a valentines abroad

I love traveling. 

So so so much. 

I always find myself antsy to get away.

Even going for a road trip a few hours north south east or west. 

Bliss.

As a kid, my family would travel a lot during the summers especially. Some summers we'd go backpacking for a few weeks at a time. Others, we'd go to the beach and battle the waves. Everything was an adventure, and I loved every minute.


Since getting married, and especially starting graduate school, Gid and I have had to cut down our traveling budget down to holidays home. Which is fine; it's ok for us to be poor. We're going to look back on these years as some of the sweetest in our lives. I love that our apartment is made of cinderblock and eating out is a rarity.

But the adventurer in me has been stewing. She's antsy. She doesn't care about a masters degree. She wants to backpack around europe, or go bike riding in new zealand. She's tired of thesis research, sunday school and dusting the living room. And to be honest, she's starting to get a little cranky.

The other day I started expressing my feelings (a fancy way of saying whining) to gid about how badly I want to get away just for a day from salt lake. And then- the perfect idea for a valentines date hit me.

Friends, any of you heard of a staycation? 

I read about it on pinterest. All I had to do was basically make our tiny apartment (really just our bedroom) into a new place for just one night. I added a "night around the world" theme to our evening plans as well.

First we planned a nice dinner at the most wonderful indian restaurant ever. We pretended we were really in India. It was even stupid crazy busy that night, so we kept making comments to each other like, "wow- india is really busy tonight... and full of white people..."

After visiting India (which was beyond delicious). We took a quick trip to Germany and enjoyed some incredible chocolate treats made in Stuttgart.


Following europe, we came to a lovely bed and breakfast (also known as our apartment) which had been royally decorated for the occasion. Gid was stunned.

Preparing the room was by far the most complex part of this evening. I've simplified it to 5 steps:
Step 1: Get spare bedsheets, curtains and left over christmas twinkle lights. Make canopy on ceiling of bedroom with romantic twinkling lights. (Pretend the twinkle lights are stars.)
Step 2: Get vintage postcards/posters from around the world and tape them to the windows and walls.
Step 3: Rearrange the room a bit to make it look different. Change the bedspread.
Step 4: Make little sign on the bed that says "Welcome to your suite."
Step 5: Put gourmet chocolates on the pillows.

Oh friends, I really wish I'd thought to take pictures.
It was so magical to transform our tiny bedroom.

After revealing our honeymoon suite, I planned on us watching the french film Les Choriste, but to be honest, we were both too pooped to watch anything. This may or may not be a sign of us getting older. It was around 9:30 that we got in bed.

And there you have it, dear friends. A valentines abroad. 

Perhaps someday we'll actually get on a plane to go on an adventure. 

But I liked it this way too. 

Good luck this next week,