5:28 p.m. - 2006-10-08
happy wedding
We've had a busy weekend. It included a 24 hour trip to a resort in West Virginia. I attended a retreat for the public television station I'm doing a sort of board internship for and Kevin used the free WiFi to catch up on work. We got to eat breakfast with the editor of PIttburgh's largest magazine, which consisted mostly of trying to decide whether or not the french toast offered at the buffet was actually "stuffed" or not. It wasn't, to our chagrin.
The sessions were long but informative. The dinner we attended was ok. We sat at a table where the conversation centered on the Mayan empire and Quantum physics - we eventually excused ourselves to go drink beer in the attached sports bar that had no less than 27 televisions. We were outside on the deck overlooking the golf course when this woman walked by, up a sloping driveway. She walked backwards the entire time, looking over her shoulder and back and over the other shoulder, as though she was sure someone was following her. She did this as she came into view up the driveway and the etire time she was visible to us until we ncould no longer see her, at least a full minute. And she saw us watching her, but continued this strange behavior. Kevin whispers at me "Don't look!" and I thought "Are you crazy, this is the most interesting thing we've seen since we've been here." So, basically, nothing else interesting happened.
J-To's wedding was last night. They transformed Hakan's office building's basement into one of the coolest reception sites I've ever seen in my life. The basement was a real basement, totally unfinished, exposed brick/stone, cement floors, etc. But they made it beautiful with draped white fabric and great, warm lighting. It was like a totally noncheesy scene from Phantom of the Opera or something. The food was wonderful - three stations of yumminess. Elaborate choices at a mashed potatoe bar with everything from bacon to 3 different kinds of pesto, a salad bar with all of the yumminess like kalamata olives and chick peas and none of the crapiness like ice berg lettuce or stale croutons, and a meat bar, where you could have rare beef or ahi tuna with tortillas and endless choices of sauces. There were two bars where Hakan's own red wine and anything else you'd fancy was served, a cappuccino bar, delicious wedding cake and baklava.
The wedding officient at the ceremony was a Turkish fellow who was dressed in a Scottish kilt. He also served as the DJ and many of you will appreciate that a favorite of his that was played throughout the night was Pink Martini. I was told he has a thing for Scottish culture. It seems he was married in England to an Asian-American woman.
Needless to say, many cultures were represented last night. We had a great conversation with an Australian man who spends most of his time travelling for his employer, an aluminum company. He told us about Brazil and India in particular. There were french people and several Italians. Quite a few of Hakan's family and friends from Turkey came - including a lovely group of ladies who were either his mother's sisters or best friends...they were all beautiful and elegant and so happy to be there. I said to Kevin at one point "I really feel like I'm in a different country."
The whole thing was very celebratory. The vows made Both Kevin and I tear up (and neither of us cried at our own wedding!)
If you recall from a previous blog entry, there was a little boy named Noah, the son of a friend of Hakan's. He walked in on Kevin and I hugging and said something strange like "Are you two engaging in sexual inuendos?" or something equally awkward. Well, he was at the wedding, and spent a lot of time telling us all about Narwhales and Manatees and squishing up flower petals and wiping them on me, telling me in great detail about the perfume he was making me "Now this petal here, that's going be your scent-base...." It was cute for the first hour...We couldn't shake him for quite some time until someone finally distracted him by challenging him to "try to set a car parked across the street on fire with his mind."
This is apparently very effective. I'll have to let the Super Nanny know about that one.
