All posts tagged travel

Tim and I are still enough of newlyweds to regularly look at each other and say, Can you believe we’re married? Remember what it was like when we weren’t? and, on days like this last Saturday, where we went to a flea market we’ve been hearing about since before I moved to Nashville, Remember back then? Back when we didn’t even live in the same state?

Sometimes I can’t even believe we used to just talk on the phone every night, with Tim in Tennessee and me in Chicago. The days of driving eight hours to spend time with him seem like such a long time ago, back when I’d stay a few days and we’d go to Las Paletas and Sevier Park and bake things like pear custard pie at his house.

But I’ve been living in Nashville for ten and a half months. Ten and a half months! It’s not home in the same way the Chicago suburbs are—we still visit my family and everything feels so familiar and normal that it’s like where I belong—but yet it is home, too.

We have Tennessee license plates and library cards and a church family and friends down the street to eat dinner with on Sunday nights. We have our little house, a place that’s gone from an empty living room with an air mattress to watch TV from to a cute space with our pictures on bookshelves and our stockings on the fireplace and our curtains on the windows.

One of the things I’ve loved most about living with Tim is setting up our place, together: making Christmas traditions, cooking dinner after we work all day side by side, having friends over, decorating.

Just like when we were planning our wedding, we’ve become sort of partners in finding old things we like for our house—moving from the days of scouring antique shops for vintage reception plates to the weeks of nabbing $5 chairs from thrift stores. We love fixing things up and making them our own.

And that’s why I really can’t say why it took us so long to hit up the Nashville Flea Market, which is just ten minutes from us and happens on the fourth weekend of every month—or the third weekend in December.

We headed to the state fairgrounds last Saturday, arriving in the afternoon, bundled up for chilly air (that is so much warmer than it is in Illinois, I know, I know), after hearing about this event from everyone from my old roommate to an article my brother forwarded me last week.

Personally, I’ve only been to one other flea market that I can compare it to, but from what I’ve been told, the Nashville Flea is like a lot of others: big, loaded with vendors, filled with everything from tables of athletic socks and piles of discounted bed sheets to gorgeous homemade quilts and unique handcrafted tables.

It’s part craft show, part garage sale, part antique mall—a fun place to get new decorating ideas and an addicting way to find little treasures. There were booths of cowboy boots (hello, Nashville!) and a vendor with all animal skins; fresh barbecue and shelves of individually wrapped, candy-covered caramel apples; tables filled with mason jars; lawn ornaments; burlap-covered chairs and ottomans; bags; clothes; all kinds of nick-knacks.

Some of the market is inside, spread amongst a couple buildings and rooms, and some is outside, beneath tents and awnings and stretching all over the fairgrounds.

As for me and Tim, we came away with a solid, heavy $10 wooden chair that Tim sanded down and painted white, ready to be paired with our other mismatched, much loved dining chairs. The man who sold it to us said it came from a Chicago insane assylum—which we just say adds character.

And I know I also came away with a desire to make this flea market a regular practice in my Nashville life, if only for the excitement of never knowing what you’ll find or what a great price you’ll get it for—the vendors welcome bargaining, and, as any antiquer or thrifter will tell you: that’s half the fun.

So Nashville Flea, I hope to see you again in January, post-Christmas, post-New Year’s, post all the hub-bub of the holidays—and that goes for you too, dear readers, whom I hope to see again next year. Merry Christmas, may your holidays be lovely. I’ll see you soon!

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The first evening of our married life may have been all crisp October air and gorgeous golden leaves and a giant tent filled with our closest friends and family, but that first week was something altogether different. The morning after the wedding, we flew to what felt like worlds away from Chicago or Nashville or anything we knew and went from a night of grass-fed filet mignon, roasted potatoes, homemade cookies from friends and family and pumpkin wedding cake made by my mom, to eight beautiful nights in a land of avocados, starfruit, apple bananas and coconuts that you crack open and drink with a straw.

We honeymooned in Hawaii: seven nights in a fully equipped condo on the island of Kauai’s north shore and one last night in a beachfront hotel in the Waikiki Beach area of Honolulu on Oahu. And while I loved what Hawaii was—tropical, relaxed, with both jungles and canyons, sandy beaches and rugged coastlines—I loved most what it wasn’t: no more emails or phone calls, no work, nothing left to plan. People ask us what we did there, and there’s not much to say—not much besides drive around in our hard-top jeep convertible, find things to eat, lay by the water, get used to each other in our new life as man and wife.

So first, there was Kauai, an island that at least four other couples have recently told us was their honeymoon destination as well, chosen for its Jurassic Park-level beauty, lesser commercialization, rich topography and jaw-dropping Napali Coast.

For us, Kauai was a destination chosen more by accident. We had talked about Italy, but it’s expensive, and when I go to Italy, I want to go to Italy, which would be hard when you’re already so exhausted you can’t remember your name (let alone that it just changed!). Then we’d toyed with the East Coast: I’ve always wanted to visit Cape Cod, and there was a farmhouse rental with a gorgeous kitchen and real sheep (!!) that almost won our hearts, but it would be cold there in October, and that made us think about a beach in North Carolina, but North Carolina’s not very far, and we could probably go there in the next few years, and then, one day, I thought, what about our friends’ condo? It’s in Hawaii! And we asked, and they offered a great rate, and we booked it. Learning about Kauai came later.

So here’s what we now know: Kauai’s beautiful—like, crazy beautiful. Of Hawaii’s islands, it’s the most private and rugged, with no buildings anywhere that are taller than a palm tree, and it’s also diverse: here a tropical rainforest, there a hot beach beneath clear blue skies.

This time of year, the beaches on the north shore can be a little breezy and overcast, and several spots are pretty rocky, enough so that I started to wonder if all Hawaii beaches would require a sweater with my bathing suit, no kidding, but the south shore (we especially liked Poipu Beach) was amazing: hot weather! soft sand! crystal clear water!

While I’d soak up sun on a towel, Tim would take out the snorkel mask and go exploring, and every time he’d come back to me, his eyes would be a little wider and more excited about the fish he’d seen.

And at the risk of killing you with sappiness, I’ll go ahead and tell you we called this place, this trip, this island, our own little love bubble, away from everything and everyone, where we were free to process everything that had happened in the last few days and imagine what would come in the next, and we honestly felt like we’d pulled off some great escape. I’d look at Tim driving the car, and he’d have this huge, goofy smile on his face, like he was so happy he couldn’t hide it, and I’d just want to freeze time right there.

Then there was the food.

I’m not going to sugar-coat it for you: it’s expensive to eat well in Hawaii, much more than it is here. However, we found some good options: The best deals were on produce at farmer’s markets. We bought ten kumquats for $1, avocados for $0.25 each, passionfruit and starfruit and apple bananas for hardly anything.

Since the condo had a full kitchen, we ate most breakfasts at home, including one giant omelet morning Tim was in charge of on our one-week anniversary.

Here are a few other highlights:

Dinner at Postcards, Dessert at Postcards, 5-5075 Kuhio Hwy Kalihiwai, HI 96754:
In a cute little cottage-style building in Hanalei, Postcards was one of our favorite restaurants in Kauai. Lots of fresh, organic ingredients. No refined sugar in the desserts. We liked it so much, we went twice!

Lunch at Living Foods Market in Poipu Beach, 2829 Ala Kalanikaumaka #24, Koloa, Hawai‘i, 96756:
We accidentally happened upon Living Foods Market while looking for another restaurant, but as soon as we stepped inside, we knew we’d found something good. Kind of like Whole Foods but smaller and with a large cafe/bakery section, it was an excellent lunch stop: margherita pizza and a big salad.

(Splurge!) breakfast at the St. Regis, 5520 Ka Haku Road, Princeville, Kauai:
This hotel was (long-)walking distance from our condo, and with its window-filled lobby, made a great spot for catching ocean/mountain views. One morning, we treated ourselves to breakfast on the patio, which, at about $50 total(!!!), was a huge splurge, but a great memory. Organic blueberry pancakes, organic banana walnut pancakes, fresh coffee and homemade grapefruit juice.

An amazing dinner at Mediterranean Grill, 5-7132 Kuhio Highway, Hanalei Colony Resort, Hanalei, Kauai:
Tim gets all the credit for finding this place, which was my all-time favorite from the trip. Our oceanfront meal included rainbow beet salad, spinach fatayers and rosemary rack of lamb.

Crispy avocado tacos at Merriman’s, 2829 Ala Kalanikaumaka Street #G-149, Koloa, Kauai:
After chips and guacamole, I got the crispy avocado tacos, and Tim got the fish of the day: blue striped marlin. I let my meal’s picture speak for itself.

And after Kauai, we spent one quick night on Oahu, where credit card rewards meant FREE hotel (and we got ugpraded to an ocean view!) and FREE car. Loved that.

We visited the Pearl Harbor Memorial Site:

And had one last excellent meal, at Downtown at the Hisam, located in the Hawaii State Art Museum, 250 Hotel Street, 1st Floor, Honolulu, Hawai‘i 96813:

We were talking this past weekend about our honeymoon, just as we officially hit four full weeks of marriage, and remembering the food and the condo and how we’d watched a sunset together, sitting on a concrete wall by the ocean. It was such a nice love bubble there, it really was, and now it already feels so long ago, almost like it never happened, and that makes me a little sad.

But then I look at Tim, driving us around Nashville, with that same silly, happy grin on his face, and I wake up next to him every morning, and I share life with him every day, and I remember: honestly, the best part of Hawaii is something that hasn’t changed. The best part of Hawaii was him.

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Don’t you think that with just a month or so left of summer, now’s a great time for weekend getaways? I do. And for those of you from Chicago, did you know Saint Louis is only a little over four hours away?

In the just over 24 hours I spent there last weekend, I learned Saint Louis has some pretty cool things to offer—things like:
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