Well, we are FINALLY married! That's right, on October 10th we became Mr. and Mrs. Brian Rugala!! So exciting! We had the most amazing time at our wedding and thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. We cannot thank our bridal party (too many to list, but you all know who you are!) and our family, of course, for being so wonderful. We'd like to thank all of our friends and family for coming out and celebrating with us, too! You all mean the world to us and we were so excited to share the day with each and every one of you!
Shortly after the wedding we embarked on our first {GASP!} major trip together: Our Honeymoon to Greece! I have always heard people say that they needed to marry someone they could travel with... I never knew how important this was until we finally traveled together. I am happy to report that Brian and I travel quite well together - Woohoo!!!!
Our journey started out of SFO (thanks Ryan for that 3:30am ride!) and was a smooth and easy flight. We landed in Frankfurt, Germany and decided to take advantage of the layover so we hopped on their train and went to downtown Frankfurt. What a beautiful place! It was clean and quaint and had great shops and even better cafes (mmmmmmm pastries and fresh espresso!). We walked all around Frankfurt and saw beautiful cathedrals, the river, and the most gorgeous homes. We took lots of pictures (soon to follow) and loved our day-trip to Frankfurt!!!
We hopped back on the plane and headed to Athens. We landed to not-so-good weather but soon disregarded the overcast sky when we entered the most beautiful hotel: The Westin Athens Astir Palace Resort. Our hotel was HEAVENLY! It was quiet and isolated on the Greek Peninsula and in a very nice-area, too. Our suite had a private deck/balcony that overlooked the Sea and the private bungalows. OUTSTANDING!!!!!!! There were decks/lounging areas/bungalows that were on the Sea (about 2 feet above)that made us feel like we were walking on water. They had a private beach and a beautiful pool, too. The restaurants on-site were DELICIOUS and my 50% off discount (thank Goodness for Starwood hotels) was SO handy!!!
We thoroughly enjoyed our time in Athens. We took a bus to downtown Athens and spent an entire (rainy) day wandering aimlessly and finding sites all on our own - the best way to travel. We saw the Acropolis, and if a comparison could be made, I would definitely compare it to hiking the Great Wall... We found our way down to Zeus's Temple, The Gardens, and lots and lots of shops. It was raining cats and dogs but we were not deterred!
From Athens we ventured to Santorini - one of the Greek Islands - and were in awe from the moment the plane landed. All of the homes and buildings were white with the brightest turquoise ever, and spotted with the most gorgeous fuchsia flowers. This may be my new favorite color combination... Santorini is surrounded by various beaches; white beaches, black sand beaches, and red rock beaches - all FABULOUS.
The best part of Santorini was renting 2 ATV's (I know, I know - me on an ATV?!) and just explored all of Santorini on our own. We found secluded beaches, great wineries overlooking the volcano, and super cute cafes and shops. Santorini is COVERED with wild cats and dogs. They are all super friendly and absolutely adorable - and I struggled to not bring at least a dozen of them home! We made great friends with the local cats and dogs near our hotel, all of which were given names by us. We had Whitey - a big white lab/pit bull mix, Poseidon - Some sort of Terrier - who was AWESOME, Cali - my favorite little black kitten that was itty bitty and LOVED going in the hotel pool with me and sunbathing in the warm weather on my lounge chair, and many many others! (lots of pictures of them to follow, too!.
We were so sad to leave Santorini and wished that we had a few days left. Upon arrival back to the Athens airport we found out that we weren't able to get a sooner flight to Paris and due to my booking mistake we had an 18 hour layover in Athens. If everything didn't cost SO MUCH it wouldn't have been a problem... but the cab ride to and from a hotel would have been $120 alone! Not too mention a hotel room, etc. So, we decided to just camp out in the airport. It wasn't too bad since we made great friends with a super-awesome woman, Tenelle, and her adorable 2-year old daughter Sally. Tenelle and Sally kept us very entertained and we stayed up (except for maybe an hour catnap) from 7am Wednesday morning (when we woke up to fly from Santorini to Athens) until our flight to Paris the next morning at 7:45am. This may have been the beginning of my flu :(
We had planned to hang out in Paris a bit but due to some AWFUL flights and delays, we just barely made our connecting flight from Athens-to-Paris and Paris-to-SFO. We were hauling ass through the Paris airport to catch our flight - which ended up being delayed 2 hours. Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!
We had a short delay in Charlotte where Brian and I clearly got super slap-happy (ok, maybe me more than him) and we were just cracking up over everything. From there we flew to SFO (again, not a good flight - ugh!). We landed a few hours late and thank Ryan, again, for picking us up at SFO at 10pm!!!!
It was hard to come back to reality but was such an amazing trip and we loved every moment of it!!
Pictures to follow!
