I feel like everyone has this secret wish when they travel abroad to meet a boy or girl, fall in love and live happily ever after. But no one thinks this whirlwind of a romance will happen to them until it does! When I travelled abroad during my university studies, I had no intention of meeting a boy. All my friends said to me not to meet a boy and move away with him, and when I told them I wouldn’t, I honestly believed it.
But funnily enough, my parents knew all along something like this was bound to happen. They told me I wasn’t allowed to do my exchange in Australia because it’s too far from Canada and if I met a boy and wanted to move there, they wouldn’t like it. Who knows if that would have happened, but because of that decision, I changed my exchange destination. And as a result of this destination change, I meet the man of my dreams in Europe!
Now to my first encounter and onwards with my boyfriend and everything that went into this crazy romance. I met my Swiss boyfriend in the second month during my six-month exchange in Amsterdam. I was at a party, and right when he walked in the room, it was over for me. He caught my eye, and within a few minutes, I walked over to him, introduced myself, and started hitting on him. I guess I was pretty smooth because we spent the whole night hanging out together, and had a date planned for the next week. After our date, we were inseparable and became the sole exchange couple.
I was at a party, and right when he walked in the room, it was over for me.
The one thing that kept playing on our minds was the fact that I had to go back to Canada in a few months and we didn’t know how that would work. But after a lot of talking and decisions, we decided to do long distance for a year while I finished my bachelor’s degree, and then I would apply to do my master’s degree in Amsterdam so we could be together again. It sounded so crazy at the time, and even now to plan to move overseas for a guy you met only four months ago. No matter how cliché it sounds, it really is true that when you know, you know.
We spent one long year apart, with only four visits in that whole-time span. And after the long year apart, I got accepted into a master’s program in Amsterdam and was able to move overseas again! Now two and a half years since we first met, we are still together and just moved in together!
It still seems crazy to me that I fell in love with a man abroad, and this has changed my life so much. But I am forever grateful for everything that happened and where I am today because of it.
This blog was written by Samantha Karen
Samantha Karen is the founder of the travel bog Sam Sees World. She is a millennial traveller on a mission to seek the new and unknown so she can document her experiences and inspire others to explore this wondrous world. Her objective is to provide valuable information on the best things to do, see, eat, and experience while travelling and getting some good Instagram photos along the way.
