Hello Dear Readers!

I’m still writing to you from the depths of my transcontinental Alaska Airlines flight, where Brit is snuggled securely under my feet and I’ve just braggily finished my first-class steak. It was a little overdone, to be honest.

But I digress.

It was Harrison’s birthday this last April, and amongst the gifts I showered about him (I have a problem), I also decided this was the ideal time to surprise him with a secret vacation. Well, ok, he knew we were going on a trip, but he didn’t know where.

I’ll start by saying that my choice of destination was entirely dependent on the cheap-ass fare that I found, courtesy of Ryanair and its yellow plastic seats.

So it was that on the morning of our journey, he packed his bags, having attempted to guess our trip location for the past several months and having failed miserably. His only hints included, “Yes, you’ll need a passport. Yes, bring your swimsuit. Yes, bring your jacket too.”

I have to admit, I was super stoked to be surprising him with this. It’s been a long time since I’ve planned all the activities on our trips (he’s usually the doer-planner), and I had packed our itinerary with things I knew he loved.

We arrived at the airport with him as clueless as can be, knowing only that we were flying on Ryanair (never again, by the way).

He squinted up at the flight information board, staring at all the departures.

“Are we going to…Rome?” he asked, his brow furrowing at the thought of a repeat visit to a country.

Nope!

“We’re going to…Paphos?” he frowned as he considered what a common destination Greece was. 

Nope!

With only one destination left up on the board, he read it out slowly, “Are we heading to…Ki-wan-us?”

Kaunas! Yes! I grinned triumphantly up at him, excited for his reaction.

“Uhm…where’s that?”

And so our journey to Lithuania started, with bags of bikinis and rain jackets and multitudes of places to explore.

-Carissa “Help I’m on a Ryanair Flight” Rawson and Harrison “It’s Pronounced K-oh-nus” Diamond