It had been an exhausting journey. I had spent two exasperating days and nights stuck in the airport in Boston, laden with six months worth of luggage, due to my missed connection. I had pathetically erupted into tears at the gate, in front of hundreds of passengers, after they told me I would have to wait a third day. Wisely, they managed to fit me on the plane. There I was, after a long flight across the Atlantic, after days without sleep, in a land shrouded in almost unceasing darkness. On the ride from the airport, in every direction I looked, there were only lava fields stretching to the horizon. It looked like I arrived on the moon. I wondered if it was worth it.
Was it ever! I met Florian in Iceland, and I love him to the moon and back.
I was instantly smitten with his Bavarian accent; he caught my eye the first time we spoke, in an outdoor hottub in Icelandic January- and has held my gaze ever since. Five months later we said our heartbreaking goodbyes, unsure if we would ever see each other again. But when he called from the airport just to say he missed me, I knew I could not lose him. I immediately exchanged my flight home for one to mainland Europe, and I stayed with Florian in Vienna. Finally, a year, several transatlantic flights, and many, many phone calls later I was back for good.
Four and a half years after Iceland, on a rainy October day, we stood underneath the balcony of the Volkstheatre, dressed in our vintage best. Florian bent on one knee, and told me there was only one thing missing in his life- and asked me to be his wife.
