Finally....a Honeymoon!

I like to think of our honeymoon as a fine wine that only gets better with time--Sure, we may not have had that first vintage, leave after the reception adventure, but planning our honeymoon six months into the marriage has given us time to get a vacation with a richer, deeper, more mellow flavor. And, as was said at the wedding, I'll do anything to get a free trip, so the time has certainly allowed time for scheming!

In fact, part of the delay was due to scheming, as we realized that if Eric signed up for an airlines credit card, we would have enough miles for free, round trip tickets to Sydney. Two months ago the sign-on bonus miles credited to Eric's account, and we were able to book our trip (after three months of waiting)!

And so the adventure began: at 8am on a Thursday morning, I got up, called American Airlines, and asked them to find two tickets to Australia. Any date would do. Any time. Yes, we were willing to transfer. And the airline attendant found:

Nothing.

Nada.

From now through February, when they stopped booking tickets.

The attendant told me maybe it was because Qantas was sold out, so I called Qantas, but they said they had tons of empty seats; it was just that they hadn't released them to American yet. When I asked when they would, they said to just keep calling.


I never trust "Just keep calling."

Recognizing that Qantas might release, say, one ticket every 7.5 weeks at 11:16pm, I landed on a different plan: If we couldn't get to Sydney, we would book a flight that would take us as close to Sydney as possible.

Except that nothing is close to Sydney. Flights to Tasmania, New Zealand, etc. all fly on Qantas and all go through Sydney and there were no tickets to Sydney, so what's a gal to do? Take out her "Where in the World is Carmen San Diego" brain and a map of every Hyatt in Asia and get to work figuring out where else in the South Pacific would be a suitable alternative. I looked at Shanghai, Seoul, Taipei, Kuala Lumpur, Nadi, Bora Bora....and then it hit me: Bali. There was a great Hyatt in Bali; Bali was only a 3 hour flight from Cairns, where we were planning to go anyway, and thanks to Elizabeth Gilbert, we all now know that it's the place you go to find love, ergo, the perfect paradise for a honeymoon.

So I head back to the American Airlines folks and yes, they can fly us to Bali on Cathay Pacific--we'll fly to NY, Hong Kong, and then Denpasar. Terrific. Now we just need to get home.

And, of course, there were no flights from Sydney.

So I go through this whole routine with the map again (not wanting to go back to Bali--why go to a repeat location when you can go somewhere new?) and the locations, while exotic (i.e Goa, Ho Chi Minh City, etc.), really were taking us further and further from the down under. And so then I tried a new trick: Where do the Australian discount airlines fly, as they would be our transport to his as yet undetermined location. So with a map of Australia, a discount airline location list, and a Hyatt hotel list side by side, I had yet another moment of inspiration: I'd been looking at hotels that lay westward. What if I looked eastward? There wasn't much, since Tahiti and Fiji don't have Hyatts, but then, just a little further east in the Pacific lay that small cluster of islands home to Barack Obama and Israel Kaʻanoʻi Kamakawiwoʻole...Hawaii! And yes, American had flights for us to take home!

And so, dear friends, we wound up with a honeymoon even more adventurous, more exotic, more Danielle and Eric at it's core than the one we originally intended! The plan at the moment is to fly to Bali, spend some time in Nusa Dua, then fly to Cairns where we'll dive our way through the Great Barrier Reef, head to the Outback (Ayers Rock/Uluru), then to Sydney, and then Hawaii and back to Boston. We are so excited! Following my philosophy that every problem can be solved with the help of a book, I have dutifully gone and purchased travel guides to all these locations, which I am so enjoying scouring for deals and details! I even went and took an online Australian sample citizenship test, and got four out of five right!

We are both so excited for our adventure, and we're so grateful to our friends and family who contributed to our registry and who donated miles so we could go exploring. We sure hope it'll be the honeymoon of a lifetime...too bad we're not taking it til next January!

Guess perfection really is elusive, huh?

Reality at Six Months

We got a notification yesterday that a package arrived. I thought it was our new kitchenaid, because that's the only thing we're expecting at the moment, but when I went downstairs, there was a vase of beautiful orchids from Eric to celebrate our six month anniversary! I'd never gotten orchids before, and they're so elegant! Only two blossoms had erupted, so we're waiting for the others to bloom, which will be really exciting.

To celebrate further, we had our friend Michelle over for dinner (of sushi fame--see earlier post) and had a meal catered by our good friend Trader Giotto (aka Trader Joe's!) We made whole wheat pasta with a marinara sauce, grilled eggplant and zucchini, and turkey meatballs. Fun and easy. Then we made yellow cupcakes with a chocolate fudge frosting from a cupcake cookbook my friend gave me as a birthday gift (with extras, because we're bringing dessert over to some friends this evening). The hot, decadent cupcakes and chocolate fudge frosting, so shiny and smooth, was a really fun way to finish up our dinner.

And then reality set in: I had papers to grade and a prospectus to work on. Eric has an exam on Tuesday. We settled in for the night and Eric, at least, studied while I read Kitchen Confidential and went to bed early, so I could wake up early, full of prospectus-writing energy.

So what's the verdict six months in? Well, we've proven that we know how to celebrate life and definitely how to find good desserts! We just wish there was more time for those things!