Well, he did it. And boy did he do it well.
When I woke up yesterday, he asked me what my plans were for the day and I told him and he said, sorry you can't. We're going into the city. But he wouldn't tell me yet about all the surprises he had in store.
So we took the train to Penn, took the subway to Central Park. But instead of going into the park, we waited on the corner and boarded a horse drawn carraige instead. I always wanted to take a carraige ride through the park and he remembered. Then we walked through the park a little, to
Wollman Rink, strolled through
the Mall, and arrived at my favorite place in the whole park,
Bethesda Terrace. It's my favorite part mostly because of the Angel of the Waters fountain. I never miss an opportunity to
photograph her.
So we sat down and while I was gazing up at the fountain, Rusty was rummaging through the bag that he brought with us (that I wasn't allowed to look in). I turned to find him kneeling before me and he read me a poem he had written for me and asked me to marry him. As I teared up, he opened the ring box and slipped the ring on my finger. And oh my lord, what a ring!
I thought the ring was going to be smaller but it's growing on me.
The surprises didn't end there. We walked through the park and went to my favorite cafe (Cafe Lalo) and had some hot cocoa with whipped cream. We hung out there for a while, and he still wouldn't tell me about the other surprises... We headed over to 'Cesca, a northern italian restaurant that he had heard good things about. The place was perfect; the table was cozy, roomy, the restaurant was quite, dark, romantic and the food was out of this world. Easily the best pasta I've ever had. So we got a little drunk, ate too much, the waiter brought us over some complimentary dessert wine so we could toast to our engagement. I figured that was the end of the night and we would be on our way to the train. I figured wrong.
Rusty hailed a cab and we stopped in front of the
Bryant Park Hotel. We checked in and went up to our room on the 11th floor. The first thing I noticed was that it was a suite, not a room. And that we were on the corner of the building and had a beautiful view of Bryant Park and the ice-skating rink. Then I noticed that he had my favorite flowers (lilies) delivered to the room and all sorts of other romantic goodies that I will keep to myself. Suffice to say, we had a wonderful evening.
We woke up this morning, ate our breakfast in our robes, relaxed for a while enjoying the view. He even packed our toiletries and changes of clothes for us. He didn't miss a detail.
I just got off the phone with my Mom, telling her about our weekend. She's very impressed and Rusty is very relieved that it lived up to my expectations. I told him that him the proposal in front of the fountain would have been enough.
I can see kinda falling into wedding plans...but rings don't just fall onto fingers.
