Monday, December 05, 2005
The honeymoon is over
But only in the literal sense. So yes, I'm finally getting around to chronicling our honeymoon adventure in Europe.
We left Saturday 11/19. We got to the airport really early to try to get first class seats (we fly standby, remember), then headed over to the outlet mall to kill some time. When we returned, Victor checked the standby list, and we were slated for business class seats. However, a group of five people missed their connecting flight, so we were bumped up the list and got on first class. Yay! I didn't get much sleep on the way over, despite having a fully reclining seat and drinking plenty of booze. Victor slept more than I did. We did have a bit of turbulence going over the North Atlantic, but it wasn't too bad. We arrived in Frankfurt early Sunday morning and checked with the Lufthansa transfer desk. They had our standby reservation and told us there would be no problem getting on our flight to Barcelona.
Phase 1: Barcelona
We waited around the airport for an hour or so and then boarded our flight to Spain. I had never flown Lufthansa, and I was pleasantly surprised with the service onboard. Even though it was a short flight (2 hours or less), we got lunch and drinks. Even alcoholic drinks were free! We got to the Barcelona airport, figured out how to get on the train to town, and lugged our bags through a couple of metro stations before arriving at our final destination. Our hotel, Boria BCN, was just around the corner from the metro station.
We had reserved a junior suite, but for some reason they upgraded us to the loft, which had two bedrooms, two flatscreen TV's, a fantastic kitchen, and a really nice bathroom. I think the ceilings must have been 20 feet high. We loved the room. The sheets and blankets were super snuggly too. We took a long nap Sunday afternoon and woke in time to find dinner at a nearby Italian restaurant called La Locanda. It was very tasty and hearty. Surprisingly, we were able to go right back to sleep when we got home.
On Monday, we wandered around the city, checking out the Barri Gotic (gothic quarter), La Rambla (the famous pedestrianized street), and ducking in the enormous Boqueria (market). On La Rambla, there are flower stalls, tourist shops, and tons of pet stalls (mostly birds and small cage animals like hampsters and bunnies). I was in heaven. We also wandered down to Barceloneta and walked along the shore of the Mediterranean. We got bread, cheese, and meat for our dinner at La Boqueria.
Tuesday was spent traipsing around the city looking at the modernist buildings, including a lot of Gaudí's work. We climbed the Sagrada Familia, which was terrifing for me but thrilling for Victor, who is not afraid of heights. The climb (and the descent) just about killed our out-of-shape legs. We walked all over town trying to find a lunch restaurant befor finally settling on one. We also had some hot chocolate with churros because I was cold and tired. The chocolate there is almost like hot chocolate syrup, and it is so amazing. Tuesday night we had an amazing dinner at Cinc Sentits, where the atmosphere was sophisticated and the food was to die for!
On Wednesday, we did a lot of shopping and messing about the city. We had one of the most incredible lunches at Cal Pep, where they brought us an assortment of seafood tapas. Definitely worth the 30 or 40 minute wait. We ate another dinner from our Boqueria haul and shared some cava (Spanish version of champagne).
Phase 2: Bruges
Thursday morning, we got up at 5am and made our way to the Barcelona airport. Iberia (a Spanish airline) had lost our reservation, but the agent put us back in the system, and we were able to get on the first flight out to Brussels. The flight was pretty scary for me: turbulence, all sorts of strange noises, hard banks over the city of Barcelona, just all around yuckiness. I learned later that Airbuses tend to have weird noises, and everything was fine on the plane. Anyway, we touched down in Brussels and boarded a train bound for Bruges.
After mildly cold weather in Spain, Belgium was freezing. We wandered around Bruges (it's pretty tiny, so I'm using the word "wander" liberally here) on Thursday. It rained on us, so we bought an umbrella and later borrowed a second one from the hotel. We had some hearty Belgian food to warm us up, and later that night we had apple beignets and frites with mayo. Bruges is quaint and pretty. It reminded me of a small Amsterdam, without the pot and hookers. Our hotel was all out of standard rooms, so they bumped us up to a superior room, which had a whirlpool tub. Whirlpool tubs are fantastic for cold, aching bodies. The hotel itself was really cute and old-fashioned. We finished looking around Bruges and taking pictures on Friday morning, and then we hopped on a train to Brussels.
Phase 3: Brussels
It was bitterly cold in Brussels too. We had a tough time finding our hotel at first, because the center of Brussels is really confusing. We finally found it and checked in. The hotel was really nice and the service there was fantastic. We walked around the center of Brussels, taking in the Grand' Place (the beautiful old square), the Sablon, and walking through the Beaux-Arts museum. We had a waffle of course. In the Sablon district, we had some fantastic chocolates from Pierre Marcolini (that is their US website.. I couldn't get their Belgian site to do much). Belgian chocolate is hands-down the best I've ever had. Finally, we ate dinner at Chez Léon, which our TimeOut guide said was touristy but fantastic. And it was. Mmmmmm, mussels!
Friday night it started snowing. The snowfall was beautiful, but it made for super slushy sidewalks on Saturday. Victor's shoes were not the best for snow, and I was thanking God for the ugly boots I bought for the trip. We did some shopping on Saturday, though the snow slowed us down. We had a waffle for breakfast and Vietnamese food for a late lunch. Saturday night, we wandered back to the Sablon to get more chocolates. We tried the other chocolate house, Wittamer, because Pierre Marcolini was closed for a couple of hours. We killed time by eating street food (frites and bratwurst), drinking some gluhwein (mulled wine with cognac), and window shopping. By the time we made it back to Pierre Marcolini, there was a line formed around the building. Turns out they were debuting their winter chocolate collection, and they were giving away free chocolates, champagne, and strawberry wine. So of course we went in and had tons of samples and free drinks. Afterwards, we were stuffed, so we went back to the hotel to figure out how to get home.
Flights looked bad, so instead of hitching a ride on the Brussels-JFK flight, we decided to go to London and catch the London-Miami flight. The next morning we hopped on a British Airways flight to London, got on the Miami flight, and then languished in Miami most of the afternoon before getting on a DFW flight by the grace of God. I never, ever, ever want to see the Miami airport again. The flight back to DFW was so bumpy that some passengers got hysterical, but we made it to the ground safely.
So that's the honeymoon. I left out the parts where Victor lost his glove, I lost my driver's license, and our digital camera finally stopped working (and the part about how Victor forgot to tell me it was broken in the first place), but pretty much everything else is in there. Oh, we also saw some fantastic documentaries on British TV, including one on being childless by choice and one on European death metal. And Victor became hooked on Italian game shows and German call-in quiz shows. Hmmm... anything else? I can't think of much. I'll get pictures up soon (some of the digital pics are pretty blurry, and we haven't gotten the disposable camera developed yet).
Tomorrow - it's top ten time!!!!!!!
But only in the literal sense. So yes, I'm finally getting around to chronicling our honeymoon adventure in Europe.
We left Saturday 11/19. We got to the airport really early to try to get first class seats (we fly standby, remember), then headed over to the outlet mall to kill some time. When we returned, Victor checked the standby list, and we were slated for business class seats. However, a group of five people missed their connecting flight, so we were bumped up the list and got on first class. Yay! I didn't get much sleep on the way over, despite having a fully reclining seat and drinking plenty of booze. Victor slept more than I did. We did have a bit of turbulence going over the North Atlantic, but it wasn't too bad. We arrived in Frankfurt early Sunday morning and checked with the Lufthansa transfer desk. They had our standby reservation and told us there would be no problem getting on our flight to Barcelona.
Phase 1: Barcelona
We waited around the airport for an hour or so and then boarded our flight to Spain. I had never flown Lufthansa, and I was pleasantly surprised with the service onboard. Even though it was a short flight (2 hours or less), we got lunch and drinks. Even alcoholic drinks were free! We got to the Barcelona airport, figured out how to get on the train to town, and lugged our bags through a couple of metro stations before arriving at our final destination. Our hotel, Boria BCN, was just around the corner from the metro station.
We had reserved a junior suite, but for some reason they upgraded us to the loft, which had two bedrooms, two flatscreen TV's, a fantastic kitchen, and a really nice bathroom. I think the ceilings must have been 20 feet high. We loved the room. The sheets and blankets were super snuggly too. We took a long nap Sunday afternoon and woke in time to find dinner at a nearby Italian restaurant called La Locanda. It was very tasty and hearty. Surprisingly, we were able to go right back to sleep when we got home.
On Monday, we wandered around the city, checking out the Barri Gotic (gothic quarter), La Rambla (the famous pedestrianized street), and ducking in the enormous Boqueria (market). On La Rambla, there are flower stalls, tourist shops, and tons of pet stalls (mostly birds and small cage animals like hampsters and bunnies). I was in heaven. We also wandered down to Barceloneta and walked along the shore of the Mediterranean. We got bread, cheese, and meat for our dinner at La Boqueria.
Tuesday was spent traipsing around the city looking at the modernist buildings, including a lot of Gaudí's work. We climbed the Sagrada Familia, which was terrifing for me but thrilling for Victor, who is not afraid of heights. The climb (and the descent) just about killed our out-of-shape legs. We walked all over town trying to find a lunch restaurant befor finally settling on one. We also had some hot chocolate with churros because I was cold and tired. The chocolate there is almost like hot chocolate syrup, and it is so amazing. Tuesday night we had an amazing dinner at Cinc Sentits, where the atmosphere was sophisticated and the food was to die for!
On Wednesday, we did a lot of shopping and messing about the city. We had one of the most incredible lunches at Cal Pep, where they brought us an assortment of seafood tapas. Definitely worth the 30 or 40 minute wait. We ate another dinner from our Boqueria haul and shared some cava (Spanish version of champagne).
Phase 2: Bruges
Thursday morning, we got up at 5am and made our way to the Barcelona airport. Iberia (a Spanish airline) had lost our reservation, but the agent put us back in the system, and we were able to get on the first flight out to Brussels. The flight was pretty scary for me: turbulence, all sorts of strange noises, hard banks over the city of Barcelona, just all around yuckiness. I learned later that Airbuses tend to have weird noises, and everything was fine on the plane. Anyway, we touched down in Brussels and boarded a train bound for Bruges.
After mildly cold weather in Spain, Belgium was freezing. We wandered around Bruges (it's pretty tiny, so I'm using the word "wander" liberally here) on Thursday. It rained on us, so we bought an umbrella and later borrowed a second one from the hotel. We had some hearty Belgian food to warm us up, and later that night we had apple beignets and frites with mayo. Bruges is quaint and pretty. It reminded me of a small Amsterdam, without the pot and hookers. Our hotel was all out of standard rooms, so they bumped us up to a superior room, which had a whirlpool tub. Whirlpool tubs are fantastic for cold, aching bodies. The hotel itself was really cute and old-fashioned. We finished looking around Bruges and taking pictures on Friday morning, and then we hopped on a train to Brussels.
Phase 3: Brussels
It was bitterly cold in Brussels too. We had a tough time finding our hotel at first, because the center of Brussels is really confusing. We finally found it and checked in. The hotel was really nice and the service there was fantastic. We walked around the center of Brussels, taking in the Grand' Place (the beautiful old square), the Sablon, and walking through the Beaux-Arts museum. We had a waffle of course. In the Sablon district, we had some fantastic chocolates from Pierre Marcolini (that is their US website.. I couldn't get their Belgian site to do much). Belgian chocolate is hands-down the best I've ever had. Finally, we ate dinner at Chez Léon, which our TimeOut guide said was touristy but fantastic. And it was. Mmmmmm, mussels!
Friday night it started snowing. The snowfall was beautiful, but it made for super slushy sidewalks on Saturday. Victor's shoes were not the best for snow, and I was thanking God for the ugly boots I bought for the trip. We did some shopping on Saturday, though the snow slowed us down. We had a waffle for breakfast and Vietnamese food for a late lunch. Saturday night, we wandered back to the Sablon to get more chocolates. We tried the other chocolate house, Wittamer, because Pierre Marcolini was closed for a couple of hours. We killed time by eating street food (frites and bratwurst), drinking some gluhwein (mulled wine with cognac), and window shopping. By the time we made it back to Pierre Marcolini, there was a line formed around the building. Turns out they were debuting their winter chocolate collection, and they were giving away free chocolates, champagne, and strawberry wine. So of course we went in and had tons of samples and free drinks. Afterwards, we were stuffed, so we went back to the hotel to figure out how to get home.
Flights looked bad, so instead of hitching a ride on the Brussels-JFK flight, we decided to go to London and catch the London-Miami flight. The next morning we hopped on a British Airways flight to London, got on the Miami flight, and then languished in Miami most of the afternoon before getting on a DFW flight by the grace of God. I never, ever, ever want to see the Miami airport again. The flight back to DFW was so bumpy that some passengers got hysterical, but we made it to the ground safely.
So that's the honeymoon. I left out the parts where Victor lost his glove, I lost my driver's license, and our digital camera finally stopped working (and the part about how Victor forgot to tell me it was broken in the first place), but pretty much everything else is in there. Oh, we also saw some fantastic documentaries on British TV, including one on being childless by choice and one on European death metal. And Victor became hooked on Italian game shows and German call-in quiz shows. Hmmm... anything else? I can't think of much. I'll get pictures up soon (some of the digital pics are pretty blurry, and we haven't gotten the disposable camera developed yet).
Tomorrow - it's top ten time!!!!!!!
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