2018.09.15: She’s Gone

For the past week, Anya has been seriously sorting and figuring out what to pack for her year of studies at King’s College London. The ping pong table was part of the collection area.

Then, she asked former-missionary-mom,—with the spiritual gift of packing—to put things in the rolling duffel bags. That means that we hit the weight limit before the space was maxed out.

This morning, I got up with Anya early to catch the 4:05 am bus to the central station, and then we caught the bus to the airport. We know this system. It takes about an hour, but it is the most affordable way.  It is only $12.26 for both of us to get to the airport. If we took the bus-fast train, it would have cut off 20 minutes, but it is 3 times as expensive. A taxi would have been half the time, but about 5 times as expensive. So, we took the bus to the airport, which was amazingly full at 4:30 am.

It was a good thing that we arrived early, as the security line was the longest one I have EVER seen! I stayed with Anya in line until she entered a turnstile, which was perhaps 40 minutes of waiting.

Anya took the train from the London Gatwick airport. She had planned to order an Uber car from the train station to get to her new home, but there was no WIFI at the London station. So, she ended up taking a taxi waiting out front.

However, somehow in the payment, she either forgot or lost her debit card. Fortunately, she could call me, and I got her USA debit card shut off (with 0% international exchange rate), without any unauthorized charges. She’s now using her Swedish debit card, and I had secured a back up credit card for her just for international travel. So, she still has access to funds (with 1.5% international exchange rate), as well as some British pounds that were a graduation gift from Jean and Marv last June.

After the unfortunate start with the loss of a debit card and the resulting stress, she is now back to her eagerness for being in London. Her housing facility is nice. She has 3 meals a day on the weekends, and breakfasts and dinners on the weekends. She said that the dinner tonight was really good, with lots of food dished onto the plates. She said that she’ll have to be careful not to gain the “freshman 15.” I told her especially in the metric world, as 15 kilograms would be 33 pounds!

We FaceTime called after dinner, and she showed me what the rooms look like. However, most of our conversation was her stories about who she met at dinner, mostly the grad students, as most undergrads arrive next week. But she said is was so easy to talk with people, who were so nice. Instead of awkward small talk, it was the first time in her life where she felt really comfortable talking with new people.

After a long nap, I spent my day with trying to figure out why her data doesn’t work in London, and getting her financial matters straightened out, like getting the credit card functioning for internet purchases to set up a British phone account. The rest of the day was cleaning the house after the packing process. Even the refrigerator is cleaned out (one of my least favorite tasks)!

So, perhaps I am coping by cleaning—keeping busy with things that show progress. Yes, my life just changed. I’ve been dreading this. Even back when Anya was in probably 4th grade, we read the Anne of Green Gables series. (We read perhaps 70 books together from 4th grade until the start of our time in Sweden.) When Anne went off to college, I cried, imagining the day when Anya would go off to her college. Well, I didn’t cry today. I will see her next weekend when I will bring more luggage. She will meet me at the airport to help wrangle two rolling duffel bags through public transportation.

I am not looking forward to dealing with being an empty-nester by myself, while still in a land where I do not have deep roots nor speak the language well. There is plenty to do, just not friends to do them with. Yes, I will figure out how to manage.

With blessings,

Beth