Well, now that we've gotten through the wedding, I guess it's time for a post about the honeymoon.
Even with a couple of buffer days in between the wedding and our flight out, I was thoroughly exhausted by the time we left (and Josh was pretty tired, too).
There were several reasons for this.
1) We'd just had a wedding, which is one of the most emotionally tiring things anybody can ever do.
2) I was NOT used to sharing a bed and had been intermittently waking up in fright or hot covers the nights before.
3) A few family members and friends were still in town and we'd visited with them before they left.
4) Josh had literally moved all of his stuff into the new house the DAY OF the wedding, and all of mine was still at my parents' house, which made packing really interesting.
Anyway, we got to the airport on July 5th after three hours of sleep and headed to the island of Curacao, which is close to Aruba.
When we got there, we waited for over an hour to get through customs. YIKES. Thankfully, our airbnb contact met us outside with a taxi and helped us get to our new digs.
We stayed in a swank apartment complex with an oceanfront veranda and private beach.
HOW GREAT IS THAT???
Anyway, when it came time for dinner we walked to the nearest grocery store (and got a good feel for culture of the island) for spaghetti and nutella.
Romantic dinner on the veranda, anyone?
The next couple of days were spent on our apartment complex's private beach, with a side trip to the city of Willemstad (approximately a fifteen minute walk away).
Finally, we decided it was time to rent a car. We went to a neighboring resort, where we ordered a car for the next day and discovered some great kabobs and some cheese-stuffed-with-meat-Dutch-thing.
We liked it so much that going back for dinner was a necessity.
The next day, we finally got out on the road to explore.
We went to the Sea Aquarium and Mombo Beach, and ran into some new friends along the way.
That night, we went a fascinatingly fancy place and I found a little friend in my food.
Over the next few days, we decided to strike out for some of the island's famous beaches.
HA.
HAHAHA.
It'll be easy, they said.
Just rent a car! they said.
NO.
WE GOT LOST EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.
It's impossible to get completely lost on an island, because hey--it's basically a big circle.
But you can understand our frustration when we used these directions to get around, only to find that most of the roads didn't have posted names and there were plenty of one-way streets:
WHICH LEFT, DIRECTIONS??
This is one of the places where we stopped to regain our bearings:
I nearly had a panic attack.
Anyway, our first beach was Playa Portamari. It was gorgeous and had incredible snorkeling. Josh made friends with a whole slew of angelfish.
On the way back, we stopped to look at some wild flamingoes.
And then went across this giant scary bridge three times because WE WERE LOST.
At least there was a pretty sunset that night.
The following afternoon, after a few episodes of Pokemon, we set out for Grote Knip, another beach.
This time we encountered a main road that had been closed with NO detour, and nothing but a splendid sense of direction and a vague map got us to the beach.
Really, other than the beaches, there wasn't a whole lot to be said for the scenery.
The beach was, of course, beautiful, but we didn't get to snorkel and there was a fee for the bathroom, so that was a bummer.
The next day we went to our final beach, and made a side trip through a neighborhood to look at some windmills.
This was Cas Abou beach.
See that dark blue line? Josh and I snorkeled all the way out there and had what Josh called "the best and worst moment of the day" because OH NO it was REALLY DEEP and there could be SHARKS and we were WAY FAR from the beach.
We weren't eaten by anything, but I was done swimming for the day.
After that we had some well-deserved relaxation time, including reading, a piña colada, and massages.
Right around sunset, we did some beach souvenir hunting and Josh disappeared into the ocean.
Then they kicked us out because the beach closed.
On the way back, we decided that another dinner at the apartment would be nice. We stopped by a grocery store that was basically Sam's...and then things went downhill.
I was wearing a wet bathing suit under my clothes, my hair was in shambles, and one of my flip-flops broke so I was walking around with a limp. Josh kept getting distracted and oh my stars I needed to GET BACK AND TAKE A SHOWER OR ELSE.
Somehow, we were in there for about an hour...and then we missed a turn on the way back.
It was a great opportunity to practice our conflict resolution skills!
On our last day, we had lunch at a little ocean club and went to Willemstad one more time.
That evening, Josh fully exercised his romance capabilities and booked us a private gazebo at the island's nicest resort, where we had the fanciest meal of our LIVES.
They brought us food on six different ocasions--seven if you count getting bread twice--over the course of three hours.
And it was fancy food.
Fried seaweed chips.
Freshly baked bread.
TWICE.
Lionfish-and-pumpkin-something-or-another.
Foie gras--which we later found out is DUCK LIVER--shaped like Buddha's head, along with a roll and basically-bacon and a little poo-thing.
I let Josh have all the Buddha heads.
Lionfish and steak and a lot of other fancy things.
And, finally, a fancy brownie dish with banana cream, coconut cream, and a pistachio marshmallow because DANGIT just brownies wasn't good enough.
We also snuck away from our table to enjoy the sunset.
(That's our wedding date. They wrote it IN THE SAND.)
The whole evening was entirely lovely and completely worth it.
Later we returned to our apartment and packed for our flight the next day.
At least we were well entertained:
Finally, nine days after we left, we came back to home sweet wreck.
