Featuring guest blogger, Kara Northern (Sam’s wife)
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| Rovaniemi |
“Do you remember the Fulbright program I applied for back in November?” Sam asked me one day in May. I vividly remember that spring day when Sam told me he was accepted to be a Fulbright Teacher to study in Helsinki, Finland for three months. He could not wait until we got home from CrossFit to tell me. I already could not wait until he would return home from Finland. Flash forward eight months to December 2017 as Sam and I were preparing to leave for Finland together. Still, I was longing for the day Sam would return. As you have read in previous posts, we had amazing adventures in Estonia, Lapland, and Helsinki where I was able to help Sam settle into his apartment by teaching him how to do laundry, grocery shop, and make a budget.
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| Helsinki Airport |
Sadly, my adventure came to an end on January 2nd when I had to go back to teach my sweet first graders. I left at 2:50 pm in Helsinki and arrived at the JFK airport at 4:30 p.m. the same day. I immediately took my phone off airplane mode for the first time in two weeks and tried to
FaceTime Sam. I could not wait to talk to him! The phone rang and rang before telling me that my call could not be placed. I sat on the plane and tried to call him at least five more times. At this point, I was getting concerned thinking something was wrong with my phone after being in airplane mode for so long. I even restarted my phone and tried calling other people to see if my phone was working. In the line for customs, I realized that I was calling Sam’s 270 number instead of FaceTiming with Sam’s Apple ID! I GOT OUT OF THE LINE (crazy!) and sat on the airport floor to call my husband. The call went through immediately and I was overcome with emotions.
Since my jet-lagged technology flaw, Sam and I have been able to communicate on a regular basis. We’ve emailed,
Instagramed, and
Facebooked! We have
Skyped and messaged through
What’s App. However, since we both have iPhones the easiest way we communicate is by iMessage, FaceTime video, and FaceTime audio which we do using Wi-Fi data. We have worked out a ‘schedule’ for times that we can talk even with the eight-hour time difference. On the weekends, we call each other several times. We have even spent weekend afternoons prepping for school together – each of us working on our computers keeping each other company with FaceTime video. Recently Sam was able to FaceTime video with my first grade class and read a book for World Read Aloud Day. My class was amazed to see the snow on the ground and asked for a tour of Sam’s apartment. We made sure to tell him goodnight since it was 10 p.m. in Finland.
When I was in Europe 14 years ago, there was no such thing as Wi-Fi. Today Wi-Fi is everywhere from buses to convenient stores. Our Airbnb host in Rovaniemi said, “Come on, it's 2018. Who doesn’t have Wi-Fi?!” There has been so many technological advances over the last decade. I for one am thankful as I know I can see Sam’s face and hear his voice even when we are 4,000 miles apart. I am still counting down the days until I can put my arms around my husband (70 days exactly from the time of this blog post), but I am not as heartsick as I thought I would be thanks to technology.
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| Sam reading to my students in Bowling Green, Kentucky for World Read Aloud Day. |
