It was one year ago today that we packed all our stuff and flew half way around the world to start our big adventure. On one hand it seems like the time has flown by and on the other when we look at all the events we missed (births, weddings, moves, the Olympics, etc.) we realize that it really has been a while since we’ve been away. While of course there have been some challenges with uprooting and moving to a new country, overall the experience has been overwhelmingly positive. We have had the opportunity to visit so many great places and meet a number of wonderful people who have become great friends. We talked recently about how glad we are that we seized the opportunity and ran with it.
Now that the first year is complete we are starting to look at what the next year will hold for the two of us. In late September we’ll both come back to Vancouver, but after a short visit Catherine will go back to Sweden and I’ll stay in Canada. I’m going to restart my job and Catherine will continue her research here as well as start a cool new project (which she can write about later). We expect that Catherine will be able to spend some time working at UBC and hopefully I’ll make one trip over to Europe, but for the most part we will be apart. It will definitely be a challenge being apart, but we’re both busy people so we’ll make it work. Stay tuned for all the crazy high jinx of Year Two!
For those keeping score at home, here are the countries we have visited in the last year (in order of appearance):
- Czech Republic
- Poland
- Hungary
- Austria
- Sweden
- Denmark
- Canada
- Croatia
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Estonia
- Hong Kong
- Germany
- The Netherlands
And we’ll be adding Norway and France to the list in the next couple weeks!
You have visited more European countries than I have in my 29 years I lived in Germany :-). I would add Italy to your list though.