Getting Settled

What's life like for the first couple of weeks in a new place? Glad you asked! First off you don't know where anything is and because of the jetlag, you're too tired to really pay attention and learn how to get places anyway. It takes a day or two but you start to get your bearings. Taking a run around your new neighborhood helps make this process easier. 

Post trans-Atlantic flight selfie 
Your days are filled with setting things up so that the strange new place will maybe feel more like home. So you get the kids registered and send them off to a new school, praying that the other kids will be nice and the teacher will be as good as their old ones. You contact every company who might send you mail to give them your new address and in the process or typing or saying it over and over you finally memorize the thing. You figure out which cell phone plan will work with your phones and which company will actually work both inside and outside of buildings. Sadly, my cell phone only works outside or, if I'm inside, near windows.  You get a rental car even though the military won't reimburse you for it because how can you find a house to live in without a car to drive and look for one?  And then you start narrowing down the list of houses, calling agents to show you the houses that *fingers crossed* will work for your family, and then you look at house after house that actually won't work for your family for lots of different reasons. You run from one appointment to another as you in process the base, checking off boxes on the list of things you have to do to officially be a member of your new community.

St. Edmundsbury Cathedral in Bury St. Edmunds


There's real life in there too - trips to neighboring towns as you spread your wings a little and explore this new home of yours. Family dinner, laundry, errands, none of that stops magically just because you're in a new place. It just keeps rolling along and somehow it all fits into the days and then without you even noticing you're feeling almost comfortable. You know how to get from A to B without a GPS, your kids maybe have a friend or two, and everything starts to feel normal instead of new. You're settled!


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