Dear Friends,
I wish I had time to write you each a postcard. Sorry, I will write this blog post instead. To all my friends who write me postcards, please don’t stop. I love receiving mail–so rare these days.
Well, I’m back from my 10-day vacation to Turkey. I left my fiance, work, wedding planning, and all my troubles behind. Why Turkey? I’ve only heard great things about the country. My parents claimed it was their favorite place of all their world-wide travels (that is, until they went to Israel this year). When I returned, I asked my mom again which was her favorite country. She said, “Israel. I love Israel. Then Turkey.”
I told her Turkey was my favorite and she laughed, “Every time you come back from vacation, you say that country is the best.”
“At least my vacations keep getting better and better!” What made this trip special was the diverse itinerary. From site-seeing in Istanbul (Blue Mosque, Hagia Sofia, cruise on the Bosphorus, traditional Turkish bath), trekking around the small cave town Cappadocia, hot air ballooning, wine tasting, relaxing on the Mediterranean beach, paragliding, going to a disco with the locals, to eating the freshest produce (such sweet tomatoes and cherries). We did it all. I kept saying, “What haven’t we done?”
The worst thing about travelling around the world is the flights. To get to these beautiful places, you’ve got to put in the effort like 20 hours of flight time. On my way back, I watched 3 movies, ate 2 meals and 2 snacks, read 2 magazines and a book. And then I still had to fly from Chicago to San Francisco. I almost went postal.
But Dean was waiting for me with a dozen roses at the airport and little presents to kick-off my birthday week: a bookmark, an itty bitty book light, a gift card to Borders, and chocolate truffles. He is the sweetest guy. He clutched onto me and told me how much he missed me.
Now I’m back to work. Back to wedding planning. I found out that my wedding date has changed to the summer time. Since Dean has many school-aged children in his family, they requested a summer wedding so they could take time off and fully enjoy our celebration. We are now targeting Saturday June 12, 2010 which is Dean’s parents’ wedding anniversary! Probably even more meaningful than having it a year from the day we met.
It’s good to be back.
xoxoxoxoxo,
catherine
Leave a Reply