A 5 year old American girl

At the beginning of a school day, I drop off an American girl....at the end of a school day, it seems like I have the wrong little girl sitting in my car telling me about her day. After spending all day at school, Bean talks with a British accent and uses the expressions and words of a British child. After a few hours home with us, she has reverted back again. At what point will her new accent win out and just....remain? And she is also developing the attitude of a teenager. I said to her the other day -"pick up your sweater and throw it in the hamper", and she rolled her eyes and said - "mummy, that is a jumper". Yes, I know they do call sweaters "jumpers" here, I just forgot to call it that. So apparently, I have an American 5 year old on the verge of being a British 16 year old.
Bean and I also had a conversation about driving here in jolly old England today. On the way home from school, I am yet again, swerving in and out of parked cars, barely scraping by between parked cars and moving cars....just a typical day driving in my little village in England. Driving has been the one thing I have had the hardest time adjusting to here, and the one thing that will set me over the edge on any given day. When almost being sideswiped by a truck who thought he was smaller than he was...or just didn't care how big he was...I think I made a grrrr sound similar to a growl. Bean heard my frustration and said -- "mummy, why do they drive on this side of the street here". I just smiled in the rear view mirror at her and said sweetly --"they just do things differently here sweetie. Neither way is right or wrong --it is just different". What I was thinking in response to her question was --I have no idea, it is wrong, and crazy, and is making me insane. But, I am impressed that I was able to keep that to myself, especially as I was swerving around yet another parked car in the road.

Knutsford

Earlier this week I went to lunch with some friends in Knutsford, a quaint nearby town. I had driven through the town before, but never stopped to appreciate it's beauty. We ate at a great Italian place, walked through a few shops, including a sweet shop (in England, they don't say candy, they say sweets), an antique store and an art gallery. There were many more shops that we did not get a chance to peruse and over 30 places to eat offering a taste of many different cultures. The streets were so pretty, I took some pictures to share (click on the pictures to enlarge them). There is also a park in Knutsford that we are going to go back and explore as a family - Tatton Park. It is one of the UK's most complete historic estates: www.tattonpark.org.uk. I think we will need to pack a picnic and spend a few hours there!

Dunch with friends

We had a lunch/dinner on skype the other day with our close friends, a "dunch" we have called it. Well, I was going to try to explain it, but my friend already did on her blog.....and she did it so wonderfully, that I am posting a link to her site so that you can read it for yourself. Well, technically, I wanted to post a link, however, my computer has thought otherwise and is not cooperating, so just copy and paste or type this link into your web browser:
http://wellpreparedmommy.com/blog/
Enjoy!
And one final note for today: Day three of nursery school in England, and Gerbie tells me tonight after her bath that I need to put her nappy on her. Umm, you mean your diaper? Ok.

York

Amidst the packing and putting things away, which has taken several days now, we have planned another trip, this time to the city of York. We are trying to scout out the must see cities of England and knock them off our travel "to do" list before starting to explore outside of England. York is located halfway between London and Edinburgh, so it is a vital hub for transportation including trains and ships. This is another walled city, much like Chester was and is situated where two rivers come together, the Rivers Ouse and Foss. "The Shambles" is a street in York, that is called the most scenic street in all of Britain. They also have the National Railway Museum, the York Minster, Jorvik Viking Center, Castles, National Parks, shopping and tours along the river. It looks really beautiful on the website, www.visityork.org. I have attached two pictures of York on this post. It will be a 2 hour drive for us to get there, so it will be a full day. Pictures and details to follow after our trip!
We are also on day two of Gerbie's new school experience. So far, she has done fairly well. It is hard for her when I first drop her off, but she settles down shortly after that. I am confident that after a few days, she will be comfortable there. When I picked her up, she was in no rush to get home, however, it helped that they were having tea time. Yes, my 2 year old now has tea time every day at 3:30 p.m. Yesterday she was eating a crumpet with jam. I think that is awfully confusing considering they named their school bunny rabbit Crumpet? Now, back to work and unpacking more boxes!

Sea shipment

We got our sea shipment on Friday! It took exactly 5 weeks, which is much better than the 8 weeks we were told to prepare ourselves for. In retrospect, I have to say that this move was really well organized and worked out in the best possible way. We had what we needed in our suitcases, we got our air freight within a few days of arriving here and our sea shipment came right when we were starting to get antsy for our things and were settled in. All in all, I am so happy with the way it all worked out. We were all very excited to see our things. But we miss our big old American size house. This place we are living in does not have any closets. Yep, NO CLOSETS. This is typical in England and I think it is to save space- because again, everything is small here. This house has built in wardrobes in place of closets. That is fine for 5 pieces of clothing and two pairs of shoes, but not fine for the remaining pieces of clothing, shoes, boxes or anything bigger. So while we are happy to see our things, we are finding that we are having an extremely hard time finding places for everything. The beautiful conservatory that I loved so much has become a playroom. There is just no other place for the toys because the girl's bedrooms are tiny. Gerbie's room has a built in desk that we cannot remove, so her dresser has been relocated to our bedroom. The guest room has a lot of built in wardrobes which are going to be filled with our clothes that are off season. And the garage --thank goodness they don't actually use garages over here for cars, because that is going to be our storage for anything we don't need right this minute or that is too big for our wardrobes. But we need to be careful with that too, because we have had a visitor in the garage -- a mouse. We don't really want to invite his whole family to join him. The mouse really does not shock or surprise me --this is an older house, nothing a little mouse trap won't take care of. As long as he stays in the garage in the meantime and does not enter the house, then we will be just fine- and as long as he stays hidden when I do laundry, as the washer and dryer are in the garage. We have also planned a trip to Ikea for some storage options. A big toy box in the conservatory might go a long way in reclaiming some of the peace and tranquility that the room offered, before it looked like we robbed a Toys R Us store. And since there are no bathroom cupboards at all, some storage options for in those rooms might be nice too. We will make do and in a few weeks I am sure all of our things will have found homes in our new place. But seriously, do these people in England know what they are missing by not having closets? There are a lot of things I miss about my house back in the US - the double sinks in the master bath, my garden bath tub, the big bedrooms, the basement playroom.... but I think closets and cupboard space just topped the list!

Schedule?

Yesterday, I was sitting next to dear hubby in the car when he took a work call. No worries, I was driving...yes you read that right, no need to adjust your computer. I do drive here, actually, I drive here every day . I just don't LIKE to. It is just really unnatural sitting on the passenger side of the car to drive. But I digress...I hear him talking and then towards the end of the call he says, "I will check my diary, but my schedule is open". A diary is what they call their calendar or planner, so I got that. Only...he did not say schedule like we Americans say schedule. No, my dear hubby said it the way British people say it --which sounds more like shhedduel. I looked at him and said --"did you just say shhedduel?????" He just looked at me and said, "why yes, yes I did." Hmmmmm.

Online grocery shopping

Today, I went grocery shopping. It was done within 15 minutes with a few clicks of my mouse and without ever leaving the house. Tomorrow, at my chosen delivery time, I will have my groceries brought to my door. I have done this a few times now and I love it. I normally hate grocery shopping....I hate everything about it. The crowd of people, the lines to checkout, packing everything in the car, unpacking everything at home. And grocery shopping with kids....well, if you have ever shopped with kids, then I don't even need to elaborate on that one. So when I got something in the mail a few weeks ago from our local grocery store regarding online shopping, I decided to give it a try. My husband joked that I will do anything to get out of driving, and that may be partially true. Our local grocery store is an exit away on the motorway. I hate going on the motorway almost as much as I hate grocery shopping, so faced with both of those things, we would probably starve. But in any case, I went online and it pulled up everything I had ever purchased in their store. Conspiracy theorists may hate that club cards for grocery stores track everything you buy, but luckily, I am not one of those people. I could care less if big brother knows what kind of diapers and peanut butter we use. I happen to LOVE the fact that everything I have ever purchased at this store showed up for me under one convenient list. I am still getting used to the new brand names and products over here, so I knew that if I had purchased it before, it was what I wanted. I went through the list, marked the things I needed, searched for some items on my list that I have not yet purchased there, entered my coupons and payment information and submitted the order. And then hoped and prayed that it was going to work out...that my milk would still be cold and my ice cream would not be a big puddling mess. The next day, the groceries were delivered on time and were even in a truck with climate controlled compartments. One for cupboard items, one for refrigerated items, one for frozen items. Everything was there and everything was the right temperature. I still may go to the store every now and again to make sure I am not missing anything new or interesting, but for my regular weekly groceries, I have been converted...I am an online grocery shopping addict now. For the middle of the week milk or bread runs, we have an express store right across the street, so for now, I feel that we are all set. Now THIS may be one of the things I will miss when we go back to the US in two years.

Eyjafjallajokull

I don't even know how to say it, but Eyjafjallajokull, the volcano in Iceland that has been spewing ash for over a week now, is giving me a headache. Not a physical headache -- we cannot even tell this so called ash cloud is over our heads. But it is causing us grief in that packages and mail have ceased to come and go between the US and the UK. The flight ban has been partially lifted, so I am really hoping mail starts going again asap. I have been waiting for something that my mom mailed almost two weeks ago, which apparently has been caught up in the Eyjafjallajokull mess. We also tried to fedex something out last week, which according to my tracking number this morning, is still sitting in the fedex warehouse in England. Luckily, no one has planned a visit that has been disrupted--we don't have family coming until May and then not again until July, so let's hope that everything is clear by then and that there are no more volcanic eruptions. When I thought about living here, I never expected mail or travel to be stopped because of a volcano - I have to say, that was NEVER a thought that entered my head. Weather, yes. But volcano, no. On the radio the other day, a newscaster was joking around, saying that everyone in England should all go outside at the same time and blow in the same direction to see if we could get it to disperse to be just over France - we laughed. At this point, I am willing to try it.

Fitting in

Something that I would have typed a few weeks ago:
Hello, I received my insurance card in the mail and my first name was spelled incorrectly. How do I correct this as soon as possible? Thank you.

Something that I typed yesterday:
Good day, I received my NHS card in the post and my forename was spelled incorrectly. How do I correct this straightaway? Cheers.

Do I sound like I live in England now? I am proud to be an American and I really don't mind that I use different words and have an accent here but my goal while typing the message yesterday was to see if I could fit in here, even just for one minute. Since it was an email that I was typing, my accent would not give me away. Every day when I talk to someone here, they ask me where I am from. The man that delivered my groceries last week responded to my "hello, how are you" with - "well, heck, you are not from here!" The other thing that probably gave me away is that they don't usually say -'how are you'. They say - 'ya'll right'? It is said fast and almost like it is all one word. It took me awhile to realize that and in the meantime, I thought, gosh, I must really look like something is wrong all the time. I also tried to make reservations for a restaurant on Saturday and I said to the man that answered the phone - "I would like to make a reservation for 6:00 p.m." and was met with a big fat silence and then a "pardon?" I realized I needed to say it differently, so I mentally went through my new vocabulary and came up with --"I need to book a table for 1800." Bingo --that was it! And even today, another expat and I were talking about bed sizes at Starbucks (they are small, small, small here...what they call king size is like a double bed in the US!) and the lady in front of us turned around, didn't even ask us where we were from and said --"YES - we went on vacation in the States and the beds there are HUGE! We loved them." There is no hiding that we are from another country!
And good news!! Our sea shipment has arrived AND has already cleared customs. It is set to be delivered on Friday morning. We are all so excited!! It will be like Christmas --opening the boxes of all of our things. An idea is forming....maybe that is a way to save money...hide the kids things for a few weeks, and then have them reopen them all. Bean has been waiting for her guitar, her bike and her scooter --she will be so excited. This will make for a good weekend!

Daddy and Gerbie

I took these pictures on a recent train ride. See a family resemblance at all? Gerbie likes riding the train -she talks about it every day. She wants the "choochoo to go faster". She is starting nursery school (preschool) on Thursday of this week. She is very excited, mommy is very nervous. She went to school back in the US, but this is a new school, new teachers, new friends and I am hoping it will go well for her. With the British accent, everyone at her school says her name differently. They call her GerBAY instead of Gerbie. Being so young, it is only a matter of time before she starts picking up the accent over here. Below is a picture of her at her first settling in session at her new school. She seemed to really like it - and she painted a masterpiece!

Living in two countries

Trying to live in two different countries is quite a challenge. Yes, I know we “technically” are living in England right now, but we still have so much back in the US. We are Americans...our family, our friends, our beloved dog, the things we love and and even our house (yep, still not sold yet) are in the US. And most of the things we use on a daily basis are the things we brought with us from the US. Back before we left, we stocked up on things we thought we would need. Products that we were used to and didn’t think we could find. While I am sure they have toothpaste in England, I have even seen it on the shelves…it is not OUR toothpaste. Likewise for the deodorant my husband and I use, the makeup and the lotion that I use and the soap and shampoo the girls use. We are starting to get kind of low on some of these things, but I also know that we have more coming –in our ship freight. I am starting to get really anxious for it to come –we have been here for 4 weeks now, and they said it would take 6-8 weeks for the ship freight to come, as long as pirates did not hijack it. (Yes, the mover really did say this to me, what was he thinking? I am a worrier on the best of days). I am hoping we will get the shipment on the early side of his estimate. The girls are bored with the small amount of toys and dress up things that we were able to get into the air freight. We are ready to see our pictures that we can hang on the walls and simple things that will remind us of home. I am ready for my baking utensils and measuring cups. My husband wants his computer and his camera gear. I have been getting magazines sent to me from the US and because of wonderful technology we have been able to still keep in touch with US TV shows through our slingbox. I suppose some could argue that if you are living in England, you should LIVE in England – and totally integrate into their culture. But I don’t feel that I need to do that to fully appreciate this experience, in fact, I feel the opposite. If we have things that are our “comfort items”, and those things make living in England a better experience for us, then why not continue to use, read or watch those things. And you could even say that it will make our return in two years easier. And by the way, there are actually some things that are better here, and that I will probably write about missing when we leave. The tough part is, it does tend to get a little confusing sometimes when I am reading a US magazine and see an advertisement for something and get excited thinking they have that product here, and then remembering that, no they don’t. Likewise with commercials on TV –if we are watching a recorded show from the US, I have to remind myself that the movie premier of something, or the commercial for a restaurant or product are not available to us here. We all have been a little homesick this week. I think we are settled in enough now and in our routine enough now that it is starting to hit us –- we miss everyone and we are here for awhile. So the little things from home, the chocolates, the magazines, the books, the TV shows, the products we use….those comfort items will help. (Thank you very much to both of our parents for the care packages!) The skyping and calling friends and family will help the most and visits from everyone back home (hint hint) will be the best thing of all. Now, I would like to think our ship freight is almost here and that some pirate is not trying on my clothes and makeup and eating our mac and cheese as I write this…..

Chester in pictures

We spent the day today in Chester and had a very nice time. It was exactly what we all needed after a long week...it was warm and sunny with a light breeze and we enjoyed our time together as a family. Chester is a very interesting place to visit. There are the Roman Gardens, the Chester Castle, a military museum, a beautiful park and a lot of places to shop. There is also a walkway down by the River Dee where you can buy artwork, eat ice cream, watch the kayaks or even take a boat ride. The kids had a great time and enjoyed a train ride in Grosvenor park. We ate lunch at an authentic American BBQ house and to be honest, it was probably the best food I have eaten at a restaurant since we have been in England. And then of course, we did find the Cheshire Farm Ice Cream. It was a nice way to end the day.

The ham and the silly billy

Our girls are as different as can be. I think this experience in England will be great for both of them, but in different ways. Bean is smart and adventurous, outgoing and friendly. Gerbie is more reserved, yet feisty and likes to entertain and make people laugh. The one thing they both have in common --they love each other so much. I could not be happier with their relationship as sisters. Yes, they tease and torture each other like the best of any sisters, but they love playing together and are very protective of each other. This morning we got to Bean's school a little early and were goofing around and taking some pictures. These pictures could not show their personalities any better --Bean is the ham and poses and smiles for every picture, Gerbie is being the silly billy as they say in England, and is goofing around while Bean and I laugh.

Chester, Cheshire

We are going to be exploring the city of Chester this weekend. According to my favorite research source, Wikipedia, it was founded as a Roman fort with the name of Deva Victrix. It was one of the last towns in England to fall to the Normans in the Norman conquest of England. William the Conqueror ordered the construction of a castle to dominate the town and nearby Welsh border. Chester still has a number of medieval buildings but some of the buildings within the city centre are actually Victorian restorations. Chester is one of the best preserved walled cities in the British Isles. Chester lies on the River Dee, close to the border of Wales. We were actually in Chester last weekend, when we went to the Chester Zoo. However, we will be skipping over the zoo this time and just spending the day exploring Chester. The website link for more information on the city is www.chester.com. I recommend watching the short little video on the main page that seems to really capture the flavor of the city, the canals, the buildings and the beautiful architecture. And apparently there is ice cream, as there are several shots of people enjoying it, so the girls should be happy. Warning, there is some music that starts playing on the page, so be aware of your speaker volume before you click on the link, it starts with a man shouting hear ye, hear ye and I jumped out of my seat. I will post more details and pictures to follow after our trip.

Exploring

Today on the way to school Bean says to me - "you know what they call jump rope here? Skip roping. My friend made fun of me for calling it a jump rope so I said - you can say it your way and I will say it my way --I am an American, but we can still be friends." She has not really mentioned too many word differences the last two weeks but now that she is back in school I am sure she will start noticing things again. Another thing hubby and I worry about is that she will be confused by the way they spell words here vs in the US. She is a smart girl though - I am sure she will adjust...she just won't be winning any spelling bees here or in the US any time soon.
One thing I have mentioned in passing is how pretty it is here, but I don't think I have done the description justice. It is really, very beautiful here. Flowers, green spaces, parks, big older trees, beautiful old buildings, brick driveways. You only have to take a walk to notice. We went exploring on Sunday since it was another pretty, sunny, non-rainy day (four in a row now, but who is counting? Could this be a change in the weather pattern or just a coincidence? And did I just jinx us by mentioning it?) Back to the exploring...down the street from our house is a park and just past the park are several paths. On Sunday we took a path that took us to the center of the village that we live in, and past Bean’s school. I took some pictures of the girls along the way and you can notice in the background of the pictures how pretty and scenic it is. Anyone up for a visit to jolly old England? Our guest room is open!

Important Milestone

I missed a milestone and I didn’t even realize it, well, I did actually kind of realize it, but in my haze of jet lag and culture shock, I don’t think it really struck me that it was that important. Today, it was bittersweet to realize that it was and that I was not ready for it to occur. I thought I would have more time. I knew it was going to be happening, but I didn’t realize the impact it would have on me. My little girl is going to school - a real school. Here it is called a State School, back home it is called a Public School. True, she was actually in Kindergarten back in the US, but it was a private Kindergarten, in a daycare setting. I took her directly to her classroom and left her there and picked her up at the same classroom at the end of the day. I could drop her off at any time before 8:30 and pick her up at any time after 3:30. No rush to be there at a certain time as she had before and after school care. I knew that when we were moving she would be going to a “real school” here, as they start Reception (Kindergarten) at age 4. But knowing this and experiencing it are two different things. She has to be at the schoolyard promptly at 8:35 ready to walk in and I have to be at the school gate to pick her up promptly at 3:20. They do not have a school bus system here, so I need to do it myself. She went to school the first full week that we were here, but again, we were tired, I was learning to drive, there was construction on all the roads surrounding her school, there were so many other things on my mind. Today, her first day back after her two week spring break, it really struck me for the first time. My little girl is in school. Today was the first day that I was able to let her hang up her things in the cloakroom right inside the school door, and walk to her classroom by herself. You see, parents are not supposed to go to the classroom doors. I did the first week, as she was new and tentative about walking in and they didn’t say anything and they let me do it. But this morning, I had a talk with Bean – “you need to hug me and say goodbye by the cloakroom, ok?” “Ok mommy, I can do it” she said. And yes, she did it. I watched her walk all the way down the hallway, without barely a glance backwards and walk straight into her classroom without turning around to even wave. And it hit me – I was the one not ready for this, but she was. My sweet 5 year old little girl, is actually a big girl now. As I wiped the tears away and tried to will away the uneasiness of seeing my child walk away from me and knowing that she doesn't quite need me in the same way that she once did, I realized that this was indeed an important milestone.

The rhino and the motorway

As I mentioned and as you can see in my previous post from the pictures, we had a great time yesterday at the zoo. This zoo has an impressive amount of space especially considering it is in a country where everything is normally squished together and small. They have award winning gardens and many places that I could envision us sitting down to have a picnic. We did actually eat in the café while we were there and found American favorites like chicken nuggets, pizza and french fries and we fed our family of 4 for 18 pounds. They did also have another café with all traditional British fare – I saw that one first and was really concerned we would not find anything we would like and then fortunately we stumbled across the Americanized one. I did find one really odd thing about the zoo though, it was worth taking a picture of it and hubby and I both looked at each other and said –this needs to go in the blog. The picture on top is a mini-sculpture of a rhino with water squirting out of his back end. Odd, but true, and not really sure what the point of it was? In any case, one thing I found extremely uncomfortable yesterday was the driving. We have really not had much reason to get on the motorway (freeway) since we have been here. Most of the places we go are back roads. However yesterday, to get to the zoo, we had to jump on the M56 which is a larger motorway in England. I am still jumpy about driving, so I was riding shotgun –in the seat that I would normally be sitting in to drive in the US. It was an odd feeling shooting down the motorway at the National speed limit of 70 mph feeling like I should be in control of the car and knowing that I am not. All your distance judgments are out of whack and everything feels backwards. The picture below might give you a good idea of what this looks like. Take note of where I am sitting in the car while taking it and the cars on the other side of the motorway coming towards us. (if you click on the picture it will enlarge it). Looks really unnatural doesn’t it?

The Chester Zoo

We had a great day at the Chester Zoo. It was beautiful weather, sunny and warm all day long and best of all - no rain! The zoo is very close to us and is advertised as the best zoo in the UK. I believe it – it is an amazing zoo –probably the best I have ever been to. The Chester Zoo has tons of green space, beautiful sculptures and fountains, picnic areas, flowers and old buildings that set the background. We walked and walked all day long and still did not see the whole zoo or all the animals. We purchased a membership so that we could go back all summer long and enjoy it. Attached are some pictures of our day.

Note to self regarding British Daytime TV

Note to self: Do not walk in the house from a trip to the park, turn on the TV and walk out of the room to get snacks without looking to see what came on the TV. British daytime TV on regular cable channels can apparently be pretty racy even during the day and I don't want to have to try to explain why "that boy is helping that girl out of her clothes" ever again. Sigh...I miss good old censored US daytime TV.

Boilers, radiators and wet walks

The picture above is our boiler, hidden in a closet upstairs in our house. I have never lived in a house that uses a boiler and radiator heating system. The first week here, I kept pulling all the towels off the radiators and saying – why would they put towel racks right over them? Isn’t this a fire hazard? Then I found out that it was common to do that, to warm up the towels. In fact some of the new radiators actually have a towel bar built right into them. But let’s get back to the boiler –it is loud and noisy when you turn on the water to take a shower. And where is the boiler located? Well, that would be right outside the girls’ bedrooms. In fact, it literally sits one thin wall away from Gerbie’s bed. So at any time we take a shower and she is sleeping, she wakes up. We are hoping this will just become a background noise for her and she will start to ignore it. This morning, hubby had to get up at 5:00 a.m. to catch a train to London for a meeting, and as he popped in the shower, Gerbie popped up in her bed and thought it must be time to get up. So the boiler system has some challenges. We also don’t have air conditioning. The reason for this – we apparently don’t need one. Pure and simple, it does not get hot enough to warrant air conditioning. The cooling system on the approximately two weeks in the summer that get above 75 degrees is --opening the windows. Which by the way, do not have screens. I have been asking around – are bugs not a problem here, or are we just supposed to not care if we share living space with them? I have been assured, bugs are not a big problem here. I find that hard to believe, but I am going to go on the assumption that if they were a problem, then people would not want them crawling all over them at night while they sleep and would have invested in screens awhile ago. Here’s hoping.
This weekend we will be venturing out to the Chester Zoo – this is supposed to be the best zoo in the UK. We are hoping for a nice sunny day, but just in case, there is a “wet walk”. This is a map that takes you from indoor to indoor exhibit with the least amount of walking outside. Only in England would this be a feature listed prominently on the zoo’s website. But in any case – we all could use a day outside in sunny weather – so I am really keeping my fingers crossed.

The trolley vs the clueless American

I am fairly certain that I am a somewhat smart person. I have a college degree. I have a career that takes some level of skill and intelligence. I have managed to get through my 37 years of life without too many issues....until now. I walk around in an almost constant state of confusion. I can't figure out the simplest of things...how to run my appliances, read road signs, open locked doors in my house, figure out which products I need at the grocery store, how to open these containers once they get to my kitchen. Even understanding people here has been hard for me --I have never been good with accents. Throw in words I have never heard, expressions that leave me staring in confusion and I am left feeling like one of the most clueless people in the world --or at least in England. Yes, yes, I know this is a foreign country and that they sound different and do things differently and that there is a learning curve--I just did not realize it would take me weeks to adjust. For example, take today. Bean and I walked across the street to an express grocery store. We just needed a few things like milk, cheese and bread. No need to have to drive anywhere. (fyi - constantly thinking "stay left, stay left, stay left" while driving does not make you feel like an intelligent person.) In any case, we walk to the store and try to grab a trolley (shopping cart) to make our little purchases. I see the trolley, I can touch the trolley, yet I can't figure out how to get the trolley out of the trolley rack and into my willing hands. I look, and look, and I am stumped. I finally see what looks like a little lock. I can't figure out how to get the lock undone. No signs, nobody around to ask. In complete frustration and not wanting to look like a "dumb American" for the millionth time since I moved here, I just tell Bean --well, we don't need much, let's just carry it. Of course, we ended up getting more that I thought we would get and ended up juggling all of our items and looking in envy at all the other trolley pushing customers. When we got home, I told hubby the story and he kind of laughed and said - honey, over here, you probably needed to insert a pound into the cart somewhere to unlock it. Sigh...clueless yet again. Seriously, you need to PAY to use a trolley here? Apparently you get it back when you return the trolley. So is trolley theft a big problem in England? You also have to pay in most places to use a bathroom, or excuse me, I mean "the toilets", so I should have figured it out. Maybe someday I will fit in here...or else these next two years are going to be really long.

Living in Europe

Living in Europe sounds glamorous, doesn’t it? Well, I have found our life in Europe so far to be…..almost exactly like our life in the US. We go to school and work, meet up at the end of the day and watch TV, cuddle, eat popcorn and read books. The kids are back to their bedtime routines and think of our new house as “home”. I find our house to be..smaller, different.. but surprisingly homey and cozy. The main difference is our location - the quaint British town we live in and that we can take a train to London for the weekend, or Scotland. We could be in Wales in just over an hour by car. We could go to France for a few days on a summer vacation with minimal travel time. We have talked about wanting to go to Rome while we are here. The sights we see walking or driving around are different - you can’t go more than 50 feet without stumbling upon a beautiful old church or castle. We ate dinner out last night as a family, but at a Tavern across the street from our house, instead of a Longhorn Steakhouse. There are many other differences, true enough. Especially the food. This morning I made porridge for breakfast. I feel like I am in a fairy tale and should be saying: this porridge is too hot, this porridge is too cold, this porridge is just right. When I go to leave the house later, I will be getting in the car on the right side and driving on the left side, and you only have to talk to someone to remember you are the one that sounds different here. It is true, there are a lot of things that are different and a lot of things I miss –things I never expected to miss, like Ziplock bags. (Really, would it be that hard for England to import some good old American products that work much better than the ones they have?) But life is the same, because I have my wonderful husband and our two all American children with me, our routines are the same, the things we like to do together are the same –and wherever we are together is exactly where we should be.

Oh, Rubbish

On our first day here, we met one of our neighbors. They have been very friendly and were also very excited to have Americans living next door to them. They told us that the family that rented our house prior to us were also American and they loved hearing about the differences between the cultures. They said –ask us anything, we are happy to help you get settled in. One of the first questions that we had to ask them was about garbage day. Our neighbor laughed and said –yes, I remember you Americans call it garbage –but we call it rubbish. So one day, he brought me a piece of paper filled with the directions on what to do on rubbish day. And I will tell you, this rubbish disposal process is complicated! Back at home –we just took the trash bins out every Friday morning –they came and got it – and we were done. Here, every other week there is a different bin, the first week being the green bin and green box filled with garden refuse, bottles and cans, the second week being the black bin and all rubbish which cannot be recycled plus cardboard, newspapers, magazines and catalogues. In addition, all plastic bottles and tetra pack cartons need to be taken to a different recycle point. The binmen (trash/rubbish collectors), also “profile” your family based on who is living in the house and estimate how much rubbish you should have, and if you go over what they think you should have, they charge you extra. WHAT???? Do they realize that I have a 2 year old still in diapers, a 5 year old that uses a tissue and paper towel once and throws it away and a household that I am buying new things for every day? Wow –I am guessing they are going to be off the mark if they try to profile my family for rubbish usage. Oh, rubbish.

Some random moments

Direct quote from hubby yesterday, after a shopping trip at Tesco: “look honey, even the adult scissors are tiny...the only good thing so far about this country is the cheese and the water pressure.”
The picture on the top of this post is of Gerbie peeking out through the mail slot –she is fascinated with this, having never seen one before. She opens it and looks out and calls “hello, is anyone there?” She also peeks out when daddy gets home and starts yelling –“hi daddy, it's Gerbie!” It is adorable.
Also attached below are some pictures from our sunny day yesterday –yes, the sun was out for most of the day and we went out to play. It didn’t disappoint, it did rain in the morning, but then it was nice.
Happy Easter everyone!

Easter means hot sauce and chicken

What?? Hot sauce and chicken does not make you think of Easter? Since I met my husband, we have spent every Easter with his family. His grandfather liked a certain chicken joint and loved spending Easter dinner with his family at this place. It was an old diner type restaurant that served “hot sauce” as a side dish. And boy, did my husband and his cousin like this hot sauce. You could order three side dishes with your chicken dinner and all of their sides were usually hot sauce. Then, they would both scout out how much they could get from other people at the table, and my husband would make sure I also ordered it as a side dish so that he could swipe it. They would tell the same stories every year, as most families do during holidays…reminders of old times. I can’t tell you how many times I heard the one liner from a certain story – “line em up and move em out boys”. This was a treasured family outing and one that we will always remember. My husband’s grandfather was a dear, sweet man who went to Heaven about a year and a half ago. So last year, we did not go to this chicken place, but we did still spend the day with my husband’s family – going on an Easter egg hunt around their yard. Bean had a great time, searching for all these eggs and an even better time opening them….(don’t worry, they were plastic and filled with money and candy, not egg yolk). We enjoyed watching Papa count the eggs and realize we STILL had not found them all, as we all went back out to search for eggs that were still missing. This year, will be the first year since I have met my husband that we will not be spending Easter with his family. We are still going to have an Easter egg hunt, in our tiny postage stamp sized backyard (guess we won’t have to worry about “losing” any eggs this way I guess.) Another expat family will be coming over for it. This is the first of many holidays that we will be spending without our families during our time in England. But they will be in our thoughts, prayers and in our hearts all day. We will miss spending the day with you Papa and Ganny, but we will think of you… and the stories of that hot sauce.

Shopping in bulk

My husband turned me on to the idea of shopping in bulk shortly after we were married and living in our first home. We would go to Sam’s club and stock up on paper towels, toilet paper, water and other essentials. Over the last 7 years, I have become very accustomed to our Saturday morning Sam’s club shopping ritual and always knowing I had enough of the things we used on a regular basis to sustain us. We moved here with nothing but what was in our suitcases, so on the first day here, we needed to buy things for the house. We didn’t buy in bulk, we just bought what we needed and I have been struggling with not having back-up products. Always thinking I am two paper towel sheets or one kleenex away from having to run to the local supermarket (and when you are still a little nervous about driving, this is a whole process I would rather not have sprung on me by putting the last diaper on Gerbie's bottom). It turns out buying in bulk took a lot of pressure off of having to always run to the store. Need a new ketchup bottle –yep, I am sure I have that in the pantry. Dishwasher soap –yep, a new one is under the sink. Here, not so much. Not only have we not had a place to go for these things, but we also don’t have a pantry, or even that many cupboards. So today, imagine my delight, when we made it to a somewhat nearby Costco. They don’t have the same products as the Costco in the US, but they have products in bulk. We loaded up on paper towels, water, hand soap and other essential items. I happily shoved the products in every nook and cranny in our kitchen cupboards, even in the garage (which by the way are not used for cars over here –they have tile or wood floors, usually house the washer and dryer and are used for storage, go figure). In any case, I finally have some pressure off needing to constantly be on top of how much we have of these items and being one minute away from having to run to the store. Yes, it is the little things in life that make people feel better, right? The above picture is the girls taking in the lovely sights of row after row of things piled to the ceiling at Costco. They seem just as thrilled as me, right?

Television

This next sentence is not a joke...to legally own and operate a television in the UK, you must purchase a TV license. License fees, valid for one year, change every year and are free if you are over 75 years old. A color TV license right now costs: £145.50. Do the math on the exchange rate and that is approximately $220 US dollars per year, per TV. This does not cover the cost of your TV or your cable service, that is an additional cost per month, this just allows you to own and operate a TV. Since watching television is our biggest form of entertainment when we are at home in the evenings, we of course need to buy a TV license. After two weeks, I think I have a fairly good idea of what is on British TV…..wait for it…..wait for it…..old US TV shows. At any given point of the day, you can catch old reruns of US TV shows on multiple channels. And I am not talking about a few years old –most of the time it is way beyond that. Murder She Wrote, Remington Steele, Lois and Clark, TJ Hooker, JAG….and some more recent ones like Friends and King of Queens. There are also some current shows that are still airing in the US like Bones, Two and a Half Men, NCIS, but they are seasons behind in the UK. Now as someone who liked a lot of these shows back in my high school or early college days, I don’t mind watching some of these reruns. And it is really nice to turn on a TV and hear people talking and not have to struggle to listen to what they are saying because of their accents or different words and expressions. When hubby and I see a commercial for a “new” TV show starting soon, we just look at each other and laugh –because most of the time, it has been airing in the US for several seasons. A new show called Grey’s Anatomy is going to be starting to play over here soon….and the new Melrose Place. (I also saw that the OLD Melrose Place was on the other day.) The other latest “new” shows we have seen advertisements for that will be airing soon – Castle, Lost and American Idol. The best thing about UK TV so far –they have Dora the Explorer and about 5 different versions of the Disney Channel. So the kids always have something to watch when it is time to settle down and relax. And maybe, just maybe, I will be able to watch some more "new" old favorites.

We can go to surgery straightaway

They have a National Healthcare System in England, which I have heard mixed feedback on. Some people have said it is good, some have said it is very restrictive. My biggest worry since we have been here is something happening to one of the kids and not knowing how to get help or get to the doctor. These are things you don’t think about until you move to a new country and don’t even know what number to dial for an emergency. I now know we call 999 for fire, police or ambulance. We also finally got registered with our nearest healthcare clinic. I had been told conficting things about how to get registered with the NHS. So after a lot of research, I finally figured out that the best way to do it would be to go to the nearest healthcare clinic and sign up to be a new patient. This will be our registered GP (General Practitioner) and we will have to go through this clinic for everything. We found the closest clinic to our post code and went in and filled out paperwork. We had to prove where we lived and show our passports. They will send these forms in and we will get a NHS number in the mail in a few weeks. On the way out of the healthcare clinic, we asked what happens if we need to make an appointment before we get the NHS card and we were told that if we need to come in, we can go to surgery straightaway. In the UK, “surgery” means a doctor appointment. So when they say you need to make a surgery appointment – this is just a regular visit to your GP. If you are only using the NHS, and you need a complex procedure (such as what we consider a surgery), then you get put on a wait list. If you have supplemental coverage then you have more flexibility and can see a specialist and have less of a wait. We do have a supplemental policy through hubby’s employer. The doctor’s office experience is also different here. You sit in the waiting room of the clinic until you are called back by loud speaker to a specific room number. In the room, there is a nurse waiting and they will be the only person that you will most likely see. You rarely, if ever, will actually see a doctor. That is reserved for the very, very sick or hospitalized. So here is hoping we don’t have to see a doctor for the whole time we live here. But at least we now know we can go to surgery straightaway if we need to.