Getting everyone up-to-date

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For those of you who I have not talked to for awhile, I will give a small update on what's been going on in my life since August. I moved to Ambilly, France last August to work as an au pair. Ambilly is just outside Geneva, Switzerland and is a pretty small town that is part of a larger town called Annemasse. It's not the most exciting place in the world, but it has everything you need and there is some beautiful scenery nearby. Driving about 5 minutes from here, you can enter Switzerland and drive through the countryside, which is full of fields of sunflowers and vineyards in the summertime. Looking out my bedroom window, I can see the Alps, and on a clear day, Mont Blanc, Europe's highest mountain. Geneva is about a 20 minute tram ride away, and there is more to do in the city. Also, since Switzerland is sort of in the middle of Europe, there are lots of places to fly to for dirt cheap prices.

Since I've been here, I've been watcihng a 7 year old girl named Sofia. She's a really sweet little girl who speaks three languages! French, Italian, and English. She loves to play, but doesn't always have so much time since she goes to an international school and always has lots of homework and piano lessons. It has been really fun getting to know her and I will miss her when I leave.

Which brings me to the next point. I will be leaving the day after tomorrow and heading to Denmark for an unspecified amount of time..probably around 2-4 weeks to be with my boyfriend. Which leads to another story that should be explained before going further. When I was living in Indiana, I lived 20 miles from the nearest city. It was hard to meet people, especially since I was having a hard time finding a job, so I joined this internet dating site. After awhile, I got a little frustrated with the selection and decided to end my membership, but just as I canceled it, this guy from Denmark popped up! The first time we chatted (a little over a year ago), it felt like I had known him forever. To make a long story short(er), we decided to meet after a few months of talking for hours each day. For various reasons, visiting each other's homes was a little out of the question, so we decided to pick a place to travel to and chose to visit Belize in late June. We met in Houston and flew to Belize together, traveling around the country for about 2 weeks and having a blast! It was a great vacation and everything just instantly clicked between us. I was planning on moving to Europe in the fall, so we decided to try a long-distance relationship for awhile, with the goal of eventually living in the same place.

When I moved to France, we visited each other on a regular basis and over time, got closer and closer. During this time, we began researching how we could live in the same place. There are all sorts of things that you don't really think about that we had to consider. Living in a country where we know the language, where we can both legally work, where we both have a chance of getting a job, etc all became important questions to find solutions to. So eventually, we made two important decisions..we would move to London, and we would get married before we moved. It sounds like a crazy story, I'm sure, but it has been such a fun time so far, and I think it will just keep getting better. Of course, there will be hard times, but I'm so looking forward to starting the next let of this exciting journey!!!

My last day of work is tomorrow and Wednesday I will lug my 3 1/2 suitcases onto a train and head towards Germany until Saturday, when I will take a 12 hour trip through Germany and into Copenhagen. I'm very much looking forward to the trip, as I've been really wanting to take a nice train ride! I will be staying in Stuttgart, Germany, which is where the car was invented. It doesn't look like the number one place to visit in Germany to me, but it's where my ticket to Copenhagen originates and I may try to find some more interesting places to visit while I'm there. It would be nice to visit Heidelberg, a cute university town that "looks more German" in my opinion, but it's supposed to rain/snow, so we'll see. No matter what, I'm excited, and will try to keep this blog updated more frequently now. I'm sure I'll have plenty of time on the train to write!!!

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