Proposal....

Thanks to everyone with those speedy Mazal tovs! I have slept all of about 3 hours (and from the text messages I've been receiving, Bryan is probably still up with his buddies).

I promised details, so....

Bryan and I have known for a while (about a month) that we'd be getting engaged, and we more or less knew when the engagement would be, since we were waiting for Bryan's parents to arrive from South Africa, as I have yet to meet my future mother-in-law. The plan was that his parents would arrive this coming Sunday, we'd get engaged Monday and have an engagement party (l'chaim) at my folks house before Bryan's parents headed back to South Africa. I was mildly disappointed that I wouldn't be having a fairy tale proposal due to the time constraints, but was mollified by the fact that I had indeed found my prince.

About a week ago, Bryan found out that his parents would not be able to make it this coming Sunday and would be arriving in a couple weeks instead, so he told them he wasn't waiting for them, and was going to propose before they got here. But he kept it totally mum from me and everyone else, and I still thought we were going ahead with the old plan.

Then, we went out to dinner last night to Agas V'Tapuach. The restaurant is sorta meaningful to us, because its the first place the concept of getting married was really spoken aloud between us, helped along, if you will remember, by the anonymous nice person. But of course, I had no clue what Bryan had planned, so I just thought we were having a nice dinner. On second thought, Bryan did have to take a business call during dinner, which was probably part of the ruse.

Anyway, it had been pouring rain when we went in for dinner, but by the time we were done it wasn't raining, so we started walking home aftewards. When we smoothly glided past the turnoff to any of our houses, and kept walking, I had a small feeling something was up, and figured I should play along and keep walking with him, but I didn't think it was a proposal, since we had it all planned for next week.

We walked to Yemin Moshe, site of the Montefiore Windmill and general beautiful scenic spot in Jerusalem. Bryan mentioned that it was sort of like our 4 month anniversary, since it was our 16 week-aversery, and that he'd bought me chocolates from my favorite chocolate shop as dessert. He bought me those for our 3rd monthaversary, so I didn't think anything was out of the ordinary. I mean, I knew something was up, since we were walking in the freezing cold to a romantic, gorgeous spot in Jerusalem, but I think my mind was not registering what as happening. We sat down on this bench, overlooking the walls of the Old City, and I remarked how lucky we were to live in Jerusalem where we can have this sort of view, that people have died for over the years, in a 10 minute walk from a restaurant.

Anyway, Bryan opened up the chocolate box and basically started inhaling them - like really scarfing them down. At this point I really thought something was up, but again, I was sort of in shock, so it wasn't registering. I could barely eat 1 chocolate, but Bryan ate like 6 of them. After we finished layer one of the chocolates there was a piece of foil paper underneath, and something told me it would be a good idea to lift up the paper. Because it was so dark out, all I saw was white - the absence of chocolate - but as soon as Bryan got down on one knee, and asked me to mrry him, I figured there was a ring in there.

And there was, a beautiful engagement ring which is exactly what I would have picked out for myself, even though I had told Bryan a ring was unnecessary.

Anyway, I was so shocked I was actually speechless, an extremely rare event here in Casa de Noa. Then Bryan stood up and started clapping his hands like an idiot and all I could think was "Oh my, I've just agreed to marry a moron!" Then, out of nowhere, two of his buddies showed up with candles, and champagne, flowers and a guitar and serenaded us. And took pictures of me still being speechless - about half an hour later Bryan asked me, "Wait, that was a 'yes', right?"

And then we began the walk to my parents house to share the news with them in person, and started calling our friends.

So basically, I got both my prince and my fairy tale Jerusalem proposal, and I feel asbolutely like a very overtired princess.

Bryan was so chilled about dinner - we made plans Monday to have dinner last night, and then yesterday afternoon, when I reminded him about dinner, he was all "Oh, do you still want to go? Its kinda nasty weather out." And even during dinner he seemed to be in no rush, no plan, no friends freezing their bums off waiting for him in Yemin Moshe.

Bryan and I realized as we were walking to Yemin Moshe that we were both wearing the same outfits we'd worn on our first date! I haven't worn the outfit since then, until last night, and obviously had no clue, and Bryan didn't realize it either.

Also, such an only in Jerusalem event: The 2 friends that Bryan had to help him with the surprise were Winston and Yaakov. Winston is an Afrikaaner friend of Bryan's from his yeshiva who is in the process of converting, and Yaakov is a Dutch friend visiting from the Netherlands. I asked them how many proposals they had been part of so far, but we were the first! I just thought it was so cool getting proposed to in such a Jerusalem-esque way.

The wedding will be, please G-d, July 19th here in Jerusalem. And now....sleep!