Now, It's Istanbul

Or is it Constantinople?



My renewed passport has arrived (Arthur's hasn't...hmm....maybe he really cannot leave the country), our airline tickets are bought, our tour is booked. We even have travel insurance. I guess this means we are actually going on a honeymoon.

So now, what's left?

1) Finalize music issue (yes, dear readers, amazingly that issue has yet to be resolved)
2) Figure out what we are doing about the rehearsal dinner (see above parenthetical side note)
3) Buy stamps, print out and mail invitations
4) Get the bridal party gussied up (in other words, find their dresses and then corresponding outfits for men)
5) Create wedding centerpieces
6) Create guest bags
7) Purchase and design silk flower creations
8) Buy shoes for wedding dress
9) Buy accessories for wedding dress
10) Get fittings done
11) Buy a suit and shoes for Arthur (as well as a rehearsal dinner outfit)
12) Write ceremony
13) Write vows
14) Get a marriage license
15) Determine if we are doing favors or not
16) Determine if we are doing a first dance and what our song will be
17) Buy presents for bridal party

It is a long list. I'm sure it could/should be longer, but Top Chef Masters is about to start.

A Slice of Turkey

So our current honeymoon focus is now Turkey. Insert my father's more than likely corny poultry joke here. Tooling around on the internet, in my quest to find a cheaper way to have an amazing honeymoon, I came upon European Destinations, which is actually a very cool website. It allows for multiple city bookings. On it, I found an interesting itinerary including Dubai, Istanbul and Athens. A full-fledged mostly inclusive close to nine night honeymoon seems to be able to be had at about $5,000. This is a heck of a lot less than what we were finding for Morocco (I think this is mainly based upon airfare).

So this got us thinking. I mentioned it to a few friends. Dubai got a few interesting reactions, but over all the more I thought about it, the more excited I became. Yesterday, Arthur and I set ourselves down in the corner of the Bible section of Barnes and Noble (by the way, if you are looking for the King James version B&N is not the place to go) and poured through the travel guides on the UAE, Turkey and Greece. We read up on Dubai and while interesting, I wasn't sure it was where I wanted us to spend our honeymoon. Beyond that, it is cheaper to stay in one country. While Arthur really wanted to go to Greece, it seemed the most frugal to stick with Turkey.

I have often heard that Turkey is the poor person's Greece. Besides, the more I find out about ancient ruins, bazaars, Turkish baths (eyebrow wiggle), small seaside towns and look at the photos of the Bosphorus, "fairy chimneys," calcium cliffs and natural rock castles, the more I want to spend our honeymoon there.

We have gotten a few quotes from some tour agencies and right now we are leaning towards one that is based out of Turkey called Online Turkey Tours





(note: they have that ever present logo that seems to be on every New York City bus). I like that they are Turkish (does the logo make it more legit or am I just a sucker for marketing?) and they seem very accommodating.

It is not a "tour" tour, they just arrange everything for you, which is another great thing. Anyway, it is my current obsession. Arthur is probably sick of all the e-mail updates and findings, but he's taking it all in stride.

After all, in about four months, he is marrying me.

Honeymoon Blues

After much discussion, Arthur and I picked Morocco as our ideal honeymoon destination. I am sure you might be thinking, "huh. interesting." We chose it because a) neither one of us has ever been there b) it is not a typical honeymoon destination c) there is lots of history and culture d) there is lots to do e) there is still plenty of resort type areas for those days of relaxation.

Marrakesh




Agadir

So Arthur put in his passport application and I put in my renewal. I can almost hear the collective sigh of relief from those of you have seen my passport photo. Twenty-three year old me - uh, not so pretty. We then went on an adventure to Liberty Travel. Once there, we informed a bearded, burly and overly enthusiastic gentleman travel agent that we were thinking about Morocco, but we were open to other ideas. This, apparently, was a mistake. He had just come back from a trip to Argentina you see. He was singularly focused. Don't get me wrong, it looked and sounded amazing. However, we had said we were open to other places, not another place. Our conversation was akin to the World Cup - Argenina vs. Morocco. He would highlight some fabulous aspect of Argentina and then sort of mumble something about Morocco. His enthusiasm was significantly dampened, however, by the mention of our budget. One could practically feel the wind from the slamming of the South American brochure. "You are probably better off looking into Morocco if that's what you want to spend."

Needless to say we left there unsatisfied and with a brochure of Argentina. Arthur and I decided to stop by the travel section of Barnes and Noble to make ourselves feel better. There we found lots of interesting tidbits and renewed our determination. We looked on-line, but did not find anything that seemed like more than 30 person guided tour - not exactly romantic. Finally, I remembered to look up the company I used to travel through Egypt - Imaginative Traveller. They were great then with just the right amount of tour without overdoing it. It turns out that they actually have honeymoon trips to places like India, Kenya and ...gasp...Morocco! I have been in contact with one of their people and she has been very informative. Almost too informative. The bottom line is staggering - at least it is to me.

I guess it has been a while since I went on a full-fledged vacation. This is the only possible explanation as to why I am absolutely blown away by how much it may cost us to go on the honeymoon we want. Fundamentally, I understood that it would be a few grand, but I just didn't imagine that the honeymoon would cost nearly as much as the wedding.

It saddens me to think for practical reasons we may not be able to go on this trip. Logically, I understand that I am a big girl and should be able to get over it. Illogically, I just want us to be able to go on the honeymoon that we want. We don't even have Paris.