the miracle of door-to-door public transport is going to be a BIG miss when we move from here). I didn't quite get to fulfil all my Dame Julie Andrews fantasies - who does? - but I climbed every mountain and crossed every stream that I could find.

Public transport: much nicer when there's less public on it.

All aboard!

Getting fancy on the night train, with a complimentary bottle of extremely cheap fizzy wine in every cabin (to help you sleep).

In Zurich. The flag's a big plus!

The trains get smaller the further up the mountains you go.

Ski Sunday.

Our "not super dangerous" hike.

Catching the train back down.

The next day, further up.

Where is everybody? Probably somewhere warm.

Danger danger!

Back in town, but not out of the snow.

We took shelter in the Victorinox store, where Pete got to construct his very own! We also held a legendary Swiss Champ XXL (every blade that Victorinox offers in one impractically toolbox-sized knife).

There's really only one blade that a knife needs.

Procuring our transport for the day.

Ski season is still over!

The effortless grace of Hannah sledding.

And Pete.

Our hotel room came with a fondue maker as standard! Because of course it did!!

The next day the snow had stopped falling, but my treasured alpine meadows remained covered.

Still, Hannah located the golf course.

A chilly dip.

One more day, and the hills are finally, vaguely alive!

By coincidence, Hannah was training to be a nun when I met her.

A sad boy heading home.