Unsere Hochzeit

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Let's not kid ourselves--these little histories are only written by the bride-to-be. Our intendeds are too distracted by our awesomeness to put their thoughts into words. So here's the whole of the story, from my ever-impartial perspective.

Cambridge, England

(where it all began)

It all began in 2006 on the eve of the 5th of November, which my extensive research taught me was a holiday of some importance in England. The night held a carnival atmosphere--like a July 4th celebration, but with burning effigies.

I was in England as a part of an MIT-Cambridge exchange program. Two friends on the exchange, Xing and Arjun, brought along some people they'd met at their college, Fitzwilliam.

You can see where this is going. But I have to take a moment to warn you of the tragic--scandalous?--truth. Stefan and I have a relationship built on a lie. Deception. Falsehood.

Let me explain.

After a few beers and with a while to wait before the fireworks, I wanted to take a spin on some of the carnival rides and asked if anyone was interested. Mona, another MIT student, was in, and so was one of the guys from Fitzwilliam. And boy was he cute!

Stefan Pabst does. Not. Like. Carnival rides. I've had to beg, cajole, and drag him onto anything that spins, turns, or coasts since. But on that magic night...

We chatted and flirted in line. Laughed as we whirled through the air. It turned out we had been in the same classes for a month now and never noticed each other. Dizzy, we made our way back to the others in time for the fireworks. How many people can say there were fireworks the night they met?

Stefan pulled out all the stops to sweep me off my feet. Two weeks after we'd met, and he surprised me with an amazing homemade layered birthday cake. I found out later via his housemates that he had nearly destroyed their kitchen trying to pulverize hazelnuts by hand. We went out for romantic dinners, took up salsa dancing, and bought season tickets for a chamber orchestra. We roadtripped all over Germany. In hindsight, he may have exhausted all his "gentlemanly behavior" in one blow, but it worked--I was head over heels!

My mom had warned me not to fall for a British boy while I was abroad, but I'd found my loophole in the end.

The long distance game

(the hard part)

After seven amazing months in Cambridge, reality returned and Stefan and I had to part ways, me for the US and him for Germany. Thus began the Dark Times. I've never been particularly good at the long distance game. I can't focus on phone calls, don't like to talk about my day if it wasn't particularly interesting, and have a hard time working around time zones.

Still, we tried the best we could. There were fights, and one afternoon in December when we broke up. Skype and willpower saw us through.

The hardest part about long distance is not knowing when it's going to end. When people ask me if long term relationships work, I feel a bit hypocritical but I always answer "No!" What made our relationship last wasn't figuring out how to be apart, it was surviving until we knew there'd be an end to the separation.

Brief reunions

(can't keep me awwaaay from you)

There's nothing like trying to plan an international trip on an undergraduate salary. (In my case, that would be negative $5000/yr.) We spent nine months apart--longer than we'd been together--before our first brief reunion. Stefan saved up and flew out to Boston to see me and have a little east coast vacation.

I can't say the trip was quite what he imagined, what with it being his first time in the US. There was no whirlwind tour of Niagra Falls and the Grand Canyon. We didn't roadtrip down Route 66. We did spend a few days in New York City before returning to Boston. And we flew to visit my family for Easter, which turned into a full tour of O'Hare airport when Stefan's connection was delayed for a day. But otherwise, it was mostly time spent together at MIT. Me scrambling to finish my requirements in time for graduation, him patiently dealing with my stress.

My first job as an MIT grad was working retail selling beads and jewelry findings. I wanted a physics-free summer before grad school, and this was a fun way to do it and save up for a trip to Deutschland. In August, I finally saw Stefan again. This was the visit that convinced us to make it work. Stefan set out to find a place in the US to go to grad school. I was already set to attend UIUC in the fall, so he concentrated his efforts on the Chicago area. He even took the GRE tests on his next US visit that October and started applying to grad schools.

We would find an end to our separation.

Chicago/Urbana, IL

(it's not the same zip code, but we'll take it!)

Stefan found a research position at Argonne National Lab, just outside Chicago. He began hunting for apartments before coming over. One day he tells me about the nice guy he met on Craigslist--he had a room in his house for rent, and he even offered to pick Stefan up from the airport and show him around Chicago.

Um.

I tried to explain how this was not a smart plan, how I didn't wait this long to be reunited only to have Stefan end up murdered by a Craigslist crazy person. But I couldn't pick Stefan up from the airport myself--I can't even remember why now--and Stefan was insistent.

Turns out Bob is a pretty cool guy. An architect who mostly lives in another city, but rents out his house in Oak Park, one of the nicer neighborhoods outside Chicago. Stefan rented a room and by spring, we at last found ourselves again on the same continent, though not in the same zip code. Every weekend became a special event, one of us traveling to the other. Always something fun on the agenda.

I look back on our time in Illinois with warm memories. Such busy weekends were exhausting, but for the first time in a long while, I was free to use my weekends how I wanted, unhurried by demanding schoolwork. Grad life required long hours and hard work as well, but there was now the flexibility to arrange my schedule how I wanted. And during the week, I was surrounded by awesome friends who made classes (taking and teaching them) as well as lab work far more entertaining.

Unfortunately, a national lab doesn't have nearly the same graduate student population as a university and beyond a few colleagues and housemates, Stefan's social life was limited to his weekends. We made the most of them, taking day trips, going to events in Chicago, and just getting in some much-needed face time.

In early 2010, we realized our days together were numbered. Stefan's advisor accepted a position in Hamburg, Germany, and was taking Stefan with him. Finding a new advisor in the US would have been very difficult for Stefan, since he was technically a student in Erlangen, Germany while working with a US research group. So I talked with my advisor about doing essentially what he'd been doing in the US--working with a Hamburg group while staying in her group at Urbana.

Fortunately, I have an understanding and flexible advisor. We made something work. Long story short, Stefan departed for Deutschland in July and by November, I was hot on his heels.

Hamburg, Germany

(adventures under one roof)

Not finished yet! Check back soon.

Wedding bells are gonna chime

(paperwork...lot's of paperwork)

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