Lesson 1 - Save traveling for your honeymoon!

Something you should know about me is that I love to travel. It's one of my greatest passions. I've been all over the world, having visited close to 30 countries so far... and my hope is that I find a partner who shares that same sense of adventure and curiosity. Unfortunately, I have learned the hard way that in the world of dating travel=break-up! I'm not kidding! One of my break-ups occurred in Russia; another in Chile; yet a third a week before a trip to China!! Are you kidding me?!

Rumble in Russia
In graduate school I met 'the perfect man' - intelligent, athletic, driven, kind. He was a class mate of mine. We shared the same classes, the same friends, and even the same hobbies. In hindsight we 'shared' way too much!! In fact, I'd say we were a bit co-dependent. Two years into our relationship we learned that his best friend was getting married... and the wedding would be in Scandinavia. Norway. North of the Arctic circle. This was shaping up to be a super amazing trip! So, to make it even more amazing I thought I would add an extra stop to our trip. For my boyfriend's birthday I bought him an airline ticket from Sweden to St. Petersberg, Russia. After all, if we're already in the neighborhood why not pop over to Russia too!? His response: "Hmm that's nice." My response: "Uh oh."

Instead of bringing us closer together, the trip planning actually drove us further apart. He wasn't interested in helping me find hotel rooms, pick cities, plan our routes. Was this our only issue? No. Our communication had been going down the tubes for a while. More-so our trip was just a catalyst for the breakup. The day before we left was the first time he looked at the itinerary I built... and of course he was disappointed. Well of course! But the thing that made him go over the edge is that I had not typed out an official itinerary that we could email out to his parents. He couldn't believe the audacity of that oversight. Yeesh... Needless to say, the argument led to more arguments led to our breakup by the time we arrived in St. Petersberg. And yet neither of us were willing to cut the trip short!! Even when our bed in our god-forsaken flea bag hotel really was infested in fleas! So many fleas that we had 100's of bites after one nite. Have you ever tried to ask for bug spray in Russian? :-) A couple times we got lost on the subway. Completely lost! Our guide book used the English alphabet to describe the sites. Of course in the Russian subway they used the Russian alphabet! We actually had some great laughs while we were there, but our relationship was broken. I moved out of the house we shared within a week of our arrival home. Lesson 1 learned: don't attempt traveling before marriage!! As stressful as traveling can potentially be, the two of you have to be committed... I mean committed!