a new tribulation

I have big news. Maybe the biggest news of my life. I am going to be getting married to Ms Nicole Robinson, my girlfriend of 18 months (the shorter one in the photo). This blog entry is my version of one of those creepy announcements in the local paper. 

It's not something I have not run head first into like those sad old guys that 'find love' in the Philippines or the Ukraine. We have been friends for nearly six years and most of you know our romantic tale. We met, I fell in love, she didn't, we lived apart for years, she caught up and fell in love, we crossed the Atlantic a few times and now we find ourselves in Szerencs. Phew.

And we aren't getting married to prove our funky international love to the world. Thanks to an age of Terror and a few very powerful moronic Americans, I can't live in the USA as a single UK citizen any time soon. And Nicole can't live in London thanks to equally moronic powerful British officials. So we either split up, do the long-distance thing or marry. Marry it is, then. Really, spend a few minutes perusing the immigration websites for either the UK or the US - as someone on a forum so eloquently put it "We are supposedly cousins, but a British person trying to gain access to the USA is suddenly demoted to the international level of an illiterate Palestinian goat herder".

So we are becoming Mr and Mrs Jones this August. From there we have free access to either shores whenever we like - all it takes is a lifetime agreement, thousands of pounds and millions of forms, copied and verified. Piece of cake.

And neither Nicole or myself like attention. We shy away from any form of focus upon ourselves, we don't like shouting from the rooftops and we don't have egos. So the idea of a big, white wedding terrifies us. As a result, we decided not to have a big deal - just our immediate families in a registry office in my home town, Watford. Essentially signing a bit of paper in a crappy office in a crappy town. It's no Charles/Diana fairytale, put it that way. 

Then it's to 'Old Orleans Family BBQ Restaurant' for the lunch afterwards. Previously 'Quinceys', Old Orleans is an American-themed restaurant that I enjoyed throughout my childhood where one can get sticky ribs, shakes and huge burgers. The walls are adorned with Hollywood stars, license plates and baseball bats (and a canoe). It's as tacky a restaurant as anyone could find, but it is a perfect homage to our Anglo-American situation. And the father of the groom can eat ribs. He likes ribs ("I just like food you can get involved with")

I am leaving Szerencs in a matter of weeks, so this blog will cease to document the Hungarian world I find myself in. Instead it will document my life as one half of an international relationship, and our lives in London and Minneapolis. Lots more tribulations and lots more muffins, of both the American and English variety.