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When Ian said he wanted to go to Poland for my birthday, I was quite excited. He bought us tickets on Centralwings, I bought and read a guidebook and then booked a furnished apartment near the Old Town in Krakow. My birthday present would be a spa massage and manicure, and then dinner out.

On my birthday, we got up early for our spa appointment. The massage room was in a cavernous brick basement underneath the actual spa - it looked a lot like the wine cellar dining rooms in many of the restaurants off the Krakow main square.

After grabbing a quick snack to substitute for our missed breakfast, we headed over to the Czartoryski Art Museum.

We wandered around the exhibits and made our way to the main attraction, the Da Vinci painting “Lady with an Ermine“. I didn’t even know what an ermine was! This is one of five portraits that are known to have been painted by him.

We waited a long time for the Polish tour group in the exhibit room to clear out, before we could get close enough to see the painting. Finally we got in and took a look. I turned around in surprise to see Ian down on one knee!

Won’t keep you in suspense any longer… I said YES!

We spent the rest of the day wandering around town and waiting for my heart to calm down and my knees to stop buckling. We then went for some yummy dinner. I couldn’t stop staring at the ring and asking if Ian really meant it, and how he had managed to hide it all this time!

We decided to wait until we got back to Scotland to call our parents together, and then tell everyone.

So there’s the story!

Everyone’s been asking if we have a date in mind. Since it’d be pretty difficult to plan a wedding while we are still in Scotland and we’ll be pretty broke when we get back, we’re thinking we’ll wait until 2008, maybe around Labour Day.