What It's Like

Well,... we've been home for over a week now and just starting to figure out what the routine will be. What's cool is that friends and family don't seem too shy in welcoming us back and saying hello with phone calls and such. I've often heard that most newlyweds experience a time of isolation from friends- not the case for us, so far. :)

What's really funny is the first few calls people make to us-- they often seem to imply that John and I are always having, uh, "quality time." Too funny.

Anyways, Italy and Spain were really fun. A bit hot for both of us- but we enjoyed ourselves. Spain- we must go back to Madrid. It was really relaxing there - wish we had more time to shop and get more booty. At least we scored free slippers from the hotel (soory, the frugal chinese pack rat freebie monster in me couldn't resist).

We had really awesome wine, btw. In Spain, we had some really awesome Sangria. I asked the waiter about the type of red wine they used in their version and he said it was a red wine they called "mancha," a locally made Madrid wine, .. he also said it was really strong. Yep, boy, it was. Good thing our hotel was only a block or two away from the restaurant. After 4 glasses, I was feeling more than a little tipsy. But, that's how good it was! I'm going to see if I can find some and get some sangria going for next summer...

In Italy, we also had some lovely wine there. We did purchase a carmignano that was a little too beefy for us, but it was still pleasant to drink it under the starry sky in the middle of a tuscan olive tree field. We also had lovely red wine just about everywhere we went.. mostly some chianti type, or whatever was the house red or rose.

What's nice now is that we can enjoy our collection of wines at home-- now that I'm not having to drive to the parents at night, we can have a nightly glass of red wine and not have to drive anywhere. It's rather relaxing. Last night we had some Orchard County (Wisconsin) Blackberry Wine with some brie, flatbreads, pears and nectarines while watching the season debut of Heroes on NBC.

What's also relaxing is that the rest of our furniture has finally arrived and we're able to spread out on our couch. And if we get too tired, we can just walk down the hall and go to bed.

We still have a pile of thank yous to get out (we're both of the opinion that whoever decided that a couple has up to a year after the wedding to get thank yous out was really lazy and in poor taste) but we can now commence since we just finished opening up all our gifts (whew!).

In any case, we're just happy to be home. We're busy with work and faimly things as of late, but it's nice to be around again. :)