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Published: December 30th 2006
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Key West
A warmer time... Thursday, December 21/ BWI
Scott & I were married on December 9th, in Key West, Florida. During the festivities, we were frequently asked where we would be going for our honeymoon. Having traveled extensively over the 6 1/2 years of our life together, we decided to head somewhere different for our romantic getaway. To a hotel built of ice & snow...
The ICEHOTEL is situated in the village JukkasjÀrvi, 200 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle in Sweden. The heart and backbone is the River Torne flowing freely through the unspoilt wilderness. Covered with a meter thick ice layer winter time the river is the source of all our art, architecture and design. The pure water and the steady movement of the river creates the clearest ice possible."
-http://www.icehotel.com/
HONEYMOON (Miriam Webster)
Etymology: from the idea that the first month of marriage is the sweetest
1 : a period of harmony immediately following marriage
2 : a period of unusual harmony especially following the establishment of a new relationship
3 : a trip or vacation taken by a newly married couple
"I did not fully understand the dread term "terminal illness" until I saw Heathrow for myself." ~Dennis Potter, 1978
Unusual harmony and Heathrow do not go easily hand in hand.
Anyone who has traveled over the holiday season with a tight itinerary, and multiple connections, can anticipate how the initial travel stage of our journey went....
Our roommate, Doug, had very nicely offered to drive us to the airport in time to catch our 8:15pm flight to Reykjavik, Iceland.
Airport lounge
Prime real estate. I had no experience with Icelandair, and was surprised to discover they flew into BWI. We arrived at the airport in plenty of time as Scott does not like to be late.
(Actually, Scott does not like to be on time. Scott likes to be early. Very early. So early, that Kat constantly complains at how much time we will have to kill and... oh. Wait a minute... That is an awfully long line at the Icelandair counter... Strangely long. Attempting to speculate on why the line is so long is pointless, as Scott is revelling in his "good thing we were early" smugness. Kat finds this sort of gloating unattractive unless she is doing it and wanders off to see if anyone has any useful comments to offer to the situation.)
I dislike people who stand in lines and talk on their cell phone. I realize I am not alone in this regard. There is only so much of adolescent mall-rat chatter, yuppie business patter, manicure - pedicure conversations that I can stand to listen to before I begin glaring at the offender. Due to a complex mathmatical equation, the degree of my irritation is in direct
Willie in repose
Willie calmly surveys the packing process. proportion to how long I have been in line added to how long they have been talking, multiplied by how many times their luggage cart has pushed into my luggage cart. Which, I acknowledge, is a seperate issue, but obviously factors into my overall "airport irritation." So, I was happily engaged in a forceful and satisfying stare/glare exchange with a man who was having a long and involved conversation with a relative in Iceland. So happily engaged was I in this pastime, that I was taken off guard by his brief remark, "Really? It just took off? Well, that's us here until midnight then." He glanced at me, smiled and turned away. I hate people who get information on cell phones that could be shared with the entire group but selfishly keep the details to themselves.
I did, however, win the staring contest. So there's that.
Turns out weather in Reykjavik was bad. So bad that the one plane that does the Iceland-Baltimore run, left 5 hours late. This put our departure from BWI at the 1:00am point. Apart from being immediately frustrating (good thing we got here early...) this also caused us concern with regard to making our connection through Reykjavik and on to London. That we were still thinking in terms of "making a connection" will serve as a timestamp for where we were in our travels. So young. So naive. So well-rested.
After a spirited discussion about whether to spend 5 hours in the airport or 3 hours at home, we decided to bully Doug into coming to pick us up. Doug, having nothing better to do than to keep our un-integrated feline household seperate but equal, was gracious enough to answer his phone. We arrived back home at 7:45pm.
(For those who know & love him, Willie is on prozac. For those who mock his small head, he no longer cares about your opinion. He is content with his svelt 19-pound figure, his aggressive personality disorder, and his 6am prozac dose.)
Scheduled departure from BWI: 8:15pm (Thursday)
Actual departure from BWI: 1:30am (Friday)
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