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Could it be That We're Bored?

When typical tourism doesn't cut it (Candace)

I was on the phone with my mom last night, telling her about the farming leg of our journey, and hearing all about her recent trip to Naples with my baby sister and her boyfriend, when she asked, "Don't you think that eventually you will get bored of all this traveling and come home?"

That conversation then sparked the topic with Andrew.  You see, we decided to leave the farm for the day today and stay for one night in the historic town of St. Emilion.  Our hosts had a full bed and breakfast on Saturday night, and so we thought it would be good to give them a quiet house for the night, and to live like true tourists ourselves, if only for one evening.

So we woke up relatively early yesterday, cleaned our room for the next guests, and hit the road. We visited an antique store and then attempted to visit the Chateau Tournefuille, a fourth generation vineyard in Pomerol. They weren't open, but suggested that we have lunch at the La Terrasse Rouge, a swanky modern art-inspired restaurant on the rooftop of a nearby bottling plant at the Chateau La Dominique.

I have to admit that this place was pretty spectacular, and that it didn't fit in. The ruby glass walls led to a wide open rooftop, with a swimming pool shaped hole in the floor that was filled with ruby glass rocks, meant to serve as our view while we dined. And after our $100+ lunch (thank you, David Schuster, for the awesome wedding gift!), we were full, a little saucy, and ready for a nap.

So we drove on to St. Emilion, searching for more antique stores along the way. We checked into our apartment for the evening, a quaint loft with a great location on the main street of town, took our two-hour nap, and then began exploring. We did a couple of wine tastings, toured the impressive church in the center of town (you can see the St. Emilion steeple for miles), and peeked into old seminaries and caves for the afternoon.

We still had a couple of hours until dinner, so we came back to the apartment, caught up on email, and made calls to our parents.  And then it hit us.  We were bored!  We had seen all that there was to see in St. Emilion, we didn't plan to drink our way through the rest of the day, and we were over being tourists.  What a surprise!

So we've decided that the only way this six-month honeymoon will work is if we remain occupied. We actually like to walk for 30 days, to work away our mornings on the farm. And we are committing to continue our "work" for the remainder of our trip. Heaven forbid we actually relax!