Honeymoon Tour: Packing and Take Off

Let's be honest, packing is one of my absolute favorite things to do. For real. Give me clothes, accessories, and toiletries to organize and stuff tetris-style into suitcase and I am a happy girl. Can I get an amen from all those girls who have a shit ton of fun going through their closets picking out their outfits and things to pack? How about my girls like me who find the need to buy a bunch of new clothes right before you pack? Do you catch yourself justifying your purchases like "They're for the vacation." Yes, for pretty much the three weeks leading up to take off arriving home from work to multiple deliveries and packages was my norm. 

Don't judge me too hard though, I didn't keep everything -- some of the clothes got returned! The rest got stuffed into packing cubes and then into these Samsonite suitcases gifted to us my Andrew's parents at my bridal shower. The awesome part of these suitcases--other than their quality--was that they were "extra light" meaning that  they are only about 7-8 pounds when completely empty. Much better than my old Jansport suitcase! I also added Mr. and Mrs. luggage tags because....newlyweds. I created my packing list --I list out all of my outfits so that I know exactly what to wear while I'm away and I don't end up mismatching outfits and having to force together an outfit from a bunch of random leftovers toward the end of the trip-and we were ready to go.

We decided to fly Icelandair when we booked our honeymoon because it was so much cheaper (read: almost half price) than any direct flight. Plus, it gave us a bonus stop (and an additional passport stamp as it turns out) in Reykjavik, Iceland. I feel like Iceland has really been upping their tourism game recently and the airline had really good reviews so we were confident in our choice. The flight was roughly 5 hours from Philadelphia International Airport and then we had about an hour and a half layover before our flight to Paris. The flight was 8:35 PM so we reported to the airport around 5 PM, grabbed some dinner at the gate, and then boarded our flight. It turned out that no one else sat in our row so we had the entire row to spread out into. I took the middle and the window seat and made myself a comfy bed using the little pillow and blanket they gave us. I read a a little of my book Outlander by Diana Gabaldon (yes, it's the series that they made into a show) and then passed out. Or at least, I passed out after we had some celebratory champagne!

Two of the cutest little champagne bottles ever. Sorry for the poor light!

There's not much to work with when you have one overhead airplane light! Haha. 

Now, about Keflavik International Airport. It is a small airport in a small country. If you are not accustomed to deboarding planes straight onto the tarmac than you might be as surprised as I was. And by surprised I mean under-dressed for the temperatures and being outside in Iceland. I boarded our flight in my black leggings and thin black Paris Darling tunic sweater (because I am one of those people that will wear a Paris shirt to Paris) and without any kind of jacket. Sure I saw a few people with full on parkas and oversize coats but I just figured Iceland was their end destination and not a layover. Oops....

Flash forward to us landing on a beautiful and chilly morning, deboarding onto the tarmac and into 30 degree weather, and boarding a shuttle to take us to the airport gate. To be honest, we probably only waited about 4 minutes (Icelandair is super efficient) before we were seated on the shuttle and on our way to the warm gate but that was enough time to get a nice chill in the bones. I was cold and Andrew quite possibly was colder -- Mr Polo Shirt definitely regretted not heeding my "the airplane might be cold are you sure you don't want a sweater?" advice. We headed into the gate and hung out for about forty minutes before it was time to do the same process in reverse. We boarded a shuttle, got taken out to the airplane, and then scurried across the tarmac and up into the plane as fast as possible. I will admit...I kind of felt like a celebrity having to climb stairs up onto a plane. Just us and the Kennedys. Lol.

Roughly three hours later we arrived at Charles de Gaulle Airport and we were in France!! Join me for my next post and I'll tell you what we did on day one in the City of Lights!