Honeymoon in Kazakhstan

Off we went to Kazakhstan! We had planned a surprise wedding gift excursion for Natalie and Martin but Martin’s constant quest for clues forced us to create a rouse. We told Nat to pack a desert camoflauge burka and Martin a few pounds of shrapnel for the pipe- bomb classes. We have to admit after three weeks of developing this story, Martin became rather enthusiastic at the prospect of playing with Molotov cocktails…. Should we be worried?
Although the final destination was to be Venice, we further threw them off with one night in Padua enroute. What’s in Padua? Not too much except a fabulous restaurant, “Le Calandre” which more than made it worth the stop. The food was exquisite and the staff had struck the perfect balance between professional and fun. A gift of a “Venice” guidebook over dinner disclosed the next destination. The next morning we made the short journey by train. Arriving at the hotel by water taxi certainly had it’s charm but more importantly surely saved us a few hours as we would’ve never found the tiny back alley that provides land access to the obscure rear entrance to the hotel. Oh yes and there was the fact that Adam had put his back out before leaving Tuscany (the fact that his backpack contained it’s usual contents plus 7 bottles of wine had nothing to do with it of course) so the three of us were thankful to not have to haul the extra luggage over all the little bridges of Venice. We set Natalie and Martin loose during the couple of days to soak in all the sights while we fine tuned our plans for the evenings. Of course the trip would not have been complete without a sunset gondola ride with champagne. We were too selfish to send them off on their own so we joined them to spoil the romance and get our share of the bubbles and the inevitable laughter and fun.
Over the last several weeks it was so enjoyable for us to not have to figure out where to live and how to get there (our jobs for the past year) because Nat and Martin had spent so much time planning this leg of our journey together. After seven weeks of the four of us being together and countless laughs and stories, it’s time for us to separate; Nat and Martin continuing on to Rome and us…. starting our journey back to Vancouver!!!!!!!