We went for our honeymoon right after the wedding, and it was truly tiring. The husband had to go on a course in Birmingham right after the wedding, and I tagged along. I mean I had to right? Otherwise my husband would be gone for 2 weeks right after the wedding.
The first week in Birmingham, it was snowing heavily. He made me take a bus from London to Birmingham after a long-haul flight (right after the wedding), change to a 3-hour bus ride to Birmingham, take a train (which was delayed) to the campus AND walked 20 minutes in the snow. I was so shag - all these when he could have took a cab (it's claimable) to the doorstep from Birmingham Central! We stayed on campus where his classes were, just right opposite.
I spent the first day exploring Birmingham, the next exploring the campus, another day in London and one day in Cambridge. I enjoyed the me-time very much, exploring places by myself.
It was a chore to travel from the campus – 20 minute walk in the snow to the campus train station, another 15 minutes to reach Birmingham city where the connecting trains were. The other day were spent in the room, planning the rest of our honeymoon and booking hotels, doing research.
Here's Birmingham Central and it was freezing.
And this was the view from our hotel window.
I went to London a day before my birthday.
Headed straight to Borough Market for some pub grub and beer, then to see the beautiful Wesminister before doing some shopping and da-pao-ing the famous Four Seasons duck back to share with the husband at Birmingham. The poor boy was complaining about having to eat sandwiches and salad everyday when it's so cold.
I spent my birthday in the hotel, planning our trip, strolling around the campus and joining him for a course dinner. The coordinator graciously invited me along knowing that I'm here with him right after the wedding, and even picked us up in a London cab from the hotel as it was snowing and very cold.
I then went to Cambridge the next day. It's a 3-hour train ride away from Birmingham and someone pasted a hand-written note on the ticketing machine saying that there are no trains. I tried the machine and it seemed to work. I thought that someone played a prank and pasted that on the machine, perhaps a student? I tore it off and wanted to buy tickets. Then, the ticketing person came and told me off, looking annoyed like I do not understand English. She refused to let me buy tickets and insisted that there are no trains when I see trains coming on the screen! Luckily I decided to take the risk and went down the platform without buying tickets. The train came and I managed to get to the central where I'm supposed to get a connecting train. The problem was, I did not have a ticket and there were people at the entrance checking tickets. They weren't always there, and there was a long queue of people paying 'fines' as they've no ticket (like me). I decided to try my luck and flashed my old ticket - I got through effortlessly and they didn't look at the date at all!
Lucky me, did manage to get to Cambridge but missed the walking tour of the day. It was already past noon when I arrived and the only option was punting at 3.30pm. I took that up and rushed to wander around the city with my map in hand.
It was beautiful, and Cambridge has so many stories.
And here I was, punting in the river. It was so cold and I was famished by then. Cold and hungry - not a good combination.
I finally found a restaurant opposite the...church I think..some iconic structure in Cambridge. The hot tea and curry chicken with rice was so good.
Did I mention that I love Europe. I love the feel of Europe and just being there. And I'm glad that I had some me-time to spend with myself and reflect on things there. It almost feel like those student days in Sweden again.
The husband finally finished the course and the test on Friday, and we headed to the central for dinner before our honeymoon officially starts.
Our first stop was Liverpool/Manchester after his course ended. We visited Anfield (his favorite club) which was really ulu and old. We went for a tour around the stadium and headed to Manchester United (my favorite club) since the 1999 treble. I managed to get tickets for the FA Cup match against Fulham, and was so excited about going for a live match there!
Next stop was Paris, because I made a mistake with the closing day of the Louvre (it’s Tuesday instead of the usual Monday for most museums) and the husband didn’t get to visit the last time round. We spent about 2 days there, spending a day at the Lovure (I really love it) and the other times looking for the best baguette in Paris and strolling along Champs Elysse.
We went in search of the best baguette in Paris (and probably France).
Third stop to Lausanne for a stopover to catch our first scenic train ride in Swizerland. We had some time to walk around the Olympic City which was full of slopes and cobbler stones roads.
Next up was the scenic train along ‘The Golden Pass’ from Montreux to Interlaken, taking in the dramatic landscapes in Swizerland. We stopped by Interlaken which will be our base to travel around the area for the next few days. After having lunch, we explored the little town and walked along the river as the sun set. Dinner was the best veal I ever had!
We went to Jungfrau the next day as weather was fine. The trains up the steep hills were amazing, and the views up at “Top of Europe” was really dramatic. It was so windy up there, at minus 13 degrees. The viewing platform was partially closed and we could barely keep our balance. We kept trying to take a nice picture, our hands keep getting numb and snow kept flying onto my teeth (which hurts!). We stopped by Gwindewald, and was contemplating whether or not to try snow sledging the next day. It was cheap, but I was afraid of the cold (snowing) and not sure how I’d take to heights on the slopes. Moreover, sledging would mean being unable to visit Luzern or Bern/Zurich.
We ended up at Luzern the next day. It was a picturesque town, with this ‘Harry Potter Bridge’. We spent the day wandering the town and went back Interlaken for traditional cheese fondue.
We left Interlaken for Bern next. Bern is a small little charming town that I really liked. It can be explored in a few hours, walking along the old streets and climbing up the hill for a birds-eye view. As we still had some time in the afternoon, we ended up dropping by Zurich on the way to Chur. It was a long and fulfilling day!
The only reason we went to Chur was to catch the Bernina Express the next morning. It was supposed to be the most scenic train ride in Switzerland (and maybe whole world). It stopped once for us to take pictures, and everyone was scurrying in the snow. It was indeed stunning, and we went all the way to the border of Italy. The last part of the train ride was closed for maintenance and we stopped by for lunch at the ‘Italian’ part of Switzerland which served cheap and delicious pasta.
Very sadly, my lens was stuck and the auto-focus broke down when we left the train to take pictures in the cold. And stupidly for some reason, I didn't bring my other lens out. We simply did not manage to capture the beauty of the place - something which has to be left to our memories. Some pictures had to be taken with my trusty iPhone after the accident. =(
We had a little adventure, as we decided to take the earlier train than scheduled, thinking that we can stop to take pictures somewhere then catch our scheduled train on the way back. When we got down, it was so cold and the snow so deep. I sunk into knee-deep snow every step I walked. It was so cold and impossible to actually walk to take pictures! And to our horror, our scheduled train does not stop there on weekends. The next train that stopped there was in an hour and went to another town. For a moment, I thought that we’re going to be stranded, now knowing if we can get back to our hotel tonight.
Then! Our scheduled train pulled at our station. I hurried to press the door open and rushed up the train, feeling really relieved. The train stopped till the train conductor found us. He recognized us and told us that the train stopped by mistake as the driver forgot that it wasn’t supposed to stop on weekends. *phew* we really got lucky.
We were supposed to get to Munich to meet up with 2 of my friends, but part of the train track was under maintenance and we had to be on a bus for that portion of the journey. I was really uneasy about it, afraid that delays would mean missing our connection and lots of trouble. The bus was late and I thought we were in trouble, but thankfully the train waited! We got lucky yet again.
We only had an afternoon in Munich and it was mainly to meetup with my friends and catch the flight to Iceland the next morning. We had lunch in this really nice typical German beer house, and I really loved the place. It reminds me of Poland actually. The food was good and I love the ‘Radler’ which was lemonade with beer – very addictive! We walked around the town area and bought Birkenstocks. It was a cold and gloomy day in Munich.
Iceland was really an experience by itself. I don’t think I’ve been to anywhere with that much inhabitable land and unique landscape. It’s also the first country we’ve been for many days without even exchanging for any of its currency (we still have no idea how Icelandic Kroner looks like). We went to a famous fish restaurant there and it was really delicious! We went to see geysers, craters and spent a day at the Blue Lagoon. It was really beautiful.
We hunted for northern lights for 2 nights, since we were already there. It was really cold at night. We only got to see faint lights on the first night, 2nd night was really faint and flickering – now you see it, later you don’t.
It was really cold and our hands, face, mouth were all frozen.
We also had lots of fun at Blue Lagoon which was so beautiful.
We ended the trip in London. I wanted to watch Les Miserables, but it was fully sold out for weekends the whole month! I should have booked the tickets earlier instead of trying to get discount tickets! We went around, shopped and had my favorite Four Seasons duck. Nesspresso capsules were half-priced there and we stocked up on it.
Our Chinese New Year eve was spent in London’s Chinatown. It was memorable, because the husband brought me to the wrong place yet again. He insisted on having steamboat for our ‘reunion dinner’. There were steamboat in Chinatown, but he insisted on going to the other one which was way out of town. He said that the Chinatown one was expensive (20 pounds buffet) and wasn’t that nice. So, we dropped our shopping in the hotel and took a 40-min train ride out of town to the place. Upon reaching, we couldn’t find the restaurant, it was a quiet neighborhood. I was cold and hungry by then, it was already almost 9pm. We asked for directions and the Londoner told us that the restaurant was on the other side of London! There was a small road that was the same name there, but the area was totally different.
So there I was, not knowing to laugh or to get angry. It’s not the first time he brought me to the wrong place while travelling. Luckily the neighborhood was safe and not some dangerous area! We took almost another hour to reach Chinatown and made it to a Chinese restaurant just before it closed. There we were, cold and hungry on Chinese New Year Eve, far away from home and eating at 11pm.
It brought our honeymoon to a close.
I know someday, I will be reading this, looking at these pictures, remembering those happy times we had. Perhaps someday, our children would read this and feel the love their parents shared since they were teenagers.
And to the husband - to many more happy memories to come. =)
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