fifteen years is a long time

also I am notoriously bad at remembering my own anniversaries

On our second wedding anniversary my husband and I were living apart whilst I finished up my job and he set up in the new city. It was a regular workday in July. After lunch someone from HR came to tell me I had a delivery at the front and I needed to sign for it. I stayed, sat in my chair and looked at her like she was trying to pull a prank. I hadn’t ordered anything to be delivered at the office, and I couldn’t think of any reason why someone would send me something. She smiled and explained that there was a flower delivery for me, and I, still sitting, said there was no way anyone had sent me flowers. In the end I do not know how she got me to go sign for them, probably because when I read the card I learned the flowers and box of chocolates were from my husband. Because it was our anniversary.

Here’s photo evidence of how amused, amazed, and embarrassed I was at the whole thing:

Last Saturday my husband said he wanted to take me on a walk and that the location would be a surprise. He promised it would be a fun afternoon of drinking in the city. We got off the metro and I was chattering away, as I do, not really paying attention to our surroundings, or where we were going. We crossed a street and there was probably a cute dog that had pulled my attention when Tom raised our clasped hands and patted mine. He said that 15 years ago I had moved to Prague and that to celebrate he had brought me to one of two Czech pubs in Barcelona.

I had completely forgot that my expat anniversary, what we used to call a Pragueaversary when I lived in Prague, was on 2 April. Actually, I took off from Spokane, Washington on 31 March, but the cheapest ticket I could afford had me stopping over in both New Jersey and Poland for over six hours each. Landing me in Prague on 2 April, 2009. I was 23 years old.

I’ve lived my entire adult life in Europe and I still forgot my own damn anniversary!

Living abroad for so long, you would think I had a catalogue of stories to tell. I supposed I do, and I want to tell some of those stories, but I don’t know how. Not yet. Posts like this one and the previous one — in which I tell a story about applying for a UK residency visa — are my first, meagre attempts at summing up my experiences.

One of my favourite people I met in Prague, one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, recommended I read a book called Berlin, written by Bea Setton. It’s about a British woman living as an expat. In Berlin. Obviously. I’m about half-way through and reading it is a bit overwhelming. Little details she gets exactly right transport back into my memories. The broader themes are incredibly familiar. And the technicalities of how she constructed her story is something I want to learn from. I think it’s time to give myself permission to read it once through for fun and then once more again for craft.

Back to my anniversary — I have a gluten allergy so many of my favourite Czech pub items were off the menu. No smažený sýr (fried cheese), no pivo (beer). In an accidental recreation of many nights out when the bar was too dirty to have a proper kitchen I had nakládaný hermelín (pickled cheese). It was so oily and garlicy and everything I remembered. And while they didn’t have any tuzemský (Czech rum) for drinking, only cooking, they did have Becherovka. A strong Czech spirit made from various herbs.

My favourite part of the afternoon was that I got to hear my husband speak Czech with our server. I don’t get to hear that often anymore and it’s always charming.

Šťastné výročí! Happy Anniversary to me!

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