A Trip Across the Pond : Matthew

One of my most overdue blog entries has to be the most exciting one as well.

Matthew is living here now!

He arrived on Sunday February 2nd and I could not be happier. When I first came back here after Christmas, I had a really really rough time. I was all alone for a week because Gabel was still in Africa and I just had no idea if Matthew was going to be able to get his working visa or not. I felt stuck in limbo and so incredibly depressed. Matthew and I had survived our three months apart (which was really great for both of us and I'm proud of it) but I realized it was not something I could ever do again. I was in such a dark place. When Gabel came back it definitely helped me but every day was a struggle as Matthew and I waited to hear about his working visa. I remember on January 24th when he texted me to say he got it. Gabel and I had just gotten home from grocery shopping and I felt my phone vibrate. I looked down and say that he had just texted me "Meddy." Nothing else. And I instantly felt tense and anxious because I knew he had gotten the email I just didn't know if he had gotten accepted or denied. I waited for him to clarify while holding onto the counter for support and luckily the following text message was a screen shot of the acceptance email. I would just have to wait two weeks for him to come. Anything was doable though once I knew that he would indeed be coming.

It wasn't without a hiccup or two though. Extreme weather back home contributed to delayed flights on his end and when he finally landed he missed the bus he was supposed to take to get to Southampton. That wouldn't have been as bad but none of luggage made it to England. I'll never forget what it felt like to see him get off the bus in Southampton. It was about 3 hours later than planned but despite the headaches, I could literally see the relief in his eyes when he saw me and I just finally felt settled again. Everything was right in the world once he got here.

* check the bottom of this blog entry for Matthew's hilarious diary of his struggles to get to England

Matthew's luggage was delivered the next day luckily and Matthew spent his first week unpacking and settling. When he had been visiting me in December, he had made a lot of passing comments about how he would redo the bedroom if he came back and things he wanted to get for himself. I had made many mental notes of it at the time and had secretly gone out to buy some of those things from IKEA and redid the bedroom layout the way he wanted so he surprised when he arrived. Alex was also visiting from Switzerland and so the two of them would hang out all day watching Breaking Bad while Gabel and I went to work. We always joked that her and I were the breadwinners while our stay at home husbands slept in every day and watched show after show! I'll give them credit that one day they went out sightseeing. The two of them went off to Salisbury which is a town about 30 minutes away from Southampton. It's the closest major town to Stonehenge and it has the most stunning cathedral in the southwest so the two of them went to explore that. It was built in the 1200's and during WWII the Germans were expressly forbid from bombing it because it is so tall that it acted as their point of navigation to the south. If they could find the cathedral then they knew they could find Southampton not too far away where a major ammunitions factory was located. The cathedral bears some of my favourite stained glass I've ever seen.

Matthew luckily got a job right away. He technically works for a company called Team People but more directly he works for Intel, the lovely company responsible for the processor that is most likely inside your computer right now. His job is exciting because they get to travel around quite a bit doing video shoots so he's been all over London and up to Cheltenham in the Cotswolds. I love that he's able to see the country while working because he's able to sort of catch up to me in the sightseeing department. He is currently at a conference in Copenhagen, Denmark and then in another couple months he has a conference in Portugal lined up! The pay is fabulous and the work is interesting but of course there's a catch. The job is located in Swindon which technically is only about a 50 minute drive north of Southampton but to train there it takes anywhere from an hour and a half to two hours one way! And training is very expensive as well. It costs him 27£ a day to train to work. Just crazy! Nothing is ever perfect though and I would rather him have a job he loves with a crazy commute than a job he hates with an easy commute.

In his second week here I played hookie one day and toured him around Southampton. I'll attach some pictures below but please take note of the bright sun in every picture. Matthew loves grumbling that it rains here all the time but it really doesn't! I'll give him that February was the wettest winter in 250 years in England but we did have some sunny days and these pictures are proof. So far March has been lovely, sunny, and warm for the most part.

It's been funny observing Matthew here. He's never lived on his own before and so he gets quite prone to saying things like "Ugh I just cleaned the kitchen; how is it dirty again?!" and "Grrr we have to do laundry AGAIN?" and he just generally seems to have been disillusioned by how often we have to clean or wash the dishes (no dishwasher here unless you count us!). It's really funny and one day I said to him "hmm you've never lived on your own before… you'll get used to it!"

Matthew, Gabel, and I have tons of fun together. I still get homesick from time to time and miss my family, friends, and of course Gizmo, but at least I'm not heartsick anymore. We are so looking forward to all our travelling adventures together and this experience has been fabulous so far.

Upon Matthew's arrival