One Month . . . What I Love About Living in London

This past week marked one month of living in London.  A friend emailed this week asking what I loved about living in London.  With only one month behind us, I still have a lot to learn and a lot to fall in love with, but here are a few things I love about living in London.

• Public Transportation.  It is readily available, on time, efficient, and fantastic.  I hope it is still fun to ride on the upper level of a double decker bus and hop on the tube after living here for over a year.  It is still fun for me every time now. 
• Walking.  People just walk here.  They walk their kids to school and walk to the market and walk to the tube and walk and walk and walk.  It's fun to see people out and about and feels more friendly than driving everywhere.  It seems to slow down the pace of life a bit, at least for me.  And though it can be rough at times walking with all the kids, the exercise has been great. 
• Grocery delivery.  I already raved about this in a previous post.  But I am totally in love with this.
• Diversity.  Bellevue is an extremely diverse community, so I am used to seeing and hearing different types of people and cultures.  But it is a different diversity here - instead of hearing and seeing Korean, Indian, & Chinese I hear and see Russian, Dutch, French, German, Spanish, Indian, Scottish, American, & British.  It is fun to hear a different mixture of languages and ethnicities.  
• History.  It still blows my mind how old everything is.  Our house is over 100 years old.  So many of the buildings and day to day things we see are hundreds and hundreds of years old, some even thousands.  It's fascinating to see such depth of history.
• Challenges.  It is fun for me to have to figure out new things.  This can be frustrating at times, but I also love having to think about something in a different way, explore new systems and ways of doing things, and making my brain adjust.  Just because something is what I'm used to does not mean it is the only way or the best way.  And when I finally succeed it feels so good (like learning how the parking systems work here! Hooray!)
• So much to explore.  London is just such a HUGE city.  There are endless parks, museums, shops, theaters, bridges, palaces, towers, etc. to explore.  SO MUCH.  What I love about living here is that I can take my kids to school in the morning, then explore something new during the day, and be back to pick my kids up after school.  And the things I can explore are thousand year old statues, or artwork by the masters, or vast city parks.  I also love living here, because we don't have to rush to explore everything at once.  

A couple recent days illustrate what I am loving about living in London.

Just over a week ago our dear friends from Bellevue, Marie & Jim Davidson, were in London visiting their daughter.  After I walked the kids to school, Abby, James, and I walked the rest of the way to the tube station.  We went downtown and met Davidsons for hot chocolate and visited for an hour or so.  

Meeting up with Davidsons at Trafalgar Square - totally forgot to get a photo of all of us together!

They went on their way, and we headed to the National Gallery.  I wasn't sure how Abby would do, but I wasn't stressed about time.  The National Gallery would be there, so even if we only spent 15 minutes, it was OK.  We wandered in with no agenda and I allowed Abby to pick which rooms to explore and which paintings to linger at.  We played games counting the animals in certain paintings or trying to find hidden items or talking about what the people were thinking.  I nursed James on a bench in a larger room while Abby looked at the paintings a bit more.  It was pleasant and fun.  

Looking for different fruits in the fruit basket.

Running back to tell me what animal was in the stream in this painting. 

The museum got a little busier as school groups arrived, and AJ started to get a little more restless.  It was only 11:45.  So we called Matt to see if he wanted to meet for lunch.  We caught a train and met up at Borough Market, an outdoor market comparable to Pike Place Market, under London Bridge.  

Lunch at Borough Market 

Matt had to hurry back to work, but Abby and I wandered around for a bit longer and picked up some goodies at a bakery to share with the family.  We took the tube back and walked to Muswell Hill.  We still had an hour or so before the kids needed to be picked up from school so we browsed our local shops - tried on shoes for James, looked at scooters for Abby.  At 3:15 we made our way back to the kids school to pick them up, then walked home with the neighbors.  Still time for homework, reading, dinner, baths, and bedtime at home.  Hot cocoa with friends, artwork by masterpieces, lunch with dad at an outdoor market, walking with the kids and neighbors . . . a lovely day indeed.

Bedtime reading

Then this past Sunday was Stake Conference at the Hyde Park Chapel in downtown London.  We left the house about 8:45 since we would be taking the train.  Stake Conference was from 10-12 and we heard a nice broadcast from Salt Lake City.  Then we met with the stake president and Matt was set apart for his new calling (Matt just got called as Elder's Quorum President). Afterward we walked over to Kensington Gardens and found the Peter Pan Statue.  We were blessed with 30 minutes of sunshine, just long enough to enjoy the picnic Matt had packed and feed the ducks and swans.  

Peter Pan Statue - I have a photo of myself here in 2004 when Matt and I first visited London as Newlyweds.  If you had told me then that I would be living in London with my 4 kids someday I'd never have believed it.

Danny took this shot of a blue heron in the Long Water.

Rain clouds rolled in, and we made it to the Victoria and Albert Museum just as it started hailing.  We wandered into the museum and Matt shared his favorite artwork in there - the cartoons (essentially blueprints) that Raphael had made for tapestries that were in the Sistine Chapel.  They were beautiful depictions of Christ and different apostles.  Also in this huge room was a large panel depicting scenes about St. George.  I stayed in this room and fed James while Matt and the other 3 explored a bit more. While James nursed, I read up on who St.George was since none of us knew, then when the rest of the crew returned I shared the legend of St.George Slaying the Dragon.  We all learned something new.  The museum is huge and we hardly scratched the surface, but we had seen enough for the day. 

Kaylee fascinated by St.George

Looking at Raphael's depictions of Christ and the Apostles

We walked back to the tube and made it home by 4:00.  I worked on dinner while Matt played with James and the other kids entertained each other.  After dinner we got the littles to bed, and still had time for a board game with the older two.  Church, outdoor family time, inspiring artwork and legends, family dinner and games . . . a fantastic Sabbath.   

These two days illustrate what I love about living in London.  There are still things I am adjusting to . . . driving on narrow roadways, figuring out where to buy cilantro, knowing which different household cleaners will actually work, plumbing and water pressure that isn't quite what we're used to, finding out how to get supplies for little household projects.  And there are still things that are incredibly hard . . . Matt not making it home until after the kids were in bed 3 nights in a row because of work & calling related duties, Abby throwing a tantrum about a coat right when we need to walk out the door to go pick up the big kids from school, pushing a stroller uphill in the wind & rain, listening to the kids complain about walking, not having a lot of good friends yet, dealing with James not sleeping through the night since moving here . . .  

It is not all charming and wonderful all the time, but there are great moments like these two days full of exploration and family time.  Interspersed between hard or monotonous things, there are little gems of joy where I have to pinch myself to believe we really live here.  Between the challenges and hardships and exhaustion that come with moving a family of 4 across the world, I am so grateful for these kind wonderful days that fill me up with amazement and wonder and I know there will be many, many more.