Welcome to my first substack post! It honestly feels exhilarating to be blogging again. I’ve found that Instagram was proving difficult to fully express the all the life changes that have happened to our family in the last nine months. (As I type this, I can’t believe that we’ve been here for that long. It feels like a blink of an eye and a lifetime all at once.) It’s been a journey and I hope to document more here so I can always look back on it.

Looking back, the first 3 months were all about survival. I was setting up the house but also living with terrible rental furniture while all our possessions were being shipped over in a freight container. I remember frantically trying to get Serena’s room ready with paint and a new carpet. I walked down to the carpet shop, which was conveniently located a few blocks away, and when the owner asked for my phone number and I didn’t even know the correct way to give it to him! Just so you know, UK phone numbers always start with a 0 and then the number. And instead of being spaced 3 numbers apart 555-555-5555 it is spaced 05555 000000. Seems minor but it’s an essential part to daily life! And don’t even get me started on actually getting the UK phone number and setting up separate UK and US accounts. At first even doing the simplest things were a challenge. I think the rental furniture was a metaphor for everything that we were going through… everything was uncomfortable. But I kept reminding myself that the whole reason to move abroad was to get out of our comfort zone.

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One of the things I’m most grateful for and the thing that we became accustomed to quite naturally was the kid’s school. It’s an American International school and they’ve loved it since the beginning. It has also been my life line to making friends and feeling connected to a community. I think without it, or if the kids were unhappy, we would have struggled a lot more. I’ve already made such great friends with other moms and it is such a big part of our life here. I’m grateful we picked the right one. I wish I could go into more detail talking about our school, but for privacy reasons I’m going to refrain. However if you have kids and you’re thinking about moving to London or have any questions, feel free to reach out to me.

Another huge part of my life is learning to drive on the “wrong” side of the road. (Even the Brits call it the wrong side!) As an American, you have 1 year from the time you move to drive and be covered by insurance on your current license. After that you must get a British license. Driving here is completely different than driving in the US. The best approximation I can give: it’s like driving in Boston except all the roads are single lanes but with two way traffic and instead of taking right or left turns, you go through a traffic circle (or roundabouts as they call them here.) Oh and parking spots are half the size of those in the US. The first couple of times I drove I was white knuckling it the whole way. No radio, yelling at the kids to stop talking. Not only was I driving a new car, I had no idea where I was going and taking a wrong turn could add 30 minutes to your commute. Now I am much more comfortable, I can reverse park within inches and I can even listen to a podcast while I drive.

Driving in the UK is also a large part of expat conversation. How to study for the test, how to pass the test, how many driving hours you’ve done, how hard it is and how confusing all the rules are. There is a written test called the Theory Test and a separate driving test called the Practical Test. I’ll just say that both are notoriously difficult and takes many hours of studying and practice. I’ve hired a driving instructor who I go out with for 2 hours once a week and I’ll probably do 10-12 sessions with him. After hours of studying I’ve just passed my theory test and I’ll schedule my actual driving test hopefully before the summer. But of course, they’re notoriously difficult to secure and can take months to even get a test. It’s a headache to say the least. I’ll be happy to have this all behind us.

After getting through the first couple of months we’ve become enthralled with the travel and all the new things to explore. So far we’ve been to the Peak District, the Cotswolds, Copenhagen, Abu Dhabi, and the French Alps. Mike is traveling even more for work and has been to India and China. And of course we’re exploring London as much as we can. It’s a dream to be able to do all this travel and am still wrapping my head around how close everything is. Instead of working on house renovations, I’m trip planning. It’s a big change but one I’m really grateful for.

Slowly but surely things are coming together. The house is really cozy now and it feels like home. We are building up our support systems here. For example, I’ve recently found a great acupuncturist who randomly happened to know my acupuncturist back in Newburyport. (Some of you know how important acupuncture is in my life so this is really huge for me.) I won’t say that it’s been all smooth sailing, the winter was hard getting used to all the darkness and rain and I was feeling a bit depleted but now that spring is here I’m feeling energized again. It’s been a rollercoaster ride for sure. But we really, really love it here and are finally feeling comfortable as we settle into our new life in London.

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