Third Year Lucky

Today marks the third anniversary of the day I first laid eyes on Naperville. Grumpy and I came to visit for a few days before making our final move here in March 2007. Thought I'd just share some excerpts of e mails I wrote to friends back home when we returned to England.

"What a whirlwind week! Everything turned out much better than I could have even hoped for. We have always loved the Americans, but the people of the mid west turned out to be even friendlier than the ones we usually meet. They seem really genuine and we have already made friends with some in our new town..."

"On the Tuesday I met with the editor in chief of the Naperville Sun newspaper. It is a local paper, but because everything is so much bigger out here, it has a readership of 20,000. (My old paper was 6,000). He said he was impressed I had made contact from England and thought it showed real gumption. That would never happen in England - people will hardly respond to an e mail. Anyway, the upshot is he will give me work when I arrive, and wants me to start by going along to the new residents club. To be honest, the whole place is a bit like Stepford. A lot of it is very twee (the downtown area is divine)but the people are genuine and you just have to immerse yourself in the culture.."

"We are already gathering people for Grumpy's 50th birthday barbecue in July and we don't even have an address as yet!"

If only I'd have know how things would turn out...I'd have moved here 10 years earlier!