I met Carmen during a soccer match in Madrid; I flew from Italy all the way just to watch 'el clasico' between Real Madrid and Barcelona. I went with a whole bunch of guys and there were two girls sitting in the front row.
The one on the left was gorgeous, she had long black hair and a great butt, and she was supporting Barcelona like me, so soon I found an excuse to talk to her, even though my Spanish sucked.
I introduced myself, and we ended up in a bar after the match, with her friend and my buddies. Everything went great, but I didn't want a one night stand, and I only had 2 more days left in Madrid, so I decided to change my flight for the week after, to spend more time with her.
Once back in Torino, the city I used to live in, we stayed in touch. Sometimes I am a bit impulsive; I was studying history and decided to continue my studies in Spain. Short story, I ended up moving to Madrid to be close to her and we started dating.
We had been together 3 months for our first Valentine's, and I planned something special. We had never been to Finland, and we were both very curious about that country, and during the winter it was easy to get cheap flights and accommodations, although Finnish winters are famous for being very rough. We found cheap flights to a town called Lappeenranta, pretty far even from Helsinki, and after reading about the region (South Karelia) we decided it would be a great crazy adventure.