The Honeymoon Part 2: The Last Happy Days

Lock we put on a bridge in Paris--we threw both of our keys to the lock in the Seine to symbolize our eternal love

Barcelona 

We arrived in Barcelona still in our sangria stained garbs from the San Fermin festival. A guy with a top hat opened the door of the cab for us as we arrived at our five star hotel. I can't speak for my husband, but I most certainly felt a bit out of place. We had just spent 4 days up in the mountains wearing the same clothes for the entire time. I had one giant dread in my hair after going so many days washing, but not brushing, my hair. Our white garb from the San Fermin festival was stained many, many times over with red wine and sangria that we had either spilled on ourselves, or someone else had spilled on us, during the festival. San Fermin was basically a big party with non-stop drinking 24 hours a day for as long as the festival lasted. For someone who loves to drink as much as myself, it was perfect!

However, eventually we had to return to reality, and that reality seemed almost surreal after San Fermin. This reality included me starting to detox after all the alcohol I had consumed over the weeks prior. I was getting cramps in my calves, getting the shakes, and getting very, very nervous. I had a few Xanax with me, so I started to cut back the drinking by consuming less alcohol, and using the Xanax when I started to feel symptomatic. I really didn't want to keep drinking at that point, but I was physically addicted. I never had a conversation about any of that with my husband. To this day, I'm not sure if he knew what was going on with me, or if he knew that I knew what was going on with me. It just seemed like a bad time to say, "Sorry, babe, I know this is our honeymoon, but I'm detoxing from all the drinking I've been doing."

Paris

Paris was amazingly Romantic. Garrett absolutely loved Paris. In Paris, we shared some of our most peaceful moments in months. One afternoon we brought a blanket, some food and some wine and had a picnic out in the gardens in front of the Louvre for a good portion of the afternoon. We relaxed, people watched, napped, cuddled--it was amazing. Another night, we bought some food and wine at the grocery store and ate a little picnic right on the banks of the Seine.

My detox continued in Paris. We actually had to go to the pharmacy once because I was getting such severe cramps in my calves and I was beginning to worry about my potassium levels and the effect that both the drinking, and the detoxing, were having on my heart.

But, I got through with the little Xanax I had left. I had to divvy it up into smaller doses to make it last longer, but that seemed far more comfortable and sensible than detoxing off of alcohol and Xanax in a foreign country.

In spite of my growing discomfort as a result of my detox, we were still able to do some fun touristic things. We went to the Louvre, and dashed out after seeing the Mona Lisa to go to Hemingway's favorite bar: Harry's New York Bar. I think we both agreed that it was the best tourist attraction we had been to in Paris. It was small, quaint and exactly like one would imagine "Hemingway's Bar" to look and feel like. I even got a picture of myself under the Ithaca College pennant that was hung on the wall there. We went to other Hemingway haunts, but that was by far the best. We also took our token boat ride down the Seine, climbed the Eiffel tower, and went to Notre Dame. At Notre Dame my husband told me that he was creeped out by the fact that I would actually pray when we went into the churches. I did not tell him the great peace it had brought me in my younger days, that I did it every day when I lived in Venice, or that it was a part of my cultural heritage that I deeply valued and to which I felt deeply connected. That would be an argument for another time.

At Harry's Bar in Paris under the Ithaca College pennant

Reykjavik

In an effort to save money, I bought a ridiculous amount of vodka during our layover in Iceland. I bought it in duty free, and I wasn't supposed to use any of it until I went through customs in the US. I started drinking it right there in the airport, and was completely out of it half way through the flight back to Boston. 

Akron, OH

Akron was interesting. It was neither bad nor good. We had to stay in a rather dumpy, antiquated motel in Hudson because it was the only motel my husband's employer would cover that also allowed dogs. It was pretty gross. It smelled, we saw raw sewage leaking out of one of the rooms, it had bugs in the bed, and it was a generally unpleasant place to be.

At that point, staying at home was not an option. In the months prior to the wedding, my husband had been away two weeks of every month. I didn't feel OK going a whole month without him at that point. Particularly in a place where I didn't know anyone and could barely manage to navigate around (Orlando). Too much had been going on in the previous months, and though I didn't tell him, I needed him.

I spent all day drinking wine out of a box and watching every season of the bachelor I could find on the internet. Smug in my newlywed life, I very much enjoyed judging the relationship decisions of other people. I think it made me feel good to believe that I had figured out the secret to love when none of those other people had had any success. Little did I know. 

The Bun in the Oven

Shortly after returning for Akron, I found out I was pregnant. We had conceived some time during that trip.