So, we got married! In our typical fashion, things started going wrong as soon as we got to the airport in Antigua. The flights were uneventful enough, both full with newlywed honeymooners, each on our way to our respective tropical paradise. But, after the high of arriving in the Caribbean, our spirits were lowered as we realized Christine’s bag had been lost. It seemed to be pretty par for the course in Antigua as well, as about half the plane was lined up to report missing baggage. A great way to start of the honeymoon, indeed. But, because we were on our honeymoon, we shrugged it off, and looked forward to a week in the sun.
As if on cue, we were quite literally handed some good news as soon as we got to the resort. Sipping our free champagne, we found out we had been upgraded to a beach front room!! AND, we had an open bar in our room that would be restocked every night, not to mention the “free” food and drinks we could order at any time at the 5+ restaurants. This is something I could get used to.
After relaxing in a couple lounge chairs right outside our room (because we had beach front, remember?) we got up to walk around, and enjoy the scenery a bit. Christine somehow managed to scrape her knee in the process. It wasn’t a “bad” scrape, just a little scratch. No big deal, right? So, the next day we went to the nurse to get a band-aid for it. 45 minutes later, we leave the nurse’s station with 3 band-aids, some ointment, and a little bit of our dignity gone. Even though it was quite clear that this scrape was far from life threatening, an official form had to be filled out, and I had to write a sworn declaration of how Christine scraped her knee on a lounge chair. And as if this wasn’t enough, while we were in the waiting room, some guy came in and asked for a band-aid because he had a blister. But he had no problem getting one, as it seems a blister is grounds to a free, no questions asked band-aid, whereas ours was a struggle against everything. At this point, I started to get the idea that this kind of stuff was becoming a trend.
The food was phenomenal. We had a different meal in a different restaurant every night, including: Japanese, Italian, English pub food, Caribbean, Mediterranean, and Tex-Mex. It was great, especially the “free”ness of it and the free drinks. I say “free” with a grain of salt, because although we paid for this resort up front, it was still awesome to not have to pay at every meal or for every drink.
The beach was amazing as well. There weren’t too many people around, and we could pretty much sprawl out wherever we wanted. Being the fair-skinned, German descent couple that we are, we tried to stay in the shade when we could. I’ll have the hundreds of people who told us at the wedding “YOU guys better put on sunscreen! You’re soooooo pale!” know that yes, we have in fact noticed we’re both pale, and yes, we both did get burnt a bit. Christine even got a little sun rash. Go figure.
To make matters even more perfect, one day we decided to sit under an umbrella on the beach. We were enjoying the day, sipping our pina coladas, and all of a sudden a bird flies under the umbrella and proceeds to poop onto Christine. As if losing luggage, getting a scraped knee, spending 45 minutes in the nurses office about said knee, and a sun rash weren’t enough, she gets pooped on. I applaud you, karma. I did what every great husband should do, and that’s laugh hysterically. What a perfect week.
In short: this week in the sun was great, mon. In the land of “Don’t worry, be happy,” it’s easy to see how the people there are always in a good mood and always ready for a good time. It was a great time, and I’m still stuck in the clouds 2 weeks later. But, all good things end, and it is great to be back.
Stay tuned for more zany antics in New York from the newly married Dynamic Duo!
