Technology

The week I started college I acquired my very first email address.  My roommate and I shared her laptop, but I would also frequent the computer lab on campus.  I had a cell phone my parents told me I could use only in cases of emergency, so most of my calls were in and out of the landline to our dorm room.

It was on that landline that JD called to ask me out on a date.

Little did I know that his student worker position in IT at the age of 20 would one day lead to us raising our 3 children together in Europe.  

Royal Tunbridge Wells, where we live outside London, often feels untouched by modern technology.

The town is full of winding cobblestone streets of cottages, pubs, and flower-filled gardens.

Even the Royal Mail collection boxes are ornately beautiful yet practical.

In fact, "old-fashioned" comes to mind when describing the lifestyle.

Simple pleasures abound.

On the weekend, people fill the sidewalks leisurely shopping and visiting with friends and family.

Saturday and Sunday there was a vintage fair in the Pantiles, an area of town that became famous in the early 1600's as a "Medicinal Mecca" for gentry because of the high mineral deposits in the spring water. The reputation for "cutting edge" medical advances that derived from proper use of the spring water, in conjunction with close proximity to London, established Tunbridge Wells as a spa town and later led to its "Royal" distinction.

Today, shopping and dining in a distinctly European atmosphere are what drive the Pantiles economy.

There are venders set up every weekend of the summer in the Pantiles, and the vintage fair was especially fun to see.

Modern advances might have been what originally brought people to the area, but today it is the charms of days gone by that keep people coming.

People like us.  

Technology has changed tremendously in just the 17 years JD and I have been together, and he has continued to use his skills with it to provide our family a comfortable life.  

For that I am extremely grateful.  

We look forward to exploring not only the UK, but the rest of Western Europe in our life ahead!  

I know technology is what allows us to live here, but what brought us here was the urge to explore that humans have had for thousands of years.

Some things never change.