Recently I headed over to the States for Martha’s wedding. Recently, well, its taken me THAT long to get over the shock of Martha being married. Even now it still feels strange. But congratulations Martha and Brandon!
My flight was from Dublin to San Francisco, via Amsterdam. That’s right. I had to go via the Netherlands. That was fine, up until the security people in Amsterdam decided I looked like a terrorist and bailed me up for an hour and a half with stupid, pointless questioning. I even tried to duck through the ticket checking machine but they’d put a hold on my ticket and required me to answer further questions. And then they had the nerve to announce over the loud speaker that I was holding up the flight! So, I finally made it to the U-S-of-A. One problem. I forgot to tell Brandon Hinton which flight I was coming in on, the airport or the exact time. Oops. Somehow he managed to find me though. (Mental note, make sure I do this next time… Could be useful). In my defence this was the 3rd flight in as many weeks and I thought I’d already sorted it.
The first night we headed up to Sacramento from San Francisco. A short 2 hour drive. We stayed with Brandon’s grand parents for 2 nights. They are so nice. The day after I arrived was pretty much a free day until the night when we were to have a pre-wedding dinner thingo, so we just Walked around San Francisco checking out the sights and food. There is a little deli on a street corner as you enter Little Italy from Chinatown that sells Mozzarella di Buffala. It was so tasty. We even managed to get the stuff from just south of Mondragone, which is the best place in the world for Buff Mozz. Brandon and I also served part of our missions there, so we’re not at all biased. After dinner we went to a baseball game. The Oakland Athletic versus the Seattle Mariners. The other team won, but it was a great game.
The next day was the big wedding. We headed in to the Oakland temple for the ceremony. For those non-LDS people reading the blog we do things a little differently in our church. Our weddings are quite simple and short. There is not huge chapel with a couple of hundred people throwing rice and bouquets of flowers to the ceiling. The focus is solely on the couple getting married. I’ve been to both and I quite prefer the LDS version. That could be just me though. The ceremony however was very powerful. The bloke that ran the ceremony really knew his stuff and it went well. After that we all went out into the gardens and took a load of photos. Martha looked really beautiful. Check the photos below if you don’t believe me. After that we all headed back into San Francisco for the wedding dinner. It was held at Ghiradelli Square, which I highly recommend visiting if you’re in the area. They have th best chocolate I’ve ever had in the US. None of the crazy wax stuff other places try to push. After all the wedding stuff Brandon and Sarah came and picked me up and we headed back to Fresno for the night, then back to San Francisco to fly out the next day.
It was a short stay but a brilliant stay. I can’t thank Brandon enough for driving me around everywhere and organising places for us to stay and everything. It was awesome. Thanks mate! And it was really nice to be at Martha’s wedding. Thanks for letting me come over and be there Martha!
Well was only a matter of time someone picked you up as being a terrorist. The guy looks kinda shifty if you ask me.
can you please rename this post. seriously. for google purposes.
Done. Obviously entitled during a more oblivious period of my life