expat

5 Years and a Day

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Luggage Cart Full of Luggage

Yesterday I forgot to write. 5 years and a day ago we arrived in the UK. We did a day flight so we stayed in a hotel and aimed to start settling in.

5 years ago today we collected the keys to the house we were letting. Then went to IKEA for beds and other essentials since our container would take another month and 2 days to arrive.

As i write this about the same time 5 years ago we were battling our boiler since it wasn’t actually heating. Luckily we had a hotel room for an extra night so fled the cold back there to fix the boiler the next day.

Today was a bit easier than 5 years ago. I took T to the cinema while A went to a birthday party. It was a nice holiday day off.

Hard to believe that was a half a decade ago. I would write more however I need to go study for my life in the UK test!

A lovely Fall Day in London, In June

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I still find the weather a bit odd in London. I love it, this isn’t a complaint. It is just different. Today it feels like a lovely fall day. The only thing is its late June. This isn’t an anomaly. There were many days last July that i was in a light hooded sweatshirt in the middle of the day and i had to stop and think to myself wait it’s July.

Our 4th England-versary

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Luggage Cart Full of Luggage

It does not really feel like a long time until you really start to think about it. Then it does start feeling like a long time. It is so misleading thinking 4 years is not a lot if you are in your 40’s. Looking at the photos of us getting ready to move and I realise how little the girls were compared to now. The cliche is true. So much has changed and yet so much is the same.

4 years ago we were scared and excited. We had so much to do. So much to explore even beyond the physically just getting here. Today there is still so much to explore. We are still excited to be living here. So much so that this year we bought the house we were renting. M called it perfectly 4 years ago when we were looking at houses on our Thanksgiving week scouting trip in 2017. Of the 12-15 we looked at she flagged what became ours as the one she was most interested in. In the end it was down to this house and one other. The location and school options on our house won out. It is why we initially inquired with the former owners to purchase it right around a year ago near our 3rd anniversary here. We were delighted they were interested in selling. We looked around our neighbourhood for other options earlier this year. There were a few possibilities however when it became clear we could have the house we were in we knew our choice.

Lockdown’s and pandemic’s have slowed our exploring. Just not our desire to continue to explore this new country and continent. We are still excited for 4 more and many more years to come…

A small story about the luggage cart pictured that can almost summarize a big difference between NY & London.

Those carts in JFK are like $5 a piece to rent. They are for going from the car drop off to the check in counter. A trip that is maybe 2 minutes.

At Gatwick or Heathrow (in this story we arrived in Gatwick) the same carts are free. On top of that there are little kid carts throughout arrivals for one or even two kids for you to put your kids in for the very long walk to customs. Once you get through customs to get your luggage you can get a free cart for the much longer walk than in JFK for your luggage.

The Story of that Overseas Check(s)

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Apparently one of my US banks made some error in interest calculations or something. I know this because they sent me what as of this writing is 4 separate checks with an explication. Each check has been for well under $2. Two of them for under 10 cents each.

This is noteworthy because they sent paper checks instead of just direct depositing money back into my account. This is of course a bank i still do business with. The biggest reason for calling this out is that the postage for each of these checks was $1.30 since they were sent internationally. None of the checks were worth more than the postage it cost to send them. That is funny as is. When one of them is 4 cents it gets into bonkers territory.

Sorry New York State I Have Moved On

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I get it NY state. I know I am a catch. The thing is I have moved on. You need to get over me.For some reason even after I have moved overseas over nearly 4 years ago I keep getting emails about renewing my drivers license. That is normal. I get it you are trying to be friendly. The thing is the license expired years ago. By your own rules its expired. Even with you special Covid rules about renewing. It has expired.

You need to just get over it. Me and my tax money left in 2017 and its not coming back. You will always be my first drivers license. I have fond memories.

Ted Lasso’s Pop Culture Infusion

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Last night M and I watched the latest Ted Lasso episodes. We were both pleased to see that season two’s first episode was out. I find the show pretty funny and I’m trying to learn football along with Ted. Ok only sort of.

I love the Random pop culture references the writers throw in all the time. After this last episode it was pretty clear (to me) that I was going to have to put on some Gin Blossoms afterwards. Not at all ashamed to say I liked them in University and still do.

This morning as I was walking to Sainsbury’s sure enough I put on a Gin Blossims playlist. Thanks Ted.

Once I got to Sainsbury’s I realised they don’t open until 11 on a Sunday. Full disclosure I realise this when the doors would not open and the place was dark 🙂 The only way this story is related to Ted Lasso is the Sainsbury’s story happened while listening to Hey Jealousy.

I’ve been in this country for 3 1/2 years and sometimes I forget where I am. I somehow was expecting New York hours on a Sunday. On the plus side Costa Coffee was open. I don’t have my coffee before leaving for the market so I was able to sit and dictate this post to Siri.

The Story of a New Addition to The House

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M has wanted a new vacuum for a while. There was much debate between a fancy Dyson bag less and a bigger bagged one. I preferred the Dyson. M did not want to clean out another vacuum without a bag. She ended up getting Henry.

It was implied to me that we are now a typical British family for having one. My first thought was now there is another man in the house. That means I am only outnumbered 3 to 2 now!

Am I Missing America or Just Hungry?

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It has been 3 years and change since I moved to England. Other than missing family there really hasn’t been many things I have missed or longed for. Now sadly there finally is something. Apparently you can get Girl Scout cookies delivered by Grubhub. I saw this on Lifehacker. I cannot get Girl Scout Cookies in the UK at all. Even though both of my girls are in Girl Guides. They do not do anything similar.

Two years ago we had our sister in law bring us over some. It was glorious. In 2020 we did not get the opportunity. We should have planned better and brought back cookies when we were in Florida in February. Such a fail on my part. Having cookies delivered like take away would be brilliant right about now.

The Story of 3 Years in England

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airport display boards

Today mark’s the milestone of our family’s arrival to London. As with most anniversary in some ways it is feels that so much time has passed. Yet another is it feels like it was so recent. I have many vivid memories of the day we travelled. Actually I remember vividly parts of the day before and the few days after our trip. So much to remember that I hope I journaled enough of it.

So much has changed in the three years we’ve been here. And as cliché as it is to say much has not. One thing is for certain I am still enjoying living in London as much as I was excited to be moving here on this day three years ago.

I sometimes cannot believe that I’m living in another country. It happens every so often when I take a step back from the day-to-day. I realise wow I’m living in a completely different culture. Usually that is followed by “cool” in my head.

There is likely so much more I could write however I want to keep this post brief. I think what sum’s everything up isthree years in and were still happy to be here and look forward to the next three or however many more…

To Keep or Cancel the Apple Card

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When I moved my Apple ID to the United Kingdom I was prepared for the fact that Apple Cash as well as my Apple Card would stop working, or need to be canceled. I know that the Apple Card was only available to those in the US. I remember when I tried to sign up for it using my US Apple ID and the region on my phone was set to the UK it did not even work. I assumed then that the card would simply either not work or I would get forced to cancel it after switching my entire ID to be associated to the UK.

Knowing that I would likely run into issues I figured I’d be proactive and simply call to cancel the card before it became a sort of challenge. One afternoon right after switching my Apple ID to the UK I called Apple. I spent about 30 minutes on hold. Then I spoke to someone and got bounced around from person to person. Finally got someone that said they could actually help me. It turns out they themselves could not help me since in order to cancel an Apple Card a Goldman Sachs supervisor needs to do it. So I spent some more time on hold. In the end it was their own customer service representatives asking me if I wanted to keep the card. They knew that I had moved to the UK. I was confused however they said as long as I had any address I could use in the US, I can keep the card. They asked me if I had any families address? They said the only real reason I needed a US address is in case I need a replacement card or statements sent to me in an emergency. We still have plenty of friends and family in the states that will be happy to do that for us. I decided to just keep the card if that was the company issue I got its attitude. I decided to continue using the address I previously given Apple/Goldman and make no change.

I was surprised that Apple (Goldman) prodding me to keep the card. It did feel like they were pushing me to avoid canceling. It wasn’t very forceful however under the circumstances I thought it was a no-brainer that they would want me not to have the card. Retrospectively a friend suggested that in the current climate of Covid-19 they probably want to keep as many cards that are in good standing as possible. And I was in good standing.

I then thought maybe there’d be some weird technical issue with using or having the card on my phone. I had already removed it from my iPhone before I called. I then tried to add the card back to my iPhone and I was surprised when there was absolutely no issue in doing so.

I thought the byproduct of moving my Apple ID to the UK would be losing this Apple card however for now it’s business as usual with it. I assumed the same would be apparent for Apple Cash. I am pleased with the outcome even though I’m not sure what systems have interdependencies where they will flag an anomaly with my setup.