{My Story + Our Story}

I've been seeing a few new faces around here lately, so today I thought it might be a good idea to take a break from all of the Namibia posts and tell you a bit more about who I am and how I came to be an expat living in South Africa.  Sometimes it's fun to go back to the basics, right?

First things first, 

I'm a born and bred Southern California girl and my parents and brother still happily call the sunshine state home.  In fact, my brother and I went to the same primary school as my mom and the same high school where my parents met and became high school sweethearts.

For my undergraduate degree, I went to a university quite close to home, mostly because it offered amazing study abroad opportunities {let's be serious here}.  I was first a psych major, then switched to business admin, and finally landed on international studies.

During my second year, I studied abroad on a program called Semester at Sea and it changed my life.  I became completely addicted to travel and the exhilarating experience of getting to know and understand people and cultures so different to my own.  It was, without a doubt, the most amazing three months of my life.

Upon returning home, I quickly decided to enrol in another semester program at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa.  It was a pretty easy choice considering the beautiful campus, surrounding vineyards, and extensive service learning opportunities.

Within about a week of landing in the country I met Jurgen and within another week we were basically inseparable. What started as a fun international fling, quickly turned into something way more serious.  When it came time to head back to the States at the end of the semester we knew that we wanted to give this long distance thing a try even though we weren't sure when we would next see each other.

Distance was so hard, but worth it. 

After a semester apart, I returned to South Africa for the last semester of my undergraduate degree, flew home for graduation, and {much to the surprise of my poor parents} jumped straight back on a plane bound for Africa.  And well... the rest is history.

In 2010, we moved to Johannesburg so that Jurgen could pursue his PhD.  Although we were initially both less than excited about the move, we've come to love this city so much.  The people, the diversity, the artiness, the edginess, the everything.  But, this is a transitional phase in our lives and eventually we will probably actually settle elsewhere {although we don't know where elsewhere is yet}.

Speaking of settling down, last year Jurgen proposed {!!!} and we're slowly starting to embark on the adventure of planning an international and intercultural wedding.  This process has been somewhat sidetracked by my own postgraduate studies this year, but definitely not abandoned completely.  Stay tuned!

We love road trips, travel, and weekend adventures.  

And we're so excited to build a life together.

Although we know that the fact that we come from different places means that we will always have our own unique challenges, we're more than game.

If you still want to know more, see {here + here + here}

Thanks for following along so far!