First Post, Part II: How and Why I am Where I am

When I came back to Russia, from day one we started our distance relationship on msn and Skype. At first we were doing it English and I was trying to remember Spanish that I had learnt many years ago but had never really used it. As a result we now speak only Spanish. Very seldom I use English or Italian when I do not know a Spanish word.

Those who know, distance relationships are very hard to live and very hard to maintain, and I have already had one of this and did not want to have another one. However, everything in general was going very well between us, we were getting to know each other more and more. In the beginning M. wanted to come to Russia in summer working very hard during the tourism season in Chile. But then, we decided to go to Rome, the most romantic city for me, the city where I spent 3 wonderful university years, and the city I am in love with. We went to Rome in May 2008 and that’s where we had the chance to get to know each other well. We obviously spent a wonderful time and this time it was my turn to be a tourist guide for M.

When we returned back to our countries, we started to think how we are going to continue our relationship. And that was the time when we started to think about getting married. Some women remember with all details how her husband proposed her, but I can’t remember anything on how it all happened, how we decided to get married. I asked today M. if he remembered, but surprisingly he did not remember the details either. Anyway, I think it does not really matter when you are already married.

We obviously continued to talk everyday on Skype planning our future. The next step before we could get married and move to live together was to get to know each others’ parents, and for M. to ask my parents if he could marry their daughter. It can sound really out of fashion or very ‘machistic’ but here in Russia or at least at my family, this is more the act of respect. 

It was planned that M. will come to Russia in August and that’s when he was going to meet my parents. Unfortunately, my parents were in some business trip when M. was coming and were supposed to go on vacation to Spain in August, and it would be really little time for M. to get to know my family well. Thanks to my mom, we booked a holiday apartment with my parents in Spain, and spent 3 weeks in Moscow and 10 days in Spain together with my parents. And that’s when it was formally decided that we would get married. My parents were very happy that we had planned to live in Russia, even though for us it was difficult to decide whether to live in Russia (where we had a house and I had a job) or live in Chile (where we had to start everything almost from scratch).

In November 2008 it was my turn to get to know M.’s family and I went to Chile. We spent about a week in Santiago because M. had to do some paper staff there, and then we went to Punta Arenas. I had a very warm welcome by M’s family there and enjoyed 100% of my time with them and with M.

M. arrived to Moscow on the 30th of December and celebrated the New Year (it is a big deal in Russia like Christmas for most of you) with my family. On the 31st of January we got married and in a week we left for our honeymoon to Mexico.

Each of these events deserves a separate post, and I hope to do them one of these days.

It is probably all what I wanted to write about our love story with M., but my post has not been finished and I will continue explaining “How and Why I am Where I am” in the next one.