the best date ever.

Happy day of chocolates and flowers and sappy songs, everybody!

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Remember that How I Met Your Mother episode where Barney plans the "super date" for J. Lo? Since I'll be spending my Valentine's Day evening at home with some Netflix, if I'm lucky, I've been fantasizing about my own super date from a million years ago!

My junior year of college, The (Future) Professor was studying in London and I found a super-cheap flight so I could spend a long weekend with him, which just happened to arrive on February 14th. I flew to Heathrow around 10 in the morning and desperately wanted to go right to sleep. Instead, we spent the day fighting my jetlag by doing a whirlwind tour of London -- eating street-vendor jacket potatoes on the steps of the National Gallery

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watching the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace

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having a charming dinner at a cute little French restaurant near the study center where he lived

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seeing the skyline from the London Eye

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and taking in a London Sinfonietta concert at the Royal Festival Hall.

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I may or may not have fallen sound asleep during the concert, but it was the most romantic Valentine's Day ever -- holding hands with the amazing guy I hadn't seen in almost two months while walking all around the city I had always dreamed of visiting. And for a 21-year-old college kid to have come up with such a perfect date-day itinerary -- especially such an absent-minded professor kind of a guy! -- made my heart sing. I've been to London again since that trip ten years ago this week, and I can't wait to go back someday, but it will never be as magical as when I spent that delirious, sleep-deprived first day there with the man I ended up marrying.

How about you -- what's the best date you've ever been on? I'd love to hear details!