Honeymoon recap
It's amazing how much can happen to a person in a week and a half. Here we are, married and back from our honeymoon!
The wedding was absolutely fabulous -- we couldn't have had a more perfect day, and we're so grateful to everyone who was a part of it. I don't have any pictures from anyone yet (so if you have any, please send them to me! :) ), but once I do have enough pictures to tell the story I'll post a full recap.
For now, I'll start the story at the day after the wedding, which is when we headed home to unpack from the wedding and repack for our trip. We went to bed at about 9:00 and were up again at 2:15 to get into an airport limo at 3:00. We got to the terminal at about 3:30, which was three hours before our flight time. This is where we learned lesson number one about international travel: check-in desks don't open until 4:00 AM. That sucked. They open even later if the staff are disgruntled and grumpy, which was the case that morning. So then we checked in, and quickly learned lesson number two: US customs preclearance doesn't open until 5:00 AM.
The rest of our experiences leading up to the flight were basically unremarkable, except for the fact that they were completely new to both of us and we felt like complete noobs. Really, our flight was probably basically unremarkable too, except that it was also completely new to me. Here are the things I learned on my first flight ever:
- Planes are noisy and bingy.
- They jerk around a lot.
- I don't like takeoffs or landings very much.
The whole being in the air thing is fine -- actually, it's kind of cool. And it didn't take me long to realize that if something were to go wrong at 36,000 feet, the crew would have a pretty long time to do something about it. But being pretty close to the ground, but not actually on the ground? Not a fan. I did decide one thing though -- I hope our kids are behaved enough that we travel with them so that they don't have to be almost 30 when they fly for the first time.
Anyway, we got to Charlotte and everything was fine. We had precleared at Pearson, so we had a couple of hours to kill, and were delighted to find there was a Chili's at the terminal. I got to have the nachos and salsa. It was awesome.
Then we boarded our plane to Saint Martin, where I learned another thing about flying: they sure do advertise at you a lot (or, at least, US Airways did). But, four hours later we landed in Saint Martin without incident. This flight was on a 757, so I even had a bit of space to stitch! It was so great. I didn't think it would work, but a nail clipper was perfect for clipping off floss. The time just flew by.
When we landed in Saint Martin -- actually, I should rephrase that. We landed in Sint Maarten, which is the Dutch side of the island. Anyway, when we landed in Sint Maarten, two things struck us. First, we were surprised at how hilly the island is. We knew before going that it was an island formed from a mountain chain and not from a coral reef, but I don't tink that I had really put together in my head exactly what that would mean. The gorgeous rolling hills were amazing. Later, on the French side of the island, we'd also realize that these hills hadn't really been developed on. There's a fair bit of seaside development, but not huge resorts or anything, and everything else seemed untouched.
This wasn't the case on the Dutch side, however, and this is where the second realization came in. As we drove through Simpson Bay in our taxi we passed big resorts (though probably not on the scale of the bigger islands, I wouldn't know), as well as Subway, Avis, McDonalds, Shell, Scotiabank, Pizza Hut.. we could have been at home. We were tentatively worried that we had picked the wrong place. But when we crossed over to the French side, we were relieved to find the landscape change dramatically. Little shops and restaurants, happy tourists wandering around.. it was perfect.
We pulled into our hotel, and it was absolutely adorable. There were palm trees and greenery and flowers everywhere. Here's the reception area for the hotel:
We checked in, and our room was modest, but it had everything we needed. The bathroom was lovely, with a walk-in shower stall lined with stone, a kitchenette with a fridge, stove and microwave, two beds, a TV with satellite, a big comfy chair and a balcony with a table for two and a lounger. There were fresh flowers everywhere. It was really beautiful. And then there was our view:
The pictures really don't do it justice. What you can't see in the background in the last picture is the island of Anguilla on the horizon. It was stunning during the day, but absolutely unbelieveable at night.
We were absolutely blown away by our meals all week. We only had one dinner we were a little disappointed with, and that was mostly our fault -- we learned the hard way that neither of us is really a fan of foie gras. Between the restaurants and the fresh bread and cheese and meats we ate for lunch most days, it was like staying in a small town in France that had been dropped it on the island. (At least, I imagine it would be.. I've never been to France, obviously. :P ) We also had a few French wines, and some flavoured artisan rums that are unique to the island. I brought home a bottle of a banana vanilla flavoured one that I really enjoyed, and Josh bought a mickey of the orange ginger one that was his favourite.
We didn't spend much time in the ocean, really. We quickly discovered that neither of us is the lounge on the beach baking in the sun type. But we did eat our breakfasts and lunches on the balcony and thoroughly enjoyed the view and the sound of the ocean. Most of the time you couldn't even hear another person. We also went out one afternoon in one of the paddle boats that the hotel had available. We floated around and watched all the goats that were wandering around on the hill behind the hotel. (We could hear them bleating in the afternoons. It was really cute.)
Speaking of the wildlife, I've never seen so many mourning doves in one place, but they were definitely the dominant bird on the island. There were also a few cheeky little birds that would land on our balcony looking for snacks. One came right up beside me and picked at my banana peel. There were lots of lizards as well, of all different sizes.
Here are some other pictures that I think are interesting:
The view from a hallway that leads to the beach.
This was on the hotel grounds. I was fascinated by the fact that we were closer to Machu Picchu than to Niagara Falls. Or Niagra Falls, rather, wherever that is.
The island in the foreground is called Creole Rock, which is just off the coast near the hotel. That's Anguilla in the background.
Some of the signs were bilingual, but many were in French only. It's a good thing I'm Canadian, or I'd never know that dogs aren't allowed on the beach. Lots of other people seemed to have no idea. ;) That reminds me -- I tried to speak French a bit at the restaurants, and at least one person picked me out as being Canadian right away. Whether that's because I have an accent I'm not aware of or because being an anglophone with a passing knowledge of French automatically makes me Canadian, I'm not sure.
Part of the street in town. That road is a two-way street. Note the lack of sidewalks. You had to get used to having cars passing within inches of you pretty quickly if you wanted to walk around.
Pretty tropical flowers were everywhere.
And this is a really lovely photo that Josh took.
On the way home, our flight from Charlotte to Toronto was delayed a half hour, which ended up being a blessing since the process of clearing customs, getting our bags, rechecking them and going through security took us right up to five minutes before our flight was supposed to leave -- an hour and a half after we arrived. The extra time gave us a few minutes to grab some dinner, which we greatly appreciated. Other than that, we got home without any problems.
All in all, we had a fantastic honeymoon that suited us very well. It occurred to me today that a vacation where you have to walk to get supplies and prepare your own meals would probably be a horrific prospect for some. However, for us it was very comfortable. We're used to having to walk to get groceries, and we genuinely enjoy preparing food for ourselves, so it was a great way to save a bit of money so that we could really enjoy the restaurants. (And the housekeeping staff did the dishes for us!) It isn't a trip that would be for everyone, but for us it was magical.
I'd say I wish we could go back, but I'm still really happy to be home, so I'm not quite there yet. :) (Our kitty is happy that we're home too.. she's been extra affectionate the last couple of days!) It's possible that we'll go back one day to relive our honeymoon, but we both agreed that as much as we enjoyed it, there's a heck of a lot of the world left to see. We travel very well together, so it will be a great joy seeing the world with my husband. I can't wait to see what adventures our marriage will bring. :)
The wedding was absolutely fabulous -- we couldn't have had a more perfect day, and we're so grateful to everyone who was a part of it. I don't have any pictures from anyone yet (so if you have any, please send them to me! :) ), but once I do have enough pictures to tell the story I'll post a full recap.
For now, I'll start the story at the day after the wedding, which is when we headed home to unpack from the wedding and repack for our trip. We went to bed at about 9:00 and were up again at 2:15 to get into an airport limo at 3:00. We got to the terminal at about 3:30, which was three hours before our flight time. This is where we learned lesson number one about international travel: check-in desks don't open until 4:00 AM. That sucked. They open even later if the staff are disgruntled and grumpy, which was the case that morning. So then we checked in, and quickly learned lesson number two: US customs preclearance doesn't open until 5:00 AM.
The rest of our experiences leading up to the flight were basically unremarkable, except for the fact that they were completely new to both of us and we felt like complete noobs. Really, our flight was probably basically unremarkable too, except that it was also completely new to me. Here are the things I learned on my first flight ever:
- Planes are noisy and bingy.
- They jerk around a lot.
- I don't like takeoffs or landings very much.
The whole being in the air thing is fine -- actually, it's kind of cool. And it didn't take me long to realize that if something were to go wrong at 36,000 feet, the crew would have a pretty long time to do something about it. But being pretty close to the ground, but not actually on the ground? Not a fan. I did decide one thing though -- I hope our kids are behaved enough that we travel with them so that they don't have to be almost 30 when they fly for the first time.
Anyway, we got to Charlotte and everything was fine. We had precleared at Pearson, so we had a couple of hours to kill, and were delighted to find there was a Chili's at the terminal. I got to have the nachos and salsa. It was awesome.
Then we boarded our plane to Saint Martin, where I learned another thing about flying: they sure do advertise at you a lot (or, at least, US Airways did). But, four hours later we landed in Saint Martin without incident. This flight was on a 757, so I even had a bit of space to stitch! It was so great. I didn't think it would work, but a nail clipper was perfect for clipping off floss. The time just flew by.
When we landed in Saint Martin -- actually, I should rephrase that. We landed in Sint Maarten, which is the Dutch side of the island. Anyway, when we landed in Sint Maarten, two things struck us. First, we were surprised at how hilly the island is. We knew before going that it was an island formed from a mountain chain and not from a coral reef, but I don't tink that I had really put together in my head exactly what that would mean. The gorgeous rolling hills were amazing. Later, on the French side of the island, we'd also realize that these hills hadn't really been developed on. There's a fair bit of seaside development, but not huge resorts or anything, and everything else seemed untouched.
This wasn't the case on the Dutch side, however, and this is where the second realization came in. As we drove through Simpson Bay in our taxi we passed big resorts (though probably not on the scale of the bigger islands, I wouldn't know), as well as Subway, Avis, McDonalds, Shell, Scotiabank, Pizza Hut.. we could have been at home. We were tentatively worried that we had picked the wrong place. But when we crossed over to the French side, we were relieved to find the landscape change dramatically. Little shops and restaurants, happy tourists wandering around.. it was perfect.
We pulled into our hotel, and it was absolutely adorable. There were palm trees and greenery and flowers everywhere. Here's the reception area for the hotel:
We checked in, and our room was modest, but it had everything we needed. The bathroom was lovely, with a walk-in shower stall lined with stone, a kitchenette with a fridge, stove and microwave, two beds, a TV with satellite, a big comfy chair and a balcony with a table for two and a lounger. There were fresh flowers everywhere. It was really beautiful. And then there was our view:
The pictures really don't do it justice. What you can't see in the background in the last picture is the island of Anguilla on the horizon. It was stunning during the day, but absolutely unbelieveable at night.
We were absolutely blown away by our meals all week. We only had one dinner we were a little disappointed with, and that was mostly our fault -- we learned the hard way that neither of us is really a fan of foie gras. Between the restaurants and the fresh bread and cheese and meats we ate for lunch most days, it was like staying in a small town in France that had been dropped it on the island. (At least, I imagine it would be.. I've never been to France, obviously. :P ) We also had a few French wines, and some flavoured artisan rums that are unique to the island. I brought home a bottle of a banana vanilla flavoured one that I really enjoyed, and Josh bought a mickey of the orange ginger one that was his favourite.
We didn't spend much time in the ocean, really. We quickly discovered that neither of us is the lounge on the beach baking in the sun type. But we did eat our breakfasts and lunches on the balcony and thoroughly enjoyed the view and the sound of the ocean. Most of the time you couldn't even hear another person. We also went out one afternoon in one of the paddle boats that the hotel had available. We floated around and watched all the goats that were wandering around on the hill behind the hotel. (We could hear them bleating in the afternoons. It was really cute.)
Speaking of the wildlife, I've never seen so many mourning doves in one place, but they were definitely the dominant bird on the island. There were also a few cheeky little birds that would land on our balcony looking for snacks. One came right up beside me and picked at my banana peel. There were lots of lizards as well, of all different sizes.
Here are some other pictures that I think are interesting:
The view from a hallway that leads to the beach.
This was on the hotel grounds. I was fascinated by the fact that we were closer to Machu Picchu than to Niagara Falls. Or Niagra Falls, rather, wherever that is.
The island in the foreground is called Creole Rock, which is just off the coast near the hotel. That's Anguilla in the background.
Some of the signs were bilingual, but many were in French only. It's a good thing I'm Canadian, or I'd never know that dogs aren't allowed on the beach. Lots of other people seemed to have no idea. ;) That reminds me -- I tried to speak French a bit at the restaurants, and at least one person picked me out as being Canadian right away. Whether that's because I have an accent I'm not aware of or because being an anglophone with a passing knowledge of French automatically makes me Canadian, I'm not sure.
Part of the street in town. That road is a two-way street. Note the lack of sidewalks. You had to get used to having cars passing within inches of you pretty quickly if you wanted to walk around.
Pretty tropical flowers were everywhere.
And this is a really lovely photo that Josh took.
On the way home, our flight from Charlotte to Toronto was delayed a half hour, which ended up being a blessing since the process of clearing customs, getting our bags, rechecking them and going through security took us right up to five minutes before our flight was supposed to leave -- an hour and a half after we arrived. The extra time gave us a few minutes to grab some dinner, which we greatly appreciated. Other than that, we got home without any problems.
All in all, we had a fantastic honeymoon that suited us very well. It occurred to me today that a vacation where you have to walk to get supplies and prepare your own meals would probably be a horrific prospect for some. However, for us it was very comfortable. We're used to having to walk to get groceries, and we genuinely enjoy preparing food for ourselves, so it was a great way to save a bit of money so that we could really enjoy the restaurants. (And the housekeeping staff did the dishes for us!) It isn't a trip that would be for everyone, but for us it was magical.
I'd say I wish we could go back, but I'm still really happy to be home, so I'm not quite there yet. :) (Our kitty is happy that we're home too.. she's been extra affectionate the last couple of days!) It's possible that we'll go back one day to relive our honeymoon, but we both agreed that as much as we enjoyed it, there's a heck of a lot of the world left to see. We travel very well together, so it will be a great joy seeing the world with my husband. I can't wait to see what adventures our marriage will bring. :)