A reader sent in this story about her Good Husband who planned what turned out to be a really wonderful trip.  In my opinion, it’s not the things themselves that are all that romantic, but instead the way that he carefully planned it all.  Pay attention to that guys, and see if you can understand why this wife is so happy about this trip.

Of the two of us my husband, Jason Ries, is much better at planning romantic trips. While our adventures do not follow movie scripts or fall into cliches, they are romantic because they involve things that we are each passionate about.

For instance, in the Spring of 2005, he planned a trip to Philadelphia for us. He is a huge baseball and he wanted to go to see a game in the Phillies ballpark. By researching the Philadelphia tourism site, though, he
discovered that some of the hotels had package specials that included tickets to see the sold-out Dali exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. This was the only place in the States to catch this comprehensive show of one of my favorite artists.

As luck would have it, the Philly Fanatic was at our gate to greet our flight and then an airport employee insisted on driving us through the terminal to our bags. I know that he didn’t plan either of these events but they helped to make the trip feel slightly surreal and magical.

After we hopped a train into the city center and checked into our hotel, we stumbled onto an exquisite boutique named Linu filled with handmade Latvian linens.  Since Jason’s mother is from Latvia, we had chosen to travel to Latvia on our honeymoon. Linu’s owner, Karina Sotnik was delighted to discover our Latvian ties and gave us a gift of some pieces of raw amber (which Jason had mad into a necklace for our first anniversary).

She gave us many tips for our time in Riga as well as some suggestions for Philadelphia.

When we left there we roamed down to Abode, a now defunct furniture shop, to view some of the whimsical pieces by Richard Dunbrack. Jason had purchased one of Dunbrack’s pieces for my birthday that year and the store evoked many wonderful memories.

At the game that evening, I was happily knitting while Jason cheered.  After a while, however, Jason realized that I would be more interested in the game if I understood the strategy. He began explaining how he was recording plays in his notebok in a way that related to my work as a choreographer. When he went to get a hot dog, he was very touched to find that I had filled in the plays that he had missed. As someone who
didn’t play sports growing up, I hadn’t understood why they were exciting to Jason, but now I found myself getting swept up in the drama.

I could prattle on and on about this quick 36 hour jaunt to Philadelphia but the point is how we traveled is what made things romantic. I don’t know perhaps this isn’t even what you are looking for. If you have more questions feel free to let me know.