Finding My Soul Mate (Again)

I very recently learned of a travel blog contest sponsored by Expedia and the National Film Festival for Talented Youth (NFFTY). The contest offers a travel blogger the opportunity to travel to Australia, Paris, Morocco, London, or Seattle and star in a short travel film as part of Expedia’s “Find Yours” campaign. It sounded like such an exciting contest, but I thought I had found out about it too late to put something together worth considering. I read the entry by Dave and Deb of The Planet D, one of the travel blogs I follow, and left a comment. When they replied and said I should enter too, I realized I had to try.

I would love to travel to any of the locations offered, and have been to all but Australia. I tried to think of what riveting idea I could come up with of what I would find in one of the locations, but my mind kept drifting back to one place, London, where my husband and I went on our honeymoon and where the rest of my life with my soul mate began.

Tower Bridge

As I planned our wedding, I also planned our honeymoon (which was a lot more fun to plan and really made the whole planning a wedding thing a lot easier). Our honeymoon was going to be the trip of a lifetime. We were going to travel to the place I had always wanted to go, England. Our trip actually included time in London, Bath, and Paris, but London was the destination I had been looking forward to my entire life.

The First Day of our Married Life

This brings me to one of the multitude of reasons I love Romeo so much. Many couples travel to tropical locations on their honeymoons, someplace sunny and romantic with not a lot to do but spend time together and stare deep into each other’s eyes. There is nothing wrong with that, but that was not my definition of the ideal honeymoon, nor was it Romeo’s. We know of so many couples who have completely different ideas when it comes to how they want to spend their vacation time. I am so grateful that I am married to a man who has the same love of food, culture, architecture, adventure and seeing and experiencing everything a person possibly can.

We had such a wonderful time on our honeymoon, especially in London, that we both came to the decision that this could not be a once in a lifetime trip. We would have to somehow make travel a regular part of our routine. Traveling to faraway places expands our horizons, provides us with a more worldly view, pushes our comfort levels, and increases the strength of our relationship.

Clearly soul mates, who else would be Watson to my Sherlock Holmes?
Sherlock Holmes Museum

We now try to travel at least twice a year, and at least once a year to an international destination. But I will always have a special fondness in my heart for London, and I would love to return with Romeo to those special places we experienced on our honeymoon almost nine years ago.

If we could go back to London, we would find our soul mates in each other again by revisiting the places we had seen before and reliving our honeymoon. We would visit London’s huge museums containing objects and art from all over the globe, such as the National Gallery and Victoria and Albert Museum, and especially the British Museum, for which we had not set aside enough time to fully explore in the manner it deserves. We would gawk again at the immense examples of architecture from different centuries, such as St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Tower of London, Tower Bridge, Westminster Abbey, and Big Ben. And we would take a peek at how the other half lives at the royal residences of Kensington Palace and Buckingham Palace.

The British Museum

And of course experiencing the history and culture of London would include food, like the traditional full English breakfast and high tea, as well as the non-traditional ethnic foods for which London has become so well known, such as Indian, Chinese, Turkish, and Pakistani cuisines, just to name a few.

London's Iconic Meals - Full English Breakfast and High Tea

I think a return visit to where our married life began would rekindle those feelings we had when we were first starting out, before life and time made everything feel a little more routine. I already knew Romeo was my soul mate before our honeymoon, but that trip, which started in London, proved beyond a doubt that I had found my soul mate in love, my soul mate in life, and my soul mate in travel. A return trip to London would mean we could rediscover our soul mates once again.