Life After Honeymoon
The first full day in London, we went on the London Eye. I’d been up there before, but my hunnybun hadn’t, and he’s also (slightly) afraid of heights. The thing with the Eye is, once you’re up there, you don’t get to hop off. Too late. Sorry, you’re hundreds of feet in the air, floating over the city. So deal with it.
He did.
This is him pretending to be okay at the top. Crazy eyes.
Most of what I did in London was eat tasty things. This is from a cafe. I stood at the glass case and peered inside, deciding which items would contain the most sugar, and therefore, be the worst for my health. These two were my final choice. The little guy on the right is a marshmallow skewer. It’s three marshmallows (one plain and two strawberry) dipped in chocolate and then covered in chocolate sprinkles. How is that possible? Why has no one fed me this before?
To balance out my tasty sugarsnack, I consumed this enormous mug of hot chocolate with caramel and whipped cream. And then we walked around London while I tried not to barf.
But it was soooo good.
This is Abbey Road! We’re on it! We’re walking across the crosswalk of Abbey Road! What?!
I gave my camera to a kid who was standing on the corner and he took pictures of us. They’re fuzzy (cause this is an actual, functioning crosswalk, which means cars were threatening to kill us as we slowly paraded across), but we have fancy ones on the hunnybun’s camera.
On the corner, there’s a brick wall and people have written on the bricks! I wanted to write on the bricks, too, but we didn’t have anything to write with. So we’ll pretend we wrote one of those things.
This is the Tower Bridge. The hunnybun refused to cross it. So we stood on the side of the river and thought about crossing it instead.
Across the street from Buckingham Palace, there is a gorgeous open park with trees and benches and leaves. I capered around for a while. Nice to have open space!
When we went to the Sherlock Holmes museum, my hunny tried on the hats for sale. Personally, I don’t think either suits him, but he does make a better Watson than a Sherlock.
So on our first day in Rome, the Vatican was having a vigil for the statue of the Virgin of Fatima. We were able to catch the very end of it, and get tickets for mass in St. Peter’s Square the next day!
This was the day of the mass in St. Peter’s square. It was incredible, chaotic, and a little overwhelming. But such an amazing thing to be a part of! I’ll talk about this more later, but I want to clearly state that I am thankful to be back home in a place which believes in personal space, bathing, and deodorant. I think that is pretty self-explanatory.
After the mass, the pope made his rounds on the little car, and it was such a special thing to see him so close. He has a kind, happy face, and I was very taken with him.
Mass was crowded, to say the least.
This is the inside of the Coliseum. We purchased the audio tour guide thing, and this was our favorite fact:
“The shows that took place in the Coliseum often consisted of a variety of animals and were topical events, spectacular in their design. One show capitalized on a recent event that occurred on the Italian shore: a whale washed up and was beached. To take advantage of this occurrence, an enormous whale was constructed and raised to the floor of the Coliseum. Its jaws opened, and out of its mouth came fifty bears.”
FIFTY BEARS?! Why? What do bears have to do with whales?
We cracked up, and I’m sure the other visitors to the Coliseum didn’t appreciate it. But who could blame us? BEARS?!
Our last day in Rome, we decided to go up to the top of St. Peter’s Basilica. There are two levels to the basilica. You can go up by steps or by elevator to the first level, which is on the same surface as those statues in the middle of the picture above. And then you can go up by steps to the second level, which is around the coppola, or the dome.
So the hunny decided we would take the elevator up to the first level. We exited the elevator, walked to the edge and looked down, and he froze and decided he would not be continuing our journey up to the next level.
“I’m not going to make it, hunny,” he said.
“Ok, hun, that’s all right,” I said.
“But you can go, and I’ll meet you here after,” he responded.
“BYE!” I said.
I climbed the THREE HUNDRED steps to the top of the coppola. It was hot. And narrow (like hip-width) and you couldn’t change your mind because there was a whole line of people behind you. I sweated and heaved to the top, and when I looked down, this is what I saw.
See that tiny obelisk in the middle? That thing is HUGELY TALL so that’s an idea of how high up I was.
And here’s my Vatican selfie.
When I finally got to the bottom, I was red and my hair looked like I’d had a pretty good time up there.
So that were some of the highlights from our trip! I’m going to post later about a few interesting observations we made, and also about how to craft your own wedding! Happy Saturday!
Congratulations on the wedding! It looks like you had an amazing honeymoon! I love that you still went to the top of the Basilica even though your hubby was scared. Too cute. My husband and I are going to Hawaii in a couple of weeks and he has ear problems and can't snorkel. You can bet that that's not going to stop me from swimming with the sea turtles! 🙂
Congrats again!
Kayla
Stuff Students Say and Other Classroom Treasures
Congratulations!!!!! 🙂
I'm so happy for you!!
And it's strange, but for our 10 year wedding anniversary, the hubby and I went to London (first) and then to Rome (Venice, first, and then Rome). 🙂 Loved seeing all your pics!
Looks like you had an AMAZING time! Congratulations on your wedding and here's to a happy ever after 🙂
Stephanie
Teaching in Room 6
Congratulations!!! Your pics are beautiful!! I'm sure you will treasure these special memories! Thanks for sharing.