Arriving in London

 We finally left Newton and made it to London. Our flight was delayed 4.5 or so hours, but the timing of the flight was actually better for the kids. A 7:20pm flight that's only 5.75 hours means that the kid would sleep about two hours. Lucky for us, we didn't leave until about midnight, so after a quick meal, we told them the TVs go off, and they slept for the rest of the flight. Magic. Mostly it was because we were in business class, so it was actually comfortable. This is a once in a lifetime experience for the kids (unless they have jobs like Matt has and I had where it's still luxurious but a bit more common), and they couldn't believe it. As a parent, I barely had to do anything - the flight attendant took care of their needs, and they could just do whatever they wanted at their seats. Super pleasant.

Arrival in London was uneventful. Family line (most countries have that - the US DOES NOT) for immigration, we had visas, got our bags and headed out to get a taxi. A SUPER nice taxi driver squeezed in all of our bags and all 5 of us and took us to our air bnb.

We were able to find an air bnb in the area we want to live in, and so far so good. (The price listed in air bnb is not at all the price we are paying). It has a downstairs with a living area, dining area and a kitchen that could use a few more shelves, but does the job. Upstairs has three bedrooms, and again, nowhere to put our stuff, but that's ok. And THREE bathrooms total. Clean. GREAT street and location. We're good.

We went on an adventure in the neighborhood the first day, found dinner and groceries and unpacked. That was enough. Yesterday we went to Matt's work to get our residence cards and our ATM cards at a bank branch down there. Somehow simple things are ending up taking hours, so that was most of the day. We walked from there (Victoria Station area) to Westminster Abbey and saw Big Ben and Parliament quickly before we hopped into the tube to get back up to meet our friend Stephanie and her son Oscar in Paddington Recreation area - a park and playground. That area (Maida Vale) looked amazing. So far I'd be happy to find a place to live that's near where we're renting (Greencroft Gardens) or there - but let's see what's available! We walked back from there, and Matt got Persian food for us, and I made grilled cheese and fish sticks for the kids. At least that's the same!

Today we had tickets for a tour of Buckingham Palace. It was really well done, with an audio guide for kids/families. All the kids enjoyed it (as did we), and we made it out just in time to watch the changing of the guard - or at least what we could see of it through the billions and billions of people. So...not much, but we got the idea. 

We took the train up to St John's Wood and went to a fancy deli store (like an upper scale Zabars) to get challah for shabbat. We got grilled cheese panini (grilled cheese is definitely a theme) and walked by the American School, so the kids could see what it looks like. Unfortunately, it was behind a gate, so we didn't see much, but enough to get a sense. We walked back from there to see what their commute will look like. It's an INCREDIBLY beautiful neighborhood and walk home. Wow. It felt like a fancy neighborhood and somehow also a bit tropical. May just be that it's summer? No idea, but we're digging it.

We have been spending time trying to figure out sports for the boys, how our laundry machine works (no small feat! It's probably been a few hours of time, but I think we got it), where things are, how to get places, registering with the National Health System, finding a shul and just about everything else. I am super grateful we speak English here, as getting around is clearly SUPER easy. Things have been really pretty easy so far - some things feel similar to Singapore (the outlets, Marks & Spencer). Some things feel similar to Israel (the bathrooms, security, hanging laundry). Some things feel similar to New York (lots of people, public transit, lots of walking). Some things feels similar to our Boston life (grocery stores and food products, school stuff). But there are some differences. The laundry detergent doesn't say laundry soap (or laundry. or soap. or anything like that - can you tell laundry is my priority? When you have 5 people and a tiny machine and the dryer doesn't seem super useful, you can't really go a day without it...but we went two...). 

Elie's first impressions: Meh. Don't like it

Koby's first impressions: Love it. Including going on the subway

Samara's first impressions: Big city. Very dirty but very cool.

Matt's first impressions: Need to readjust to urban life again.

As usual, photos below not in order (apologies).

Taxi from Heathrow to our air bnb with EVERYTHING. 4 big bags. 4 small suitcases. 5 backpacks.

Lots of bags. Leaving Sarah and Dave's. THANK YOU, SARAH AND DAVE FOR letting us stay at your house! What a gift.

At Logan. This was probably around 8. We finally left around midnight on our 7:20 flight. But we did get out...

Lots of screen time in the airport. Why not.

Whoa business class.

Samara had all of their stuff from camp, so LOTS of stuff to fit into a room with no drawers or shelves. No worries! It's their style anyway. Everything everywhere.

Samara found corgi statues all over. Selfie!

London!

The air bnb is nice! Great morning sun in a bright yellow room with a nice Starbucks London mug for my tea. I transitioned from coffee to tea about a month ago, since I realized I hate bad coffee, and coffee is hard to get everywhere else in the world - or at least American style coffee. Plus I have been looking to decrease caffeine. So one cup of tea it is. 

The tube! Kids are way less phased than I thought about being in a city and taking trains etc. Koby needs to learn to walk in a straight line, but otherwise, they don't seem THAT suburban. 

Changing of the guard

LAUNDRY

Do you see the words "laundry" "soap" or "detergent"? I sure don't.

Leaving Newton

After seven and a half years, we are leaving Newton. We moved here with a just-4 year old, a 1 year old, a pregnant belly and a kitty. We first lived at 31 Miller Rd, where we rented for 18 months as we got our bearings. While we originally thought we could get to know the area from Miller Rd and later buy a house wherever we wanted to be, we learned that we wanted to be exactly in our neighborhood. 

On a run, Matt saw an open house sign at a house on the field. It hadn’t come up on our search, because it was listed under-value. He did a quick tour, called me and told me to run over. I had about five minutes to run through it before the agent left. We got approved for a mortgage that day, put in an offer later in the day, a few back and forths, and out of 21 bids, ours was accepted the next day. That set up our life in Newton.

Being in our home, in our neighborhood and our community has been wonderful for us. It was really hard to break into Newton and find friends who had space in their lives for us while we were at Temple Shalom, where the kids first went to preschool. That first winter we were here - we moved in December - was the winter there was 100" of snow. It was awful and lonely. It took a few years, but once we met more people, started at Bowen Elementary school, met our neighbors and found friends, we finally built our village. Our people and our life over the last few years – honestly even in covid - have been idyllic. Kids playing outside with friends from the neighborhood, walking to school and activities, lake a few minutes away, amazing grocery store/s, people who fill our life, the nicest neighbors, hiking close by – genuinely it’s been a wonderful daily life in Newton. 

Leaving our house and that life has felt very sad. This is the house where our kids have become people. Their rooms were where they learned to sleep through the night, experienced the pandemic and learning on zoom, read books together at bedtime, played games at the tables and on the floor, spent endless time in the back yard, on the patio and on the field. These are our memories and their early childhood, and now the stage is sealed. Over. Walking into the house after it was emptied, especially the bedrooms literally took my breath away. (We are not selling the house. We are renting it out. We genuinely plan to be back.) 

As my friend, Caroline said, “it’s only sad because it was so good.” It was so so good. I love our house. Our neighborhood. Our neighbors. Our community. Our life. 

I am pretty tired from the pandemic and being the primary parent of three children for the last seven years. Matt works and travels a lot. I sort of just want to stay home and read books and never leave again. I try to remember how our life was in Singapore, traveling all the time, experiencing new things, meeting new people, and it all exhausts me to even think about. Yet when we lived in Singapore, our friends' kids who were functional people were so cool. They understood so much and thought about different things. We said we wanted to make sure our kids lived their lives abroad a bit. Get some perspective and gain some resilience and see some shit. But gosh, now that we have three kids, it's so much harder, and again, I'm just so so tired. 

We realized that it's now or never. Samara will be in high school in three years, and we didn't want to move our kids in high school (ideally). Matt's work makes sense from London. He covers countries in the Middle East and Africa for his company. London doesn't have a language barrier (for the most part). It's a place we have been a bit, experienced some of the language and culture from travel and Singapore (Singapore was British), and I decided I could muster enough energy to make this happen. So the plan is to move to London for three years. 

When we recognized London was a real possibility, the kids applied to the American School in London (and they also finished applications for Southbank International School, but we didn't pay the hefty fee of something like 300 pounds per kid, so they didn't officially apply - this was just in case ASL didn't work out, though if we were planning to live abroad for many years, I would have chosen this school. The curriculum is so damn cool and I bet it makes for some super neat and functional kids.). ASL has an American curriculum, so transitioning back and forth from their schools in Newton will probably be as smooth as possible, given an international move. It was also recommended by our good friends there and other friends here, so this decision has driven when we leave (next Tuesday), where we plan to live (somewhere around St John's Wood area) and will strongly influence our experience in London. ASL gets something like 300 new students each year, so they have major infrastructure for welcoming new families. They have a huge document on how to get settled in London. They pair us with welcoming families. They have new family meet ups and coffees. This is exactly what I need at my sadly tired stage. 

In terms of logistics, two and a half weeks ago we had everything taken out of our house that we plan to ship to London. This included our beds, kitchen table, toys, some clothes, dishes and kitchen stuff, a small couch, bikes, bedding etc. It was supposed to go on a container last week and get shipped to London to arrive in the beginning of September. This did not happen. It is now schedule to get into a container on 28th Aug and arrive at end of September, but we are not optimistic. 

Last week we had everything else taken out - some items to send in an air shipment (mostly clothes and some games) and everything to store (couch that's too big for a London home, ping pong table, grandfather clock, dressers and random shit), which we will get back when we move back into our house. My car is currently full of photo albums, cabbage patch dolls and documents that we will keep in Michigan. Everything else will fly with us to London next week.

I am in Cleveland for some serious Vilensky time and then we are in MI with grandparents for a week. Back to Boston for two days, and we fly next Tuesday to London. We have an air bnb for 40 nights (I emailed them to see if we can extend, given our sea shipment situation, but we haven't heard back). School starts 8/31 with orientation on the 30th. 

Off we go...

And two other updates:

Camp: Elie and Samara went to Camp Ramah in Canada. Elie went for 2 weeks and Samara for 3.5 Elie came back last week and LOVED it. It blew his mind. Not sure if he will go back (we are specifically not asking this question for a few months), but he absolutely loved it. So much so that he didn't open 90% of the letters sent to him. "Why would I want to sit and read a letter when I could be playing with my friends."

Samara (trying out Sam for the summer) is still there, and I know they had a rough start, but then decided to stay. I genuinely have NO IDEA if they're having fun or how they're doing, but we will find out Thursday.

My leg: I was on crutches only for three weeks. Then I could walk in the boot with crutches. Then I could walk in the boot without crutches. Then I slowly started ditching the boot at the end of July. Now I can totally walk. I can even go for a walk. It's taking a lot of time and effort to get my muscle back, but it's coming back. Doc said I can play tennis sometime in October or November. It's slow, but it's getting better.

Pics since my last post, out of order as always, and too lazy to re-org

Last day of school - 1st, 2nd, 5th

Samara and their teacher, Mx Torres

Koby and Barbara, who has cleaned our house since he was born. We love Barbara.

Koby and I went kayaking with Caroline on the Charles. Beautiful. But a drought made the water level VERY LOW

Bigs off to Ramah. Elie for 2 weeks. Sam for 3.5 weeks

Visit from Dena, Alma and Shalem

Samara boosted before camp and after covid

Susie brings me amazing flowers. What a beautiful photo. I will miss this lady.

Samara the minute the braces came off

Michigania 2022

Obligatory Walloon selfie

4th of July with Markus and Jill - high school friends

Elie and Koby get boosted (Sam had just had covid, so we wanted for them)

Theater for the first time in years. WICKED

Samara and Adele on the last day of school

Samara, Charlotte, Benjamin, Elie and Koby. What a group. We will miss these kids.

Wrote this post while I was at Seth's house. Got to see his fam, Mike and Jo and their fam from Columbus and their friends and other family members. What a treat. Filled my soul Photo credit: Emily via Jo's phone

Last time playing with Evan. Life will be different without Evan in it everyday.

Bonus time with Tamara while we waited to pick our kids up from the Ramah bus in Toronto. It was SO SO nice to catch up. But then the bus was super late and it was very stressful. But we made our flight.

Me this year at Michigania. Boot. Crutches. Golf cart. But it was still so super fun.

We had a wonderful day on the cape with Matt's friends from grad school. Shame that the photographer who took the ONE PHOTO of us totally sucked.

Samara will miss Orly so much

Last day of school celebration on Weeks with our neighbor friends. We will miss them all so much.

Moms of all of the kids above. After the 5th grade moving-on ceremony. I will still in a lot of pain and super not enjoying life at this point in the summer.

Samara wrote this on their arm at camp. Guess in Canada when you say you're moving to London, it might mean something different. Nothing a sharpee can't solve. Photo credit: Shana