Après Wedding

What can I say about the Wedding? It was picture perfect. And so it should have been after a year's planning. The only thing that couldn't be planned was the weather and fortunately it behaved itself.

It was really astonishing that something that had taken so long to plan was over in less than twenty minutes. The attention to detail was breathtaking.

Here we have me, Tom, Elizabeth (mother of the groom), the happy couple and Mel's parents, Kent and Jean.

These are our flowers - Tom's button hole and my glitzy wrist band. Note how my table placing is hand written and the lobster stamp means I got lobster for dinner.

After much eating, drinking, speeches and dancing we were bussed back to our hotel. Today we decided to drive to the furthest point of the Cape to Provincetown. This historic old town was settled by the Pilgrims in 1602. It had a great harbour so in 1654 the Governor of the Plymouth colony purchased the land from the Nauset Indians for a selling price of two brass kettles, six coats, 12 hoes, 12 axes, 12 knives and a box. I wonder what was in the box - I reckon the contents had to be the deal clincher.

One of the odd facts about this quaint little town is that apparently the 2010 U.S. Census revealed that Provincetown had the highest rate of same sex couples in the country at 163.1 per 1000 couples.  I don't know if the fact that the Supreme Court legalised same sex-marriage on Friday, June 26th changed anything for Provincetown but the things we noticed most here were the rainbow flags and the water bowls that were outside the shops. I have never seen so many dogs and been in such a gay friendly place in my life.

As you can see it's tourist town.

But it's also extremely picturesque.

Tomorrow we will drive back to Boston, fly to Detroit and pick up another hire car to drive to Charlevoix. We should arrive tomorrow evening. Orleans has been a great experience.

Cape Cod and wedding preparations

The train trip to Boston was good. It's a much better option than flying. It took about three and a half hours and we met up with Pip, Julian and Sam, picked up a hire car and drove to Orleans where we met Jean and Kent, Mel's parents. We drove to a little Motel nearby, had a Thai meal and went to bed. Next day we checked into the Ship's Knees Inn where we are staying for four days.

   

   

This charming little B and B is an eight minute walk to Nauset Beach, ten minute drive into the township and about fifteen minutes to Mel's parents place at Crystal Lake where the wedding will be held. 

This is Tom and Mel's sister taking time out from the Wedding rehearsal. This is going to be the wedding of the year. It has been planned to the nth degree. Mel chose her wedding dress the day after Jesse proposed a year ago. She bought the tie that Jesse will wear tonight the day after. So much planning made us bolt for the beach.

It was too cold to swim but we managed many a long walk. And then we just had to stop at Liam's Beach Shack to sample the lobster rolls and world famous onion rings.

 

 

It's funny, it's like two parallel worlds - there's the Wedding World and the beach holiday world. All day we have been in beach holiday mode but shortly it will be full tilt into Wedding mode. Tom is rehearsing his Wedding speech. Soon I will be putting on the make-up, slipping on a frock and Tom will be suiting up. Then we'll jump into the Wedding bus and be driven back to Crystal Lake for the ceremony and then bussed  to the the Yacht Club for the Reception.

New York

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This is a bit how I feel about New York - it's a bit like running with your goose; it's exciting, it's giddy, you get a bit drunk and you have to be careful not to stand on any stray turtle that might meander by.

We have had so many experiences since we arrived. First, Jesse and Mel met us at the airport at 7.00 o'clock in the morning. Then it was full steam  ahead for the Buck's Night (for Tom) and picking up up the Wedding dress and the hand written place settings (for me). Life blurred with the rich experiences of Astoria: the subway, freeways, the many restaurants, flower stalls, stainless steel doors and railings on houses and apartments and intense humidity and heat. Sleeping in Jesse and Mel's bed was an unexpected treat- even if it did slope a little.

Then a huge highlight for me - going to the Golden Theatre on Broadway and seeing Skylight by David Hare with Carey Mulligan and Bill Nighy. It was gob-stoppingly good. The performances, the production, the lighting and set design were wonderful. We were sitting about six rows back from the action and could see every expression. The only problem was that for the first act Carey Mulligan cooked spaghetti bolognese. We hadn't had lunch and the smell of the frying garlic made us crazy. At interval we rushed out and bought two hotdogs.

It was a stunning. Poignant and intelligent. I had tears running down my cheeks.

And then on to explore the delights of Manhattan. We visited the lovely old apartment that Tom used to live in in the seventies.

Then we explored the joys of Zabars and spent a pretty penny then lunch in Central Park and off to the Met. So much to do.

A small Egyptian temple.

And then so many wonderful pieces.

It was such a treat. Tired but tired we returned to our hotel. Tomorrow we take the train from Penn Station to Boston where we will pick up a car and drive to Cape Cod for the wedding.

Let's do the Time Warp again

How can two seasoned travellers get into such a mess? I was wondering why we got to have three Fridays on our trip from Sydney to Honolulu to New York. Well, it turned out we didn't. 

Woke up this Friday morning to find emails from Jesse asking where the hell we were. Turns out we really arrive in New York on Saturday at 7.00 in the morning, not Friday at 7.00 in the morning. It seems we really only get two Fridays after all.  

So now it's a swim and a walk and another pack and then a ten hour flight straight to a Bucks Party. Yippee!!!

 

Waikiki

Why is the adventure of overseas travel so prosaic? Because it's hard work and super tiring. Here we are on a gorgeous balmy day beachside at Waikiki. And we're buggered. A nine hour flight with only a half an hour of sleep is not conducive to a relaxing time. And what is it with the time zones? We left Sydney at 9.30 p.m. on Friday the 18th of June and we arrived in Honolulu at 11.00 a.m. on the 18th of June, eight and a half hours before we left home. Now we are about to swim and explore, have dinner, hopefully have a good nights sleep and then fly to New York tomorrow,  only to arrive eight hours earlier than we fly out. Crazy but I'm not complaining. Here's a picture from our hotel balcony.

Aloha Sydney

Well, we're off to the U.S via Hawaii to attend Jesse and Mel's wedding. The drive to the airport through pouring rain was in stark contrast to the wonderful sunset we experienced last night on our veranda.