Julia and Martim, from Munich and Lisbon, stayed with us.
She was getting ready for their wedding when we dropped by their apartment for a chat.
My biggest fear about the wedding day itself is that my belly goes bad. My belly reacts a lot to stress and emotions so if I have a bellyache, it will be really bad.
That, and that the guy from the Civil Registry... I don't know... I don't understand anything from the ceremony... I don't speak Portuguese, I have no idea how it works! And, you know, I might miss it, actually! What if the person just leaves and I'm, like, what-what-what?! That would be a bit odd, if the ceremony is over before I knew it began. It's a bit odd, getting married without understanding it.
Our relationship has been all across Europe. We met in England 11 years ago, we were both studying. And from then on, it was England, Germany, Portugal, England, Spain, Germany... So if you ask me how we made it work... I guess we wanted to.
But it's not easy. It takes a lot of planning, and money. You don't see each other that often, and you are in a little bubble, so... I sometimes wondered if my friends thought I had this imaginary boyfriend that they never met.
I think we make a good team. We complete each other, in a way, but we also balance each other out. The most important is, we have the same goals, and we share the way how things should be done and how to behave with each other. We value our family and friends... and also independence.
We are quite independent. After all, having it long distance for such a long time... we just trust each other. And we learned to be happy for each other, when one of us did things without the other.
The one thing I keep telling myself is, 'You know, don't take everything too seriously. Take it lightly, from time to time.' I think Martim is good at that. And I could be better at that.
But I wonder if he is really relaxed today or pretending to be relaxed so that I'm also relaxed. He's really taking care of a lot of things. If it was me doing what he's doing, I'd be stressed out like crazy, but he seems ok. He's running a little late, so I'm just making sure his shirt's ironed. I think he will appreciate it.
