Hey, Let's Cross the Sea

A few years ago, JT and I made a pact that we would take one trip out of the country every year. It started with France. The next year, since France had been a pretty pricey trip, we played it a little closer to home and went to Canada. Last year, we went to Curacao in the Netherlands Antilles.

For our honeymoon, we're hitting up two countries in one trip: Spain and France. We'll be spending 4 days in Barcelona and 3 days in Cannes. The combination of cities basically came from indecision about what kind of honeymoon we wanted to have: did we want a cosmopolitan, urban honeymoon filled with shopping and fine dining, or did we want a relaxing beachside week? I'd never thought of myself as a beach vacation kind of girl, and I'm generally not the kind of person that can lie around doing nothing for very long, but Curacao changed my mind. We had a fantastic time, and I realized that I do enjoy beach vacations...just not the tequila fueled Cabo Spring-Breaky kind.

Usually, for our out of the country excursions, I like to come up with loose itineraries. I don't want every minute planned, but I like to come up with general outlines of what I'd like to see (and eat!). Barcelona obviously has no shortage of great food options. Since I don't speak any Spanish, I'm a little nervous about looking like a giant idiot trying to get around. Especially because I prefer to hit up the un-touristy restaurants where menus are unlikely to have English translations. And eating is one of the most important parts of the trip -- in case you didn't already know, I'm a major foodie.

While I'll probably have a good list of restaurants and attractions to hit while in Barcelona, I'm keeping the schedule for Cannes very unstructured. The Cannes half of the week is meant to be the decompression time. Just wandering wherever the day takes us, and sitting by the beach whenever it's not too cold.

Man, I am really looking forward to this. Time to get some new luggage.

Who's Gonna Drive You Home Tonight?

If "tonight" means the evening of the wedding, it will be one Mr. Lance Haynes. I hate limos. I've never understood why they have to be so ugly. If I'm gonna shell out my hard earned cash to have someone drive me around, can't it at least be in a cool car?

There are couple of different antique car chauffeur services in San Diego, and they all seem to be about the same price range. This week, we settled on Haynes Chauffeur service. A lot of how we have picked vendors has been based on feeling. How well we jive with them, if they seem to "get" what our wedding is all about and who we are as people. When there are so many vendors out there offering the same thing at (usually) the same price, it's the only way for me that makes sense. And frankly, on my wedding day, I want to be dealing with people that are going to make me feel good and happy.

We'll be going with one of the two cars above, which will pick us up from the ceremony and take us to the reception, then pick us up at the end and take us to our hotel. We've been pretty good about keeping things realistic and not splurging on crazy stuff, but allowing ourselves a couple of cool treats (like this, and our cake topper) has helped keep it from not feeling TOO much like a budget wedding.