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| IU Represent!! |
Hello Friends and Family!!
We are both insanely excited to talk about our AMAZING trip to Sicily last
weekend!! Since Lesley is a quarter Sicilian it has always been a dream of hers
to go and see where the roots of her family are. And sometime in early May
(when it was 40 degrees and pouring rain everyday) we found super cheap flights
to go for a weekend in July. At that point 85 degrees and sun with beach
sounded pretty awesome!
Sergei POV- And then Lesley had sort of forgotten about the trip since her
girlfriends from the US were in town. So she was playing hostess for a few days
and showing them around etc. So last Friday after the girls went back to the US
the trip sort of just snuck up on her.
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| Pick your own fish! |
But I started planning it all earlier this year when I started reading
article after article about the 4C’s. Because in Germany it isn’t very common
to buy engagement rings so I didn’t have any experience with the process. But
the research was good and I can’t even remember how many jewelry stores I
walked into. Then in early June I contacted Lesley’s Dad, to ask permission or
something. I could have just offered to give him some camels or goats, but I
knew Les liked diamonds better
:)
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| Sergei made a friend :) |
Les and I always do weekend trips, we try and do a trip to a new place once
every month or so. It’s kind of our thing to pick a place and plan to see new
things, try the food, local wines and experience the culture. And I knew we had
Sicily planned, so I thought that could do it somewhere romantic there. (I hear
girls like that stuff.)
Les POV-So anyways, I had sort of put Sicily on the back burner and was just
planning to wing it and not research a ton. I threw everything in the suitcase
Friday morning, Sergei picked me up from work and then we headed to the airport.
After a quick 90 min flight we were in Palermo!! We drove to Castellmare del
Golfo to stay for the night. It’s this really cute beachside town. Typical
touristy with a boardwalk along the beach and tons of restaurants that pull the
fish out of the Med in the day and serve it up that same night. So we found
this place with great Risotto del Mare and white wine. It was the perfect start
to the weekend. We just walked a bit and checked out boats after dinner and
then crashed out early because we had tons of plans for the next day.
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| Overlooking Castellmare del Golfo |
S- On Saturday morning after a traditional Italian bfast of meat, cheese,
bread and cappuccino we headed West to Scopello beach. It was a stony beach,
but the water was beautiful and it was HOT. So since I already had snuck the
ring into my swim trunks pocket that morning of course I wasn’t going to be able
to swim. I told Les that my foot was still hurting (I had cut it on a glass
bottle in the Isar the week before) and that I would swim later. She bought it,
silly girl, Russian guys don’t complain about such weak things as a ‘cut foot’!
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| I want a pony!! |
L-So after Scopello we went farther along the coast to a Nature Reserve that
involves climbing rocks and hiking in a park. And I only had flippy floppies so
it was kind of a bust. We did go to the Nature Reserve Museum so we did get
SOME culture! Apparently they have turtles nesting along the coast in spring!
Then we decided to head south towards Trapani
and stopped along the way at a fruit stand and bought a HUGE watermelon. Like
15 kilos? That’s 33ish pounds! The Italian man cut it in half with a huge knife
and Sergei ate an entire half of it with a plastic fork. It was very impressive
actually!!
Trapani was ok, larger and more industrial, but the beach was nice. Then we
headed up the Erice mountain to see the view overlooking both sides of the sea.
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| We're ENGAGED!!! |
S-And I wanted to propose at the top of the mountain but there were people
everywhere. So after we left we were driving along the coast between Trapani
and Marsala, which the Italians call La Via Del Sale. Sale is salt, but they
have areas that they mine the salt and there are huge piles of it everywhere
and little inlets of the sea that they collect the water, let it evaporate and
then the salt is left.
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| The ring :) |
We found a really pretty beach where the sea is shallow and you can walk out
500 meters from the shore and it’s only a foot deep or less. So I took Lesley
out to explore. And she had her camera which I had conveniently attached to a
mini tripod to the day before. The sun was just over the horizon and I said let’s
take some pics. So I took one on auto-timer of us and then checked to make sure
it was correct. Then I said her hair looked bad, so we had to take another, I
set it up and then ran back to her and got down on one-knee.
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| Engagement Dinner together!! |
L-OMG I WAS SOOOO SHOCKED!!!!!! And soooo happy!!!!
He asked if I would like to marry him, I was
so shocked that honestly I have no idea what I said. I kept telling him that he
had to put the ring on my finger and he kept saying that I had to say yes
first!! It was perfect
:)
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| Vogue at the Segesta! |
After that we kept touring the coast and went in search of a hotel for the night
because we had decided to wing it. We found a nice one on the beach and they
had a great restaurant. We had dinner, killed 2 bottles of wine and were the
only ones dancing in front of a bunch of Italian tourists to the band they had.
The band leader even played Frank Sinatra just for us since we were the only
ones dancing out of 200 ppl. It was a perfect night. And I’m so happy!
Sunday we hit another beach, drove to Segesta, saw the famed 1000 year old
temple (and got kicked out of it), ate enough gelato to gain 10 lbs each, and
visited the historical downtown area of Palermo. It was the perfect weekend, capped off by an amazing moment for us both. We’re looking forward to the future!
XOXO,
~Les & Sergei
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| The Actual Moment! |
