He hadn’t seen his high school crush in years. Then he traveled to another country to visit her
Three years after Arthur “Chip” Gaudio Jr. last met his friend Jenny Teresia Sundberg, he decided to visit her in Sweden.
“That was the first time we’d seen each other since 1992,” Arthur tells CNN Travel today.
In the intervening years, Arthur and Jenny had sent long letters across the Atlantic and spoken occasionally on a long-distance phone call (“birthdays, mostly”).
But they’d not actually spent any time together in person. And in the meantime, they’d gone from being high schoolers to college students in their early 20s. What if they didn’t get on in person anymore? What if it was really awkward? What if Arthur’s semi-spontaneous trip was a big mistake?
But as soon as Arthur saw Jenny again, “the nervousness vanished.”
“It was just like old times,” Arthur says. “It felt very natural, kind of like our friendship just picked right up where it left off.”
High school crush
Arthur and Jenny met in the summer of 1992, when Swedish Jenny was on an exchange year at Arthur’s high school in Laramie, Wyoming.
For Jenny, the prospect of attending US high school was a dream come true — she figured it would be “just like on TV.” Back then, 17-year-old Jenny was obsessed with American high school shows, which were almost always set in Los Angeles. And in the lead up to her trip, Jenny imagined California beach parties, outdoor shopping malls and sunshine.
Then she found out her destination.
At first, Jenny wasn’t entirely sure where Wyoming even was. It didn’t sound glamorous and certainly didn’t feature on her favorite TV shows.
But after Jenny got over the initial “not California” disappointment, she embraced the Laramie way of life. Thanks to snowy weather and high elevation, that included regular skiing.
“I also really liked that it felt like ‘the real, ordinary US,’” Jenny tells CNN Travel today.
Jenny had almost finished her year in Laramie before she met Arthur.
They attended the same high school, so theoretically they must have crossed paths at some point, but they had no idea of each other’s existence.
Then, with only two months left in the United States, Jenny went on a week-long school trip to Washington, DC, along with seven other students from her high school.
Of the group, four, including Jenny, were exchange students, the others hailing from Spain, Norway and Mexico. Rounding out the group were four Wyoming residents including Arthur “Chip” Gaudio Jr.
Today, Arthur describes his teenage self as “kind of the nerd in the class.”He spent a lot of time studying, and usually started his day reading the newspaper to catch up on world events.
Arthur and Jenny’s first conversation happened on day one of the trip. Arthur had just finished his daily newspaper, and Jenny asked to borrow it. Everyone on the trip was wearing a name tag, so Jenny, who didn’t know Arthur’s name, glanced at his tag and addressed him as Arthur.
“Actually, I don’t go by Arthur, I go by Chip,” he explained. “I’ve got the same name as my father, so it’s easier.”
Jenny raised an eyebrow.
“I remember thinking, ‘Whatever,’” she says today, laughing.
Jenny just wanted the newspaper and wasn’t especially interested in this guy’s life story — at least not at first.
But over the next few days in DC, Jenny and Arthur grew closer. In fact, the whole group bonded.
“It was fun to hang out with all the other kids on the trip,” says Jenny.
“We visited all the places you would expect,” adds Arthur. “The Capitol, Smithsonian, Lincoln and Jefferson memorials, Arlington National Cemetery and Vietnam Memorial.”
Jenny and Arthur often ended up walking around the landmarks side by side, laughing and chatting together.
“I was pretty much smitten with Jenny from the start, even though we both knew that there wasn’t really a relationship in the cards,” says Arthur.
At one point, while standing in front of the Supreme Court, Arthur picked a flower and presented it to Jenny.
“She wore it in her jeans jacket the rest of the day,” he says. “Pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to pick that flower …”
On the flight home to Wyoming, Arthur asked one of the other students to switch so he could sit next to Jenny. They talked for much of the journey.
“Then, for Jenny’s last two months, we spent a lot of time together,” says Arthur. “We became very close friends…I drove us all over the place, sometimes just the two of us, sometimes together with all our friends. I just thought she was a nice, lovely person.”
Jenny — who’d spent a year trying to keep in touch with loved ones via the meager means available in the early 1990s — didn’t want to get into anything romantic with someone who lived in another country. But she left America hoping Arthur might become a penpal, even if it wasn’t clear when or even if they’d be able to see each other again.
“I liked him a lot,” she says. “We were definitely friends.”
“It felt only natural that we had to write to each other after she left and maintain our friendship,” agrees Arthur.
And while he had no plans — and no means — to visit Sweden as a 17-year-old living in the middle of America, that didn’t stop Arthur from daydreaming.
“Jenny even sent me a huge map of Sweden that I put up on the wall in my bedroom, and I clearly remember looking at and thinking where I would like to visit,” he says.
From penpals to meeting in person
Over the next few years, Jenny and Arthur exchanged regular letters and postcards.
“Getting the letter was always really fun,” says Arthur. “Especially living in Wyoming. It’s sort of the most rural state in the entire country, so it’s a very small place, and getting the letter from Sweden was a pretty big deal. It was pretty cool.”
“It was fun to have a penpal,” agrees Jenny.
As Jenny and Arthur graduated from high school and went to college — Jenny to Stockholm University, Arthur to the University of Wyoming — the two continued to write letters, sharing details about their lives and experiences.
The two wrote, recalls Jenny, about “day-to-day stuff, things happening in school. Books. What we wanted to do in our lives.”
As the years went on, Jenny and Arthur continued to think of one another fondly. But any questions of romance were always dismissed because of the ocean between them.
“Had he been in Sweden, I would have had other thoughts,” says Jenny. “But seeing as we were so far apart from each other, it felt like it was fun, but I didn’t really see it happening.”
“It was a two-week turnaround time at best on a letter,” says Arthur. “Phone calls were ridiculously expensive. So I don’t think either of us really saw it going anywhere.”
In their letters, Arthur and Jenny confided in each about almost everything — except the dates they went on with other people.
Somehow, sharing that always felt a little awkward. Even though they weren’t a couple — and nothing romantic had ever really happened between them, aside from Arthur presenting Jenny with the flower outside the Supreme Court.
Cut to 1995. Arthur, who was by then midway through his college degree in Wyoming, got the opportunity to study abroad in London.
Living in London was something he’d always wanted to do. And there was an added bonus to a stint in the UK — he’d be that bit closer to Jenny.
So, during a week-long break in February 1995, Arthur boarded a flight to Stockholm. He’d called Jenny a few weeks before to suggest the idea, and she’d seemed enthusiastic.
“I was excited and looked forward to seeing him,” says Jenny today.
Despite Arthur’s nerves, reuniting was surprisingly easy. He and Jenny slotted back into each other’s lives like no time had passed.
They also enjoyed getting to know each other’s college selves — more confident, more independent, more self-assured.
“It was fun,” says Jenny. “Also nice to, instead of writing letters and waiting for an eternity for an answer, having proper discussions and talks.”
“Jenny showed me all the sites of Stockholm, and we went to cafes and to the cinema,” says Arthur. “We discovered very early that we both love going to the cinema and had similar tastes as well.”
Arthur stayed with Jenny’s family — in her brother’s room, as he was away at college.
“I got to know Jenny’s parents, and Jenny also introduced me to some of her closest friends,” he says.
At the end of the week, Arthur and Jenny said their farewells, hoping to meet again. As they hugged goodbye, they each wondered, for the first time, whether their deep connection could plausibly be the basis for something more.
“I mean, it still seemed impossible, but I also knew that she was more than just a friend,” Arthur says.
A few months later, in summer 1995, Arthur was back in Wyoming and Jenny, who was traveling in the United States with her family, stopped off to visit.
“It was even more clear to me that Jenny was the one,” says Arthur.
Arthur thought Jenny felt similarly, but he didn’t know for certain. Eventually, some months later, Arthur decided to call Jenny out of the blue, to tell her how he felt.
“I think I got the times wrong,” he says. “It was, like, five in the morning in Sweden.”
But despite Jenny answering the phone bleary-eyed and half asleep, she was delighted to hear from Arthur.
“From that point forward, it was us,” is how Arthur puts it.
“It was just clear that it was the two of us,” echoes Jenny.
“We had the connection and everything,” says Arthur. “But it just didn’t seem possible until we decided it was possible. And once we decided it was possible, it became that.”
In summer 1996, Arthur visited Sweden again. This time, he stayed for the whole of his college vacation, some six or seven weeks. During this visit, Arthur and Jenny talked through the next steps toward making a life together a reality.
First up, Jenny arranged a semester abroad at the University of Wyoming for the spring of 1997.
Then the couple decided that when Arthur graduated at the end of that year, he’d move to Sweden to be with Jenny.
While Jenny was also open to living in the United States, she was in law school and it was less obvious how her qualifications would transfer. Meanwhile, Arthur had an English degree and was able to get a job teaching English in Sweden.
Him moving made more sense. And at this point, the couple were just excited to finally be together, in whatever form it took.
“We’d been worlds apart from each other,” says Arthur. “And somewhere along the line we just decided, ‘Let’s try this instead.’”
‘A good team’
Arthur quickly settled into life in Stockholm, getting to know Jenny’s social circle and making his own friends.
Living together — properly and permanently — was easy, says Jenny. There weren’t any teething issues. They never really argued.
“It just felt seamless,” she says.
Arthur and Jenny got engaged in 1997, but didn’t get married right away. They wanted to wait until they were a little older, a little more settled in jobs and finances.
In 2001, the couple started planning a small, intimate wedding at a 12th-century church in Stockholm’s Bromma neighborhood. But in the lead up, Jenny and Arthur came face-to-face with an unexpected and worrying situation.
“I got very ill when I was 26, before our wedding,” explains Jenny.
She was hospitalized for several months and underwent major surgery.
“It was a very trying time,” says Arthur. “Not so much for our relationship but just the not knowing how the illness would affect Jenny and the uncertainty about what our lives would be like in the future as she continued to deal with the illness.”
“Chip turned out to be a rock,” says Jenny, who still calls her partner by his teenage nickname.
“If I ever had had any doubts about getting married to him — which mind you I didn’t — they would have vanished then.”
After major surgery and a recuperation period, Jenny recovered.
Arthur says they came out of the experience thankful “we live in a country with a top-notch health care system.”
They also felt even more certain, “we do make a good team, especially when things get tough.”
Arthur and Jenny were married in the summer of 2001, and Jenny took Arthur’s name, becoming Jenny Teresia Gaudio.
“Best day of my life,” says Arthur. “It was very intimate as we celebrated with the people who were most important to us.”
During the reception, Arthur’s father took some of the couple’s favorite photos and made a memorable speech, commenting on the unlikelihood of Arthur and Jenny meeting in the first place, let alone maintaining their high school friendship and turning it into a strong, lasting partnership
“He pointed out, ‘Wow, what a chance encounter,’” recalls Arthur.
‘Gratitude and pride’
Today, Arthur and Jenny still live in Stockholm, Sweden. They have two children, aged 17 and 20, who are embarking on their own adventures.
For Arthur and Jenny, it’s surreal to think their son is the age they were when they first met — and their daughter is the age they were when they first reunited. The couple remain friends with some of the other students who were also on the 1992 DC trip, and enjoy looking back at the old photos.
Over three decades later, Jenny and Arthur think their teenage selves would be surprised but happy at how life turned out.
Jenny laughs at the idea of telling her 17-year-old self she lucked out going to Wyoming, rather than California, after all.
“If I’d gone to California, we would never have met,” says Jenny. “It turned out well. We’ve grown up together. I think it is pretty sweet, high school sweethearts.”
The couple bonded, back then, over their shared interests. And while they’ve grown and changed over the years, they still enjoy spending their time in similar ways.
“Same books, same movies,” says Arthur. “So we have a good time together and enjoy ourselves. We enjoy each other’s company.”
Arthur suggests the years of friendship that predated their romance also formed a great basis for a life together. When the couple have navigated life’s tougher moments — such as Jenny’s illness in her 20s and the more recent passing of Arthur’s parents — they’ve handled them side by side.
“We look out for each other and since we have been both best friends and a couple for so long, we are good at anticipating what support the other one needs in any given situation,” says Arthur.
Looking back on their three decades together, Arthur says his main feeling is “gratitude.”
“I mean, it’s just such a chance encounter, it could just as easily not have happened, and I’m very happy that it did. I don’t think I could describe it any better than that,” he says.
But he’s also grateful, and proud, for the work he and Jenny put into making their dream a reality.
“When we mutually decided sometime there in late 1995 that we were going to make it work, it was clear that we would succeed,” he says.
“So I am both grateful to us and proud of us that we had the courage to make that decision together.”
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