The Honeymoon

A honeymoon is a vacation taken by newlyweds shortly after a wedding to celebrate their marriage. Today, honeymoons are often celebrated in destinations considered exotic or romantic - Wikipedia

So according to Wikipedia ( because wikipedia knows all ) the Honeymoon happens not to long after the wedding which is at a romantic or exotic destination taken by the newlyweds , that usually means both parties, but in our case things happens a bit different. 

Firstly yes we did fly shortly after the wedding to a romantic destination. we flew to Budapest ( which is by the way the best City I have ever been to ).But we did not fly alone and it was not for honeymoon, yet. we had two fellow SA Judokas flying with us and this was to compete in the Budapest Grand Prix. Daniël was cutting weight so not food or any kind of celebration drink on the plain and there was no honeymoon mood or talk whatsoever.  He was all business for a week.

The day we arrived we got picked up at the airport and taken to the official hotel where weigh in would happen so at least we knew where it was, a short walk to a station where we could buy tickets for a bus for our first accommodation ( of which we only found out that we had accommodation on our layover in Doha) before that we weren’t even sure if we had a place to stay but some how with the help of people who care for us and good connections we managed to stay in the boat hotel on the river. We took the bus and which felt like a short walk for me, because I was not loosing weight, we were at the hotel.

Arriving before checkin time we had no place to settle down with our luggage the hotel front desk stored our luggage and showed us to the board room area where we could wait for check in which was about 4 hours away but we were thankful, the boardroom was fully rug floor and with the tiredness of the long flight we slept there… on the floor.

The next few days was really hot making the weight cutting for Daniël a bit easier as he ran one morning and he was on weight for that nights weigh in, oh and he skipped a few meals but that normal.

At weigh in I was happy to meet Roy Meyer from the Netherlands who is my new favourite Judoka as Teddy Reiner does not compete that often anymore. Daniël knowing him (I didnt know that he knew him) embarresed me after I made a comment about Roy being huge Daniël decided to introduce me to Roy in the following way ” Hey Roy My wife thinks youre huge will you take a picture with her” and like any normal person I went tomato red, but I still got my picture though.

 After what I think was a good competition and winning his first fight the day was over, I was really excited that I had the opportunity to watch my now Husband compete internationally Live. I loved every moment. I also got to take another picture with Roy after he got Bronze in his division I was less red this time.

After his day we still had 2 more days left of watching Judo, so no Honeymoon yet, week 2 of Our Honeymoon i was checked into an Airbnb alone because Daniël went to the Olympic training centre in Tata. It was too far away to go visit as I was completely dependant on public transport. So I saw him a week later.

We got to spend the last week of our 3 week trip completely touristing out enjoying everything about being on a honeymoon, and it was amazing.  We had all the Hungarian food favourites like Langosh, and Gulash and then I got my first taste of Cherry Beer, man I was obsessed! T he best thing ever and still the one thing I search for in SA and managed to find a similar type but not as good but for now it shall do, till we meet again in Budapest!

Looking back even though I was alone and negative some days I would not change a thing about our honeymoon, and if I could I would most definitely go back to the beautiful city of Budapest!

No one said its easy being a Judo wife – Renè le Grande