LOVE IS...trading "pocket books"

If it wasn't for my passion for books I probably wouldn't be married to my husband right now as books are the very thing that brought us together....kind of.

I grew up in Germany and next to my love for books I always had a love for foreign languages also. Actually, I started learning English translating Beatles songs when I was...very young. ;o) Later I devoured as many books in the English language as I could get my hands on, which actually weren't that many as most bookstores in my hometown only carried a few so I had to read whatever was available.

One day I had the brilliant idea to put an ad in a magazine to look for someone who would like to "trade pocket books" (as we called paperbacks in Germany) with me. So I did, and a few weeks later, I got this letter in the mail from someone with a return address of "APO New York" interested in trading with me.

"Cool", I thought, "this guy lives in New York" for sure they have English pocket books there. (Little did I know that APO stood for Army Post Office and was a military address.)Anyway, I answered. The second letter I got from him had a different return address...it was actually a town just a few miles away....and he asked me for a date. That's not really what I wanted. I didn't want a relationship, I just wanted to trade pocket books. But since this seemed the only way to get some, I agreed.

Our first date was at a little "Weinstube", an intimate little wine restaurant and after talking for a little bit about this and that, my future husband put a cute little handmade (in Romania) wallet on the table. "What's this?", I asked, and he said "I thought you wanted to trade "pocket books?" ;o) ;o) ;o)

The rest as they say...is history!