My 3 Year Long Distance Relationship Led Me Here

He lived in Switzerland and I lived in Australia. We had 16, 275 km between us. After 2 years we made a plan for one of us to move. ‘One of us’ being me.

Six months after making that decision, I said goodbye to my friends and family and moved to Germany where I could continue my studies (in English, thank heavens!) and be within reach of my love. I went on a student exchange, and seeing as my home university had no partnership with a business or fashion school (my majors) in Switzerland, I had to move to Germany. Although I was now thousands of kilometers closer to him, we still had a dreadful 3-4 hour train ride between us. And when delays or breakdowns occurred, it would take up to 7 hours. Nevertheless, we were much happier of course to be able to see each other every weekend. Before the move we had only been able to see each other twice a year. Reminding ourselves of this tiny fact made the journey more bearable 😉

However when my semester of studies was coming to an end, we realised  that 6 months just wasn’t enough. We weren’t ready for us to go back to long distance. This lead to 3 strenuous months of visa applications, job searching, and some clichéd blood, sweat and tears (minus the blood). After several interviews, countless emails, Skype calls, and way too many relunctant visits to the Bürgeramt (citizen administration office) I finally signed a contract with an au pair family. In between all of this I had final exams to write, essays to complete, presentations to give and friends to see as many of them were heading back to their home countries. My love and I also celebrated our 3rd year anniversary which helped remind us of why we’re going to so much trouble 😄. But despite having signed a contract, the challenges just kept on coming. My student visa had by then expired, it was not guaranteed that the au pair visa application would be approved and I had to give up my room in the student dormitory. I didn’t know where to go or what to do.Where would I live while I waited for the visa to be approved? What if the visa was not granted? Would I have to go back to Australia immediately? How would I say goodbye to my love and pack all my things and book a flight in time? Well that’s another story… After more drama then I can find the energy to write about and much dejection and frustration, I finally moved in with my au pair family! 😅 

So here I am now still living in Germany with approximately 4 more months worth of weekends to see my love. There are still some complications such as the fact that I don’t actually have the physical visa in my hands and therefore have not been able to see my love for 3 weeks, but I’m here. I never thought I’d ever au pair, especially not in a foreign non-English speaking country. But then again, I’ve done so many things this year I thought I’d never do. I better go back and find out what my new year’s resolutions were for this year. I probably said something dumb like I want to learn German… Well here I am, living, eating, breathing German. Good job Tennessee 😅