"So when are you moving to England?"

"So when are you moving to England?" more that one person joked at the wedding I attended in Nottingham last Saturday. Only hours before I had watched Jane get married to her English boyfriend, the second of my American roommates to find British husbands and move off to the UK. If two makes a trend, then apparently in four or five years time I'll be packing up my stuff to move to England to marry my hypothetical English girlfriend. (Perhaps Scottish? We've already got a Welshman and an Englishman.) Who am I to argue with fate?

When it was commented on for the nth time that it was now my turn for the UK wedding, I quipped, "Maybe I'll convince her to move to New York."

Or maybe I'll convince her to move to Amsterdam.

As I walked around the Grachtengordel last Monday afternoon enjoying a rare bit of January sunshine, rare for this corner of Northern Europe, I fell in love with Amsterdam, the Dutch design aesthetic, the bikes, and the architecture. And fantasizing on the days and years to come, I envisioned this:

While walking through Prospect Park, shamefully using my friend's two Shiba Inu dogs as girl bait, a beautiful English woman approaches me and we hit it off. Turns out she's half Dutch too and lives in Park Slope. She's a foodie, works for some International finance firm in lower Manhattan, and loves art and music. We then form the stereotypical instant co-dependent lesbian relationship which is only foiled by the fact that she's not a permanent resident of the US. She goes back to London because of her job and a long distance relationship ensues. We talk about me moving over there with her and we even talk about domestic partner registry so I can get EU benefits. After a year of back and forth Atlantic trips, I move to London, and we live happily ever after with my two cats. There's even a London wedding to celebrate our life partnership. Later she's transfered to Amsterdam and luckily her family has an old house on one of the canals we can live in. I get a job working in design or the arts, write a couple of books on the side, and we spend our days riding our bikes, cooking for friends, and walking along the canals.

Sigh. It could happen. My luggage is still in London just waiting for me to come back and retrieve it.