Germany has a word for everything. I wonder if there is a word for “a series of unrelated events that culminate together and result in an unexpected outcome”.
In English we might call it “serendipity” or “kismet”. ChatGPT says that in German it’s called “Schicksalsfügung” or “Zufallkette”, which directly translates to “a chain of events”.
In 2012 I was living and working in sunny San Diego, California as a web designer and developer at an action sports company. Wetsuits often hung drying in the parking lot from lunch break surf sessions, we sometimes had taco & margarita lunches sponsored by the likes of Red Bull (complete with a mariachi band roaming the office), I could leave work and drive directly to the beach for a sundowner, and my colleagues were young and interesting and fun to be around. For a 20-something single woman it was a dream location and a dream job.
So what would make me want to leave all of that and move to Germany with its often cold and grey weather (and sometimes cold people)? I’m getting to that.
One day at work, feeling bored and uninspired, I opened my phone and saw a photo of Antelope Canyon in Utah. It was breathtaking. In that moment, I decided to buy an RV and travel the country while working remotely. This kind of lofty, spontaneous goal was unlike me, but I couldn’t shake the idea.
I started researching and used my free time to piece together a plan. I’d always wanted to travel, but like most Americans my international travel was limited to our neighbours to the North and South. I was determined to follow through with this goal. I began dreaming about buying an old school bus and renovating it. I learned there’s even a whole online community for “skoolies”, but I digress.
In the midst of this planning, a close friend and colleague of mine was accepted into a work exchange position offered by our parent company. She was able to live and work at a sister company in the UK for 3 months. In the meantime, a young woman who worked at another sister company in Finland came to work in our office and I got to know her. Both of them had such an amazing experience doing this exchange that I decided to apply when the applications were open for the next round.
I was accepted for a position as a graphic designer at a company in Slovenia (a company I knew little to nothing about). I was hesitant at first and felt a bit like I was betraying myself by abandoning my van life goals but I decided that putting it on the back burner for a 3 month paid experience abroad was more than worth it. I could always start my RV adventure when I returned. (Spoiler alert: that didn’t happen.)
While in Ljubljana, a well-traveled friend recommended couchsurfing.org, a platform where travelers can stay with hosts for free as part of a cultural exchange. The host often interacted with you, perhaps showing you around their city or giving you recommendations of what to see and do. I had decided that I was down for anything while in Europe (within reason), so I signed up as a person seeking a couch, not as someone offering one. A month or so into my trip, I had seen a few different countries during my free time thanks to couchsurfing.
One day I got a message from a young man who was seeking a place to sleep for a weekend in Ljubljana. I had to advise him to read my profile again as I wasn’t offering a place in my one-bedroom studio apartment. That didn’t deter him from chatting with me through the app and he suggested we meet up for a drink while he was in the city to discuss places he might visit on an upcoming trip to California.
We enjoyed a glass of wine and nice conversation and before parting ways he told me that if I wanted to visit Basel, Switzerland during my time in Europe he would offer me his couch to stay on. (I promise you, Germany will enter the picture soon enough).
As I wasn’t saying ‘No’ to things I naturally accepted this invitation and bought my plane tickets. Alex, my host, was working when I arrived in Basel so I took the time to tour the city on my own. He has promised me a Swiss Hiking experience which I assumed to mean we would do some day hike at a nearby mountain.
But the next day we boarded a train with our hiking packs, some wine, chocolate, and cheese and headed into the Alps. The train had windows that fully opened. As we traveled deeper into the mountains, I couldn’t resist sticking my head out to soak it all in, snapping countless photos with a wide grin on my face. It felt like stepping into a fairytale. We then hiked 4 hours up to a hut where we stayed overnight and did day hikes to some beautiful turquoise lakes on the border of Italy. If you’ve ever done an overnight hut experience in the Alps, you know just how romantic it can feel.
I left that weekend thinking that I’d likely never see Alex again, but I took a risk and asked if he’d want to join me on a trip to Italy in a couple weeks for my 30th birthday. I’d already decided that I’d rent a convertible and go alone if I couldn’t find anyone to join me. I expected he’d have to work but to my surprise he contacted me a few days later and told me he got the time off and would meet me in Bologna. A few days before the trip, on my actual birthday, I arrived at work to find 30 long-stem roses on my desk. At first, I thought it was a gift from the company, albeit an unexpected and strange one. Then I read the card and was stunned to see they were from Alex.
So as you can probably gather by now, our trip to Italy was something from a romance novel.
We stayed in touch through the rest of my trip and made plans to see each other when I was back in San Diego and he was on his planned trip he had originally contacted me about. When we met up that time we spent about a week together and there were lots of tears as we parted ways since we didn’t know when we would see each other again.
After many conversations about our respective jobs I made the decision that I wasn’t quite done with seeing Europe. I moved to Switzerland on a three-month tourist visa to test the waters, living in a tiny apartment with a man I’d spent a total of just 14 days with in person. It was the middle of winter, Switzerland was absurdly expensive for someone living off savings, and our kitchen was too small for both of us to stand in at the same time. Somehow we survived and still really liked each other.
I then had to go back to the States for 3 months to wait for my tourist visa to reset. I used the time to organize my life, say goodbyes and move my belongings back to the East Coast where my family is. In May of 2013 Alex flew out to meet my family and during that time we learned that he was accepted to a new position in Munich, Germany (I told you we’d get there). We did some research and learned that I could likely get a visa to freelance (Freiberufler visa). In the end this did work for me and I’ll write another post about that later.
So I’ve now been living in Munich for 12 years. Alex and I are married for almost 10 years now with two beautiful bilingual children. After freelancing for the first few years, I joined the German workforce, where I spent nearly a decade, balancing my career through two pregnancies.
We took some time off from work in 2022 to travel before our daughter needed to start school. We began our travels by buying an RV in the U.S. and exploring the country. At long last, I visited Antelope Canyon and fulfilled my decade-old dream. The wait was worth it, as I was able to share the moment with my husband, daughter, and son, bringing the journey full circle.
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