The full description of the whole trip is here:
http://alittlebitofluke.blogspot.com/2014/05/in-deutschland-verlobt.html
This proposal came about due to quite a few influences: Wanderlust, A spontaneous but improbable idea, romantic foreshadowing, prayer, being terrible at settling, a ring, the combined encouragement of friends and beer, not giving a shit about money, the generosity of teachers and bosses, a lock, the Moody's blessing, deceiving my girlfriend, staying with foreign strangers met on the internet, and an international proposal team.
The Backstory
The semester after I graduated, I felt liberated; I was strapped for cash, but at least I had no upcoming plans. Having just attended the Storyline Conference and lost my job at the time, I was itching to live out an exciting adventure. I got the chance to go to Germany with a Camp Adventure Internship from March to May 2013. I worked on USAG Bamberg (now closed) in their CDC toddler room, which amounts to basically changing diapers for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. The work sucked, but on the weekends you were free to travel.
Wanderlust: ✓
On one of these such weekends, my fellow interns and I decided to take a weekend trip to the city of Salzburg, Austria, famous for being the location of the Sound of Music movie. In an attempt to escape the soul-crushing work at the CDC during the week, I would often research our weekend travel destinations as much as possible. Among other attractions, I saw that there was a local bridge famous for being covered in locks left by romantic couples. Seeing this as an opportunity to do something cute for my long distance girlfriend, I bought a lock before departure. The night of our arrival, as I was sitting in our hostel in the city, I began to sharpie cute lovers-lingo all over the lock, when an idea struck me. I was pretty sure Sarah was the one by this time, so I entertained the crazy thought of writing "will you marry me?" on the bottom of the lock. I figured if we somehow found ourselves back in Germany, it would be a great possible proposal idea to have on hand. The next day I slapped the padlock on the bridge, and took pictures of the lock (not the bottom, obviously) to send to Sarah. She thought it was adorable of course.
A Spontaneous but improbable idea: ✓
A picture of the lock the day I left it:
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Lets see, fast forward to the beginning of summer. Before she left for India, I gave her the key on a necklace chain, to wear around her neck. This spurred her to leave a lock for me in India, and I left her another one in Japan that summer (also writing a proposal on the bottom as well, just in case we somehow both went to Japan). I also got her a big picture frame with cute pictures while also containing the keys to all our locks around the world for our two year anniversary. Needless to say, there were several little 'hints' that stressed the significance of our locks before the proposal.
Romantic Foreshadowing: ✓
Upon returning from Japan that summer, I began to tell our parents, family members, and some choice friends about my crazy scheme, to a surprisingly diverse mix of reactions. Most of my friends thought it was an awesome idea when they first heard it. Both of our parents thought it was a little bit on the excessive side, and while they weren't opposed to it, they did think there were some more accessible options that made sense. I don't hold this against them at all, since I had also realized the enormity of it all and was contemplating ideas that were a little more local.Ultimately, I decided to take the year slow and think/pray about it, and then see where I was at in a couple months.
Prayer: ✓
In February of 2014, I felt very stuck. Of all the other proposal plans I had played with, none felt 'right'. They all kind of seemed to pale in comparison, and I felt like I would kinda regret 'settling' for something easier. At the same time, I was frustrated that I had kind of cursed myself to have to pursue such a plan. I tried every conceivable idea to make the money: I looked into the (now essentially non-existent) trade of being a courier, considered begging relatives for money, and even wrote to Ellen Degeneres, hoping she would see it as an interesting show topic and front me the money. But nothing seemed promising in the least. Between tight finances and seemingly incompatible schedules, I began to just stall until I had something to go off of.
Being terrible at settling: ✓
At the same time, I was pretty confident that I was ready. Due to my poor situation, her parents managed to find a 'family ring' that her grandpa had given to her grandma long ago. They generously gave me the ruby ring to use for my proposal, whenever I figured out how I was going to do it.
Ring: ✓
Later on in February, I was at a bar with some friends. Somehow the topic of engagements came up, and one of my friends and another friends dad began to talk about how they loved my idea (thanks Bri and Chunk!). I thanked them, but sort-of declined and began to describe my tight situation to them. They would have none of it. They told me it was a rad unique idea that I had to capitalize them. They offered to even help me brainstorm ways to raise funds. Maybe it was the encouragement, or maybe it was the beer (or both?), but something stuck that night. I decided to renew full scale efforts of putting this plan into action.
Combined encouragement of beer and friends: ✓
The Planning
The next day, I began researching flight routes and prices. Turns out that the week before spring break was the absolute cheapest time to fly for the next year, so much so that I could actually pay for both our tickets. That about settled things; it was either propose now and do this thing, or either wait another year, or pay way more for a summer trip. Now I had to check and see if it was possible for both of us to get the time off.
Not giving a shit about money: ✓
On my side, I had my job at the junior high (easy to request "personal necessity" days), but I had also been hired as a shift lead by Tbar recently, and was looking to miss a mandatory orientation I had already committed to attending. Thanks to a generous boss, we postponed my hiring at no penalty. One down, one to go.
Her situation proved a bit more tricky. I would have to secretly talk to her manager and get her already-assigned shifts off for a busy and often requested week off. At the same time, I would have to email and visit all her teachers asking them to give her the midterm-laden week before spring break off somehow, with only two weeks notice. After many, many, many phone calls, office visits, and explanations (including a suspenseful and lengthy explanation to a foreign teacher), I managed (by the grace of God) to somehow get her the time off.
Generosity of teachers and bosses: ✓
Through random connections on the internet, I was put in touch with a stranger who lived in Salzburg and offered to help. Using my vague instructions based on year old memories, he searched for a solid hour and was able to track down my exact lock on the bridge, despite a lot of the writing having faded. I promised him a big american beer as a thank you when we met in the next week.
Lock: ✓
Heres a picture sent to me by my Austrian friend/stranger of the lock. He was able to locate it by finding "identifying" locks that were placed around it in the picture I sent him (which is up above):
I then proceeded to call her parents later that night and tell them my crazy plan, and thankfully, they were mostly supportive and told me to go for it, but i'd imagine they were both giving each other the "who-is-this-crazy-guy-about-to-become-our-son-in-law?" look. I bought the tickets the next day, and began the serious task of organizing a trip and proposal that was 10 days away.
The Moody's blessing: ✓
I first told Sarah that she should try to get the week before spring break off of school and work for a surprise trip. I had a whole deception campaign in place, and the whole time her thoughts were that we were going to a concert down south (even though I told her to pack.... for snow. whoops!). Somehow (but thank goodness), she was not suspicious of all her teachers and her boss giving her the time off on such short notice.
Deceiving my girlfriend: ✓
Due to the expensive nature of the trip, I was looking to save money in any way possible. I remembered a website I had stumbled across on the internet called Couchsurfing, in which users make profiles and offer their spare rooms/couches for traveling visitors. This seemed like the perfect time to try this phenomenon I had heard so much about. I began to message different users in various cities in the southern Germany/Austria area, and started to hammer out an itinerary based on when a host from a city could house us. Luckily, I had a crazy and interesting reason for traveling that helped separate me from the numerous other requests our hosts received. It's not everyday a foreign stranger messages you online asking for help with his proposal. Of the 60-ish hosts I emailed, I managed to find 6 people who could house us on the desired dates. I planned to be in Salzburg for 3 days mid week, when the weather was supposed to be sunny. Nuremberg and Bamberg would come before, followed by Ulm and Munich before we flew back.
Staying with foreign strangers met on the internet: ✓
I found a generous young couple named Juli and Rasmus in Salzburg who offered to house us and help me set up the actual proposal. My cover story is that they volunteered to take us on a photo shoot around the city, and while doing that we would happen to pass the bridge with the lock and would stop to retrieve it. That way, we would have pictures of the proposal as well.
International proposal team: ✓
Finally, everything was planned and in order. We packed our bags and headed to her hometown of Brentwood, where her parents would drive us to the airport.
Departure
I managed to convince her that there was a bus terminal under the San Francisco airport, so she should not get her hopes up that we were flying. Still being gullible (or maybe over-trustworthy?), she believed me, even as we walked into the international terminal. I then took out my phone and began filming, and asked her where she thought we were going, before telling her we were Germany-bound. Her first reaction was total disbelief, followed by excitement that quickly turned back into skepticism. Here's the video:
It wasn't until we had gotten our tickets from the counter that she realized she was heading to Europe for the first time. The whole surprise begged the question: why? To which I explained that we had both been working so hard all year long that I wanted to do something spontaneous and crazy, with this trip being the result. We called our family and said goodbye, shared a celebratory overpriced-bottle of chardonnay, and then boarded our plane.
The Proposal
Fast forward to Day 4 of our Eurotrip, while on a train to Salzburg..
On this train ride, I thought it was a good time to discuss the future with Sarah, specifically that we would probably have to push back our engagement due to the finances of this very trip. She was quite saddened to hear this, and even bluntly asked "then why are we on this trip?". It also didn't help that she was on her period, but I figured it was a necessary evil in order to fend off any sneaking suspicions that I would be proposing on the trip. I managed to help her understand where I was coming from (while the whole time I was thinking "oh just you wait and see.."), and we ended on a good note.
We arrived at the station and wandered about, looking for our host, named Rasmus. All I knew was that he had blonde hair, so we began asking strangers until we finally came upon him (go figure, he was wearing a beanie..). Rasmus was a tall Dutch college-aged sculptor/ art student; he was taking german classes and working on his portfolio when he was not working as a coat check at a local theater. He walked us a short distance to their (again, top-story) flat, dropped our stuff off, and got ready to hit the town. While Sarah was using the bathroom, I stole Rasmus away and asked him if he was aware of the plan (since I had set up the plan with Juli) and he said they were ready to go the next day. He even managed to get one of those massive professional-grade cameras from a relative.
On a side note: words cannot express how nerve-racking it is to set up a proposal idea with foreigners on the internet. The whole trip, I was so worried I had mixed up which hosts knew about my plan and knew it would have already happened when we came to stay with them, and which hosts knew about my plan but knew I had not done it yet. I was terrified that some slight comment about "Congratualtions! how did the proposal go?" would pique Sarah's interest and give me away. And with an engagement plan like this (cue Eminem), you get one chance; there's no do-overs for this type of scheme.
Anyways, after that terror had once again passed, we went with Rasmus to a local jazz bar and had some beers, until his girlfriend Juli finally showed up. Juli was a petite Austrian art student who was about to graduate with an art-teaching degree, though she hoped to soon pursue her masters. They had met while both studying abroad in Sweden, during a blur of a night out. They had danced together, mostly forgot about it, and then managed to reconnect and hit it off. We talked at the bar for most of the night before coming home and crashing.
Salzburg, Austria - Proposal Day
After waking up that morning, I volunteered to go get breakfast for us. In reality, I was busy making the 30 minute trek to the bridge where the lock was. I made sure I knew where it was, then re wrote over some of the faded inscriptions. It was exhilarating to finally see the lock in person and realize it was still right where I left it. I returned to a disappointed and hungry girlfriend, saying I could not find any food places nearby. We got ready for our 'photoshoot' before meeting with Juli and Rasmus for lunch. Everyone ate and made conversation while I sat and quietly downed my beer, rehearsing what was about to happen. After what seemed like an eternity, we paid our bill and began walking to the bridge, right around 15:00 (figure it out). I had told Sarah we would start our photoshoot at the bridge and retrieve the lock to bring back home.
The whole walk over, I hung back behind Sarah and tried to act normal. I began pulling out the ring box and making sure I knew exactly which way it opened, to avoid any awkward fumbling when the moment came. My mind was surprisingly clear; all I remember thinking about was "just say 'will you marry me', dont mumble or mess up your words..". Finally, we arrived at the bridge. I began to move Sarah into position near the lock, sending sideways, half-panicked glances at our two hosts/foreign-strangers-responsible-for-helping-me-get-engaged. I set my backpack and waited for Sarah to find our lock:
She picked it out, got the key and lifted it up to unlock it, read the bottom, and snapped her head up, exclaiming: "REALLY?!". Right then, I hopped down on one knee and said those hallowed words, to a resounding "YES!".
The bottom of the lock:
The ring:
I then brought out a second lock that I had previously written the words "She said Ja!" onto, and we both placed it on the bridge to replace the proposal lock, which we (of course) took with us.
In the minutes following all this, all any of us could do was just randomly cheer and whoop. We were all kind of struck dumb by the enormity and disbelief of what had just happened. It's really hard to describe the weird and unique dynamic we all felt at that point. I felt immensely relieved and yet also still excited and on edge a bit, while Sarah felt a flood of sometimes-ambiguous emotions; fluctuating from excitement to disbelief to questions to other feelings that probably can't adequately be described. On top of that, none of us knew what to talk about after either. I mean, are you supposed to just go back to normal conversation after something like that? I really wish I could justly describe it, but I don't think it can happen. Maybe other engaged couples out there can sympathize.
Anyway, we all went to a nice restaurant on a balcony and had a celebratory glass of champagne. Again, it was hard to go back to normal conversation after the proposal. I just kept breathing huge sighs of relief, Sarah kept trying to kiss/touch me, and our hosts just cheered and cheered. Leaving the restaurant, we began walking back to their flat, stopping for a half hour to take engagement-esque pictures in a beautiful local garden.
Of course, it wasn't all fairytale-esque happiness. Juli and Rasmus couldn't house us that night since they had agreed to house another couchsurfing couple. The next host I had planned for that night in Salzburg had cancelled, and I hadn't the time or energy before the proposal to sort that all out. I ended up finding a hostel nearby that we decided to stay at. Juli and Rasmus were extremely sorry for having to kick us out, but I assured them it was no trouble. So we set out on the dark streets with our luggage in tow, looking for our hostel.
As we checked into our hostel, we realized we would be staying in a room with six other travelers (hardly the ideal engagement accomodations). Between the massive emotional rush, slight frustration at circumstances, period problems, and remaining jetlag, we were exhausted. Thankfully, we managed to get some alone time in our room to talk through and process the eventful day. Our hostel had a pub, so we made our way down to it and had a beer or two and continued to talk and process for the next two hours, before finally crashing.
What a day.
The Future?
Sarah and I have not set anything in stone just yet, but we are looking at venues, and hope to set the date for November or possibly January. That about brings us up to today!
I owe so many people so much, whether it's a friend who gave much needed encouragement, parents who pushed me to do Camp Adventure, Germans who generously housed us and provided support during the engagement, friends who let me borrow travel gear, teachers and bosses who gave the time off/ let me plan the trip on company time, etc etc.. Seriously, thank you all so much.
Finally, one last thing and I'm done. Whether you are single, in a relationship, engaged, married, etc.. you will have your own unique engagement. I was privileged/lucky enough to have an internship in Germany to even make this possible, and not many have that opportunity. In other words, I had the unique circumstances to pull off this unique proposal. Though my proposal story may seem grand, it is completely on the same level as someones proposal during an intimate dinner or during a hike, etc.. I really don't want guys to feel pressure that they have to pull off some sort of international caper for their proposal, and I don't want any girls expecting this from them. You have your own relationship and story, make it your own; whatever that may look like.
