Honeymoon: Day 1

This is a picture of the view that Nate and I had of the Atlantic from our honeymoon suite.

We got to the Sandals Grande resort in St. Lucia and were welcomed by professional concierges who brought our paperwork to us as we sat on comfy couches and enjoyed our first complimentary beverages at the all-inclusive resort.

Another employee then showed us to our room, coming in to give us the scoop on everything.

Nate and I were really hungry, and no restaurants opened up for dinner service until 6:30 p.m., so instead we went to the English pub that opened up earlier.

We spotted Bangers and Mash on the menu and were curious. Since our waiter was obviously really from Britain, his accent gave him away, we asked him what it was.

"If I tell you, you won't want to order it," he said.

Nate asked him for some suggestions, and he asked us if we had ever had marinated chicken wings.

Nate answered him kindly, but I laughed on the inside. We're from the U.S., yeah, I think we've had chicken wings before.

However, we soon realized why he asked us that. Apparently he thought I was Italian, not American. Actually, I was asked twice during the trip if I was from Italy. Maybe I'm more exotic-looking than I realize! Haha.

Nate ended up ordering the Bangers and Mash - which turned out to be sausage on top of mashed potatoes, with onion gravy - and I got the authentic fish and chips, with mashed peas to dip the fries into. It was all absolutely delicious.

The best part for me - we got up and left without having to pay a bill. It was so amazing!

We went next door to the billiards room, but all the tables were full. A large table sat on one side with different balls than we were used to. It was a British game called Snooker, but we had no idea how to play.

Instead, we went out in the hall and started playing on a pool table out there. We ended up meeting some couples out there and started talking, Nate connecting with a guy named Derek over hunting.

Before we headed back to our room, Nate and I saw that someone was in the billiards room playing snooker. We asked them if we could watch them play to learn the rules, and they passed down what they had learned from the British people working inside the pub.

Since we didn't get to the resort until 4 p.m., that was about all the energy we could expend that day. So we headed up to relax on the balcony in our room, the waves of the Atlantic Ocean softly crashing just a couple hundred feet away.