Escape to Paradise
In short, our wedding night was a dream.
I wore Mom’s two-piece lace and chiffon bridal nightie ensemble, preserved and cleaned by my Aunt Marietta and presented to me at my bridal shower.
“Take Your Time” by Mantronix
It was exquisite to hold each other in the Jacuzzi. We didn’t get much sleep … I remember holding him close and continuously praying, Thank you God for joining me to this person.
At 4:30 A.M. came our wake-up call— the shuttle to Newark would arrive in an hour. Needless to say, we got going on pure adrenaline.
Our travel attire consisted of shorts and matching “Bart Simpson” cartoon character T-shirts. John snapped a picture of me sitting in the hotel room, almost incoherent from lack of sleep. Ahead lay our honeymoon and our life at the new apartment, and a lifetime of mysteries waiting to unfold.
As we awaited the shuttle in the lobby, I couldn’t believe our wedding was over.
We were later told that on the way back home to western Pennsylvania that morning, John’s mom was in the car sobbing, “Johnny’s gone!” Today, it makes me sad to think about that.
Between sporadic dozing, we spied the Grand Canyon and the Rockies from 35,000 feet aloft and enjoyed the in-flight flick. The famed Canyon actually appeared quite small, almost like a brown flower from such an altitude. I hoped I’d some day see it up close. My heart was flooded with elation for the entire journey.
We landed in Southern California “three hours earlier” than local Jersey time on our watches.
At LAX, a Carnival rep waited to round up the cruisers and whisked us to San Pedro Pier on another shuttle, where the 9-story 800-ft. M.S. Jubilee awaited another batch of vacationers.
It was the beginning of our first adventure as a married couple! We checked our luggage and stood in line for an extensive security check and a Welcome Aboard photo. By the time we finally boarded, we were beyond fatigued.
It was early afternoon local time, but back east it was nearing late afternoon and we’d been up nearly 12 hours—following a late night with very little shut-eye. This was the honeymoon drill, and as happy as I was, I wasn’t about to complain.
We finally made it to our stateroom, an inner-corridor love nest that boasted chocolates on the pillows, artfully turned-down bedding and a compact bathroom. As the vessel prepared for its thousand-mile voyage south, we stood on deck sipping our first shipboard cocktail.
A festive Mariachi band merrily serenaded the crush of happy travelers way down below. We took video movies, giddy and excited even in our adrenaline-driven exhaustion, still in shock that we were actually married now. A delicious week together stretched ahead, after which we would finally settle down as husband and wife in the cute apartment by the pond.
The week was a heady blend of sumptuous meals, parties, ports of call in Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlán and Cabo San Lucas, touring the posh cruise liner and meeting other honeymooners.
We made friends with Martin and Sonia from Toronto, and Jim and Doreen from California. All of us had a great time going ashore, seeing shows and hitting the clubs on the ship. We took a lot of video of all of us having a ball all week.
Thanks to the Mexican sun, I ended up with a painful sunburn from just a couple hours’ lounging on deck, despite having prepared with SPF 45. Ruefully I decided el sol and I would have to part ways.
We toured the Bridge and the Galley, and observed many a beautifully-prepared food buffet with amazing ice sculptures. Our wonderful honeymoon was a blur of decadence and abandon.
One experience left a lasting impression on me. When touring the hot and dusty streets of Old Mazatlán, I was dismayed to see countless disheveled poor children with wide, dark eyes of hunger.
They were singing and playing makeshift musical instruments, begging for even the tiniest donation. They lifted cups and pans up to the tourists. My heart went out to them. This ancient city had primitive electrical facilities, apparent by the short poles and low-hanging power lines.
Cars contained no seat belts. The windows of buildings lining the street were open to the heat and humidity. It seemed a grim existence for these people. Despite the charm and history, there existed an undercurrent of poverty.
When I boarded the Jubilee, the air conditioning enveloped me in comfort and I knew that a delicious array of anything I ever could want awaited me—including cold drinks and fresh food, a shower and comfortable bed.
I was overcome by a humble but powerful sense of gratitude that has remained with me since. These children would probably always know a life of need. Because of the tireless work of those before me, I had grown up in different circumstances.
A wealth of opportunities awaited me back home, and I had never experienced that kind of destitution. The Mazatlán kids are now grown, and I sometimes wonder how they have fared in life. I can only hope and pray that things have improved since then, but I’ll never know.
