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| Catching our final Truro train |
As most of you know, John and I made it back to the States
safe and sound. And yes, we have
been horrible bloggers in the past handful of months due to a variety of
reasons. Depending on the day,
these would give you an idea of what our excuse would be:
- Just too busy getting back into the swing of things
- Denial, absolute denial
- It just being too hard to look back
- Too busy eating Chipotle every night since we’ve been back
As easy as it would be to just never wrap up our blog due to
above stated excuses, I know that it’s important to take time to look back and
share in what our final days/months looked like for us, because the transition
from our home in Truro to our home in the States didn’t magically happen. In fact, there were a whole lot of
laughs, tears and memories along the way.
So as we have a whole lot of ground to cover, bear with us as we take
the time (and multiple blog posts) to look back.
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| Truro |
So let’s go all the way back to 38 Richmond Hill in Truro
mid-March where John and I were doing our best to juggle moving out of a home
in England, saying goodbye to jobs and friends, hosting parental visitors,
getting ready for three weeks of Spanish travel (with two separate sets of
parents) and doing our best to prep for figuring out logistics of living back
in the United States. Yep, things
were a little chaotic and to be honest, I don’t really know how we did it. But as everyone knows, in times of
chaos, you just need to get on with it.
So that’s just what we did.
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| Phil, Deb, John and I at the Blue Bar |
Our first logistical challenge was not only figuring out how
to get our stuff back to the States, but figuring out which stuff would even
come back with us. We knew getting
things from the UK to the US would be difficult (especially given that we would
be traveling and without a home for at least a month), so we did some research
and found a company that would send suitcases “door to door”. So we packed up a large suitcase and
large box with everything we knew we wanted back in the States (and didn’t need
during traveling) and sent it on its’ way! I say this as if it were easy, but I must admit, it was
definitely time consuming as US Customs is a bit strict. So we had to go through and write down
every last thing we packed up (yep, down to counting how many pairs of socks we
were sending), assign it a value, fill out lots of paperwork and then wait for
it to get picked up. A pain on the
front-end, but so incredibly worth it when the postman knocks on your door,
takes your suitcases and you won’t have to think about it again until you’re
back on US soil!
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| Phil and Deb at Charlotte's Tea House overlooking Truro |
On top of sending our important stuff back to the States, we
also had to figure out what to do with all of the house stuff we accumulated
over the time we lived on Richmond Hill.
The solution involved a camera and both of our workplaces. We decided to try selling as many of
our household items as possible and donate whatever items were left over. So off I went around the house taking
pictures of the most random items in hopes of selling them to a loving and
needing home. Once the pictures
were taken and a fair price set for each item, we printed them and took them to
both of our workplaces with the caveat that the items weren’t available until
the end of March. I mean, come on,
who wants to go without dishes and towels?!?! Our plan panned out because we were able to sell off the
majority of our things to people who were randomly “looking for a cheap DVD
player”, “hoping to replace my kitchen clock” and “needing a new tea kettle”
(to name a few).
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| Fun times renting a car! |
Along with slowly disassembling our home, we also had house
guests the week before and the week of moving out of our place. John’s parents were wonderful and brave
enough to make a return trip to Truro just as we were saying goodbye. Though things were a bit crazy, we had
some really nice moments with them both in Truro and in Cornwall. Since we hadn’t rented a car the last
time they visited, we decided to do so this time. We had a wonderful day leisurely enjoying Cornwall and its’
beautiful beaches, stopping for lunch overlooking the ocean and just taking in
the things we had grown to love about our England home. We were also able to take time to just
enjoy Truro and our home with Phil and Deb.
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| My bosses Angela and Mo at my Going Away Bowling Party |
As we entered the last week we would live in Truro, Phil and
Deb jetted off for a short trip to Paris before we all met up again in
Spain. Along with Phil and Deb
leaving came goodbyes in regards to our jobs. I finished my job at Trevails at the end of the prior week
and was lucky enough to have a goodbye party thrown for me by my coworkers. We ended up having a pretty awesome
night that started with bowling (have I ever mentioned that I love bowling?!)
and ended with an amazing Indian Dinner with some great friends from work.
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| The Trevails Crew |
As I ended my time at Trevails, I couldn’t help but be
thankful for the experience working there gave me. Was I bored out of my mind most of the time? Yes. Did I dislike having to work
weekends? Absolutely. But being there allowed me to really
experience what living life in England, namely Cornwall, means. I was able to learn some fantastic
English phrases. I made some close
and dear friends. I learned how to
have a good laugh about my American-isms.
And more than anything, I learned what kind hearts the Cornish have.
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| John's work Farewell Party |
As I finished work the week before and then spent our last
week at home wrapping things up, John worked until the very end. He had a bittersweet ending at the
Royal Cornwall Hospital as he loved his job there, yet knew the program he put
together was finally up and running on its own. I must admit that in moving abroad, I was a bit worried
about John. He is very much a creature
of habit and likes to know what lies ahead, so I was a bit nervous for him as
he was jumping into a complete unknown and leaving a job in the States he
really loved. But he surprised me
in multiple ways. He not only took
on all the challenges of moving, living and working somewhere completely
foreign, but more than anything, he embraced and enjoyed it. He showed me how amazing he was at what
can be an incredibly hard task – adapting. Not only did John take on this adventure of living, working
and traveling abroad, he excelled at it.
I felt like in our relationship I already knew so much about this
wonderful man, but here I was learning even more.
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| The last day of our lives in Truro - one last drink at Uneeka |
So as all the craziness and chaos continued, it came time to
finally say our goodbye to Truro.
We spent the week doing things and then saying “this is going to be the
last time we…..” as most people do before they leave a place for good. We spent time on our back deck
wondering what the future would hold for us in the States. We did a final dinner at our favorite
restaurant, Chantek. We walked by
the Cathedral and made a point of really taking it in. We tried to soak up as many of the
mundane details of our lives in Truro as we humanly could. And on our last day, we walked
hand-in-hand to our absolute favorite place in Truro, the coffee shop
Uneeka. We sat upstairs both
trying to take it all in, yet not have a public breakdown. A hard line to walk.
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| Right before we left for the train station :-( |
After a mocha and a latte, we made the final walk through
town and up Richmond Hill to grab our bags and say goodbye to the place we made
a home. It was a hard goodbye, but
as most know, easier to do since the empty place no longer resembled the happy
home we had made there. The time
then came to grab our bags and head to the train station. And as we made our way up the hill, we
realized that we were cutting it close (as we always did when it came to
catching a train). Due to a long
line we barely got our tickets printed out in time, proceeded to run across the
platform with our suitcases and hopped on the train with little time to
spare. So here we were leaving in
the same way we came……in a whirlwind of unknowns, both fear and excitement
about what lay ahead.
