A good choice

The three of us celebrated a minor milestone yesterday as it was two months since we moved to London. We enjoyed spending a few moments thinking back to those last few hectic days in Washington:

bidding farewell to our lovingly renovated home,

our well-used car,

and our dear companions Milton and Cowboy;

saying good-bye-for-nows to great friends;

and saying to one another countless times, "can you believe we're moving to London in three days (two days, tomorrow, today)?"

And we recalled how we felt sitting at Dulles, our half-dozen-plus bags checked, waiting for our flight to depart. It felt a bit like we were going on vacation, but it was made surreal by the knowledge that we weren't coming back. I think I said something like,

"It feels like we're moving to Jamaica, but permanently."

To which Bethie replied, "no, it doesn't."

"But you know, I mean because we're going somewhere we would ordinarily consider a vacation destination, but we're just staying there."

"Well, and the weather's the same. Beaches, too. And everyone calls you 'mon.'"

"Right, OK."

We felt liberated--a bit like it was the last day of school--but in hindsight it would have been more reasonable to be scared out of our minds. But we weren't.

And we still aren't, two months on.

As we hope is clear from these pages, we're having a marvelous time.

And the best part is that it feels like home, not vacation. Sure, we have more people to meet and more days to pass before London doesn't feel like a new place, and we miss our friends back in DC, but London already feels comfortable.

And sometimes on those occasions when we talk about where we might buy a flat someday or where Charlotte could go to school, we smile at the possibility that moving here was a very good choice.