Honeymoon, Days 1-4

So. We were married. But we were also freaking exhausted.

The last to go to bed on the night of the wedding (hell yeah! Partyyyyy!!!), Dave and I were also the first ones up and cleaning at 6am. We felt bad, you see. We were leaving for our honeymoon, and we simply could not fathom leaving everything. There was the tent to be taken down, food to be dealt with, tables chairs flowers rubbish gah gah gah.

And we were, how shall I put this, a little hungover. I would do stuff, and then sit and stare at the grass for a while.

By 6:30, everyone was up and doing stuff. And when Dave and I drove off, I was already missing my family so much that--well, I don't think most people are sniffly when they leave for their honeymoon.

We got into the swing of things soon enough, though. We arrived at our hotel, the multiply-named Princeville Hotel on Kauai (there were like 5 other names. I'm serious), we were shown into a very fancy and stunning suite, a present from my parents. This was our view:


Hard to feel sad looking at that. The exhaustion, however, was a little harder to oust. I think we went to sleep at 9.

The next day started off with massages by the beach, followed by mango daiquiris by the beach. The evening consisted of playing scrabble while watching the sunset and drinking our first married martinis.

And the sunset was amazing:


We checked out the next day, and drove to Lihue to take advantage of one of our wedding presents--a helicopter ride.

Now, I have to confess, I was not into the helicopter ride. 1) I'm a big chicken. 2) I'm a local girl. I hate the helicopters. They fly over my house while I'm tanning in the privacy of my backyard, they bzzzzzz and tourists ride them.

But. My mind was sufficiently changed:




We landed, and having sought the advice of our driver/pilot/surfer dude, went to Monico's for a fish taco. It was one good fish taco. The ahi was seared only the tiniest amount, and was fresh and light delicious. We ate there four times. Seriously. Monico's. It rules.

We went and let ourselves in to our condo, and look, this was the view!


We took pictures of every single sunset. I promise not to post them all.

That valley you see below the sun there is Hanalei Valley.

Hanalei's Farmer's Market is quite im- pressive -- it's roped off until 9 on the dot, everybody crowds around, and then 1-2-3 Go! you run to get your fruits and vegetables. Dave and I came prepared with a list. We were smart.

We bought homegrown avocado, mango, lemon, lime, cilantro, mixed salad greens, and poi. We stopped by the dolphin fish market for some ahi, and this was the result:

That's poi in the big bowls, the sweetest, freshest poi I've ever had, and ahi ceviche in the little bowls. And salad, obviously. It was all delicious.

We didn't spend the whole day at the Farmer's Market or anything. No, we went to Lumahai, my very favorite beach in the whole world, but it being the best beach ever on earth, we went to Lumahai lots of times, so I'll post pictures from some other visit. More to come....