This is a hastily slapped together summary of our honeymoon. The full version is posted on Medium. We wrote it for family, friends, and our future selves. It turned out way longer than we wanted, but we didn’t have the time to make it shorter! If you enjoyed it, check out Part 2 and Part 3 as well!
Having dated for a few years, been engaged for almost two, and making it through a wedding planned from the other side of the country, Erin and I felt like we needed to celebrate.
Two backpacks and a travel sombrero
For some reason, the first vacation you take after your wedding is called a honeymoon [1], and we somehow managed to both get four weeks off of work to kickstart our marriage.
[1] Wikipedia explains it as a “period when newly wed couples take a break to share some private and intimate moments that helps establish love in their relationship” and figures the vacation-ish tradition started with Brits in the 1800’s who had the funds to travel and see family members who weren’t able to make it to the wedding.[1a]
[1a] I’m not very good at it, but to understand why I attempt to include footnotes to add another dimension to the story, see David Foster Wallace’s adroit magazine article Consider the Lobster, and if you have the time, all of his work. Apologies in advance for the interruptions
That much time means too many choices, and with ~57 million square miles of earth to choose from, a wedding to plan, and two full time jobs, we had to make some snap decisions.
It bugs me that Hollywood substitutes the Greek “S” sigma (Σ) for the letter “E”
Erin is half Greek, has a hilarious big Greek family, and has never visited the homeland, so let’s see Greece.
Southeast Asia is warm, friendly, exotic looking and has great food. Many of our friends have been to Thailand, Cambodia or Indonesia (Bali), but Vietnam is less explored, is undergoing a huge tourism expansion, and has had GDP growth over 5% every year except one since 1988. So let’s go see what’s happening there instead.
And to experience the cradle of civilization, classical antiquity, the Roman and Byzantine Empires, the history of major world religions, and interbellum country forming all in one spot, there is only one place to go. The challenge is that the country:
A) shares a border with Syria
B) recently shot down a Russian attack jet, and
C) had suffered suicide bombs at two of the most popular tourist areas that year.
With a fundamentalist president jailing reporters and converting the proudly secular country into a religious dictatorship, we figured we had to move fast if we want to see the rich history it had to offer. So we bought one-way flights to Türkiye leaving the day after the wedding, and figured we would plan the rest as we go!