THE VISIT:
This was a pretty short, uneventful visit, but I'll still try to give you the deets!
Pascha (Greek Easter) fell on April 28th this year, and this happened to coincide with the period of time between the end of the semester and the start of his summer job, so Brendan and I decided to squeeze in a visit while we had some time. He drove 10 hours all the way down from his hometown to me on Thursday and arrived exhausted, as expected, but happy. Even though it was a long trip, it was such a treat to be able to have some time together, and for him to have the opportunity to spend what is usually my favorite holiday with my family. Being the wonderful girlfriend I am, I ordered Chinese for us before he arrived and had it ready and waiting for him when he got there.
I worked through Friday and gave him a day at home to relax, recover, and take care of anything he needed to do. For the most part I think he just stayed home, watched youtube videos, and played video games. It was a pretty chill night and we went grocery shopping for dinner and for ingredients for the food we were going to make for Pascha.
Saturday was mostly spent prepping and baking cheese and spinach pita for the family. My aunt kind of stopped making it a few years ago but had passed the recipe on to me, so if I don't make it, nobody does. The pita came out fantastic (maybe just a bit salty) and it was VERY hard to resist eating it all that night!
Sunday was Pascha! We got dressed up nice to go to church and then to my grandmother's house afterwards for lunch/dinner, as well as to my sister's recital. The church service on Easter Sunday is quite different from our regular service, and there's a segment where the church asks people to read some passages from the bible in different languages. I've done the German for the past several years (pretty much since I graduated) and my mom and sister have done the French. I tried to convince Brendan to do the English, but he wouldn't. Instead, he held our candles for us and watched from the pews. Unusually, we had someone who spoke Serbian there that day, so we got more than the typical Greek-English-Spanish-French-German.
After church, we stopped by my grandmother's house for a little bit until it was time for my sister's recital. We dropped off the food and carpooled with my mom to see her. The recital was like... surprisingly short? Usually they run over 1.5 hours, but this one lasted barely an hour and had already started when we walked in (on time). I turned to my mom and asked if we were perhaps confused on the start time and were really late, but she said no, the conductor is just REALLY prompt. My sister confirmed later when I asked her about it. In the end it just meant we were able to go back to my grandmother's house a bit earlier!
The meal turned out fantastic and we had a lot of conversation with Brendan there. My aunt asked some pressing questions about us going to Canada and not the other way around. It was the first time we've been fairly transparent about moving and not just thinking about moving. In some ways it feels good, but in others I still worry about everyone thinking I'm making a bad life choice by leaving my job without necessarily having one lined up in Canada before I go, and moving for love.
Anyway, overall it was a pretty good time and we made it back home before dark, bellies full and smiles on.
I had suggested he only come down for about 5 days and then return home so he could rent the car for a full week and then use it to move things from the house to his summer apartment. When we were looking at prices, though, he found that it only cost like $4 more to rent it for an extra day, so he chose to stay through until Wednesday and drive back that day so that he could move things on Thursday and return the car on Friday. Monday and Tuesday were work days for me, but we went out to one of the restaurants in town that I'd been dying to visit on Monday night as kind a "last hurrah" and in celebration of me officially becoming a Canadian PR, because guess what he brought with him on his long, arduous trip? My PR card!!
So that's mostly it. The trip wasn't particularly eventful but we really, really enjoyed having that time to spend together before the summer started.
MY LIFE:
So there've been a lot of facets to the move that I'm slowly working through right now, both emotional and in terms of physical things like paperwork. Work is probably the worst and most complicated part of the move (and my life) right now, though.
Basically, I'm no longer doing anything I was hired to do, working for a completely different manager in a department that didn't exist when I started. The work they have me doing now is almost 100% qualitative, while I have been saying since I started (even before they changed things) that I wanted to do more quantitative work. Unfortunately I've just gotten shuttled along to the point where my original job pretty much doesn't exist and there's no way to incorporate any elements of it into my current role. I'm definitely learning a lot, but I won't be reaping any of the benefits of the additional work my boss keeps pushing on me (for "ratings" and "promotions") because reviews don't happen until the end of the year and I'm leaving in September.
Oh yeah, we're pretty much set on September! We have agreed that it would be best to stay until my current lease ends, which gives me time to wrap up my affairs in the US and job search in Canada. I just gave notice to my landlord a couple weeks ago when they asked about renewing my lease and they're prepped to put the apartment on the market, which also means I now have to actually keep it clean... haha.
It's possible I might move back home for a week or so into October, but I'm not sure yet and it depends a bit on what's going on with Brendan at the time and whether I have a job lined up or not. In the meantime, I'm actively looking for jobs in Ontario and sorting out my affairs. My car is now paid off and I have the title (with ONLY my name on it, thankfully-- my parents just got divorced and my stepdad was a cosigner on my car so I was afraid I'd have to get his name removed) in hand, and I'm slowly selling my old clothes on Poshmark (let me know if you want a referral link, btw... I think you get like $10 off your first purchase) to clear out some clutter. Getting rid of clothes is so hard!!That's all for now. I'm really sorry I've gotten so behind on visit updates.
I have another one I need to write up from the beginning of July, and then I might be gone for a while because that's our last visit before the move. I'll update you guys on move logistics when we know more!