There’s nothing I use Microsoft Word 2010* – or this old but
trusty Asus computer for – except for travel documentation. As a result, you
can imagine my thrill when I popped this bad boy open .
Except, as you hopefully know, there are a couple key
differences with this go-around. Mainly: I’M MARRIED!!!!! Huzzah!!!! Is there
anything better? I submit that there is not.
This means that I expect quite a few other things to be different in this travel. Hostels probably won’t
be making an appearance, because we’d rater opt for private married people
time. There will be far less of the questions: “What do I want to do? Where do I
want to go?” because I’m no longer just and “I”. I’m a “we”. Which, so far, is
far more enjoyable.
It’s crazy to think I’m no longer an “I” during my travels.
I’ve gone to 27(?) countries as an “I”. If people didn’t want to do what I
wanted to do – who cared? I went and did it anyways. It was my money, my time,
my choices, my independence, my travels. I remember even being distinctly protective
of wanting to stay independent. When I was in Costa Rica, for example, a few
days after the University for Peace program had ended, I was taking a bus to who
knows where, and I saw one of my former classmates for the program in the back
of the bus. He saw me, and started walking to the front of the bus. Not wanting
to share my adventures with him, essentially as soon as he got to the front, I
said, “Oh shoot, this is my stop – bye!”
and jumped off the bus. I had no idea where I was, but I was confident I’d
have fun figuring it out new independently. Kinda crazy, right?
Fiercely independent. It’s a disease.
But I think it’s a disease that fades. I don’t know if it’s
with time or exposure or something else, but I remember so distinctly at the
end of my big (again, independent) Europe trip, feeling a sense of closure on
the long-independent-trips chapter of my life. While I still think independent travel
is a blast and everyone should do it at least once, theirs is a certain sadness
and loneliness to it. You don’t have anyone to retell your stories with, you
don’t have anyone to sleep on during long plane flights, you don’t come home
with inside jokes or shared memories, and you constantly have to put up with
the question, “You’re traveling alone? Aren’t you scared?”
Which is not to say that I won’t travel again by myself, but
I seriously doubt that I’ll travel for by myself for multiple months. Why should I, now that I’ve met my favorite person
and literally vowed to always be his
adventure buddy.
Which brings me to this AMAZING man I’m traveling with, and
this wonderful adventure that we’re on. We got married on Saturday (1/23/2016),
and had the most perfect wedding we could have asked for (large shout out to my
mom and dad who made it happen!!!!). I wore a beautiful, fluffy dress and Ken
wore a tux with Captain America cuff links, and we made vows, exchanged rings,
and had a hell of a party. People continually told us that there was so much
love and attention woven into the day – which almost made me want to cry. What
I really wanted for the day is to marry Ken, have Christ represented, and have
our guests feel loved and cared for. I think (hope) we accomplished those.
But I could go on and on about the wedding, so I should
probably cut myself off early.
Cut to: us driving away in our crudely expertly
painted get-away car.
Ken drove us off to an undisclosed location, which ended up
being Seven Gables in Monterey. Holy moly – this place is beautiful. We got
there late, so they had left the key for us. Angie and Jesse had already
dropped off our suitcases, so they were all ready for us (thanks!!). Ken
carried me over the threshold into a room with a giant bed (just one! ‘cause we’re
married! and it’s awesome), old victorian-y furniture, and HUGE windows
overlooking the Monterey bay.
We took our time at Seven Gables (Sat night – Mon afternoon)
for some much needed relaxation. We woke up and had breakfast, went for a walk
along the bay, came back to couples massages in our room (they come to you!!!!) and then went down to the lobby
for wine + cheese. I could get used to this honeymoon thing. From there, we
went out to dinner at a fancy European-smorgasbord restaurant, where Ken
ordered spaghetti and I ordered lamb, and we ended up trading dishes than
taking most of both of them to go. Turns out, we had eaten a lot of the cheese
and weren’t super hungry.
Then, that night, Ken revealed one of his wedding gifts to
us: Pandemic Legacy!!!! Here’s something you should know about me and Ken: we
both enjoy cooperative games and if
you had asked either of us what our favorite time together had been up until
this weekend, we probably both would have said my birthday weekend at the
cabin. During that weekend, we relaxed and ate pizza and played Pandemic the whole weekend. So you can imagine my
excitement when I heard about Pandemic Legacy. It sounded AWESOME! But Ken –
for whatever reason – didn’t seem enthused. And I couldn’t figure out why. We’d
have friends that talked about it, and he’d act like it didn’t sound like the
coolest thing, and then changed the subject. We’d be in a game shop, and they’d
be talking up Pandemic Legacy, and he’d say something like, “Ya, that sounds
cool, I guess. . .” then ask a question about a different game. Meanwhile, I
would have bought it in a heartbeat months ago if I had any inkling that Ken
would play it with me, but his lack of enthusiasm just left me shouting
internally, “What is wrong with you??!! How do you not realize that this sounds
awesome!!!!”.
Little did I know that sometime around July, my sneaky
husband had decided to get Pandemic Legacy for our honeymoon, and as a result,
subtly discouraged me from getting it myself. Please note that this is crazy
for two reasons. Primarily, 1) We weren’t
engaged in July, and 2) This feat would be like using only subtlety to
discourage a fat kid from eating cake for six months – and having it work. Well
done, Kenny. The game is the coolest.
Okay, so climbing back from that rabbit trail. . .
Seven Gables was a weekend of much needed relaxation. On our
way out, we did the 17-Mile drive in Monterey. Holy moly, that’s
beautiful!!!!!!! Wow. Crazy. Like, really, really beautiful. I would highly
recommend it if you have an interest in any of these things: pretty nature,
pretty houses, pretty drives, pretty beaches, anything else pretty. Really,
really beautiful. And such a great way to wrap up our Monterey chapter, that
ended way to soon.
From there, we went back to our house (our house!!!!!) to
drop off some stuff like my wedding dress and reorganize our suitcases a little
bit.
(Mom: that reminds me, can you pick up the wedding dress and
the box under it when you’re dropping off my car? Both are in the hall. Wedding
dress goes to a well reviewed dry cleaner, box goes to Danyelle).
We also ordered pizza, a
So, we ordered our pizza, at which time the pizza delivery
guy told us that the address we had given him didn’t exist. So that was,
obviously, a bit confusing. Turns out, our address is 883 not 833. Sorry for
any confusion this may have caused you! Luckily, I think the only thing that
will be impacted by this is it will take a little bit longer for us to get our
marriage license, giving that it’s being mailed to a non-existent address.
Regardless, moving right along, pizza was followed by an
Uber ride up to SFO, where we commenced “Operation Get Free Stuff on Our
Honeymoon”. Which was marked, namely, by our “Just Married” t-shirts.
While we didn’t get as much free stuff as we may have hoped
(first class, please?), we did benefit from this operation. Apparently, our
seats weren’t together on the plane, and, after seeing our shirts, the person
checking us in made some changes and got us seats together. Woohoo! Then, in
security we were split into two different lines, and the woman overseeing
everything looked at Ken, looked at me, and said, “Did you just marry him?” “Ya,”
I said. “Do you want to be with him?” she asked. “Yes, please!” I said. And she
let me cut across all the security lines to meet back up with Ken. Then someone
bought us bourbon at the bar, so I’d say it’s been an overall success! I would
recommend this operation to any newlyweds.
The flight was fairly painless. Ken watched a lot of movies,
and I slept a lot. The food was great and plentiful. American airlines, take
some notes.
Upon arriving in Sydney, we taxied to our AirBnB - a sweet little studio loft in the Kings
Cross area. We dumped our stuff, took some much needed showers, and headed out
to seize the day (and lunch!).
Our day seizing consisted of primarily going to the zoo,
which was awesome. It was really well laid out, so we were able to make and
execute a pretty good plan of attack. Favorite animals include: sun bear, red
panda, wallabies, koalas, and a cool red tailed bird. Least favorite animals:
spiders. Disappointingly allusive animals: platypuses.
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| Ken + me taking the ferry to the zoo |
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| Ken comparing himself to bears |
After the zoo, we set off to find what became our white
whale of the day: The Lord Nelson Brewery + Pub. We hadn’t yet purchased our
Lonely Planet book for Sydney, and it turns out that the maps that we had were
entirely unhelpful, but we somehow got it in our head that this is where we wanted
to go for dinner and beer, and after 45 minutes of searching, we couldn’t be dissuaded
from our quest.
We finally found it nowhere
near where we expected it to be, and it was totally worth it.
A quest well worth it, if I do say so myself!
Then we tried to get back with public transportation, which ended
up being harder than we expected and we eventually just caught a cab.
And now we’re up and about to go on a quest for some breke
(breakfast) this morning.
Life is awesome.
I LOVED getting married, but BEING married is way better.
Cheers!
---1/29/16 at 10:45am---
It took longer than expected for “post blog” to make it to
the top of the priority list, so I wanted to quickly catch you up to where we
are now so we don’t fall too far
behind.
Yesterday, we set off to seek the allusive “bills”
restaurant for breakfast. If you know anything about me (actually, if you know
weird breakfast facts about me), you know that my Bills is my favorite
breakfast in the States. So I got excited when I read somewhere that Sydney has
a good bills (not the same chain) of their own.
And. Oh. My. Gosh.
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| My breakfast at Bill's |
Then we went on our own Sydney scavenger hunt, choosing a
task, walking around the city ‘till we accomplished it, then choosing the next
one. It let us walk what seemed like the whole city, accomplishing tasks like
getting me a new bathing suit, getting ken shorts, etc. Super fun!
Then, back to the house to dress up for THE OPERA at the
Sydney Opera House. We saw Barber of Seville, and it was awesome and wonderful.
Ken says: “I was really impressed that
they did it in the traditional style that there were no microphones or
amplifiers for the singers. And it’s a beautiful building. And the performers
were top notch. Really good!”
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| Classing it up at the opera |
Now, we’re at an awesome breakfast café. Ken had The Big
Breakfast, and I had a fig + deliciousness sandwich.
Then we’re off to our cruise!!!!!!
Bon Voyage!!!!
*I write my drafts in Microsoft Word 2010, then upload to my
blog once I hit free wifi.
