Kyle and I are back in New Jersey after a week's vacation in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina (all sea, sand, miniature golf and good Southern food - a great time was had by all). Coming back was a little bittersweet, even more so since while we were away it seems like summer has turned to autumn back here. Perhaps that was to be expected since Monday was Labor Day, a national holiday here in the US which - like the Late Summer Bank Holiday last week in the UK - unofficially marks the end of the summer.
Our Labor Day was spent getting reorganised after our holiday, but we also made a trip to the Menlo Park mall to pick up my wedding ring from the jewellers (so now we have both rings), followed by a visit to the big Barnes & Noble store next door. Kyle was looking for books on stretching and back pain while I was looking at magazines (and manfully resisting the urge to buy more books on software).
There were two cashiers at the checkout: an American woman giving Kyle the hard sell about how much money she would have saved on her purchases if she'd had a B&N membership, and a rather dapper and well-spoken middle-aged Englishman who rang up my mags. It still surprises me to hear another English accent here, and while I was paying I wondered whether I should acknowledge the fact that we were both Englishmen in a foreign country.
But all I could think of saying was something along the lines of, "So, you're English too?", and that seemed pretty lame, or "You're not from round here, are you?", which seemed even more lame. So I just let it pass (as did he), and afterwards I felt a little bemused - I'm sure there isn't any proper protocol for this kind of situation, but somehow I felt like there should be.
Anyway: since then we've been getting back on track with our wedding planning and are homing in on venues for the ceremony and reception. It's been intense but hopefully we'll be able to pull things together in the next week or so - stay posted (and in the meantime check out my slender selection of pictures from Myrtle Beach, and Kyle's more substantial collection).
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