Learning to Adjust

It’s now been two months since we landed and began our new life here in Jolly Old England. It was quite rough at first. We felt out of place. We struggled to get around. We had so. many. errands. to get sorted out with the military. We had no sense of home. To put it plainly, we were miserable.

But with the help of time, we are learning to adjust.

We finally have a home (although renting leaves a taint on the place and reminds me that it’s not really home.  It doesn’t have that permanent feel that real home does, know what I mean?)  We have all of our belongings now, and our car made it here.  There are still boxes here and there full of stuff we don’t yet have a spot for. We don’t have much décor on the walls. But slowly, it’s getting to feel like home.

We have completed all the errands of in-processing that the military required upon our move here. There is still a thing or two every now and then that crops up, but it’s mostly “maintenance,” if you will.

While we still struggle to get around in tight spots (like in Canterbury this past Saturday, O.M.G.!), we don’t let it keep us inside anymore. While parking is, and always will be a problem, Matthew and I are confident enough in our driving and navigating the British roads that we get out and about as much as we can. We have just learned to scout Google Maps for car parks before we head out.

I still feel out of place in new areas, even to the point where I won’t speak above a whisper to my family out in public because I am afraid someone will notice my accent. Especially when we travel any great distance away from the base (they are used to Americans in the towns near base). And I still expect an American accent to come out when a stranger is about to speak to me. This one has really slowed me down a few times on base, where I expect everyone to be an American. Silly me.

But there are other areas where I know I am adjusting on my own, such as when I watch T.V. or listen to the radio, I don’t hear the British accents anymore. Or how I just jump in the car and go without hesitation or the use of a Sat-Nav (that’s “GPS” in American.)

The return of “routine” has been the most helpful factor in adjusting. Having the kids in school on set schedules, and my husband finally settling into a set shift (for now) at work, has helped tremendously with all the trepidations we felt in the beginning. With all the “unfamiliar” wearing off, I know things are looking up.

It Gets Better...Right?

It’s been very hard trying to enjoy being in England. With all the military red tape we have been going through since we’ve been here, we have a bad taste in our mouths. My husband commented that, as exotic as it sounds to receive PCS orders to an overseas base, the military drains the excitement once you get there with all of their regulations, stipulations, complications, and a whole bunch of other “tions;” plus their general unhelpfulness with all the matters you have to attend to because of it (“it” being the military).

We continue to try and make the best of things. The thing we are most disgruntled about at the moment is our housing situation. We have been in temporary housing for three weeks now and are desperate to have a “Home Sweet Home.” We have been missing that since October. Also, we found out this week that our “Household Goods” shipment (i.e. the “big stuff,”) has made it into the country and has received the OK from Customs. Hopefully we will have a place to put it soon! We really miss our stuff…

One of the hardest things for me has been the fact that we are in a foreign country (one that I have been desperate to visit since I decided on a bachelor’s in English Lit), and we haven’t been able to get out and explore much. At first, the problem was driving. We were afraid of driving on the British roads and in a British car. (Driving on the right side of the car really messes with your depth perception and spacial judgement! And, the UK has much stricter driving laws. You can get a ticket for driving while drinking a coffee…what?!)

But now that we have overcome that hurdle, we have another obstacle preventing us from exploring our new residence: snow. Ironically, our taxi driver from the airport told us that it hardly ever snows in England and that, this year, they were having an unusually warm winter. Well…our arrival must have upset the balance of things because it has snowed several times since we have been here and has been bitterly cold! And, the icing on the cake, it hasn’t gotten warm enough to melt any of the snow that has fallen.

At first the snow was nice. It was the dry, fluffy kind that makes perfect snowballs and snowmen (and women!) Not the kind of wet, icy snow that makes everything slippery and dangerous, which is what we got in the southern US, where we are from.  

 

This was us on the first day of snow.

This is on the seventh day of snow…from the window in our room in Temporary Lodging, stuck. We are just sick of looking at it.

 

My son, who would brag to people back in the states, saying “I’m moving to England! It snows everyday in England!” (Not sure where he got that idea from, but the point is: he was excited about the snow!) But on the fifth day of having snow in England, he asked, all exhausted and whiny, “When is the snow going to go away?”

Surely. Surely. It will get better…right?

First Impressions

We have now been in England a week and so far…we are not impressed. I know one week isn’t long enough to give it a good go but this has just been a bad week. Not a single thing has gone right, or even gone smoothly or easily, for us since we arrived.

It’s not entirely England’s fault though. In fact, very little of our disappointments have to do with England itself. It’s the military we are put out with. But I’ll get to that in a minute.

There are some things that we have already discovered that we miss about the US. The first thing is the sun! Being from the south, where the sun is ever present (and hot), we love sunshine. But we have only seen the sun on two occasions since we have been here and it lasted probably a total of three hours combined. I noticed the funniest thing about the weather here just as we were flying into London last Saturday. While we were still at “cruising altitude,” I could not only see the sun, but it was brilliantly bright! However, as soon as we began to descend to land, we dropped below an immense dividing line of clouds that completely blocked the sun. It was like a whole other world up there above the clouds!

What really isn’t fair is how the clouds block out the sun and its glorious warmth during the day, while the nights are crystal clear with almost never a cloud in sight.

Another thing we miss is good, reliable internet. Now I cannot speak for all of England; I have heard that you can get good internet here. But where we are, which is “in the country” as everyone keeps reminding us, you cannot get good internet, which is just ridiculous for the technological age we live in and the dependency we have on it.

 Thirdly, we miss good cell phone service. We just got cells on Wednesday and already we can tell that the service here is not comparable to that in America (specifically, with our previous carrier AT&T). By "service," I mean coverage area. Again, everyone keeps saying this is the result of living in the country. But even “in the country,” you can still get a decent signal where I am from. But, I will say this for the carrier we signed with: they have reasonable prices on their plans (not something you will get in America, unless you get a “go” phone) and you practically get your phone for free, depending on the plan you go with.

Now let’s talk about the military side of things.

There really is just too much to say here so I’ll give you the run down. On my husband’s first day of in-processing, someone took him to get a rental car and just dropped him there…with no instructions on how to drive a right-handed car or how to drive on the left side of the road. Not only was that dangerous to all the other drivers on the road, but it was also just plain disappointing on their part. They are supposed to take care of their own.

But he survived. And he is doing fairly well with driving, he usually only hits one or two curbs. Me on the other hand…Well first I had to wait to drive until just yesterday because the rental we had was a stick. I can’t drive a stick. Don’t have the coordination. So when my hubbie bought his car this weekend (that is an automatic), we took it out for a drive and I got to practice.

I did ok until I got into a very busy (and cramped) town and clipped someone’s side-view mirror. I decided I had enough practice after that and I’ll leave the driving to my hubbie for now. But anyway…

Since we have been here, we have received very little direction on how to get settled in. There has been very little communication or instruction from the military (who dictates how and where and when we do get settled.) This is very frustrating for a family that has been in this transition period for months now and is ready to get settled!

My husband was given several checklists of things to get done for his job and his new station. But they haven’t given him any direction as to when he has to get it all done, when he is supposed to report to work regularly, etc. We feel like we have been left to “fly by the seat of our pants,” so to speak. When all we want to do is get back to a routine.

Needless to say, we are all still feeling that “No rest for the weary” sentiment from my last post. Fingers crossed things will start looking up by next post!

Rewind! Fast-forward!

Oh my goodness, time flies! I have so much to tell y’all!

I guess you can tell from the countdown clock that we are finally in England! (And our visas came in!) YAY! It was a whirlwind trip too, let me tell you. But more on that later.

First, let me back up to Christmas. It snowed very heavily here at Christmas, which was a sweet surprise. We rarely get a White Christmas here. But this year, it was a tiny bit of a nuisance because, well, we had things to do!

We had been waiting until after Christmas to drive our car to Dallas for it to be shipped to England. The snow made this difficult but we couldn’t let it stop us. So we rented a car and drove both, our car and the rental, to Dallas in snow and ice.

We have heard so many horror stories about other military members having to wait 2 and 3 months for their cars to arrive wherever they were stationed. But our paperwork says it should arrive no later than February 11. Which is only about 5-6 weeks after we dropped it off to be shipped. I guess we’ll see…

Since the military will only pay to ship one vehicle overseas, we had to sell our other one quickly after the Dallas trip.

Then we had to vacate our townhouse and move into TLF on base. (That’s Air Force lingo for “Temporary Lodging Facility.”) Now, I’m sure that doesn’t sound like much since all of our belongings had already been shipped. But we had 14 suitcases (10 full-size and 4 carry-ons) to tote in our tiny Toyota Corolla rental. It took several trips… This was essentially the culmination of our “Hurry Up and Wait” period before getting on the plane. Our departure date ended up being rescheduled to two days earlier than it was supposed to be. But that worked out because, by that point, we were so tired of waiting around.

So here we are! And I’ll have you know, this move encompassed my very first plane ride! Yep. Never been on a plane before. And neither had the kids. (Being in the AF, my hubbie was an “Old Pro” at flying.) But in a matter of 18 hours, we flew over 3500 miles in two flights. That was quite an experience.

The first plane ride really scared me. It was only an hour and 20 minutes but it was a small plane (only two rows of seats) so I felt all of the taking off and landing very strongly. The kiddos thought it was super fun though! They did really well on that first flight. Much better than me.

The second one was different. It was a much bigger plane (Boeing 767) with many more people on it. In fact, it was completely sold out. Now, I am just a tad claustrophobic so this ride was much more nerve-racking for me than the first, if that makes any sense. But this plane also had more to offer (like TVs in the headrests, dinner, breakfast, etc.) so that made it a little more tolerable…Until we all got sleepy.

Fortunately, the kids slept for a few hours. They were in the two window seats across the aisle from us so they had plenty of room for their tiny selves to sleep. But Hubbie and I didn’t sleep a wink. We were in the middle three seats (with me smack in the middle of him and a stranger). It was muy uncomfortable. So when we landed in London, we had been awake for almost 24 hours (taking into account the 6 hour difference) and were so grumpy and exhausted.

But as if that wasn’t enough, we then had to fumble our way through London Heathrow and find our 10 suitcases (4 carry-ons in tow) and locate our taxi drivers (Thank God those had been pre-arranged!) We had about an hour and a half drive from London to RAF Mildenhall. The kids slept the whole way. I tried to stay awake and view the scenery but I did fall asleep for about 30 minutes in the taxi. After we got to the base, we had to check in to TLF and then lug all of our suitcases to our room. But we couldn’t rest yet…

Not 30 minutes after we got to our room, my hubbie’s supervisor called and wanted to come by. Talk about an unwelcome guest. But you know what they say… “No rest for the weary” (or the military!)

Not Today

Today I am not as excited about moving to England as other days. Today was a very dreaded, sad step in the moving process. Today I had to say “Good-bye” to one of my babies for possibly the next four years: my sweet Sheltie, Luna.

 

This is not the first animal we have had to give up over this move, either. We had a Boxer, my husband’s baby, which we had to find a new home for as well. And then we had a cat, my first pet cat, that went to another home too. This has been especially hard on the kids. They just did not want to give up their furry friends!

You see, for some incredibly stupid (and assuredly ridiculous) reason, the military will not pay to ship our pet with us overseas. I don’t know what the reason is. I can only assume it is because the military does not see family pets as “essential” to their “mission.” Whatever the reason, it's not good enough. And I say it is stupid and ridiculous because, although they will not pay to ship my sweet dog, they will pay loads to ship our furniture (also, not “essential” to their “mission.”)

If given the choice, I would choose to have them pay to ship my pet over my furniture in a heartbeat. They actually have full sets of furniture (beds, living room furniture, etc.) that we could “rent” for free while we are there.  If they offer such a service, why oh why would they pay to ship our furniture when they could use that money to pay for the shipping of family pets??

She is staying in a good home while we are gone, to be sure, and we have known for some time that we cannot afford the plane ticket+British customs fees to take her with us. It was going to cost roughly $1600 to fly her to England (and almost double that for the Boxer!). Plus we would have had to drive her to another airport because animals have to fly on direct flights. There are no direct flights out of our small Southern state. And she would have had to fly alone because the airline the military is flying us on does not fly animals to the UK. Period.

 But I did not know I would be saying “Good-bye” so soon.

This weekend, we went to visit my grandparents once more before the move. We brought Luna with us and they really wanted to keep her for us while we are gone. Although I know this means she will be in good hands, I was not prepared to give her up this early before the move. I wanted to hang on to her for as long as possible. But as my grandparents live out-of-state and not being able to make another trip before we leave, we had no choice but to leave her with them during this visit.



Last-minute Playtime

After having to sell our house, and giving up three pets, moving to England isn't looking so exciting right now. Today, I am finding it hard to appreciate or see the opportunity in going. Today, I just want my Luna home. 

Moving Day No. 1

I really did not think this day would ever come. I saw this day from far off in the distance months ago when we got our orders. But I didn’t really think we would ever get to it. So as I stood in my living room while the movers were bustling all about me, wrapping my stuff, packing it into boxes, carrying it out of my life for the foreseeable future, it felt very surreal.

Now here I am in an unbearably empty and cold townhouse, with the sound of my fingers hitting these keys echoing off the walls and the very intrusive blaze of the overhead light interrupting what would be a normal, warm, relaxing night on my comfy couch under the soft glow of a table lamp.

But this is all just part of a process, right? A journey, or as I prefer to call it, an adventure! The step before this was filling out and sending in our visa applications. That was quite a nightmare. I had no experience with that kind of paperwork and (not surprising) no one at the base here could help me, not even the person who accepts the applications. Go figure.

So I did the best I could and turned them in. That was almost three weeks ago. (We were told the we would get the visas in three weeks.) Haven’t heard a word since. The man in the applications office informed us, as we handed in our paperwork, that me and the kids cannot enter the UK without the visas (yet he wouldn’t let us turn the apps in until we were less than two months from leaving …)Thanks for that, Mister.

Now, we are at one of the last steps in the moving process: shipping our stuff. The first shipment was yesterday and that was shipping all of our big stuff and non-necessities: all furniture, knick knacks, some clothes, some kitchen stuff. This, the biggest shipment, will take 2-3 months to arrive in the UK. It was packed away into plywood crates and is being carried off to the ship that will convey it to England (assuming there are no hurricanes, typhoons, or other crazy mishaps. Cross your fingers!)

We were “authorized” to ship 9000lbs at the military’s expense. So, for that reason, a full-size freight truck showed up at our tiny townhouse complex Friday morning at 9:00 sharp. I did not think we had enough stuff to fill up all of the crates it brought. I was wrong. I think our total came to around 5700lbs for this shipment and it took them all day…

They packed everything in sight. Even my dog’s bowl that I accidentally left on the dining room floor. Poor Luna has to eat out of Tupperware containers for now.

Even though that shipment is going out now, one month before we leave, we will have already been in England 1+ months before it arrives. The next shipment, which will be picked up on Monday, is our “unaccompanied baggage.” This includes all of our necessities that we will need as soon as we get there, such as pots and pans, towels, sheets, etc. We are “authorized” 1000lbs for this shipment and it will actually fly over on a plane.

Once it goes, we will be absolutely living out of our suitcases (all 12 of them) and eating sandwiches off paper plates for the next month. It’s going to be rough.

I'm Baaack!

Well, after a lengthy, unintended sabbatical, I am back on the blog! I feel so guilty to have left it alone for so long. So much has been going on! The whole month of July and the first half of August I was attending classes everyday to finish up my English degree. As soon as I finished, my daughter started back to school. Third grade! I can't believe it! Also, I have been filling out paperwork and going to all kinds of appointments to prepare for our move. I’ve been busy, busy, busy!

Now things are settling back down, we are back into the school routine, and we have gotten all of our moving paperwork turned in and now we are waiting on "go." We should have our official paper orders by the first week of October. So excited! Less than four months to go!

Well now I am going to start making more time for you! I am starting this week to experiment with some British recipes I am curious about. I have to say, some of the dishes’ names are quite strange (“Toad in a Hole,” and “Meat and Kidney Pie”? Sounds like Halloween Party food to me!) Some of the ingredients have me a little deterred, as well (Lamb kidneys or pork stomachs, anyone?) With that in mind, I am going to start with something that sounds not only yummy, but also really easy: Yorkshire Puddings!

So meet me back here later this week to see how my experiment with this recipe goes! For now, I want to share with y’all some images of the busywork I’ve been up to lately. 

My precious little princess turned 8! So, of course, we had a birthday bash! I've barely turned around and now it's about time to do my son's!

Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork! These folders were double in size just a two weeks ago. I have had paperwork and appointments coming out my ears for this move! Fortunately, for me, I am finished. My hubbie, on the other hand, is just getting started...

Back to school means homework for her and me!

Here's a look at my homework...working on my honors project. (Yes, it takes two computers...)

Our most recent venture: working the Air Show. It was my first! Very cool! (But don't ask me what kind of planes these are...)

Canadian Parachute Team!

Hubbie working one of the hot dog stands-it turned out to be a fun day! We were really exhausted afterwards.

Come back soon!

New Kid on the Blog

So after what seems like an eternity (but has actually only been two years), two awesome things have happened: I finally got my blog up and running and my husband finally got orders! And where are we going? Mildenhall, AFB, UNITED KINGDOM! Whoo-hoo! We have been waiting on orders overseas with baited breath and now they are finally here! Well...sorta. We actually don’t get to go until January 2013. (And the thought of that British winter is such a tease right now in the middle of our 100+ degree summer!) We have so many things to do, hurdles to jump, and adjustments to make! I never realized how much goes into moving with the military. But I am glad we have plenty of time to prepare. Soon I will be experimenting with British recipes and posting my findings here. I’ll also be posting all about this awesome opportunity and the things my family and I are doing while we “pass the time” waiting for our departure! These things (like crafts, recipes, etc.) will be under the “Passing the Time” tab. Since I am an English major, I do some creative writing and research often and will be sharing that with you via the “PPAOR” tab. Hopefully, you and I will have a lot in common! I hope you will check back soon and stay in touch! Feel free to comment and thanks for stopping by!