"Superstition ain't the way, no, no, no..."

IF WE were superstitious we’d probably never have agreed to hold such a life-changing event on Friday 13^th.
But then again, my grandfather was born on Friday 13^th and he was the most amazing person to make an appearance in my life.

So, what better day to get MARRIED.

Yes, enough of the fun and games, it’s time to be all grown-up, and to exchange vows.

That day will be the culmination of a dream. A dream we’ve both been dreaming with our eyes wide open for little over 18 months.

You know the story by now right…?

We met on Myspace and emailed back and forth for seven YEARS before finally meeting and falling in love? We never spoke on the phone before we met on ‘vacation’, never Skyped, never texted… just emailed.

Cue English boy saying goodbye to all his family and friends, quitting his nice life in the UK, and moving to Tijuana - of all places - to be with the beautiful Jacky.

Imagine You’ve Got Mail, but more tacos than Tom Hanks.

As readers of this blog will know I proposed on top of the London Eye last Christmas at the tail-end of Jacky’s first ever visit to Europe.

Diamonds are forever

The idea of me proposing, overlooking the capital of my country, and offering her a ring from her home country, was too priceless a moment to dismiss.

Anyhow within a couple of months of us arriving back into Jacky’s family home in Mexico, I got news that U.S. Immigration were finally going to let me in to accept the job at U-T TV in San Diego.
I had to move to San Diego in April, leaving behind Jacky in Tijuana because - as a Mexican citizen with a tourist visa - she couldn't legally live with me.

So since April we’ve been continuing our cross-border relationship, literally only seeing each other at weekends.

While this might sound like a fairly ‘normal’ situation for some couples whose lives are governed by work, our situation is far from ideal.

To visit me in San Diego, Jacks has had to wait in line at the San Ysidro border for anything up to five hours, in doing so wasting much of a two-day weekend we would have otherwise spent together.

San Ysidro is the busiest border crossing in the world. Fact. And it’s dirty, loud and generally horrible.

The San Ysidro border - dirty, loud, and generally horrible

While Jacks has applied for a special ‘Sentri’ pass to enable her to pass quicker, we’ve decided to push ahead and get married to avoid any more delays and frustration.

That way we can finally live together legally here on this side of the border.

So we’ve booked our date in San Diego as oppose to Tijuana.

Has any one of you ever tried to get married abroad? In a non-English speaking country? Without booking it all through a dedicated wedding agency?

It’s a nightmare.

In fact, it’s worse than a nightmare. And it seems no two people can give you the same answer about how to go about booking everything, and making sure everything is actually legal.

If you Google it, you’ll get literally 101 reasons ‘not’ to marry in Mexico.

Every forum poses as many questions as answers. And they’re mostly from ‘Senor Steve’ in Mexico City.

We initially looked into getting married in Baja California (the northern tip of Mexico), but it quickly became apparent that the stress involved would be too great.

I’m pretty sure that most weddings involving one-half of the couple being a foreigner to Mexico will end in divorce given the hassles presented.

From what we eventually established, to get married in Mexico I would have to:

a). Take a blood test to ensure that I don’t have Aids;

b). Go to a mandatory marriage guidance group – BEFORE the actual wedding;

c). Fly home to the UK to get original ‘official’ documents (Can you imagine asking your mum to source your original birth certificate 35 years after being born?!);

d). Pay for someone (undoubtedly a lawyer) in Mexico to translate the above ‘official’ documents at a stupidly inflated price; and

e). Pay someone else a whole bunch of money to do a handful of things we never really got to the bottom of…

By the time we worked out that we would need to do all of the above and more, just to get married in Mexico, we were ready to put the whole thing on the back burner for a time.

But then, as if by magic, I ended up downtown in the San Diego County Administration Building on a job for U-T TV.

The San Diego County Administration Building

“It’s a sign,” my cameraman said to me glancing up at the wall in the entrance.

And sure enough, it was a ‘sign’. It was a sign to say that the ‘marriages’ department was upstairs.

I popped up, explained that I was a “British guy” with a “Mexican fiancée” who wanted to get married and the response…?

“Why don’t you just do it here…?”

No blood tests, no official documents needed, no translation, and no need to book the divorce hearing at the same time as the wedding.

Job done.

So yes… come rain or shine, (who am I kidding this is California!) we’re getting married on the lawn in front of the ocean on Friday 13^th September, 2013.

In six-and-a-half weeks’ time no less.

While of course we’d love to see all our family and friends, we understand that – due to work commitments and money – it’s simply not possible.

But given the unusual nature of our Anglo-Latin relationship, we’re pressing ahead because we simply want to be ‘together’ – without needing to stand in line and show our passport.

Jacky is the reason I'm here after all.

So Friday 13^th… Crazy. Beautiful. Madness.

“When you believe in things that you don't understand…

Then you suffer…

Superstition ain't the way, no, no, no…” – Stevie Wonder - Superstition


Twitter: @tristan_nichols

An Olympic-sized pain in the a*s

SPENDING just a few hours in America is enough to make you feel normal and sane.
People in the US are always keen to talk to you once they know you’re English or British.
And they seem to think we all personally know Prince Harry.
Sure I’ve met once, but we’re hardly ‘mates’.
I’ve now given up trying to explain exactly where I’m from in England.
The conversation generally goes: “Where you from there?”
“Plymouth, you know... in the South West of England.”
Usually at this point I draw a map of the isles in the air and point to the bit on the left.
“Is that in London,” they then almost always ask.
“Er, you know what? Yes it is... in fact, the WHOLE country is contained within London.”
I just can't be bothered.
I’ll never ever forget a pompous Aussie in Sydney asking me the same question.
When I replied “Plymouth,” and “it’s near where the best beaches are in England” his response was “you have beaches?!”
"Yes that’s right, because we live on a frikkin island.”
Mexicans are different.
I’m sure most Mexicans have never visited London but they seem to have a better grasp of the geography.
I can't be too critical of the Americans as their country is just so huge.
Bizarrely San Diego itself seems to be more Spanish than Benidorm. The closer you get to the border the more taco stands and Spanish-language signs you see.
When we’re in the US Jacky and I seem to swap roles.
In Mexico I let her lead the conversation. But in the US, being predominantly English speaking, I take the lead role.
It’s strange and I often forget, letting her stumble through a conversation while I stand in the fold.
It’s only when I open my mouth that I realise I can wholly engage in conversation again.
Most of the time though I can’t help but answer ‘si’ or ‘hola’. Weird huh?
Christ, I even order burritos when I’m the States.
As you can no doubt appreciate all conversation at the moment revolves around that small sporting event we call the ‘Olympics’.
Everyone keeps asking me if I’m ‘excited’ about the games.
So much so I reply, that I moved to a different continent.
Looking at friends’ comments on Facebook, I’m sure that given the chance many Londoners wished they had too.
London is one of the busiest places on earth, so what’s an extra few hundred thousand visitors?
A few extra cars, a few thousand more tourists with cameras.
I can only imagine what rush hour on the tube is going to be like. I feel bad enough getting in the way of commuters as I stare blankly at the tube map when I visit.
Imagine all those foreign visitors clutching huge maps and puzzled expressions. 
God, even the thought of it sounds like an Olympic-sized pain in the ass.
I really hope it does help to boost the UK’s economy and end this existential ‘funk’ which walks hand in hand with the double dip recession.
But hey, I couldn’t really give a toss about the games themselves.
To gain my interest they should introduce some new games.
Maybe a two-mile sprint event for footballers who have just been told they have had their Ferraris torched by Seb Coe?
Or how about an archery event with everyone aiming their arrows at Sepp Blatter in his hospitality box?
Or wait, how about an event where Gary Lineker eats as many Walkers crisps as there are starving children in the world?
One name captures my imagination, and his event is the only result l will listen out for. Tom Daley.
Smash it mate, make Plymouth proud and put the 'Great' back into Great Britain.