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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Lifestyle
Lizzie Cernik

How we met: ‘It’s like waking up to sunlight every day. I yearned for a soulmate – and I’ve found her’

Jaana and Ron on Mount Wellington in Tasmania in 2015.
Jaana and Ron on Mount Wellington in Tasmania in 2015. Photograph: Supplied image

In the summer of 2014, Ron travelled to Finland from his home in Sydney for a family reunion. “My brother had married a Finnish woman and they asked me to join a big get-together in Lapland. I’d been divorced since 2009, and I think they knew I was at a bit of a loose end,” he says. After he reached Helsinki, some of his in-laws decided to take him to Tallinn in Estonia, a ferry ride away. When they arrived, they couldn’t find the restaurant they had planned to visit. “We were standing on the street looking for this place when we saw Jaana with a map,” says Ron.

One of Ron’s in-law’s family asked her if she was lost too. “I told them I was living in Helsinki, working for a craft organisation, and I’d come to see an exhibition,” says Jaana. She was invited to join them all for lunch and they spotted the exhibition en route. Sensing that something might be afoot, the lunch party went on, leaving Ron to go to the exhibition with Jaana.

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