The Engagement Story: Part 3- Only Colleen Could Think Seasickness Was Code For "Engagement Ring"

This small series will be a break from my normal travel writing and blogging.  It will attempt to document to the best of my memory and limited writing skills the run-up to Colleen and I's recent engagement.  I apologize in advance if I get a little sappy at times.  Brent.

 

As previously mentioned, this summer marked Colleen and I's two year anniversary (don' t ask me the exact date, because I am a human travesty when it comes to remembering anniversaries, birthdays, etc) and I was starting to feel like it was time to propose.  Well that, and the fact that Colleen threatened to castrate my nuts if I didn't make an honest woman out of her before the end of the year.

Colleen has always been one of those girls who ever since she was probably old enough to process thoughts had dreams of getting married.  I on the other hand am scared shitless about the idea of getting married.  I am not really sure why this concept scares me, but I do know that it does.  I am pretty sure that a week after we started dating, Colleen started planning our wedding and picking out clothes for BJ (not blowjob, that's Brent Junior!) and CJ (Colleen Junior).  On second thought we might have to work on the boy's name...

As further evidence of the above mentioned fact, while we were on a cruise about a year ago, Colleen actually thought I was going to propose to her.  In all honesty, the idea had never even crossed my mind.  One night on the ship we went out for dinner at a super swanky restaurant, but unfortunately the waters were rather choppy that evening to say the least.  I was unable to stomach any of my food and at one point I had to leave the table to go back to our room and get some motion sickness tablets.  A couple of months after this incident, Colleen told me that she thought I had left the table to get a ring and was going to ask her to marry me!  Nope, sorry Honey, I was actually on the brink of death. 



Definitely DID NOT get engaged this night.  Almost died actually.



 

Since there was no ring to be found on the waters of the Atlantic Ocean for Miss McParland, I started to think about possibly asking the big question while we were travelling through Asia in the early part of 2013.  In the end, I decided not to make any decisions in haste and that my money at the time would be better spent on Thai beer and cramped bus rides with non-English speaking folks.

No ring honey, sorry too busy barfing.

Having said all that, by the summer of 2013 I could see that Colleen was itching for some overpriced jewelry.  Maybe it was the way she kept rubbing her ring finger constantly or the fact that she developed a sudden love of "ring pops".  In all seriousness though, you have to see this girl's Pinterest account.  Anytime she left it open on the computer I damn near had a heart attack.  I have seen more pictures of shit to do with rings, wedding dresses, bridesmaid ideas, and related things than any straight man should. 

I believe I have seven imaginary children.

It became quite clear: The time was now.

In October, Colleen and I were scheduled to take holidays.  I was going to be returning to Ontario for few weeks as two of my best friends (Derek Simpson and Jon Muzychka) were getting married.  Not to each other mind you, although I must admit that that would have been more convenient and saved me some money on wedding gifts and tuxedo rentals.  Colleen was going to be visiting her family in British Columbia and was scheduled to come to Ontario for a few days for Jon and Gianina's wedding.  While she was in Ontario we were going to take a mini-romantic vacation before Jon's wedding and I could tell that Colleen thought something was up.  I had to let her down gently and tell her well in advance that there was no way I was going to ask her to marry me a few days before my best friend's wedding.  That would be the biggest dick move in the history of dick moves.  It takes a dick to know a dick move.

Why I mention that is because before we left for vacation Colleen was fairly certain that I would be ring shopping while in Ontario as such things are hard to do in Inuvik.  This was true and not really a secret.  After many discussions and some not some so gentle hinting from my now fiancée she knew that it was highly likely that I would ask her to marry me before the end of the year and this trip seemed like as good a time as any.  It was our last trip out of Inuvik for the year and she was very adamant that I didn't propose to her in our "circa 1976 low level drug dealer chic apartment". 

Somehow I had to figure out how to surprise the least surprisable person in the world while not upstaging my friends' weddings. 

So I enlisted the help of my sister Natalie (ring picker-outer assistant) and Colleen's friend Stephanie (my partner in crime) to aide me.  We would surprise her come hell or high water because as every wise man knows, HAPPY WIFE = HAPPY LIFE. 

Sums it up.

 It was time to make Colleen's Pinterest board a reality.

~Brentski~

 

Next time: Fastest ring shopper ever and the surprise that almost wasn't!

Day 60- Look The Staff Are Handing Surprise Bags And Free Cocaine! Wait, Those Are Barf Bags And Smelling Salts...

Waking up, it was fair to say that we were slightly excited to get out of Chumphon and head out to one of Thailand's (and arguably the world's) most famous islands, Koh Phangan . We arranged a van shuttle through our hotel to get to the catamaran-ferry port.  Now, if you are anything like me, when you hear that word catamaran, you don't think of monstrous boats a few hundred feet long that hold hundreds of passengers, but that is exactly what these were.  When our shuttle bus driver dropped us off at the ferry terminal, we handed him 300 Thai Baht ($10 Canadian), as we were told to pay the driver by our hotel.  We couldn't figure out why the driver was looking at us and the other couple who had taken the shuttle with such a delightful look on his face when we handed him the money.  I'll let you guess.  A few minutes later while we were purchasing our tickets for the ferry we were informed that we were supposed to pay them (the ferry company) for the shuttle.  Naturally my complaint that we had already paid the driver fell on deaf ears and I was forced to pay again for my glorious van ride.  I can only assume the van driver's family was going to be eating steak and lobster that night at my expense, or at the very least some fine ass noodles!

Within a few minutes of boarding the ferry, it became quite clear to Colleen and I that it was going to be a rocky couple of hours on the high-speed catamaran.  Almost the minute the boat left the dock, the staff were handing out barf bags and smelling salts to any and all takers.  There was an older lady sitting in front of us who was physically sick and was sweating like I imagine people perspire after they get some weird ass disease from the bugs in Africa.  Add to this that Colleen and many of the other people in our vicinity were holding on to their barf bags for dear life, and well, you get the idea.  Colleen repeatedly kept saying that she wasn't going to make it,  to which I loving replied "you've got nowhere to go dear, we are in the middle of the FUCKING OCEAN"!  True love is a beautiful thing.  I kept encouraging the wifey to hit the smelling salts as if it was pure Peruvian coke, and before you know it we eventually reached Koh Phangan with our  stomachs barely intact.

Offloading at the ferry dock on the island was another adventure unto itself.  Seconds after we got off the boat and collected our luggage we were swarmed almost instantaneously by what felt like hundreds of taxi drivers, tour operators, hotel staff, etc that were all vying to get a piece of our Western wallets.  The whole thing was quite overwhelming and we eventually stumbled upon some guy who was holding a sign with our hotel's name on it.  While we had no idea what his taxi rate was or if he secretly liked to kidnap white folk, by this point we just wanted to get away from all the other annoying vendors outside.  Fortunately, he was a van cab driver who was rounding up people who were all staying at hotels on the same part of the island.  Since we were staying quite a distance from the ferry terminal, we got a first-hand look at the beautiful, windy roads and gargantuan hills.  Oh, and we also got to pick up our van driver's kids at some random bush house along the way! 

Haad Salad Beach aka Colleen's idea of Thailand.

Slightly nicer than Chumphon.  Ever so.

After what seemed like an eternity, we finally arrived at our destination, Salad Buri Resort that was located on Haad Salad.  Instantly, it was fair to say that the views were the best we had seen on our trip so far!  The resort was nestled into the northwest corner of the island, which was one of the quieter areas on this notorious party island.  Most of the rooms, were actually small villas that appeared to be balancing rather precariously in the hillside.  Ours was naturally at the top of said hill, and over the next few days we would have many a good walks up and down the European-inspired cobblestone steps.  Once we were settled in, we decided to just have dinner along the beach at our resort's restaurant.  Unfortunately, the staff were the most over-bearing/obnoxious waiters I had ever experienced and we couldn't eat our food fast enough.  Eventually, we were able to shake our waitress and made our way down the beach to one of the other local beachside restaurants where we nestled in for some drinks with a view.  Despite almost barfing her intestines out earlier on the day, it all seemed worth it to Colleen now, as she remarked, "this is my idea of Thailand".  Slightly more expensive than my idea, but hey I won't complain!

Looking out our villa's window.



Where the hell am I supposed to sleep?!

No jungle huts for us...sadly.

 

~Brentski~