Hightime in Germanland

I just had a shockingly short trip in Europe. Usually my travel MO is to go for a month or several months or a year when I travel internationally. The careful exploitation of natural breaks in your life plan are integral to this type of travel of course, and so now that I am a working stiff with a "regular" job and not adhering to a campaign cycle or being a student, I have to wander a bit less and plan quite a bit more.

Surprisingly though, short was not terrible. Although I slept in a different bed nearly every night, it was almost how I imagine old rich ladies feel after a wildly expensive spa weekend: tight, taut and rested. It helped, I suppose, that I went nowhere new. My youthful dalliance as an exchange student was in the same German state as the wedding, so it felt like a form of homecoming. The train routes make perfect sense to me here. The culture is as comfortable as yoga pants, and the language came soaring back into the speech section of my brain almost effortlessly.

By arriving a day and a half before the nuptials, I was lucky to fold into the planning errands of the happy couple and found my German spilling into the front seat with amusing stories and harmless gossip. Weddings are particularly inefficient events as all the guests are there to see the couple more than each other--but the actual couple seem always just out of reach.

Despite concerns that the weather would be too cold/rainy, the coffee & cake part of the agenda, and champagne toasts were cozily performed in a three-sided barn with netting on the third side and heat lamps interspersed. I stuck with the Brazilian and German girls who had also been exchange students (with the bride) in my home state in 2000. During the toasts we chatted with the bride's boss, unbeknownst to us, resulting in us telling him that the bride had been a "party girl" in former years. Whoops.

Wedding in German is Hochzeit, or directly translated, "high time." The highest time of the night was a surprise firework show, funded by the father of the bride. Brilliant explosions of light above the sleepy German farm was set to the Lion King's "Circle of Life," as over a hundred guests, emotionally softened by the effects of alcohol, wondered upwardly up with shiny faces of joy. Ain't love grand?

After all the speeches, the eating, the dancing, the bouquet tossing, the skits and the photo-shoots, small groups broke away in a series of taxis and cars. Arriving at the hotel, we were approached by a worried boyfriend: he had lost his girlfriend. When he confused our Brazilian friend for his girlfriend, we realized that the confusion might rest on him. Less than a minute down the road, we came across the actual lost girlfriend, who had apparently left the hotel by foot to find cigarettes at 4am in a thoroughly sleeping village. Unfortunately we had now lost the boyfriend, who it was later revealed to have gone into a hedge. We orchestrated a very drunk reunion between the two that was actually quite heartwarming.

The remaining days of my trip included a day trip back to one of my favorite cities in Germany, Köln, where three girls climbed to the top of the Dom on legs that were dead tired from too much dancing. On Monday, I wandered around Brussels, eating waffles and frites to make up for all the museums being closed, the day capped with a behind-the-scenes tour of the European Parliament buildings (my dear readers should know intimately how much I like Parliamentary buildings--this one is an airport motel compared to Westminster). En route back to New York, I slipped past customs for a few hours to have lunch and a pre-noon beer with a good friend in the Dublin airport. Next time though, I'm going for a month at least.

Let's Go on a Moonlight Swim

Before going to Oahu in January, I did my research. I watched Blue Hawaii almost all the way through (sleep overtook me before I could resolve if Chad and Maile would actually get the blessings of his parents or if Chad would become the heir of the vast pineapple farm  against his own wishes... I am still in suspense, but sure that some light guitar playing and singing heralded the conclusion).

Sadly, the Waikiki of Elvis fame is now basically an upscale outdoor shopping mall. I prefer the kind of traveling that means culture shock and weird foods. I suppose that not everyone enjoys trying new things though, or being on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean without a Forever 21 and a Tory Burch nearby.

This was a multi-generational trip with my mom and my grandma (who is 91!), and we managed to create a little oasis of awesomeness in spite of the mall-like exterior. The first day we bought groceries so that we could eat healthy and more cheaply by fixing it in our room. Also, my dear friend (N) picked us up from the airport with a bag of fruit and ground coffee--which endeared her to my grandma for life. We kept up a daily ritual of eating at least one papaya every day for the full two weeks. Perhaps my post-vacation blues are really just papaya withdrawals.

Visiting N's new homeland was my primary incentive for vacationing in the 50th state. That, and getting out of the cold, dark gloominess of winter in New York. Although since returning to the snow and bitter cold, I fear that I just prolonged the inevitable. When it comes to the topic of cold weather  New Yorkers are basically complained out by now, so when I strike up some witty small talk about the real possibility of frost bite I get blank looks.

Other than eating copious amounts of papaya and lying on the beach and/or by the pool everyday (with sunscreen on, or course), I snorkeled at Haunama Bay, painfully clambered up the Koko Head Stairs of Doom, fell in love with açaí bowls, watched the sunset at the China Walls, danced poorly with scarily-aggressive army guys at Addiction, and walked into Honolulu to see the architecturally interesting State Capitol building.

I also heartily recommend the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, but the Dole Plantation was just okay. I think I would have liked DP more if the bus ride out there wasn't so long. But the dole whip (only available there and at Disneyland Resorts!), was a nice treat. Imagine pineapple soft serve, covered in pineapple... there you go.