Our Second Valentine's Day

I woke up this morning after having a very weird dream that I can't remember though I knew it involved Phil and at some point my ex-boyfriend. I can't tell you what happened in it, but I can tell you the overwhelming feeling of peace that took me once I woke up.

Phil was snoring next to me. Though we have fallen asleep with our legs intertwined like we have for many nights, we separated at some point. I rolled over and with his back facing me, began to spoon him, nuzzling my face into his neck. A move he knows well that took him out of sleep and made him dreamily say "hey hunny," like he always does.

It was at that moment that I felt my heart swell up with how thankful I was to have Phil and how much this entire year has meant. We ended up staying in during the snow storm yesterday and we made a feast. We also had gone out to lunch earlier in the day and had gotten cannoli cheesecake for dessert. It was perfect and I finally got to watch the end of the second season of Bates Motel.

Phil surprised me with two new necklaces and I got him a Kurt Knusden garnet star (since we started dating in January and garnet means eternal love) and ice cream mugs that in common tongue say "My Sun and Stars" along with "Moon of My Life." I envisioned us eating ice cream sundaes out of them as we watched Game of Thrones in our new house. It played back to a set of key-chains I bought us just because last year and the moment in our first date where Phil was head over heels for me because I then went on to take GoT.

Which is our next adventure; the new house.

And then he drew me to him and we talked about our weekend. He asked me why I thought he always buys me jewelry for special days and I shrugged. He told me it's because he was trying to replace all the jewelry that was stolen from me during brief period where I dated a total wannabe thug boy asshole who robbed me because I didn't deserve that.

Then he told me why he chose the necklaces that he did and each one had its own tale and future. I love that I fell in love with my other half who is just as loving and creative as me.

EuroTrip: Rome to Venice

I wish I had more to say about Rome, but much fit reminded me of Florence...only hotter. I liked the Colosseum and the shopping. Phil got his sister a really cool wooden bowl here. I also liked going into the Pantheon. It took me back to taking Roman and Baroque Architecture at Rutgers in the musky Art Library with what would become the chair of my department...he was such a stickler. I really hated him by the end of that class, but what had kept me attending were the slides of Italy and all of its beauty.  It kept me going through my junior year and into my senior, where I would get to go to Paris for the first time and completely and absolutely fall in love with everything European.

Phil & I on a Gondola.

We got to do the romantic things like riding a Gondola. I had done this by myself in my teens and it was cool, I had some awesome roommates, but it's very different when you're there with the one that you love. WE really made some amazing memories here like this Gondola ride and when we walked so deep into Venice, I got worried we weren't get out to find me ointment for my bites.

Kelsey, Ellie and I.Venice Summer 2014

We also met up with these ladies and got to have a fun afternoon. Ellie's GoPro never got old. Phil also wanted to feel ever manly here and  bought me a keychain. I had carried all the money in my purse so he had saved for a day or so and I now have a Venetian mask keychain that came from the change he gathered.

Back at the campsite, we were introduced to the Contiki bar and Amnesia...a drink that goes down like juice, but within 30 minutes has you having out of body experiences. Phil and I had two, and I have little remembrance of that night other than the photos from people we were traveling with....

Siobhan and I. 

Hannah and I. 

This was the first and nearly last night that I sort of "let go" and partied. I was too focused on my last graduate classes that I was taking during this trip and my job that I was going back to. Venice, though, was beyond romantic and beyond fun.

I again, was really sad to leave it.

EuroTrip: Le Chateau de Cruix et le Beaujolais!

I was pretty sad leaving Paris because I just love that city so much. I had some of my best memories there in college and then again with Phil. I was excited though to leave because our next stop would be in the Beaujolais. As a former French teacher, I taught my students all about the Beaujolais nouveau and how this is such a big thing. Obviously we were there in summer so we missed the festivities, but we were still going to stay in the wine region and we were going to be sleeping in a chateau. I have always had a love for chateaus, I always found them to be so beautiful and I loved the history behind them and how families would pass these homes down through generations. We stayed in a chateau that is now owned by our tour company, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have a racy past...

Chateau de Cruix. 8/2014

It was originally constructed by the Sarron family, a notorious family plagued with scandal in the medieval period before being sold to the Bellet family where it remained until 1936 when it was again sold, this time to the Bernard family who sold it in 1955 to a cruise company that used it for their employees before Contiki purchased the property (and pretty much turned it into a party house) in 1980. It was a pretty neat place to walk around, there was even an old chapel on site and the architecture was amazing. It's fairly empty now with bunk beds built out of two-by-fours crammed into rooms that were crappily divided to fit in more people. In it's day though, it must have been something. 

I felt okay walking around though you could feel the building's history around you and I am sure it is haunted to some extent. We had windows that would just close on their own. I didn't feel anything sinister there, but Phil did have this weird nightmare about something trying to pull us out of our window as we slept. That night, the window kept rattling even though there was no wind and if you looked at it, it would stop. Creepy!

The views are still amazing. I spent a lot of time outside. It was pretty cold still, but I didn't mind. 

Beyond the Chateau. 8/2014

My favorite time though, was at night. It was just so quiet and beautiful. It was beyond romantic to be there despite all of the craziness that other people staying there created, it was simply magical.

Twilight at the Chateau. 8/2014

After we arrived at the Chateau, we were rushed into the cuvage, where we had our first wine tasting of the trip. Beaujolais wine is young wine and it is red. So, if you like red wine this is where you buy it. We bought a bottle for Phil's mom and one for us. We're saving it for our anniversary in January, but every time I look at it sitting on the dining room hutch, I just want to sneak a little sip. 

Phil, forever being the star of most things, got volunteered to be in the demonstration of how they cut the grapes from the vines. I really wish I had videotaped it, but I just got pictures:

Phil, the grape man. 8/2014

After the demonstration we had wine and hung out for a little and talked. I also am not big on being in huge groups for very long so I started to wander around and take more pictures. I got some more of the grounds and then the view from our window:

Chateau roses. 8/2014

Beaujolais road. 8/2014

From our window. 8/2014

Afterwards, we made our way down to the dining room for dinner. My birthday is still upcoming so we buy a bottle of white wine (which is also delicious) and we have it with dinner. Then we all sat outside drinking wine and getting acquainted with one another. Looking back our time at the chateau is where we all began to bound as a group. Later that night, Phil and I would get separated. I spent much of the night outside because I was just so in love with being in the wine region while he had a fun time in the chateau's basement that they turned into a club. To me, though, it reminded me of every frat basement party I had ever been to over the course of my time at Rutgers. I was okay in missing that. Kelsey would spend much of the night running into either Phil or me and asking us where the other was. We finally found each other long enough for him to give me our room key and for me to go to bed. He eventually followed.

The next day, we stayed by the pool and just hung out with Kelsey while Ellie went on a hike where it seems everyone got lost doing. At the end of your hike you got a small lunch that they were nice enough to bring back for us. The one thing I did not like about the chateau was how wine fueled it was, but if you were hungry there was no food and there was no place to walk to to buy it. A good portion of our tour was prepaying for food, but Contiki meals sucked. They often were flavorless and insanely small portions especially when they took you to the Chateau where the only meals were their meals and you had to wait for specific meal times to then be fed things that weren't all that wonderful. I would have liked to not have had to pay them any money for food and just bought my own as we went. I also did not like how when you were in a Contiki property, they would pick people to serve the food and to bus the tables, on their vacation that they just paid all of this money to do. I felt especially bad for the people who in real life are servers and were enjoying not having to do that while they were away.

Panorama of the chateau (and Phil). 8/2014 

Regardless though, our time there was beautiful and I just loved getting to have that experience as a whole and with Phil. I became very relaxed there and just enjoyed it which was huge for me because coming into our trip, I was totally burnt out from moving and from my job. I really needed to get away and have a fun time with the man I love and we did just that. 

Disclaimer: I really love France and Chateaus. I blame Lifetime and Danielle Steel because growing up I saw the Jewels mini-series with Anthony Andrews and thus began my adoration for this place and my dream that one day I would marry a duke...

EuroTrip: Bonjour, Paris!

Even after the entire trip, as I look back Paris is still my favorite part. I had lived there in college and had creamed about going back there. And now, I had finally made it back. Only this time, it was even better. I had Phil with me and we got to have a lot of alone time in Paris.

Phil & I. We survived snails! 8/2014

Before leaving London, Phil gave me my birthday present early. I saved writing about it until now because he had planned to give it to me in Paris at the Eiffel Tower because he knew that many years ago when I had lived there and was wide-eyed and not even 21 yet, that I had made a promise to myself that I would return to Paris with the man I would marry and finally climb the Eiffel Tower which I had visited a lot, but never went up.

Eiffel Tower. Typical Tourist. 8/2014

Instead though, Phil gave it to me in our hotel room in London. It is a beautiful necklace with a heart charm. In it, there are two amethyst hearts meaning him and I and then around it is a bigger gold heart that represents our love and the bigger heart has diamonds in it, showing our future. He said it's our promise necklace that once we're both better situated, that we will get married. It was perfect. I absolutely love it and it really made London okay even after all of the crap we went through.

I wore it for the rest of our trip.

I wore it our first night of Paris too. We had dinner with our group and then had a bus tour of Paris before we stopped and had champagne and escargot. I had never had it before and probably will not have it again, but it was not as awful as I thought it would be. It tasted like butter and garlic and had a bouncy consistency. Phil swallowed his like a pill out of disgust.

Our next stop was the Eiffel Tower were we took so many pictures, but my favorite is the one of us together.

Phil & I. Eiffel Tower. 8/2014

We decided to head back to the hotel early and spend time alone. We got to bed early because we knew the next day we were going to pack everything in and do something special for my upcoming birthday. 

EuroTrip: Arrival in London

We flew out of New Jersey into London-Heathrow. I had been so busy with moving and everything else that I had going on over the summer that I had forgotten to pre-select our seats on the airplane. I wasn't able to check in online either because of the terms of our tickets. Best laid plains, right? So, we got stuck with crappy seats in the middle of the plane.

This was also the first time that I went through airport security and was nearly stopped....so they could search my bun. Yes, that bun in my hair. I was shocked but they checked, found nothing and we were allowed to board.

It was very early in the morning when we left, we actually watched the sun come up over the runway at Newark airport. We hung out and waited until we were finally able to board our plan. I have flown transatlantic before so I was ready for a nap and to wake up in Europe, however, Phil had not flown that kind of flight before and so began his exclamations every time we hit turbulence that we were going down and going to die.

I had to remind him that these were things you do not say on a plane in a post-9/11 world, even if you're terrified....suck it up! Which he did and after several movies and an okay meal, we landed at Heathrow.

Wherein we have our first argument over a sim card, but I find one and we are able to tell everyone we landed. Then we had to take the 45 minute ride on the metro into Camden where we were staying. We stayed at the Royal National Hotel which was clean enough, but really had some elements of "The Shining" that I could have lived without. We showered and met up with some other people we would be traveling with at the pub in the courtyard. We didn't stay long because we were exhausted.

Phil & I on the ferry after we just left the port of Dover. 8/2014

The next day, we planned on sleeping which we did and booked a bus tour for later. We walked around, found nothing really in the immediate area and wound up being annoyed with London. It did not help that the staff at the Royal National was awful and so rude. They would not help us whatsoever and were more into talking to each other than answering any questions. We wound up having to even get a refund on our bus tour because we could not get help in finding where it was. I found most of London flat out rude.

We retreated to our hotel room with hard cider which we drank out of tea cups and listed all of our London based grievances. I fell a little more in love with Phil that day because he really tried to make it better even though London was such a let down. It was just expensive and abrasive! We even did the classic red phone booth pictures to find how awful those booths really are-- they reek of piss and vomit.

The next day, we were up early to begin our trip. We met up with our Contiki group and we were off for my city...Paris. We took a bus to the ferry where we got to see the cliffs of Dover and we floated off to France! The ferry trip was a bit of a haze because we were so jetlagged, but I will never forget how exciting it was, knowing that we had our entire trip ahead of us. 

The Changes That a Year Will Bring

Last year, I was in a brand new school district teaching a subject that I hadn't taught since student teaching. I had finally left world language and was at last working on my standard certificate in English. It was a crazy year filled with the unknown, so many challenges and changes.

And one of those changes was meeting Phil. Now, I made a good amount of money in my early writing career writing about dating, heartbreak and what it was like to be an adrift 20-something. However, this is not one of those overly dramatic stories that you might be used to reading from me. This is the beginning of a true love story and one that I hope gives those adrift 20-somethings that are still navigating the uncertainty of this age, are looking for.

Our first Valentine's Day, February 2014. 

It was January when I met Phil. It was a blind date set up by a teacher in my building who at the time I barely knew, but felt gutsy enough to put it out there because as she would tell me, every time she talked to me all she could think of was her friend Phil. In her mind, we had to meet.

Only, Phil never facebooked me like she told him to do. I was also pretty much done with men, having had another bad relationship the year before and since then, every date I went on or guy I dated turn out to be a total and complete dipshit. I really was just enjoying teaching and being alone, finding it easier than putting myself out there and either getting hurt or finding myself disappointed by someone else.

However, my teacher friend was persistent and asked me if he ever contacted me. When I said that he hadn't, we decided that I would message him and I did. Then he responded and we talked for days. We had our first date where he will tell you I was cold and closed off, but I wouldn't have sat there for six hours if I wasn't interested. We had dinner and then coffee and we saw American Hustle where the usher nearly carded me and charged him for a child's ticket. We laughed about it though and it became a running joke. I knew I was attracted to him at dinner, but I knew I liked him by coffee and then for sure in the movies. Then he nearly broke the reclining seat in the theater by pulling the button instead of pushing and we both nearly got motion sickness because that is not a movie you should see when the only seats left were the front row. The end to the date was awkward with neither one of us sure how to end it, but I am glad I said I had a fun time and that he then said we should do it again.

It was our third date where we sat at a bar, tipsy on beer and playing the infamous "napkin game" which is just like never have I ever, but with a napkin. He gave me a ridiculous card and in it he wrote a poem that both rhymed and included every major thing that we had talked about up until the point and left it with the idea of a relationship. Here's where we have yet to find common ground on it. I say that he asked me out and he says I did when we then got into a pissing match and I updated my relationship status on facebook. I still say, he asked me out.

And nearly a year later, and we are more in love with each other than ever. Though, we have found the past month awfully stressful with my return to teaching and writing my master's thesis and he taking six classes this semester, but we're doing it! I do wish sometimes though on the really hard days that we can go back to the dream of a summer we had. We backpacked through Europe over the course of August and it was just a long standing dream come true for me.

Which will be what I focus my first bunch of entries on. Our first stop will be London and the horrible time we had there, but Phil made it special in the end. Stay tuned!