It’s been 20 years…

 

Wow. This week is my wife’s and my 20 year wedding anniversary. It falls on Wednesday the 18th, but, of course, that day was a Saturday 20 years ago. We are taking Wednesday off work and are going to hang out together. If the weather holds up we are going to go on a wine infused picnic in the area we went on our first date & where we got engaged – and then after our daughter comes home from school – go to our favorite sushi restaurant to celebrate. This is a good time to look back, though, at our wedding and especially our honeymoon – and our crazy trip to Paris.

We got married at the Cavalier Hotel here in Virginia Beach. It was an outdoor ceremony in the back of the old historic hotel, which was built in 1927 and was once the largest hirer of big bands in the world. Stars such as Benny Goodman, Cab Calloway, Glen Miller, Frank Sinatra, and Ella Fitzgerald played there. Being we were have an outdoor ceremony, we had been concerned about the weather for months, but it couldn’t have been a nicer day – even though the day before was a little chilly and misty, and the day after was super hot. It was a great time, though – with a view of the ocean, a nice cocktail hour, lots of dancing, and because of the open bar, we heard for years from our friends that it was the best wedding they had ever been to. My wife was beautiful, all the families and friends got along, our handpicked music was great, and everything went off without a hitch – except for one of the flower pots falling over during the ceremony. Other than that – it was perfect.

We left for our honeymoon the next day. A week in Paris and 3 days in Monaco, but instead of spending our first night in Paris – we spent it in Queens, NY. We flew to JFK and waited to leave that evening for Paris, but the flight was delayed for hours, and eventually got cancelled. They put us up in a nice hotel outside the airport, though, and there we were on our first night of our honeymoon – in Queens. Not nearly as epic as Paris…

We made it to Paris the next night – after losing a day of our trip – but just in time to spend  our first night in Paris on my new wife’s birthday. I surprised her with a birthday present. A sapphire ring I had been holding onto for a while just for this occasion. Time to get the honeymoon started off right…

Our hotel was a small, old, but charming hotel in the Latin Quarter. The elevator was tiny and the bed was lumpy, but it was on a quiet and beautiful street – and had an old bathtub across from french windows that looked down into a courtyard.

We did a ton of things in Paris. We explored Notre Dame Cathedral, took a boat ride down the Seine, walked through the streets eating ham and cheese baguette sandwiches, went up in the Eiffel Tower, traveled to Versailles, went to an old medieval museum – Mussee de Cluny – where we saw ancient roman baths, medieval art & architecture and the famous Lady and the Unicorn tapestries. We toured the Rodin museum and saw the Kiss and the Thinker. We walked through the narrow streets of Montmartre and checked out the “Big White Thing”, Sacre-Coeur. There was the Champs-Elysee and the Arch de Triumph. We went to the Opera House – made famous by the Phantom of the Opera. We saw the graves of Napoleon, Victor Hugo, Voltaire, Oscar Wilde, and Jim Morrison. We bought lots of wine and bread and chocolate and even had crepes. It rained a lot and was chilly most of the time, but that’s Paris. Here are a few of our other adventures:

Van Gogh and Monet

Art is obviously a big part of Paris and France, and some of the most famous museums in the world are located there. Seeing not only all this famous art, but also the locations that inspired the artists was one of the reasons we went to France on our honeymoon. We started our art tour at the Musee d’ Orsay, an old train station converted into a world class museum chock full of some of the most famous art in the world. You can spend days in there. We were dizzy with all the famous paintings hanging in front of us. It was there that we decided that if we ever had a girl that her middle name would be Camille, named after Monet’s wife. There she is below with the umbrella! Of course, when we had a girl that was what we did…

What made this visit more meaningful was the second part of our art tour. A few days later we went on an epic day trip to visit Monet’s Giverny and Auvers-sur-Oise, the village Van Gogh lived and painted a number of his most famous paintings, and where he died and was buried. The trip was amazing. It included a boat ride through the countryside while eating lunch. We sat with a man from Australia who was on the tail end of a 6 week holiday where he had already been to the Jazz Festival in New Orleans – and a family with a young daughter, who we thought of as a model of the family we would like to be one day. In Auvers-sur-Oise we saw the house where Van Gogh died, the church he painted that we had just seen at the Musee d’Orsay, and Vincent and his brother Theo’s gravesite. The bus trip to Giverny slowly rode through small villages and past poppy fields that looked just like a real life Monet painting. Giverny didn’t seem real. The weather was perfect, Monet’s house, and gardens, and famous Japanese bridge all seemed like a dream. The day was literally one of the coolest things we ever did and is high on the list of something to share with our daughter sometime in the future…

The Louvre

Our next stop on the art tour was the Louvre. Like most people the main thing we wanted to see here was the Mona Lisa. We were not big fans of most of the art in the Louvre, but definitely had to see the big one. We made plans one evening to go to the museum after checking our guide book and seeing that they were open till late. Once in we saw some Egyptian artifacts, a bunch of huge religious paintings, and stopped to admire the Venus de Milo – which was stunning. On our way to the Mona Lisa we noticed the crowd seemed to be heading against us until we came face to face with a couple museum workers who made us turn around and follow the crowd. Well, the museum was closing. The time we had was wrong or they changed it. We never did find out what happened. Ok – we’ll come back later in the week. We were going on a bus trip to Versailles towards the end of our stay that returned us back to Paris near the Louvre, so we’ll go then. When we tried to go then, it was closed due to a strike. The next day was some kind of national holiday, and the day after that we were leaving for Monaco. We were going to be leaving Paris without ever seeing the Mona Lisa! Epic fail. And we did leave without seeing the Mona Lisa – but we went back to Paris 5 years later and saw it then. It was worth the wait…

The Sickness

On one of our days walking around the Latin Quarter, we decided to go eat at this Tunisian restaurant. It was lunchtime and when we were seated we barely noticed that we were the only ones there. Over time more people showed up until it was pretty crowded by the time we left. I don’t remember exactly what we had but we had different things and I remember it being good. Well, we enjoyed our day not aware of the trouble to come. Sometime in the middle of the night my wife got up – violently sick to her stomach. It went on the rest of the night into the morning. Throwing up and worse. Food poisoning. The Tunisian restaurant. We were the first customers of the day! Boy what a learning experience. Don’t eat in empty restaurants was the lesson of the day. We missed half of the next day while my wife rested in bed, but eventually she felt well enough to get up.

The Sex Show

Our last night in Paris we were walking around Montmartre carrying a bag full of baguette bread and wine and were stopped by a man at the entrance of a club. Come on in for our show – naked women – live sex show. Come on in. For some reason we went in. Boy what a learning experience. We saw a parade of women who came in, handed a cassette tape to a DJ, and then got up on stage and slowly took off their clothes while dancing – but they never actually took off their clothes! When they got to the end they would quickly cover themselves up and run off. Then – to be in the club we had to buy a drink. So I got a beer – and it ended up costing $20! No sex show. No naked women. $20 down the tubes. I’m not sure why we went in, but they hooked us in and we got taken. Oh well…

Monaco

We left Paris and took the high speed train to Monaco – which was beautiful. Our hotel was real close to the train station and had a nice view of the city and harbor. The one thing I remember about our room, outside of the view, was that our shower leaked and there wasn’t really a shower curtain. It had a glass wall that ran only half of the shower and the leaking went all over the floor. The shower head was one of those hand held ones, so we took turns holding it for each other and rinsing. It was our honeymoon, after all. We walked all around Monaco – checking out the James Bondish Monte Carlo casino, the palace, all the winding narrow streets, the church where Princess Grace got married, and even a wax museum. We found this Italian restaurant on the water that we like so much we went back the next night too….

Navy Guys, Castles, and a real live sex show 

One day we took the train up and down the coast going to Nice and this really cute village called Villefrache-sur-Mer. In Nice while in the train station we were stopped by these US Navy guys who were from our hometown. Norfolk/Virginia Beach is a huge Navy area. They recognized the t-shirt I was wearing, which was from a Virginia Beach surf shop. We got talking and they said their ship was anchored in the harbor of Villefrach-sur-Mer right down the coast. It was on our way back to Monaco, so we stopped to check out the village. What a perfect place to explore. Narrow hilly streets, an old castle, shops and views. Amazing. At one point we were sitting on the beach enjoying the views when we heard some laughing. Behind us were some Navy guys sitting on a wall waiting for the train and they were pointing and laughing at something a little further down the beach. That’s when we noticed these two people under some towels. The dude rolls over on top of his girl and starts having sex with her right there on the beach in front of us all. Unbelievable. No $20 beer this time! Then, a little while later the train pulls up and out comes this old lady with a young man. They walk right over near us and proceed to take their clothes off. The man down to his speedos and the old lady – well – she stood there and changed into her bathing suit. Right in front of us. Definitely another world.

Business Class and My Wife the Terrorist

Well, eventually this honeymoon paradise had to end. We flew Air France and on the way home they put us in Business Class. We were never given a reason why, but guessed that it must have been because of the delay at the beginning of the trip. Regardless, it was great. Big chairs and lots of cool stuff. Our final bit of adventure was attempting to get back into our country. I didn’t have any problem, but my wife got temporarily detained. You see, her name hadn’t been changed yet since our wedding – and her old name matched a name on a terrorist watch list. Some Irish terrorist or something. I was off trying to get our bags for customs and she was nowhere to be found. Eventually she showed up carrying one more story about our crazy, wild honeymoon.

Twenty years ago…