Steve and I have been back from our honeymoon adventure for a full month now. I really can't believe the time has gone by that quickly. It was a bit of a reverse culture shock when we first arrived. We spent a week exclaiming, "Everyone speaks English!," "It's so expensive!," "Who's this Madoff character and why does everyone hate him so?," "Blago who?"
We flew into LAX and were picked up by my cousin, Frances, and her husband, Gene. They took us to their beautiful house for a couple of days and let us veg in front of the TV and enjoy Chinese take-out. We were lucky to meet some of their friends and family.
On our last day in California, we rented a car and drove down to San Juan Capistrano to visit my aunt, uncle and cousins. They treated us to our first In-N-Out burger, and Steve proved himself to be a ruthless competitor against my two young cousins in a "who can dig the deepest hole" contest on the beach. Way to use your freakishly long arms to show up a first grader!
We'd hoped to visit my grandmother too, but she was a little under the weather, so we'll try to see her when we return to California this summer for my family reunion.
We got to LAX a few hours early because the security lines were supposed to be terrible, but we actually breezed right through. Our original flight was delayed many hours but we were able to sweet talk the agent into letting us on an earlier flight. He even bumped us up a class so Steve could have more leg room! I was particularly amazed by this when we reached the gate and saw that there were about fifty people on standby for the flight we were now on.
We arrived in a snow- and ice-covered New Jersey on Christmas Eve. Steve's parents had to battle horrific road conditions to pick us up at Newark - we saw so many accidents and flashing lights from the sky. We spent Christmas at their house with Steve's brothers and grandfather, which was nice after not having seen any family for so long. We got dressed up for the first time since our wedding to go see the Rockettes (squeal!) and dine at the Harvard Club.
When we left NJ, we'd contemplated taking the train but decided to stick to our budget travel guns and took a Chinatown bus ($20!). We arrived in DC, hauled all of our luggage onto a city bus, and marveled at how many stores and restaurants had turned over in the few months we were away.
Nearly five months to the day after I left DC, we returned to our house! We were greeted by Meg's family, we were visiting from South Dakota and enjoying the "heat wave!" A few friends came over that night to welcome us back, and we all went out for real, American burgers!
In the month since, I've been finishing my last requirements for school and studying for the bar while Steve has returned to working his insane hours. We hosted a lot of friends over inauguration weekend and a few other nights here and there. Steve's best man and his girlfriend gave us tickets to the inauguration, which was an amazing event.
Now that the bar exam is in three weeks, I'm retiring from all social activity for a bit. It's just plain cruel to spend so much time thinking about bars and parties without the least bit of enjoyment.
Monday, February 2, 2009
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