Sunday Story: Loving London Town

I'm so sorry I haven't been great keeping up with my Sunday Stories...I really hope Annoyed Army Wife isn't too upset with me!  I promise I'll do my best to keep caught up!!

Summer 1996


When I last wrote, we were moving to London (and I also included a little out-of-order story about losing my first dog, Slammer, in the 9th grade) and Big Brother and I were not so pleased...

...so we left North Carolina, tears streaming down our faces as we waved goodbye to our beloved dog.  After what seemed like an eternity (although nothing compared to the flight to Okinawa, Japan), we arrived at London Heathrow and were greeted by our sponsor, another Marine.  If memory serves, we took some bullet trains through the airport and were finally met by a van that drove us into the heart of the city.  We drove through gorgeous farmlands, marveling at just how green the landscape was.  The van drove us to the front of a high-rise apartment building that would be our temporary home until we found a place to live.  My parents had done extensive research over the last few months and determined that we were not live in base housing, but rather "out in town" so that we could be between downtown London, where LtCol Dad would work, and the Royal Air Force (RAF) base that housed the American school Big Brother and I would attend.

Our "hotel" was really a furnished apartment (flat).  To the right of the entry was a small kitchen, and behind that was a huge en suite bedroom that I would use.  My room was decorated in pinks, peaches, and purples, perfect for a teenage girl.  The bathroom was white marble, with a sunken tub and vanity area that was on a higher level that the loo (toilet) area (in other words, you had to walk up a step to get to the tub and vanity).  I loved it!

Coming out of my room, there was a huge living room to the left and a formal dining room lined with built-in bookshelves all around straight ahead.  Turning left from the dining room would take you down a long hallway, with a bedroom to the right and bathroom just across the hall (where Big Brother would live) and farther down another room on the left where Little Brother would sleep.  Through French doors at the end of the long hallway was a massive master suite for my parents.  A balcony wrapped around three sides of the flat.

Our first day in London, my parents left us kids to sleep off our jet lag and they immediately left to go house-hunting, knowing we had a limited amount of free lodging according to Marine Corps instruction.  When they arrived back in the evening, they had met with several estate agents (realtors) and had several properties that looked promising.  After a short nap, we walked around our new location and they allowed us kids to choose our dinner option.  Being American kids, we wanted pizza, so we found a Pizza Hut in the heart of Leicester Square and discovered that English pizza was not the same as American, the Brits did not believe in ice in their beverages or free refills (and the glasses were small), and that Pizza Hut in England was nearly three times the price in America.  We were resigned to the fact that our Friday Night Pizza tradition was likely to take a three-year hiatus...

Later that week, we went on a double decker bus tour of London, learning all about the city and making lists of attractions we'd like to see during our tour there.  We visited castles.  We ate at pubs, trying to decide where to get the best fish and chips.  Big Brother and I started school while living in the flat and walked to the bus stop in central London where a van from the American school would drive us two hours to school.  We learned how to speak British-English, quickly finding that American-English was very different.  We planned dozens of European vacations, researched riding schools so I could finally take some horse-back lessons, used the Tube (subway) to get around town, and searched high and low for a house to rent...

After a few weeks (or maybe a month, I can't exactly remember how long we were in the flat) we moved.  We borrowed Navy furniture until our shipments arrived and delivery could be scheduled, and we learned to love London, despite our bitterness that we were uprooted American teenagers once again...  Over time, London would become my favorite duty station, bar none...and in the coming weeks, you'll see why!