England Has a Lot of Stairs

This was Sam’s first observation about England. Not that it’s grey and cloudy nearly every day. Not that the driver’s seat is on the other side of the car, and certainly not the linguistic differences that amuse her parents so much (we live in a flat not an apartment; we take the lift not the elevator, etc.)

No, the first thing she said to us, a few moments after we had arrived in our flat, was “England has a LOT of stairs!” This is because our flat is two-level and Sam is unused to stairs inside a house. And since our residence is on the 7th floor of a hotel, we take the stairs down to exit the building. This is very exciting to Sam. She loves stairs. So far, there is never a problem getting her to leave the flat as long as we promise to take the stairs. (We do tend to take the lift back up when we are laden with groceries and such. And so far that’s been nearly every day because I can carry only so much. I need to get a shopping trolley. Can you tell that I love the Anglicisms? I’m simply mad about them. Ok, I’ll stop now. But that’s what you get for reading the blog of a language teacher.)

Anyway, hullo from the land of stairs! Yes, we made it in one piece, with all our luggage, and most of our good humor intact. All in all Sam did fine with the 12 hours or so of flight travel. The diciest moments were when she refused to sleep on the “overnight” flight from Charlotte to London, and when she screamed and cried during the landing into Gatwick because she wanted to unclip her seat buckle and stand up. That fuss turned into a full blown tantrum nourished by sleep deprivation. And how do you give a girl a timeout on an airplane in descent? (Answer: you don’t. There is no time out. There is only time-in. Interminable time-in until the plane lands and suddenly the snarling beast turns back into your lovely child.) But we survived (as did our fellow passengers– sorry!) and amazingly Sam was in good spirits the rest of that long day.

We are still very jet-lagged. Still getting used to the flat, to Brighton, to living in a city without a car. Brighton is quite walkable, a little hilly in parts, though nothing like our part of the Bay Area. Perhaps we’ll return home in 3 months with lean and mean legs from all the walking. And from the stairs, of course.

Pictures coming soon!