Getting to know you (again)!

Hi! I haven't been on here in a long time. My life didn't go as I planned it. After years of traveling the world, dating and almost marrying a guy from the UK, I ended up marrying a guy who I've known since 7th grade and has been one of my best friends since high school. 
We got married in March and found out we were moving to Nashville, Tn in May- on the same day the whole city flooded. We apt searched the wkend after that, and moved less than two weeks later. Married life has been hectic so far- it's been one thing after another.

I always thought I'd end up in the UK. I haven't even visited in 2 1/2 years.  I haven't posted on here much lately. I know now I'm most likely never going to get to live in the UK again, and that makes me kinda sad. But I'm very happy with my life in Tennessee.  My husband and I might be heading to London in 2012 to see the olympics.

Hi all,
Mrs. R - so glad you started this thread!  I have been so curious to know more details about all of you who have made such a difference during my move this year to the UK. 

I found UKY on a google search once my husband approached his CEO in the SF Bay Area with a proposal to open a tech support office for their smallish company in Europe.  We originally wanted to land in Spain, France or Italy, but when his boss (surprisingly) was favorable to the idea, but offered UK (due to the presence of a subsidiary here), I needed to do some research pronto!  And there you all were.   

Since DH could work anywhere in the UK (sounded wonderful at the time, but turned out to be overwhelming), we moved here and looked around for a few weeks before settling in Bath in October. 

In my pre-UK life, I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area (near Los Gatos, too!) and moved back there after undergrad at UCLA and Med School at Dartmouth.  I married my high school sweetheart, who is still the best looking and most wonderful man I have ever met, even 25 years and 3 kids later. 

I have been working as a gynecologist for 20 years in San Jose. I feel so fortunate that my practice allowed me a one year sabbatical so that we could experience a year abroad as a family.  What an amazing opportunity.

So, my world has totally changed.  Now I am a domestic goddess, doing laundry up the yin yang, going to the market daily, doing all the cooking my little heart desires. Luckily, I love to cook - if only I could figure out the flour thing, my baking would be so much better.  I am also -gasp!- homeschooling my 3 kids, ages 8, 11 and 14.  My friends at home are amazed I am able to do this without taking recreational drugs (so far).  What a difference from my usual world of delivering babies, doing incontinence surgery and endless pap smears!  And lots of take out.  I also blog for my friends/family back home (www.arewethereyetmom.us) and am indulging my love of WW2 history under the guise of homeschooling the kids .  Oh yeah,  I am also the family travel agent, planning as many European adventures as our decreased income will allow.

I can already tell that a year will be way too short for me.  I am love, love, loving my life here in Bath.  Just about every day, I pinch myself as I walk back up hill from the city centre with the ingredients for tonight's dinner, saying "I can't believe I actually get to live here."  Septic, I am so with you - listening to some lovely strain of music as I walk past the Abbey feels so dreamy.   Of course, that won't stop me from kvetching every now and again with you all on UKY. 

Hi, I'm Jennifer, and this is almost my second anniversary on UKY. I live in Florida, but lived in NY when I was younger. I prefer the cold, although I can't live without being close to the ocean!

I came to London for a semester abroad in 2003, and fell in love with the UK. I knew I wanted to live there for an extended period of time, but like so many others, struggled to find a way to get there on the economic track. My BA is in history, so you can imagine people were falling all over themselves to hire me . At the time, I didn't know I was eligible for EU citizenship (my mother's family is from Italy), so I went back on BUNAC for a second time at the end of 2004. Although I had many ups and downs, I loved it even more. I fell in love with someone in a way I haven't been since, and I was almost hired to work for a US university in London, but at the last minute they decided they weren't going to try to go for sponsorship. I was heartbroken, and had to return home.

I thought the desire to live in England would pass over the years, but it has intensified. I have applied to have my Italian citizenship recognized and have been waiting for the paperwork to be processed in Italy. After that, I suppose I can move over whenever I want.

I got my master's in teaching two years ago, but was laid off after my first year. It's just as well because I realized that I didn't want to be a classroom teacher during the first month. I like working with young people, but I hate corralling children -- aka classroom management. I think I would make a better guidance counselor than a teacher, but I would have to get a second master's to do that. By a stroke of luck, I was recently hired to be an international student advisor at my local university after 11 months of unemployment. Basically, I'm an immigration advisor, and I absolutely love what I do. I love working at a university, and I love counseling my students. I hope to work at a British university in student affairs, especially in an international office. I'd like to get an OISC qualification in the future to make me more marketable.

I recently adopted my first dog ever. He is an adorable beagle named Baxter. He is a total snugglebunny, and I'm so glad I have him.

So, in sum, I want to go back to the UK. However, as with all major life decisions, I have some trepidation. I am really close to my family, and it will be hard not seeing them often. The one thing I really missed when I was in the UK last time was feeling like part of a family. I also will need to find a dog-friendly flat. I also know that plenty of people here have had to take jobs outside of their field or jobs that they were overqualified for, and that concerns me because I feel like I finally found a career that I am doing really well in and want to keep growing in it. Also, the cost of living is intimidating, considering I am from dirt-cheap Florida.

However, I firmly believe that you can always go home again, and if the second (well, really, third) time around turns out to be a disaster, if I discover that this isn't what I really wanted anymore after all, then I can turn around and go back. But I will never feel settled or content in my life until I try. So I guess that answers the "should I go?" question.

A little more about me: I love cheese, pasta, and a delicious steak. I have a DIY streak - I rehabbed a $5 thrift store desk recently and turned a beat-up half of an old armoire into a stand for my turtle tank. I am learning how to sew. I like true crime and mystery shows - Prime Suspect with Helen Mirren is a favorite series. And I'm really glad UKY is here!

CAAdventuress another South Bay gal!    So you said near to Los Gatos, I'm guessing Campbell or Saratoga?  You don't have to say, I just like guessing. 

Glad you're loving Bath, it truly is a beautiful place. 

Sarajoyhappy,
I grew up in LG until age 12, then Cupertino, now own a house in Willow Glen. 
My Mom lives in LG, sister and brother in Willow Glen and brother in Santa Cruz.
Small world, eh? 

I went to the 49er game at Wembley and the couple next to us was from LG too!  I swear, there aren't even 6 degrees of separation anymore.

I am loving Bath - especially gorgeous with a dusting of snow and the Christmas Market. 

Thanks for participating on this thread - everyone who has done so, so far!

After the first of the year, I'll do a revised/updated Quick Links again - for Getting to know you...

I've just been busy, busy, busy for the past month or so, and no sign of that changing until after the new year.

Hope everyone is having great holidays! 

i dont think i ever went to the welcome wagon part oopsie! heh but im Caitlin, im 26 years old, i live in Connecticut and im planning to move to Scotland with my fiance Denise sometime next year, we plan on getting married November 17th

Where im going in Scotland: Blackburn/Bathgate Scotland, they are like very close together so thats why i did it that way

My family: ehhh....we dont get along too well were not really all that close, yet i'll miss them like hell when i move, Denise's family is my real family

interests: improv which i wanna do professionaly one day that and acting as well

job: eh i work at TJ Maxx

no pets or kids, one day with both though

This is such a good thread and I'll add my story after I do a bit of grocery shopping. But it's so nice to hear how so many of the moderators and people who have been around UKY for awhile came about! Love, love, love it!

Howdy Doody all. Grocery shopping got put off, but I'm back to tell my story. I actually did another WW update the other day before I found this thread, but here it goes:

I'm Arica, 25, from Washington State. And my story isn't unlike a lot of other members here. I met my boyfriend on Social Me, an app on Facebook. We talked for about 6 months before we decided to meet up. I found myself (and a friend of mine at the time) on a plane to London in February 2009. We only spent 2 days together, but that seemed enough. 3 weeks later, he came to visit me for 10 days. We got on really well and had a fantastic time. From there we started to plan on when it was feasible to see each other next. We decided on June and at 23, I found myself flying over to a foreign country, on my own, which was to say the least, a bit daunting. It's funny how when we were apart for 2 months, we thought it was the longest, most agonizing time of our lives. Now, 2 months doesn't seem so long between visits (especially when some people on this board have been apart for far longer than that).

I stayed in Portsmouth with him and his family for 2 weeks. We went to the Isle of Wight Festival and to a family wedding. I met everyone and we all had a blast. They treated me like I was part of the family. Still warms my heart to think about it now.

When I returned to the USA, the plans for another trip started. I found myself going over to England again in July - this time for 3 months. Boy, the IO did not like that and I found myself detained for 7 hours (which is another story entirely). On this trip, talk of us seriously being together in the same country came up. He wanted to go back to uni, so it seemed logical that I would try to get some sort of visa to move to the UK. We began to look into it (this is how I came across UKY) while I was still on my 3 month visit, but found that work visas were extremely tough to get and marriage seemed like way forward. I was a bit hesitant at first, because I'd been there, done that before. But soon the hesitation wore off as I realized this was the man that I was meant to be with.

I returned home in October of 2009 and I kept up with UKY, researching visas, costs, life in the UK and all the goodness that comes with this board. Our next time together was December 2009, when he came to visit for Christmas. This time he met my entire family (I've got a massive family) and again, good times were had by all.

I work for my parents, so that helps when I want to make trips away. So in March of 2010, I found myself on another plane, landing in Heathrow. I was scheduled to stay for 3 weeks, but the volcano had other plans and I was able to stay for 2 more weeks. Back in February, my boyfriend had been accepted to the University of Sheffield, so for most of the time, he was studying and what not, and most importantly becoming stressed out. Our talk of a quicky marriage in Vegas was being pushed back further and I could tell that something was off. Call it woman's intuition, but I had a feeling that when I left in April, that things would change.

Fast forward to May and we had broken up (I left UKY around this time). I was completely heartbroken (not even my divorce was this bad), but still we maintained contact, like we always had. Speaking everyday, nothing was really different, except there were no plans to see each other again. And now, let's fast forward to June 2010. A friend of mine and I were sitting in a bar, moaning about our jobs and kind of our lives in general. We had this wild idea that we should just "get out of here." She thought England would be a good idea and I told her that visas were very hard to come across. I suggested Australia as our friends had recently received a one year working holiday visa for cheap (less than 300 dollars). We left our plan alone thinking that it was due to a day drinking session, but my friend kept bringing it up. So we bought our tickets to Oz in August, with plans to travel just before Christmas. My friend wanted to see the UK as she'd never traveled outside of the US (apart from a couple weeklong trips to Mexico and Canada), so we decided to hit up Dublin and London. As I mentioned before, I was still talking to my, then ex, boyfriend. He suggested that we come to Portsmouth for Christmas (and his mother insisted, saying that no one should spend the holidays in a hotel).

We landed at Heathrow on Christmas Eve and as soon as I saw him all those feelings came rushing back (not to say that they were ever gone, just buried, perhaps). Needless to say, our romance was rekindled over the holidays, but I still had to continue on with my plan to live in Australia for a year.

My friend and I arrived in Australia at the beginning of last month, but immediately I knew this wasn't where I wanted to be. You could say that our planning of this move wasn't thought out and I like to call it a whim. Within a week of being here, I had booked a trip back to England for June, plus my friend was doing my head in (she's a big drinker, me not so much, and that was cause for many fights - again, a completely different story). She became homesick and left at the beginning of February and here I am, in Oz, waiting for June to arrive to go back to be with my love for 4 months. Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying this experience, because I've never lived on my own, but there's nothing like being surrounded by people who know and love you and that's what I feel whenever I'm in Portsmouth.

So looks like I'll be heading to Vegas in summer of 2012 to tie the knot (would be a lot sooner, but his school schedule prohibits this) and I'm happy as a lark and so grateful to be a part of this forum again. I feel like I need to get up to date again with all the visa fees and changes that have happened in my absence and will happen before I apply. Everyone here is a wealth of information and so extremely kind. I'm looking forward to meeting some of you when I eventually get settled (most likely in Sheffield).

As many have stated on here, LDRs are not easy by any means, and throw in the factor of being on two different continents and it's possible to go mad. But I think that with A LOT of communication, trust, and faith (among other things), these things have a way of working themselves out.

I think I may have gone into too much detail there, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it! 

Oh yes, I enjoy reading (mostly romantic suspense and mysteries), editing (I'm a huge word nerd and I used to edit filth - as my boyfriend calls it - for an online publisher), and it looks like I'm enjoying parentheses at the moment. I'm loving traveling and since I live about 10 minutes from a beach, sunbathing isn't too bad either (yes, I can get darker and yes, this is another parentheses).

Whew! Any questions?! 

Glad to be back and great thread, Mrs. R!

I love reading these! Hi everyone !!! *waves*

I love reading these! Hi everyone !!! *waves*

And it's your turn, isn't it? 

Greetings from the West Midlands!

I'm Jenni, born and raised in southeastern MA (Taunton to be precise).  Moved to Arizona for about seven years (in Phoenix and the West Valley) then moved back to MA at the end of 2001.  Ended up at the other end of the state (near Springfield) near my ex-roomie from college. 

Having stumbled across the show on PBS shortly before leaving AZ (God bless KAET!) I joined the Red Dwarf fanclub and started posting on their online message board in about March 0f 2002. That summer a new poster nicknamed Slices joined the board.  In December he'd installed Trillian so was adding folks from the board.  We started chatting and (unknown to each other) developed an interest in each other.  In late January I was chatting with our mutual friend Patrick and he was saying how he'd suggested Alex send a valentine to one of the single gals on the board, he then listed them all APART FROM ME!  I seem to recall telling Patrick off for not including me in his suggestion 

The next evening I was chatting in seperate windows with both Alex and Patrick when Patrick suggested we all go into a chat room as it would be easier.  Once there he played cupid and let us know that both of us had been feeling the same way about each other then gracefully left the chat 

Then followed nearly three years of LDR, with visits back and forth while he finished his final year at Uni and I continued to work.  He got offered a job with BT after graduation and we got engaged just after 2 years in February 2005.  I moved to the UK on a fiancee visa that September and we were married five years ago this coming Thursday 

We were originally living down in Bedfordshire (Leighton Buzzard) but spending so much time coming up to Coventry to visit his family that we decided to move.  We bought a house a short walk from his Mum & Dad and I went back to school to do an NVQ in Children's Care Learning & Development (bit of a change from working in Human Resources and Unemployment Benefits).  After loads of interviews I was offered a position at a local preschool playgroup.  I had a break from that in 2008 to have our daughter Jean, went back and and now on maternity leave again and about a week away from baby #2. Got my citizenship in 2009.

I love reading, crafts, music, and spending time with Jean.  I like to do a bit of baking but haven't done anything too complicated.  Done some experimenting with growing our own fruit and veg with some success.  Love traveling, especially the Lake District so far.

Sorry so long!

Hehe...love the connection with Red Dwarf, Slices. DH uses the online name Ace Rimmer all the time.  Love that show!

Okay, so I'm Jewlz... born and raised in Dallas, Texas. Lived outside Chicago for a year when I was fifteen, but that was my biggest adventure up until I met my DH. I have a Bachelors degree in Photography and English, and was working on an MFA in Art and Technology when I went onto Second Life for a course on Virtual Worlds and met DH. He's really into online gaming, mostly Call of Duty, but an online friend had convinced him to go on Second Life and check it out. So we bumped into each other, literally. I had no idea what I was doing and my avatar had something stuck to her hand and I was trying to get that off when I ran into his avatar (god, this sounds so nerdy... lol.) Anyway, he said something cheeky, and I laughed and asked how to take the stupid thing off my hand and then we started chatting on there and went around checking out various places on the map, etc. We exchanged email addresses and then pictures, and then after a little while we started using Skype, and then we met in person in London and then we traveled back and forth for a year and then we got married and then I moved to England. Tada! 

I moved here in July 2008 and now have Indefinite Leave to Remain. I live in Northumberland in a small seaside village and hope it stays that way forever. 

Nice to meet you all. Again. 

Wow, I can't believe I never knew this thread was here these last few months. I've known some of you guys for years and never knew some of these things about you! Neato! 

Umm... I guess I didn't say much about myself, really, compared to some of the other things I just read, so I'll try to elaborate a bit. I work in the HR department for a group of schools here in our county and really enjoy it, but it's extremely fast-paced, therefore I have been exhausted and haven't posted on here as much during the last few months. I've also had some health problems and other unpleasant issues in the 8 months, so I've been a little despondent, I guess. It helped when I used to have an extremely boring job which allowed plenty of time to post on here while I was being held hostage at work. 

Things I like:
Music (mostly bands like White Lies, Muse, Radiohead, and other alternative rock type stuff)
Films (Anything quirky and/or with dark humour like Wes Anderson films, etc. and I also watch quite a few foreign films)
TV (True Blood, Boardwalk Empire, period stuff like Downton Abbey)
Books (nearly always fiction - mostly current literary type stuff, bestsellers or whatever, and also some classics. I also love the Sookie Stackhouse books... in all their cheesy glory!)
Photography (these days I love theory and criticism more than the actual practice)
Animals (I have a cat and a dog, who love each other)
Travel (I've only been to Greece so far besides UK and USA, so I hope to travel more!)
Cooking... and eating! I mostly cook English comfort type food and stir fries. I especially love Thai food and Greek food. I do a bit of baking, just simple stuff, though.
Walking on the beach and dunes around Northumberland, which, to me, is the most beautiful place in the world!

Some other things about me:
I have a four year old stepson who I adore, though I find being a stepmom to be a challenge sometimes. I've had a big learning curve. I have no children of my own, at least, not yet. Not sure what the future will hold, but no plans in the works!

I am jealous of anyone who is bilingual, or multilingual. I took Spanish lessons for four years and showed some promise, but have never been able to bridge the gap. I hope I can manage to do that one day. I'd really love to learn some other languages, too, if I get a hold on that one.

I've always loved music, and always wanted to learn to play guitar, just can't seem to get down to actually learning. If that makes sense. Hopefully one day!

I guess that's me in a nutshell! 

Walking on the beach and dunes around Northumberland, which, to me, is the most beautiful place in the world!

Second that!!  Hope you're getting a chance to do just that.