Today I’m reflecting on one of the greatest adventures I’ve ever experienced, and how it showed me that Tracy was the one.

Just before I turned 21, Tracy asked me, “If you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be?” Inspired by my love of Greek mythology, I said Athens, thinking it was just a passing question.

It wasn’t. She surprised me by telling me she’d bought us plane tickets and we’d be island hopping.

We planned to start in Athens and visit as many islands as we could between there and Santorini before heading back.

In the summer of 2006, we set off.

Athens wasn’t what I’d imagined, and the little I saw didn’t inspire me. After the first evening we took the ferry to Mykonos, with no idea what to expect or even where we’d stay. We landed in what I can only describe as party central, which suited two people in their 20s just fine.

We wandered the town and met Petros the Pelican, the second, named after the original who had roamed the island decades earlier.

There was a terrifying boat trip to Delos where we were convinced we’d tip over. Then came Naxos, Paros and Ios, two days on each, ferry hopping our way across the Aegean.

Santorini was next, long before social media discovered it. We loved it, even if our budget accommodation had a faulty fan that shocked me three times.

One day we visited the nearby volcano. We walked down hundreds of steps, dodging donkey shit, my legs shaking before we even reached the bottom, then sailed out to the volcano itself.

At that point my MD wasn’t as bad, so I pushed through the pain but halfway up, I couldn’t press on.

I was upset, but Tracy said, “You’ve climbed half and I’ve climbed half, so together we’ve climbed to the whole thing.” That’s when I knew we’d be together forever.

We headed home via Mykonos and Athens. When we got back, I couldn’t walk for two weeks, but it was absolutely worth it.