We're Engaged!

To all of our Eat Travel Dive followers:

We write our blog, and hope that you are enjoying it – whoever out there is reading!  Since we write to you and tell you about our lives, we have something massive we’d like to share with you – Gaffa proposed to Win in Prague on 20^th February 2011….  Read on to find out how it all happened!!

We were recommended a restaurant in Prague by the hostel to try some traditional Czech food. Since we’re travelling on a tight budget and don’t go out for dinner too much, we thought we’d make it a nice night and dress up a bit for our 'date night' as I called it.

We went to a restaurant near our hostel called Zlata Kovadlina (Komunardu 36, Praha 7, 17000) which had great reviews from previous hostel guests and served local dishes like goulash and dumplings, pork and duck, that the Czech’s are famous for.

We had zverinovy gulas (venison goulash with horseradish and bacon dumplings) and pecene koleno (grilled knee with horseradish and bread served boneless). The meat was very tender, the horseradish was really fresh and the dumplings were interesting - very heavy and filling, but tasty. We also finished it off with some Czech beers; Breznak svetly 10 and Zlatopramen svetly 11.

After dinner we decided to head back into the city for a walk around the Old Town and the Charles Bridge again, as the views were spectacular at night. And also to walk off dinner, as the portions were large and very filling!

We took a (free) tram over to the castle side of the Charles Bridge and started walking across it towards the Old Town. At that end of the bridge there is a statue on your left, with two plaques; one of a dog and another of a woman/dame. The first night we saw some girls rubbing the dog and the woman, and wondered what they were doing. Garry tried to ask them, and what we got from their broken English, was that you rub the dog and the woman and make a wish, and it will come true. I just Googled this, and apparently you are supposed to rub a different plaque, of a priest being thrown into the river, and your wish will come true within a year and one day, and it will also ensure your return to Prague. But now the dog and woman have become popular over the years, and people rub them for good luck. In the light, you will see that they are shiny and gold compared to the rest of the plaque – only possible by millions of people rubbing it!

We walked past these and both Gaffa and I made wishes on both the dog and the woman… We continued across the pedestrian bridge, hand in hand, enjoying the romantic views of Prague at night. Further down the bridge, Gaffa stops, turns to me to give me a hug and kiss, then reaches into his pocket and pulls out a white box and gets down on one knee… He then opened the box and asked the magic question (that all people hope the answer is yes), “Will you marry me?”… Of course I said 'yes' straight away. He then took the ring and placed it onto my finger, it fits perfectly! 

It’s just what I imagined, very simple but elegant. White gold with a nice shaped diamond. No bling at all, very understated but shimmers beautifully in the sunlight. I couldn’t believe it, even though one of the wishes I’d made while rubbing the dog was about my future with Gaffa. I started crying, not because I was upset, but because I was overwhelmed and filled with happiness.

We continued to walk across the bridge and wanted to find something to remember our night by. We looked in all the souvenir stores for something… There were statues of the bridge, magnets, etc. But we thought these were all abit tacky. We finally walked past a shop that sold paintings of Prague. We walked in and found some beautiful paintings of the Charles Bridge and bought a few to put up in our home when we get back to Sydney (and when we get our own home!).

We then thought, what would be great but some food to celebrate! The ice cream place that we’d seen the day before was unfortunately shut. But we did find Hard Rock Café, and enjoyed some cocktails and mini desserts to celebrate our engagement.

Well folks, that’s the story. I expect Gaffa to have a longer, more detailed version of it! But I prefer to be short and straight to the point! Haha. But now that I have the ring, a weight has lifted off Gaffa, who has been carrying it around for almost 9 months since we left Australia! Now it’s my turn to carry it around forever! It’s weird wearing a ring, as I’m not use to wearing any type of jewellery long term, except for ear rings. The last ring I had, I lost it in less than 24 hours after buying it, and left it in a public shower in Darwin. I will be sure to keep a closer eye on this ring!