Great Expectasia: 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.