Summer Report Card
One month in Europe—and the first night of the Oasis tour—carry-on only.
I had a fair amount of anxiety before traveling to Europe this summer. This had more to do with my physical condition (rather pregnant, and at 6.5 or so months, well on my way to very pregnant) than the unsteady state of the world, and frequent mention of things like “soft targets,” though that felt similarly unusual (at least in 2025). The mechanics of it were new: I had never traveled in this body before. The well-worn anxiety pathways of my brain perked up, reignited, whatever neurons do (bounce?): What if something happened on the plane? (Too dire to even fully comprehend.) What if something happened in Spain and I needed medical attention? (Also dire but at least actionably comprehensible: I looked up their excellent hospital system and the proximity of one to each of our hotels and felt a little better.) What if when I got there I didn’t like to do any of the things I usually do because they were rendered painfully difficult by my newly tilted pelvis and 2+lb-and-growing passenger, not to mention suspiciously visibly veined ankles? This I could fully comprehend, but finally I elected to believe that I could find new things I liked, even—especially!—while abroad. In the land of world-acclaimed unpasteurized local cheeses and jamon serrano, could I even eat anything I wanted? Yes, actually.
I decided I required my doctor’s permission, partly for my own comfort and partly to provide a note to reassure European airlines should they ask for one, which Reddit assured me in the shrugging manner of literally all pregnancy related questions (“it’s either totally fine or will definitely cause irreparable harm, here’s five utterly gutting stories about the latter”) they may not but also totally could. A doctor’s note to be on an airplane felt kind of insulting. (These days most airlines should provide doctor’s assurances that their crappy planes and overstretched service won’t leave you harmed, if you ask me. Delta, this platinum member has gripes!) But we decided to muscle through, because as has been well observed by now, and by those more experienced than me in this arena, babies change things, and we opted to enjoy the unchanged parts while we can. So I packed thigh-high compression socks (two pairs, of varying intensity) and wore one of them on the plane. (My doula later texted and said I should have gone full legging. I compensated when we landed in Barcelona by inverting whenever possible and taking Hailey Bieber’s advice to cold plunge my limbs when possible. We also got foot rubs in Barcelona’s Chinatown the morning we landed. 10/10 recommend this move, regardless of your uterine occupancy status.) No problems while on the plane or off, happy to report! (Unless you call sobbing hysterically to The Friend a “problem.”) And nobody asked for my doctor’s note.
The plan: about two weeks in Spain, starting in Barcelona and then going up to Bilbao to visit a pal, and then dipping into the Picos de Europa national park before heading to Asturias, to road trip and eat and enjoy the cooler climate and rough, rustic beauty of the northern coast. I fell completely in love with Asturias. I mean completely. I looked at real estate; I began making hints about raising the baby there. (If he has a Spanish name, come late September, know that I’m just clearing the runway.) After that, a brief sojourn in London, with a cut out to Cardiff to see the first night of the Oasis tour, and a stop at the very swell Estelle Manor in Oxfordshire for lunch and a perfect prenatal massage on the way back. Then a week on the east coast visiting friends and family before returning to LA last week to lock it down until the baby comes. (I like to put it that way—“until the baby comes”—because it puts the onus on the baby, where it belongs. I am now on the baby’s time, not the other way around. I fear that’s true for the indeterminate future. Like, the next 18 years.)
What I packed: only a carry-on! (Hold for applause.) Which meant I relied on my instincts: meaning, a lot of the same things as usual, sometimes in bigger sizes. (I have resisted buying “maternity wear:” as I see it, I am the same person, only carrying a new person, and he doesn’t wear anything yet; therefore this does not result in a massive shift in my own personal taste.1) I packed things I’d wear even if my stomach was flat, like Silk Laundry slip dresses in fresh summery colors like sky blue and chocolate tie-dye and the true heroes of the trip, an olive oversized smooth cotton button down, and this pair of tie waist khakis from Amo denim, which I wore on the plane and on hikes (ok, less “hikes” than funicular rides to summit walks) and everywhere in between.
I also packed a Pleats Please! top and dress, which always looks elegant, works on a seaside or a city street, and feels lighter than air during Europe’s ongoing heatwaves. (Issey Miyake! The patron saint of the newly very rounded. I remembered talking about Miyake last year with the wonderful Ali Wong: “Pleats Please—It's a perfect line of clothing. My friend was like, ‘I don’t get this stuff.’ And I was like, ‘Eventually, as we get older, you just think of yourself not as dressing as a woman, but dressing like a concept. Get into Comme des Garçons. Get into Junya Watanabe. Go outside and have lunch as a cloud.’” I’m right there, though less a cloud than that drawing of a snake digesting an elephant from The Little Prince.)
Other necessities: cute walking sneakers (these almost every day) that could stand up to 10+ miles a day and could go with a slip dress or pants; chic sandals from Amanu (everyone I saw wanted this bag, too, which packs pretty flat, magically), and Margaux (flat and chunky and low-block-heeled, in black, and neutral, and snakeskin, which is also a neutral). This very cute brand Paloma sent me these very Spain-appropriate stretchy patterned cotton frocks and printed wrap skirts, which handled the heat in Bilbao as well as the sunny cooler days in Oviedo, one of my new favorite cities in maybe all of Europe, and came with me to see friends weeks later on Cape Cod as a nicer-pareo-that-can-also-go-to-dinner over a striped men’s shirt or whisper-thin henley, the latter of which I wore incessantly and found I could wash easily in a hotel sink.
Another boon: bikini tops that can double as sports bras (bottom halves are v. v. cute too) and Desmond & Dempsey pajamas that can couple as beach cover-ups. Multi-purpose, my friends! This is the key to a good vacation packing job!
One remarkable, recommendation-worthy stay: the really excellent 5 star Palacio de Luces in Lastres (above), which is a jaw-droppingly beautiful Cinqueterre-esque sleepy coastal town I could easily see myself moving to with no regrets. There is a shockingly good local restaurant, Native, run by French husband and wife recent expats who packed up their young daughter and ditched the Mediterranean for this new adventure. Talking to them I was more than a little jealous. Life felt slower, clearer, calmer there. The local older ladies watch her 9 year old daughter all day; the village is her playground. The food they’re making is excellent and sometimes unusual in the best way. (The wines are fun, though I couldn’t partake.) Look, some people seem to have figured it out.
Night one of the Oasis world tour in Cardiff was incredible. There were 62,000 people there, which should have felt more alarming as a newly 7 month pregnant person but the Britpop bro bonhomie was off the charts.2 I wore enormous Levi’s and an Umbro jersey that Rokit vintage had cropped and ruched, and pretended I was Rihanna. It was an A+ look for getting splashed with beers and the odd neon colored airborne WKD, which was pretty much the theme of the first 30-40 minutes of the show from the floor seats. (I briefly borrowed a friend’s Liam Gallagher-inspired anorak.) Someone will have to explain to me the appeal of spending that much on a beverage at an event only to toss it across a field of strangers. (I mean, even if it was free I don’t think I would have tossed my drink across a field of strangers, unless they were on fire or something.) We spent the night in Bristol, which is a deeply cool town, with excellent little cafes and restaurants (hat tip to the excellent Marmo) and one cake shop—the perfectly named Ahh Toots—in particular that really blew my socks off.
In London we stayed at the Rosewood. I am never disappointed by a Rosewood. They have completely nailed the luxury hotel thing, if you ask me, and I’ve stayed in enough of them to be asked. Enough is comfortingly familiar—A+ service, comfortable beds—between each property, but each feels hyper-specific and unique while you’re there, rather than the dreaded copy/paste/could be anywhere feel of some of its competitors. (We were there during Wimbledon, there were lots of cute tennis-themed treats and surprises.) This is incredibly hard to pull off, and they do, all over the world. (I think my favorite Rosewood remains the one in São Paulo.) Fun fact! There is a new Rosewood coming to London in September, situated in the former US Embassy building: everyone is very excited about it, it will have something like eight amazing globally-recognized restaurants and everything will be shiny and new and it will be in Mayfair, which is very convenient. I look forward to checking it out when I’m next in town.
We ate so well, everywhere, especially Spain, but I keep thinking about the (dense, supple, just perfect toasted with butter and jam) Guinness bread at the superb, understated, my-ideal-kind-of-place Cafe Cecilia in London. I may have to make some.
WATCHING (aka download for long plane rides): Netflix’s Department Q is plotty and fast-paced, pretty scary at parts but not unforgivably so, and more in line with a thriller than a horror, which is the line I draw (the world being upsetting enough as it is without meaningless gore and dreck). Matthew Goode is lots of fun, as a crank with hidden depths (and semi-hidden talents), sort of a Dr. House-but-he’s-a-detective in Edinburgh. (And it is really Edinburgh: The haircuts are appropriately and accurately Scottish.) The excellent Scott Frank is at the helm, so you know it’s going to be good. And then wonderfully: It is!
Pernille (Netflix) As a person who watches a fair amount of non-English speaking content I can never tell if the algorithm actually knows anything about me or just knows that I’m not afraid of subtitles, but this sweet Norwegian show, about a single mother navigating a not-un-chaotic life in Oslo with her two daughters, aging father, recognizably repulsive narcissistic ex, new romantic interests, and challenging career in child welfare, has shades of Pamela Adlon’s wonderful dramedy Better Things. It’s funny and sweet and sad and episodes are typically 30 mins or less. There’s 5 seasons, but they’re short, and it wraps up satisfyingly. It’s also mostly set in the Nordic summer, with its seemingly endless clear sunlight, which seems to make everything easier.
Back at home we’ve been on a Bob Fosse kick, I’m not entirely sure why, or what started it. (Perhaps the rhythmic acrobatic endeavors of our new friend in utero?) We watched All that Jazz (free! with Tubi!) the other night, and I was reminded how important Fosse was (and is!) to the history of stage performance, and god, movement in general, and how hard it is to look away when a genius is bent on self-destruction, and how great a dancer the great Ann Reinking was… and now I want to watch everything, even the flops-of-the-time: Sweet Charity, Cabaret, Lenny… I loved Fosse/Verdon when it came out, but now may need a re-watch. I really enjoyed the two Fosse-focused episodes of The Fabulous Invalid podcast from a few years ago, which interviewed friends, dancers, and collaborators.
Here’s Fosse basically inventing Michael Jackson’s whole entire thing in the extremely 1974 film adaptation of The Little Prince (which also starred Gene Wilder? as the Fox????? and weird this book has come up twice in this missive, after coming up precisely never in the several years previous, but hey):
We also watched the first half of the new Billy Joel documentary, And So It Goes, on HBO, which seems to suffer from the same problems all current documentaries of living subjects do, but I’m reserving full judgement until the second half comes out. It’s been a wonderful excuse to listen to all of his music, though.
READING: I Regret Almost Everything by Keith McNally. For a memoir by a famously New York restauranteur/personality it worked very well reading this book everywhere else, which makes sense once you get into the lengths McNally has traveled. (Not that lengths necessarily add up to much in the end, which he knows well—see how he quotes Giorgio Morandi: “One can travel this world and see nothing. To achieve understanding it’s necessary not to see many things, but to look hard at what you do see.”) I tore through it in a day or two, though you could take longer, savoring its light, fearless gossip and little ruminative asides, if you wanted to. A scene from his early career:
“Work at the meat market began at 5:30 AM. When my thirty-minute break came a couple of hours later, I’d go to a small working man’s café and, exhausted from being up before sunrise, order a steamed coffee and a toasted sandwich of roast beef with Branston pickle. The first taste was absolutely out of this world. In 40 years of dining out, nothing has rivaled this sublime sandwich. Enjoyment of food is more situational than people admit. I’m sure if I ate that exact same sandwich today and a top Manhattan restaurant, it would never match my memory of eating it in a rundown café at 7:30 in the morning.
Where food is concerned the past is a four star country.”
Look, he really does regret quite a lot. But it’s not totally pitying. It’s more just…honest?
I picked up Endling by Maria Reva at the London Review of Books shop, which is one of the best bookshops on the planet, probably, and definitely has all of the best book covers, don’t ask me why we get the bad ones over here. The novel is impressively hard to explain—it involves snails, asexuality, the war in Ukraine, 90 Day Fiancé style hijinks, the horrors of war, and several enormous creative swings— and entirely enjoyable to consume. It’s not too dark for a beach trip (it has very funny moments), and it’s definitely better for your brain. NPR had a go unpacking the novel’s complicated pleasures; here’s how the NYT did it:
Maria Reva’s startling and ambitious whirlwind of a debut novel, “Endling,” involves soon-to-be-extinct animal species, the worst European terrestrial conflict since World War II and the spectacularly mismatched participants of the international marriage industry. But as much as it is a bleakly funny novel of climate change, manmade horror and tectonic cultural shifts, “Endling” is also a diasporic novel — a sadder, bluer story, set in Ukraine on the brink of war, about those who go and those who stay.
I ordered Molly Young’s pregnancy-focused zine, Privacy, for obvious reasons, despite the fact that being very pregnant has made me want to avoid most people’s stories of their own pregnancies, which are often haunting, harrowing, or highly traumatic. Even the happily-ending ones are just so highly specific, all bodies being different, etc etc, that it’s hard to really relate, or not come away distractingly worried about something that has little to no bearing on one’s own experience. Pleased to report that Young’s diaristic account is not a terrorizing retelling of a gestation experience, as has become so lately popular (especially online), and perhaps more importantly, raises some salient questions, like: why haven’t there been any works of literature about being pregnant? And why aren’t men on the record being jealous about it? You’d think they’d want to create life, too, especially given how much they’ve historically enjoyed controlling everybody else’s. I’m also very impressed at how she kept going surfing (in the Rockaways!) well into her second trimester.
MORE: I’ve been tracking what I’m relying on the most during this whole creating-new-life project here (including vitamins and skincare), if you’re interested, and can go into more detail, too, as requested or required. Just let me know your requests and requirements. There is a lot of nursery stuff going on—most of it deeply pleasing. The “nesting” period has begun:
Thank you, as ever, for being here. I am intending to spend the rest of the summer wearing drawstring waistbands, dresses, the above overalls, and shearling-lined footwear, wrapping up some writing projects, and spending a lot of time considering what the growing person I spend all of my current time with will enjoy when we are able to spend a fraction little less time, um, together. (I feel like I’m actually going to miss some of the constant feedback. Is that weird?) Have you ever put together a nursery, or a baby registry? Are there things you wish you’d put on, or left off?
I hope you’re about to head somewhere wonderful to enjoy the summer, be it far-flung or closer at hand. Summer’s beauty is in it its brevity. Enjoy it! Let me know how you are, if you feel like it. I always love to hear from you.
xoxo ATC
Also, a lifelong penchant for oversized things has come in handy.
The baby also seemed to enjoy it. Does this mean we need to play Oasis in the delivery room?