Calling London Home

Things they never tell you when you sign up. Things that never get mentioned when you talk to people about their expat experiences. Things people don’t say because of the feeling that somehow you’re doing it wrong or you’re ungrateful for the opportunity.

We’re not doing it wrong. And we’re not ungrateful. And we’re even thinking about extending our stay a little.

But I’m lonely.

Sometimes I wonder if that’s just my natural state of being. It’s nice to call up family or friends and hear people chattering in the background.

Maybe we should get a roommate.

It’s amazing the way that a clean, rearranged room can settle a mind. Our living room felt cluttered and dark, even with 7 feet of window taking up most of the wall. Now that we’ve rearranged, I can see in my mind the parties that we could have, the potential to grow in this apartment. I finally see what Will saw when he fell in love with the building and the apartment. The floors still are uneven, the oven still is miniscule and the fridge hasn’t gotten any bigger, but I can see how we could live here for a long time. Longer than the just under a year that we have left on our lease.

We’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the future lately, and made some plans. I’m hesitant to share them with the internet; for fear that they might be derailed or for fear that they might come true, I’m not sure yet. Suffice to say that to say that those plans were made before I could see a future for us here in London.

I’m still not sure I see a future here. I’m incredibly homesick in a way that is too easily reduced to a list of foods I miss or experiences I wish I had. In fact, I’m not sure it’s just homesickness that’s been the cause of the fug that’s gathered over my moods in the past couple of weeks. It comes and goes, and right now, I’m incredibly happy to be where I am.

Supposedly it’s a blog-cliché to do a Thanksgiving “list of things to be thankful for” post, but I think that’s what this one is going to turn out to be. I think I personally will need the list as a reminder someday in the not-so-distant future when I forget why it’s all worth it.

I’m thankful to have a job. In the economy we’re in, any job is a good one, and this one is better than most. So let’s expand on that statement. I’m thankful to have the opportunity to work with great people in an amazing environment on the other side of the world.

I’m thankful that my family and friends and their families are mostly safe and unharmed after Sandy. I mourn the loss of historic places, but I know that New Jersey and New York are places where only the strong survive. They will rebuild, we will help, and before long the boardwalk will be back.

I’m thankful to have travelled as much as I have this year: to Lisbon, Bilbao, Paris, Le Havre, Amsterdam, Dublin. I know that whenever it is that we finally decide to go back to the States, I won’t leave with the lingering sense that we should have explored more, seen more. It’s been an amazing year.

I’m thankful for the technology that let me spend four hours on election night video chatting with friends across the states watching the results come in. The same technology that lets me see and speak with my sisters and my parents even though I’m halfway around the world.

I’m thankful for my partner, my teammate, my husband. I would not have made it this far without him. To the next 9 months and more. Thanks, baby.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I never thought of myself as a one-issue voter. But it turns out in this election season, that it all boils down to one issue for me. You see, the declaration of independence claimed that all people had a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The job of the government is to do whatever it takes to ensure that right for ALL of its citizens.

So, on abortion? Right to life. Not the unborn fetus’s life, it doesn’t have one yet. The mother who pays taxes and works a job and contributes to society.

On the death penalty? Right to life.

On gay marriage? Right to the pursuit of happiness. Your happiness takes away nothing from mine, and our mutual joy can only make the world a better place. So get married!

On gays in the military? Right to liberty. Be who you are.

On military intervention in foreign countries? Well, that’s a little trickier because there’s a lot more nuance to reasons why we intervene. However, for the sake of this manifesto, I think we can boil it down. Right to life. Are they attacking us? No? Stay out. Right to liberty? Are they restricting the free movement of their own citizens? Are they restricting the freedom of speech in that country? Yes? Okay, maybe we intervene, but maybe not with the might of armies.

On education. In order to guarantee a free and prosperous nation, we need to have an educated populace. That means spending more on education than we do on bombs.

On guns. Your right to own and carry a weapon is unlimited, as long as it does not interfere with my right to live in a safe and peaceful world. Meaning perhaps that private citizens shouldn’t have access to military-grade weapons. Right to life.

Equality in the workplace? Right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Welfare? Right to life. If I am out of work or sick or injured, I want to know that my fellow citizens are pulling for me. And as someone earning enough to pay my own way, I’m happy to contribute to social security, welfare, Medicare Medicaid or whatever. Thats

I don’t think it’s that complicated. We’ve been given a set of guiding principles, and of course we are all free to interpret them as we wish. I’m not trying to tell you who to vote for, or even what issues should be important to you. But I think there are certain truths that should be self-evident. And we should be attempting to uphold those truths to the best of our ability.

end rant. go vote.

The blank page is terrifying.

It’s Tuesday and the weather is changing.

Summer was barely here and now I can feel Fall in the air. It feels like back to school in the mornings when I go to work, even without the Old Navy and Macy’s and Staples and JC Penny Back to School Sales. I stopped writing for a while because I got busy. Then I got lonely. Then I got sad. And I didn’t want to write about it. I thought that this blog should show you only the good parts about our life in London. As much as I am dreading the dark days of winter, I think I’m done mourning a New Jersey summer and I can start enjoying what I have when I have it.

Here are some things we’ve done since Portugal.

We went to Rhode Island to shower Damara and Steven with love and joy on the eve of their marriage.

We had some friends come visit, and we bicycled all over London. We saw the Tower Bridge raised.

We went to France to see Jesse and Jenn get married, saw the Cliffs of Dover, drove a million miles on the wrong side of the road, listened to the radio in a foreign language and partied until the dawn.

We had some family come to visit. We made crepes, climbed some trees, and saw a show “Rock of Ages”

We went to Rhode Island again. Damara and Steven got married!

We went to Spain. The Olympics came to London. We watched some very strange TV in German, and lounged by the pool.

We came back to London. We played board games in a pub. Sang kareoke in front of a live band in a different pub.

Drank maybe 7 million gallons of champagne, cider and beer.

We just planned our Christmas trip back to New Jersey, and I think it’s time to get back to work. I’ll add pictures to this later.

This was the long Easter weekend — in the UK, Good Friday and Easter Monday are both holidays, so I had a four-day weekend. We chose to spend it at Ikea, and unpacking.

Ikea – Jonathan Coulton

We designed a home theater cabinet, plus a wine and liquor cabinet out of the Besta range. This is definitely the most complex nordic furniture I’ve ever put together — we added hinged doors, fancy shelves, and feet. It still ran us less than comparable new furniture from a place like John Lewis (one of the biggish department stores here — they sell designer furniture at “affordable” prices).

It’s finished now, and I think of the original 107 packing boxes and crates that were originally shipped to us, we have only 10 or so left to unpack and put away. Major accomplishment, but it does mean that we didn’t get to see much of London this weekend. We even had plans to go to the local “Traditional Family Fun Fair” on the Lower Heath, but never made it. This weekend was very stereotypically London — overcast, blustery, chilly and drizzly.

I’m pretty proud of the progress we’ve made this weekend, even if the apartment still is mostly a mess, and all of the pictures are stacked on the table and all our wedding gifts are clogging up our spare room. Pretty soon we’ll have a real apartment. I hope.

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