Cómo nos enamorábamos (How we fell in love) Iteration 3

So a couple weeks ago I posted my spanish narrative essay about how Megs and I fell in love. Then a bit later I posted the google machine tranlation. Here at last is my own proper translation. I started out trying to just massage google's translation, but that was a bane, and it worked out to be easier to just translate myself. The funny thing is that it still *is* a translation, and it sounds strange to my own ears when I read it in English. I mean it doesn't sound like my writing in English sounds to me. That's a funny feeling, as I've never written in Spanish and then translated before, so I've never realized that this would happen. Kinda kewl actually.

I want to write a story about how we met and how we fell in love--my lovely wife Megan and I. How I was working on board a ship as an engineer, totally (well, more or less totally) happy, without a care in the world. One day, a group of new crew members arrived on the boat, including a certain young lady, tall, blonde, and very pretty. But I didn't notice anything. In fact, as a child I had made a vow that I would never wed, and until that hour, I have never even had a girlfriend. Then one day, I entered the ship's library and encountered two young ladies lounging on the floor reading, including the aforementioned tall blond gorgeous one. I said "Hello. You must be the new ones. My name is Benjamin. And you--what are your names?". That was the beginning of the end of my vow.

At that time, I didn't think anything of import had happened (But see--I still remember it!). I only spoke with them for a couple minutes and then left. I didn't remember the meeting nor think much about it. Much later, we remembered that meeting in the library as our first.


Afterwards (as I remember), the second time we talked was when we and some others were preparing during an afternoon for a party and international celebration--a spectucular do to which some 2000 people came in the evening. We were just talking while we were working--about our families, and our countries, and the government, and so forth. I think that was the time when I started to fall in love with her. But I still didn't understand that that was what was happening.

In fact, I didn't realize, consciously, that I was falling in love until much later--some four months later, more or less. It was in Accra, in Ghana, when I finally started to clue in. During all that time, she knew, I think, ever since that night of the international festival. (I think the fact that she knew, and I didn't, was because guys suffer brain damage in utero, and girls don't, and that's why guys are so emotionally stupid, compared to girls. But that's another story.)

We were in Accra, and a pastor named John Ramey invited us out to a restaurant with some others. He knew that Megan was falling in love with me, because she had confided in him. He also knew, I think, that I was falling in love with her, even though I myself hadn't yet realized that. That night, during dinner, he regaled us with funny and romantic stories, one after the other--all drawn from his many years as a pastor.

Finally after dinner was over, he somehow arranged things so that Megan and I were walking back from the restaurant to the ship (where we lived) more or less alone together. A very strange thing happened. We were walking along and my hand, seemingly of it's own volition, began to inch it's way over as if to take Megan's hand. When I noticed this, I was very surprised. I thought, "My hand, what are you doing? Please keep yourself in your proper place!" This happened two or three times, and finally it began to dawn on me that something very magical was happening--something that I'd not experienced before.

After that night, we were more more or less inseparable. Some months later, we found ourselves head over heels in love during springtime in Italy. A little after that, I asked her to marry me, underneath millions of stars sailing in the Mediterranean, near the Greek isles. Then we were married on a beach in Australia, and now we are living happily ever after (and eating partridges!) =).