Today is my 38th birthday. I’m celebrating in Prague for the second year in a row.
Each birthday, I write a post going over the past year. I write so much in my monthly recaps that you guys know what I’ve been up to the past year — visiting my final three Italian regions; spending another winter in Mexico; falling madly in love with Naples, Italy; welcoming a new might-as-well-be-a-nephew; canceling a road trip in Iceland because I can’t drive a manual car.
I also managed to avoid COVID, despite two very close calls this past year. Still haven’t had it. (I reach down and knock my hardwood floor every time I say that.)
But there were two big things that I didn’t mention here yet.
Charlie and I are engaged!
Charlie asked me to marry him when we were in Lake Como in July! And I said yes!
I share bits and pieces of life with Charlie here, but I keep most of the personal relationship stuff private. We’ve been together more than three years now, and I don’t think I’ve talked much about how we got together.
Charlie and I met online in 2017. Charlie reached out to me saying that he saw I was planning a trip to Ukraine, and whether his company, JayWay Travel, could sponsor my trip there. I agreed and I ended up with a wonderful trip to Odessa, Kyiv, and a memorable day in Chernobyl. I loved Ukraine so much, I named it my favorite destination of 2017.
Charlie and I became Facebook friends and occasionally commented on each other’s posts, and we also had a ton of mutual friends. We finally met in person at the Traverse conference in Trento, Italy, in 2019. And we hit it off right away! So much that Charlie flew BACK to Italy a few days after getting home so we could travel more together.
That summer I ended up subletting my New York apartment for a few months; Charlie bought me a ticket to Azerbaijan for my birthday and planned a Georgia blog trip for us and our friends. That was the beginning of traveling to 14 countries together so far, two winters living in Mexico, and visiting 17 of Italy’s regions together.
Things got rough when 2020 hit. Suddenly we had to deal with a pandemic, getting banned from each other’s countries, and wading through red tape and ever-changing border closures to get back together. Not to mention the obliteration of the travel industry and our two businesses, all the financial stress…
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