When frazzled twentysomething traveler Jennea arrived at London’s King’s Cross railway station on December 15, 2013, the station was absolutely packed.
Carol singers in one corner were singing with gusto, collecting money for charity in brightly colored buckets. Gathered in the middle of the Victorian concourse, crowds of travelers stood, wrapped in coats and scarfs, looking up at the departure boards, waiting for their platform to be announced.
Passengers jostled past each other, armed with bags of gifts and large suitcases. Exhausted and a little overwhelmed, Jennea still found time to be charmed by the festive atmosphere. She took a moment to put down her heavy bag and check the departure board, searching for her train.
Jennea, who’d grown up in the US, had spent the last 18 months in Mozambique, where she’d been volunteering for the US Peace Corps. She hadn’t seen her loved ones in almost two years, and now she was en route to reunite with them in Cambridge, England.
The thought of hugging her mom, catching up with her aunt and uncle and distributing her gifts to her family kept Jennea going as she hoisted her heavy backpack onto her back, and headed towards her platform.
“I was absolutely loaded down — two suitcases, a backpackers’ backpack, my handbag…” Jennea tells CNN Travel today. “It’s Christmastime. I’m packed to the brim with Christmas presents. Making my way through King’s Cross Station, completely absorbed.”
When Jennea got to the platform, it was unnervingly empty. This was surprising.
“I remember thinking, ‘This platform is very quiet. It’s so close to Christmas and it’s King’s Cross, that’s bizarre. I don’t even know if I’m in the right place. What if I’ve misread the platform number incorrectly?’”
Jennea glanced around for someone to ask. She couldn’t see a train guard or another passenger.
“And not only that, there were two trains on the platform as well.”
It wasn’t clear which was the right train.
Jennea felt herself start to panic. She was already leaving London much later than she’d initially planned. And she was exhausted from traveling from the Mozambique village where she was volunteering to Malawi, then to Kenya, then to the UK.
“It took four days,” Jennea recalls. “And even then, when I finally landed in London, there was this massive delay on the airplane.
“Because of this, I had missed my plan A train, my plan B train, my plan everything train… It was 2013 and I didn’t have an iPhone yet. I couldn’t get a hold of my aunt and uncle who were going to be picking me up.”
Just as Jennea felt the stress and tiredness start to overwhelm her, she heard a voice behind her.
“Excuse me, is this the train to Cambridge?”
A train station conversation
Jennea turned around and saw a man, also wrapped in a hat and scarf, but significantly less weighed down by luggage.
“I was so relieved,” recalls Jennea. “I replied, ‘Oh I hope it’s going to Cambridge. That’s where I’m going.’”
As she spoke, Jennea realized she hadn’t had a conversation in four days — other than perfunctory airport and airplane interactions. She felt a strange feeling of ease with this stranger, who smiled at her and offered to help her with her bags as they boarded the train together.
As Jennea apologized for the heaviness of her luggage and the guy told her not to worry about it, Jennea thought she detected something familiar in his voice.
“Are you American?” she asked.
“No, I’m Dutch,” he said, smiling. “But I live in London. I’m Arthur.”
“I’m Jennea,” said Jennea, smiling back.
In mutual, unspoken agreement, Jennea and Arthur — who have requested their last names not be included in this story for privacy reasons — sat down on the train, opposite one another. They carried on talking.
“It was just very easy conversation,” recalls Jennea.
The carriage gradually filled up, and an overhead announcement confirmed the train was heading to Cambridge.
Arthur asked Jennea what brought her to the UK, and Jennea explained her mother was Irish, that she had family in Ireland and the UK, and they were all gathering there for the festive period.
As for Arthur, he explained he’d moved to London for college a few years previously. He was currently working in finance while he studied part time for a PhD — and he wasn’t heading to Cambridge for the holidays, but for something a little more unusual.
“I’d been invited to go to Cambridge by a friend of mine who was a novice monk,” Arthur tells CNN Travel today. “He basically invited me to spend a few days as a mini retreat away from the Big Smoke.”
Arthur had approached Jennea on the platform because he was confused about the train.
“It was initially purely functional dialogue,” is how Arthur puts it. “Trying to get on the train, trying to get to Cambridge… but then it quickly morphed into a very easygoing conversation about lots of different topics. It felt like there was a lot of common ground.”
“People say, ‘Was it love at first sight?’” says Jennea, of that first interaction with Arthur. “And I say this lovingly, but no, no, it wasn’t. It was just relief: ‘Thank God there’s someone else on the platform.’ And then it was functional. ‘Okay, where am I going? What am I doing?’ But then we sat down, and started talking.”
For both Arthur and Jennea, this conversation was the hook. They were intrigued by each other. Arthur knew nothing about the Peace Corps. Jennea was fascinated by the idea of having a friend who was a monk. Their conversation just flowed.
As the train — now full of people — weaved its way through the series of tunnels that carry trains northward out of King’s Cross, Arthur and Jennea kept talking.
“There wasn’t that point where it became awkward and silent and you’re thinking, ‘Do I dig out my book and pretend to read now?’” says Jennea. “No. We chatted the entire time.”
About an hour later, the train pulled into Cambridge station, and Arthur helped Jennea gather her many bags. They exchanged details, promising to add one another on Facebook, and they were still deep in conversation as the train pulled to a halt.
“Then, as we stepped off onto the platform, my aunt and my uncle were actually right there, and I was so relieved because they’d waited for me,” says Jennea. “I hadn’t seen my family in years at this point, it had been a long time, so I just threw my arms around my uncle, and then my aunt.”
Meanwhile Arthur hung back, still holding Jennea’s suitcases.
“He was standing there with my bags — my aunt said, ‘Oh my gosh, look at you. You’ve gone all the way to Mozambique, and you’ve come back, and here’s a man standing with your bags. What have you done?’” recalls Jennea, laughing.
“It was kind of an, ‘Alright, bye,’ moment,” says Arthur, also laughing.
Arthur and Jennea didn’t hug farewell — they both suddenly felt a little awkward in that moment. But as they walked in opposite directions, they each turned around to smile at one another, and wave.
“I was sort of thinking, ‘Oh, that was really nice. What a great start to my Christmas holidays,’” recalls Jennea. “But I had no idea what would happen next.”
Staying in touch
When Jennea got to her aunt’s house, she spent the next couple of hours catching up with her family, sharing stories of her mammoth journey and her work in Mozambique.
Later, when she finally connected to the Wi-Fi on her cell phone, Jennea saw she had a friend request from Arthur. She accepted, and he sent through a message right away, saying how great it was to meet her.
“And then we just kept exchanging Facebook messages back and forth over the holidays,” says Jennea. “I kept sneaking away into the room I was staying at my aunt’s house to try and message privately.”
Jennea and Arthur picked back up the conversation they’d started on the train, sending instant messages regularly back and forth. After a couple of days, they started talking on the phone.
A few days before Christmas, Jennea’s parents arrived in Cambridge.
“As soon as my mom arrived, my aunt said, ‘I think she’s met someone in the UK.’ And my mom was like, ‘Who did she meet? She’s only just landed?’” recalls Jenna. “And so then I always had a — very well-meaning, but nosy — relative, always coming into the bedroom, just putting laundry away, whenever I was on the phone with Arthur.”
“Which I would hear in the background, by the way, when we would be talking,” adds Arthur. “I’d suddenly hear, ‘Can you see me? I’m the pretty aunt.’”
Jennea was set to return to Mozambique early in the new year. She still had another 12 months of her Peace Corps contract. It wasn’t obvious where this connection with Arthur would or could go. But then Arthur invited Jennea to visit him in London for a couple of days before she returned.
“My mom was like, ‘Absolutely not. He could be an axe murderer. You just don’t know,’” says Jennea. “While my aunt was saying, ‘You’re just young once, and you only live once, so take a chance and see what happens.’”
Jennea tried not to be swayed by either of their opinions.
“I mean, as an adult, I was able to make my own decisions,” she points out.
Jennea knew she wanted to see Arthur again. So she got the train back from Cambridge to London, where Arthur was waiting, smiling, in the station concourse.
“We were in London together for just 24 hours,” says Arthur. “It was quite special. We were able to squeeze basically lots of different dates into that period of time.”
It was the end of December — that time between Christmas and the new year when many people in the UK are off work, the Christmas lights are still twinkling and there’s a sense of expectation in the air as January 31 gets ever closer. It was the perfect backdrop for falling in love.
“It was a very magical day,” says Jennea. “We went to different restaurants, museums, and saw a show.”
Arthur had planned out the whole day.
“And all the things that he had planned, they were things that I really enjoy doing as well,” says Jennea. “So there was this thought of, ‘What you like doing is what I like doing,.’”
“It was just one day in London. But it really sealed the deal.”
Arthur felt the same way, saying this time together, “helped establish a strong bond.”
But when Jennea left for Mozambique, she and Arthur promised to take “everything one day at a time.”
Neither of them had been looking for romance when they met. And both were conscious that Jennea living on another continent would be tough to navigate.
“My approach to it was, ‘If I keep talking to Arthur, that’s wonderful, and that’s great. And if not, I had a great time. Everything was lovely,’” says Jennea.
“And so I think because I wasn’t expecting and hoping and putting that pressure on, it always remained a very safe space, if that makes sense — super organic. It was just very relaxed, one day at a time without the pressure and I think the distance permitted that — but also knowing that the distance was temporary, I think that’s a really important mixture in starting a long-distance relationship.”
Jennea and Arthur kept in touch while she was away via regular phone calls.
“We would call and chat, building the relationship and getting to know each other,” says Jennea. “I looked forward to those phone calls. We’d ask: ‘What are your hopes and dreams for the future? What’s your family like? Do you have siblings? Happiest memory…’ That kind of thing… And also just, ‘How do you like your toast?’”
“Jennea was someone that liked going into depth on different things,” says Arthur. “And also someone I could laugh with. Someone with a sense of humor. I think that was very appealing.”
A few months in, Arthur visited Jennea in Mozambique in spring 2015.
“It was surreal when I saw Arthur again,” recalls Jennea. “I couldn’t believe he traveled across the world to come and visit me. I traveled six hours via public transport to meet him at the Nampula airport so it’s safe to say we were both feeling a little more invested in our relationship at that point.”
Jennea waited for Arthur at the airport holding “a giant homemade welcome sign for him in Dutch.”
The Mozambique visit was really exciting for both Arthur and Jennea, and further confirmed their certainty in the relationship and its potential future.
“It gave me a deep appreciation for the volunteering Jennea did, which really was a defining experience for her,” says Arthur.
And as the months rolled on, Jennea started considering what she’d do after her Peace Corps contract ended. She was interested in teaching, but wasn’t sure where she’d end up based.
“My original plan was to return to the US and to go into graduate school. And in the United States, you have to take an entrance exam in order to get into graduate school. So I convinced myself that it would be worth it to go to London and take this exam, because then I could stay with Arthur,” says Jennea.
In the moment, Jennea told herself — and everyone else in her life — that she was saving money by not having to pay for hotel accommodation, even though she could have done the exam somewhere closer and saved the plane fare.
“It was an excuse,” Jennea says. “I wasn’t fooling anyone. But then I went to London and stayed with Arthur for two weeks.”
During that period, Jennea talked to Arthur about her graduate school plans, and interest in teaching, but mentioned nothing was set in stone.
“I’m open to various options,” she told him.
“Well, you know, London is an option,” said Arthur.
Jennea raised an eyebrow, not sure what to make of this.
“I remember thinking, ‘What does that mean? I’m fully aware that I could move to London, but are you asking me to live with you?’” she says today. “And yes, that was his very romantic way of saying, ‘Will you live with me? London’s an option.’”
Life in London
After Jennea introduced Arthur to her extended family during a Minnesota-based Thanksgiving at the end of 2014 — a trip she calls “a lot of fun” — she made the choice to move to the UK to be with Arthur.
This decision was made a little easier thanks to Jennea’s mother’s Irish roots.
“Fortunately, I have dual-citizenship with Ireland and the USA,” she says. “I was therefore spared any visa hardships, luckily.”
And at the beginning of 2015, she moved into Arthur’s apartment in Poplar, east London — which he’d just purchased.
“The wallpaper was a bit 1970s, so we had this shared project of updating this flat together, and I think for us living together for the first time in this big city, and adjusting, it was helpful, because I wasn’t moving into his space right away. We were both starting out in this new space,” Jennea says.
“We were building new memories together, in a new area,” adds Arthur.
The couple also adopted a cat from Battersea Cats and Dogs Home, an animal rescue center in London.
“That was also really nice, because we had our little friend, and it was nice to come home to him,” says Jennea, who started training to become an elementary school teacher not long after she moved to the UK.
Life in London was an adjustment from her time in the Peace Corps — and living in the UK was also different from Jennea’s childhood in the US. But her Cambridge family weren’t too far away. And Jennea was excited to create her own family unit with Arthur.
“We were just very easy together,” she says. “It just felt cozy. It felt like home when we were together. I found security.”
When Jennea moved to London, she and Arthur and just celebrated their one year “meet-a-versary,” as she calls it.
As a gift, Arthur gave Jennea a ceramic tile, a type of traditional Dutch pottery, with a personalized inscription: “A phrase in Dutch that translates to, “The measurement of love is love without measurement.”
Underneath the words was the date Arthur and Jennea first met: December 15, 2013.
Proposal and marriage
After a couple of years enjoying London life, Arthur proposed to Jennea while they were on vacation in Bruges, Belgium.
“Arthur proposed after giving me a heartfelt letter about his love for me and got down on one knee,” says Jennea.
In the spring of 2017, Jennea and Arthur got married in Curacao, a Dutch Caribbean island.
“We chose a place that inconvenienced guests equally,” jokes Jennea before adding that they were attracted to the beauty of the island, and the fact it was “neither a ‘his’ nor ‘hers’ wedding destination.”
It was, says Arthur, “incredible and very memorable — having all of our closest family and friends in Curacao for a four day party.”
“For the entire week, when we walked down the street we always bumped into friends or family,” recalls Jennea.
“The day itself was sunny, clear blue skies and warm. I had had a sleepover with the bridesmaids/girls the night before and I was ready to party and say yes to living the rest of my life with Arthur by my side. It was just such a great buzz.”
The speeches included a couple of mentions of Arthur and Jennea’s unlikely train station meeting — including three of Arthur’s friends performing a little skit about the meeting, and the couple’s life together since.
“I have a lot of happy memories of that day. It’s definitely a moment in time I like to relive and enjoy,” says Jennea.
Arthur says he also felt “deeply happy” and also really “grateful” to be marrying Jennea.
Tougher times
From the early days of their relationship, Arthur and Jennea had talked about wanting children. The couple first discussed this mutual desire on one of their many long, in-depth cross-continental phone calls.
They figured once they were married, and more settled with careers and life, they’d start trying for kids.
“But this turned out to be very difficult,” says Jennea. “We really struggled with infertility, and that was something that was really hard, because everything else was so easy between us. When we started trying for kids, it just kind of felt ‘What’s wrong?’ This life we had envisioned together — it wasn’t necessarily clear whether or not we would ever have that.”
As the uncertainty and heartbreak stretched over several years, Jennea and Arthur navigated the ups and downs as a team.
“We’d be open about the challenges, having those conversations emotionally,” says Arthur. “But then also not being stuck in that anxiety or concern or frustration, but trying to convert that into, ‘Where do we go from here, together?’”
Arthur also credits the couple’s “wider social circle, family and friends” who helped support them through this period.
And then, in 2020, Jennea and Arthur had a successful round of IVF, welcoming a daughter.
“We got very lucky,” says Jennea.
A few years later, in summer 2023, the couple had a second child, a son.
“We have another little baby, also with the help of IVF,” says Jennea. “We just feel very fortunate to have what we have now.”
Life today
Today, Jennea and Arthur live in the Hague, in the Netherlands, with their two young children. The couple moved to Arthur’s home country when they became parents.
This was partly a career decision after Britain left the European Union, and partly a personal decision.
“Arthur’s career was moved from London to Amsterdam following Brexit, and then Arthur’s family also lives here,” explains Jennea. “So as I was pregnant and about to give birth, the thought was, ‘Oh, wouldn’t it be nice to be closer to Arthur’s immediate family?’”
Today, says Jennea, the couple are nostalgic about their London life — “all the museums, going for drinks with your friends — there’s just so much going on in London, how could you not love it?”
They always enjoy returning — especially to King’s Cross station, where it all began.
“Kings Cross station definitely holds a special place in our hearts,” says Jennea. “We always hold hands and kiss when we walk through together. When we brought our daughter there the first time, that was a magical moment. I’m looking forward to bringing our son there in the future.”
Over a decade later, Jennea says she still thinks “meeting at a train station is romantic. It feels nostalgic in a way, like an old movie meet-cute.”
Jennea and Arthur also always associate the month of December with their love story.
“It’s that wonderful festive energy, the exciting chaos, that engulfs the days leading up to Christmas that I associate with our love story,” she says.
The couple always take a moment to “set aside time to be with just each other at this point in the year, and tell each other just how grateful we are that we met,” adds Jennea.
“To our friends/family, it has been compared to a Bollywood scene,” says Arthur, who adds he has a strong feeling that bumping into Jennea that day was “meant to be.”
“I honestly still count myself incredibly lucky because it was so serendipitous,” agrees Jennea.
“If things had gone to ‘plan’ — no delayed plane or luggage, not having missed my original trains to Cambridge, etc. I never would have met Arthur. Our paths just wouldn’t have crossed. We were living in two totally different worlds and this really feels like it was fate. Eleven years later, we’re still together and with two kids, all due to a chance encounter on a train platform.”
