Starting Life Here (Sort of)

 Since my last post, we have tried to start to transition from tourist to resident. I say "sort of" because we are still in an airbnb. And also because we have only been here one week.

Friday night we went to friends', Jessica and Rich's house for Shabbat dinner. Whoa was it nice to be in someone's home, and our kids love each other. They have a ten year old daughter and an 8 year old son. They also have a 2 year old, but he hung out with us. The kids disappeared and had such a great time just being kids with other kids. Felt normal for them. They had played in Bubbie and Zaydie's pool together the week before, so that really helped them get to know each other. Jess's parents live across the street from Matt's parents, and Matt and Jessica were friends growing up. She's been here for a lot of years. Rich is from here. It was just so so so lovely on fifteen different levels. They live 1.8 miles away. But somehow it took 35 minutes to get there using the tube.

Saturday we went to the New London Synagogue,  which is the masorti (Conservative) synagogue around here. There are a few reform synagogues and some orthodox, but this seems to be up our hashkafic alley (or at least mine). The rabbis are SUPER nice, and it had a really nice feeling. One rabbi is good friends with good friends of mine (Liba and Ethan), and the other I had a long phone conversation with the week before we came, and she couldn't have been nicer, and what they have seems to suit our needs. We have since sent in our membership form and signed the kids up for their cheder (Sunday/Hebrew School). We met a super nice family there who just moved here from DC and their kids are also going to the same school. Grades a bit off, but nice to see a familiar face everywhere (school/shul).

We then checked out Hampstead Heath, which is holy gorgeous. We only saw a tiny part of it, and it was filled with people, dogs and happiness. There was a spot to view the city and also a fun "adventure playground." Sunday we saw the Tower of London, which was super interesting (and so much information). There is so much to see in that area, but just the Tower took up half our day. Carry out from a local pub in the park was a perfect lunch, and then we chilled mostly for the rest of the day before we went to friends from Singapore (but really from Michigan/Ohio) for dinner. Again, the kids just went off with their son and had a great time, and we had such a wonderful time chatting with the parents. They also invited their other good friends to join, and the guy looked very familiar. We quickly found out he worked at Standard Chartered with me and was the boss of good friends of ours. I definitely knew him there, and he was familiar with Matt's writing/research. Two of their kids are in two of our kids' classes (but god forbid our boys and their girls would say a word to each other...).

Monday was our last real touristy free day. We went to Primrose Hill Park, where there was another beautiful view of the city and then we crossed the street into Regents Park where we walked around and found yet another playground. We picnic'ed there and chilled for a while. Then I saw that Camden Market wasn't too far away, so we walked over there - I just saw on my map it was a market. I had no idea what it was. But as we approached, the buildings were all painted SO COOL (in 3D in many cases), loads of tattoo/piercing parlors, interesting knock-off stores and just so so so so much stuff and billions of people. It was so fun to walk around the streets nearby and also the market itself. Would be fun to come back with only one kid at time and a lot of time. And the food looked AMAZING. Too bad we had already had our lunches. Luckily this was a 20 minute bus ride back, which means I could get there in 20 minutes any day! It's hard to believe we have such amazing access to such cool places. It reminded me of chatduchat market in Bangkok, but way smaller (and I didn't see a live/endangered/totally troublesome animal section).

Matt and I then threw the kids on screens and went for a walk by ourselves. Amazing. We found a really fun playground at the end of our street (like a 12 minute walk - not SUPER close but not TOO far), and it had a great big field with loads of dogs. Tennis courts. Ping pong table. Kids said it felt like Weeks Field. And it's right off Kilburn High Rd, which Matt and I are really enjoying - there is TONS of middle eastern food, and it just feels a bit more developing market-ish. We went back that evening with the kids and have gone back to that playground every day since.

Tuesday Samara and I had middle school orientation starting at 8 (whoa). They took the kids out to do their own thing, which was great for Sam. They got to meet new people and do a scavenger hunt around the school. It's truly HUGE, so that's a good start. I got to learn all about ASL and middle school. Then Matt brought the boys down (and he went to work for his first day here) and we had lunch and then the boys went to their classrooms and met their teachers.

First impressions:
Samara said it's super fancy. Liked the people they met. Was so excited to have their first day yesterday.
Elie said he is not excited. But he was super engaged with his teacher. He felt disappointed that his room had tables rather than desks, as I think at Bowen you start with tables and get desks when you're older. He felt like his classroom was too young for him.
Koby was SUPER engaged with his teachers and doing his little scavenger hunt. He also had a good time playing soccer with kids on the playground

Their first day of school was yesterday, and overall it went ok. Elie really could only tell me about soccer (he is a god at defense and not great at offense and apparently there is one time it makes sense to hand the ball), but he seemed like it was a fine day overall. Koby was super disappointed they weren't allowed balls or anything to play with at recess (his teacher said this is on purpose for the first two weeks so that the kids who only play with balls talk to other kids from the beginning), and he felt stressed that his snack had to be packed separately from his lunch, but otherwise seemed ok. Sam had a great day.

On the walk to school today they were all saying recess was really stressful. Koby said there is no one to play with and everyone knows each other, and there was no ball or anything TO play with, so it was super dependent on playing with others. He said he tried to play with other kids, and they said they didn't want to play with him (I don't know if that's true, but regardless, it's how he felt...). Elie said he also felt stressed about recess but was grateful to be able to play soccer and find others who had that in common. Sam said yesterday the start of recess was really stressful, but then two kids who they had met the day before came up and invited Sam to join them. We talked about how hard it is to go into a group of people who seem to know each other (even though we KNOW they don't ALL know each other) and just try to play with them. It takes time. This is normal. But it's still hard.

But they were happy to go back again today.

Yesterday we checked out St John's Wood High Street and got gelato after school (we were not the only ones...) and went to the local park. It was super pretty but we had to leave because of a bathroom need, so we have to go back and explore further. 

Slowly slowly. Transition.

In a lower school orientation yesterday there were two things I found particularly interesting. One was from a lower school counsellor who shared a graph of settling into a new place. (Image stolen from another website below). It started with uninformed optimism, where you are excited and have loads of expectations (that's where we are). Then as you get to know what you're doing, you're like, "hm. This isn't exactly as I expected. It's not as cool as I wanted...etc." Then you go into the valley of despair where you're like "shit. This sucks." and you can get out or you can keep going. I love this. I hope our valleys of despair are shallow. I hope it's an easy transition for us all. But it will be a transition no matter what. 

The other thing I loved yesterday was something shared by the head of the whole school. She said the most important thing we do as parents is give our kids roots and wings. Those roots are easy (well, sometimes), as you provide a loving home, family and base for the kids. It's the wings that we're providing now, by moving here, starting a new school, and that's a lot harder, as it's a lot of letting go and having the kids build resilience so they can fly off to new places at their pace.

So far so good. I am absolutely loving London. I can't believe how easy it is to get around. To get what you need. People are SO friendly. I swear this couple we met in Primrose Hill Park nearly invited us for dinner. Another guy in a neighborhood we were checking out in the evening (Belsize Park) shared where he goes grocery shopping and basically telling us how amazing it is to live there and he looks forward to being our neighbor. People on the bus are friendly. Sam has met so many dogs and their nice owners. SO SO SO NICE and welcoming. It feels like a city, but it's also so easy to live in. Feels way more livable to me than Manhattan with three kids. And so many beautiful parks! And we haven't even explored the food yet. Can't wait.

Finally, thoughts on a post-covid life. There is no covid here. No one talks about it. Probably one in a hundred or two hundred on the tube or anywhere is wearing a mask. I was the only one wearing it in shul on Saturday. Absolutely no one in the American School was wearing a mask on Monday. I went to put mine on, and I said to myself that here they have been doing this for months. I am not high risk. I convinced myself to give into peer pressure, because I know that so much of covid fear is in my head. I sat in an auditorium with over a hundred people, and then had lunch with, coffee with, etc. with sooooo many people and didn't wear a mask. I have been in busy stores and on public transit (kids haven't so much). Let's see. If we get covid, we will be fine. We have no grandparents coming soon. We won't kill anyone. Local guidance says this (try to isolate, whatever that means), and for kids, it says don't even test. So we won't. And we will be fine. But MAN DOES IT FEEL SO FUCKING WEIRD after two and a half years of not being normal. It actually feels so so so so good.

Our fridge looks similar to what it looked like in the US, but it's very high. I can barely reach that top shelf.

Our poor children. One week in the UK. Thank god my calf is healed. It's a LOT OF WALKING.

First day of school!

Walking down the street from school. It's so beautiful just to walk around. Love it all.

The Weeks Field we found in Kilburn Grange park.

The playground at the same park

Primrose Hill Park with a view of the city

Kids looking at names (and playing...felt weird about that) in a WWII memorial for those who died at sea.

Tower of London and Tower Bridge in the background

Hampstead Heath with a view of the city

View out our window of our air bnb

People have flowers everywhere. SO BEAUTIFUL

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