Welcome and thank you for being part of this logistical nightmare :) and this is how we got here... It is October in New York 2018, leaves are changing their colours, squirrels and rats wreak havoc to collect food for the winter, Alex is recovering from a 2-week visit by her family, and Jophiel is excited to crack up the window during those first, pleasantly cool autumn nights in the city that only knows 3 weeks of pleasant weather/year. Both are looking to find the impossible in this big city - no, it's not the American dream, and no, it's not a dazzling acting career (although that's only true for one of us, sorry love), or an affordable apartment with a washer and dryer. No, it's far more challenging than that. Both are on the dating app Hinge to find someone worth sharing their heart with. (didn't expect me to have this romance in me, did you? It's ok, neither did I.) And so it happens that both swipe right on each other, because who wouldn't want a date with a handsome, slightly cynical feminist, or a weirdo who works for the UN and thinks her rap battle skills from Somalia are an attractive feature? So here we are, 19 October 2018, Alex and Jophiel go on their first date at a wine bar & restaurant in Jophiel's neighbourhood in Harlem - Barawine. Alex has already researched the menu and identified two of her favourite dishes, and she is excited for a promising date. Jophiel on the other hand, has little hope after one too many frustrating New York dating experiences, and he's just glad he only needs to walk 5mins to get to the date. What followed was 10 months of surprisingly successful dating, after which a very rational decision was made that Alex and Jophiel should move in together, to test whether this could be something real, before Alex's temporary work contracts might ruin anything. This was in late 2019. Little did they know that living together would be the least of their challenges, because the pandemic was about to start. You may remember how the first bit of 2020 went for the US. It wasn't great (remember the stand-off with Iran?). In the middle of the pandemic, Alex got a job to work for the UN in Baghdad, Iraq, which she had been dreaming of for years. It was supposed to be a good deal - 4 weeks in Baghdad followed by a one-week break, where she could return to New York. But alas, the US government didn't get the memo and had imposed a 'travel ban', which meant that no new visas would be given to anyone trying to enter the US. Over the next two years, Alex and Jophiel saw each other three times for a total of 70 days, equivalent to 9.6%. [pause for dramatic effect] In December 2020, at 3,454m over sea (or 11,332 ft), on the top of the Jungfraujoch star observatory in Switzerland, they both enjoyed their first weekend getaway after Alex had to leave the US for the new job, when Jophiel looked over the snow-covered alps, and said: Do you want to get married? Alex, who usually likes to form a fully-informed opinion after thorough research and pros and cons, had already done exactly that over the past few months, since she was also planning to propose soon, but Jophiel took charge that day. And, because Alex knew it in her heart and brain, she let him.