The Girlfriend 2016

We just spent three weeks in the Canary Islands.

We have in the past visited Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, the Maldives, Dubai, Thailand, Italy, and Malta.

We live in separate countries, but we go on vacations together. 4 to 6 weeks per year, so far.

And we've been doing that for SEVEN YEARS, and our relationship has not really moved forward any.

Crazy, right?

Well. Maybe not crazy.

In this day and age when any number of people of all different nationalities are waking up and thinking it's a great fucking idea to bomb, stab, shoot, run over, or set on fire groups of random strangers, you can't say that two people going on vacation together is crazy.

Can you?

Talk about the love that wouldn't die, no matter how hard you tried to kill the fucking thing!

Anyway, as Constant Readers will know, I tried to bring her to America on a student visa in 2012. She was turned down. I offered to take her to live in Cyprus or any country of her choice, but she was extremely suspicious of the gypsy lifestyle. I offered to bring her to America on a fiance visa last year, but I was unsure about the future of the job I had and she didn't want to leave her mother, who had just been given early retirement and wouldn't be able to afford to live alone. (It tends to take between 9 months and a year to get a fiance visa.)

I have remained mostly faithful to her. She says she has been faithful to me, and I believe her -- I know she's on Skype most nights at 9:00pm her time.

We don't talk about that sort of thing much though. We both have a sort of "it is what it is" attitude about it, at this point. I'm 47, and she's 32 -- it's probably not too far off to say that 32 in provincial Russia is about the same as 47 in the Western world in terms of dating prospects for a woman.

If I'd stayed another year in America, she agreed to come on a fiance visa, but of course a new job in China has come up, which offers more salary and holiday time and general prospects. And it will be much easier for her to come there.

I'm writing this at the airport in Madrid, waiting for my flight to the Magic Kingdom. If my VPN works, my next entry will be from China. Onward and upward!