Well, it’s time to start planning that belated honeymoon of ours, because if we don’t… October will be here before you know it and we won’t be able to do a thing.
As is typical of me, who always gets skittish when it’s time to commit to something & make plans, I’ve started questioning and changing my mind.
I’ve wanted to go to Iceland since… I don’t even know how long. For at least a decade. And everyone who knows me knows how I feel about Amsterdam. Amsterdam has always been special to me, and to Mr Nikki, as well. He’s been there twice as many times as I have.
I want to go to Iceland because I think that the photo ops will be incredible, because it’s a highly unusual place to go for a honeymoon. Because people keep telling me, as if I didn’t know, that it won’t be a very sunny, most day-lit vacation but I love the type of darkness that most people try to escape. I love the unlikely. I love that not a lot of people I know have been there and yes, truthfully, I love the “cool” factor. I do, also, love the idea of the blue lagoon and all those geothermal spas. If there’s one thing Mr Nikki & I could use after this past couple years, it’s a few days lounging in a hot lagoon & detoxing and then wandering around in our favorite city.
But. But. There are high expectations around a trip like this – which you may or may not have caught if you read all this before I decided that that whole bit needed an entire post of it’s own, and edited. I’m not ready to write all that out.
But anyway. So I thought maybe we should do something that isn’t so psychologically loaded, for me. Something that’s more in line with who I am now, what our lives are now. And something a bit more “romantic.” I mean, it is a honeymoon, for chrissake. Lastly, I also thought… the one thing that we seem to love doing the most and when we have the most fun, is when there’s food & wine involved. I can’t think of any time we’ve enjoyed more than the nights we’ve gone out for tasting menus with wine pairings. That’s when I really loosen up.
I’ve been aching to get back to Portugal, under better circumstances and with better company – but this time to the North, the Douro region. Porto. Then I thought of that show, Spain: on the Road Again with Gwyneth Paltrow & how entranced I was by each episode, particularly the Basque episode. Then I started talking about it to Mr Nikki and when he heard something about 13 Michelin Star chefs having restaurants there, and the descriptions of San Sebastian, he was sold.
I think we have a winner. Basque Country.
I was in Portugal during the middle to end of September and I know that the weather would be QUITE good. Warm to hot during the day and comfortably cool in the evening. Which, even I have to admit that, for a honeymoon… it might be nice not to go from darkness in Seattle to darkness in Iceland. I rather like the idea of feasting on pintxos and sampling Spanish wines. I love the idea of being dressed up, maybe even wearing heels & pretty scarves. I LOVE the idea of finally being able to practice both my Spanish and French all at once and of course picking up some Euskara, the language of the Basque region. I always pick up quite a bit of the language wherever I visit – I still remember quite a bit of Turkish, a good deal of Portuguese (probably the most beautiful language to me, by far), etc. Well yes, Czech of course, but I lived there for 3 years.
My favorite painting, by Picasso, is Guernica. The painting is a political statement, but Guernica is a town in Basque Country and I’d love to see it.
That’s not to say we won’t get to Amsterdam again, or Iceland ever. But this is our honeymoon and it should be about celebrating who we are now & our future, rather than trying to relive any parts of the past.
It’s not like there won’t be tons of photo ops in Basque Country. I may even have to keep a food journal during the entire trip.