Many thanks to Dennis for his editing of this story.
*
It began in a very unexpected way, I got a small folder about evening classes in my mailbox and found out that some further education in Spanish would be fine because the Spanish islands are very popular tourist spots for us in the Scandinavian countries. Decision followed by action and two weeks later, I entered an evening class for people with some previous knowledge of Spanish. I skipped the class for beginners because I already knew some Spanish and now wanted to learn something more useful.
A pretty woman in her forties greeted me at the entrance and showed the way to a small classroom with 11 people of different ages. Not a good beginning to be late for the first evening and that got me some nasty comments from some of the others, however, I sat down at a vacant seat next to a very classy woman in my own age group and to my great surprise recognized her to be Amanda Hanson, daughter to one of the richest men in town. She gave me a bright smile and said, "Better late than not at all."
After the usual introductions we had our first lesson working in pairs and introduced ourselves to the partner so the partner could introduce to the whole class the other in Spanish during the next week lesson. Amanda told me a lot about herself how that she worked at her father's real estate company and had recently split up with her boyfriend.
She didn't know me so I told her about myself; Jacob Almskog, age 26, single, engineer and working with construction details at prefabricated house factory. Amanda obviously had a good sense of humor because she gave me one of her bright smiles again and asked, "Why single? Such handsome guy as you ought to be taken."
I smiled back and replied, "Miss Right seems to be avoiding me so far, but who knows about the future?"
After the class Amanda and I exchanged cell pone numbers and decided to meet the day before the class to rehearse of our presentation. I agreed when she told me that the rehearsal could be held at her apartment if I understood that it was only for the Spanish class and not for anything else.
Her three-room apartment was just as expected, expensive furniture and tastefully decorated. It took us a couple of hours to shorten down the presentation to about four minutes of the available five. We tried to use some humor to lighten it up. It was rather easy for Amanda who had spent six months in France and was fluent in that language which in some way is related to Spanish.
Our presentations went very well and after the class we went to the pub for beer and to chat.
We decided to work together during the whole course.
Of course I dreamt about Amanda, but didn't dare to attempt any thing with her because though we worked well and had fun together, I still had a strong feeling that she wanted me only to be a friend. But she showed small signs that the time worked for me.
Then one evening when we sat in her apartment doing our home-works, she at least gave me an opening when she asked, "What about going together to Spain?"
"Where to? Mallorca, Marbella or Canary Islands?"
"No, not those tourist spots. I mean the real Spain, Madrid."
"Would be fine, when and how. But please remember that I guy like me is more apt for Ryan Air's budget flights than SAS business class that you are used to."
She gave one of her great smiles and said "No problems for me, I'm used to all kind of flights and have already done some research for a trip it in that way. We can fly with Ryan Air and you'll stay for free in my double room. What about that?"
What could I say? "Sounds great, I'm into it."
"And I hope that you'll understand that when friends have plans for sharing a room it don't mean sharing a bed."
I knew that such problems could be solved at location and it was no reason to plan such matters in advance so I said, "We can pretend to be married and if you want to be warmed up when you are freezing I promise to say the famous line 'Find an extra blanket in the cupboard'." Even she had heard that joke about a boss and his secretary and got a very good laugh.
The trip to Madrid was a great journey. Amanda had booked a room at a nice comfortable and expensive hotel near Plaza Mayor and we pretended to be newlyweds than long time married because we used only one of the beds during the whole week. In fact, the first thing we did at that hotel room was undress each other and having tender sex. For the first time in my life I understood that what we did was much more than sex, it was making real love.
Back home we got engaged and began to plan for our future though we got an unexpected serious problem. Amanda's parents didn't like me at all, mostly because my parents had been involved in local politics and at the opposite side. Especially her mother disliked me and she let me clearly know. I promised Amanda's mother doing my very best to avoid all connections with her in the future and didn't care that Amanda's mother still wanted Amanda to take her ex-boyfriend back, probably because he was from a noble family with an impressing name and an average guy with my background wasn't good enough compared to the ex.
Though Amanda worked in a well-paid position in her family business and was therefore economically depended on her parents she didn't care a shit about their opinion about me. She persuaded me to skip my own apartment and move in with her.
A marriage was the natural next step in our relation and but we decided to keep our parents out of it. We decided to surprise everybody with a wedding somewhere abroad.
During our research we found out that the holy mountain Fuji is a popular wedding spot in Japan. Though Japan was out of question for us in this matter, we found it to be a great idea and as Spain was of great importance for our relation, a Spanish mountain felt as the right place for the wedding.
To our great relief we found out that the highest mountain in Spain, Teide, was a very popular tourist spot at the Canary Island Tenerife and the top is available by a cableway.
There is even a small bar in the snow at the top.
