BootsnAll Travel Network



The BREL Love Story (His and Hers)

HERS

To be honest, we didn’t meet in the most romantic of ways. We were both at a Irish pub in Toronto watching the Stanley Cup finals (the hockey equivalent of the World Cup) with our respective friends. We’d each had a number of pints. And much to the disappointment of Canadians everywhere, we didn’t win the Stanley Cup that night.

At the end of the evening, when Brendan asked if he could call me, I actually said no. By this point, I’d realized how different we were from one another: he had just returned from a trip to Nicaragua and was “in between gigs” and had never had a “normal” job. He was a dreamer, living life one spontaneous adventure at a time. I, on the other hand, was a planner. I worked 70-hour weeks as a corporate executive at an advertising agency. I had a retirement fund, a house and a stable, predictable life. At one point that night, I actually said: “Somewhere between your vagabonding ways and my career ambition and maturity is a perfectly balanced and happy person.”

To make a long story short (well, shorter), his persistence paid off and we eventually realized that we could BOTH become that person – successful (in the way that society defines success), but impulsive and adventurous too. Together, we could discover the world – but still have a safe place to come home to.

Our relationship has brought the best of our two worlds together – worlds full of culture, music, theatre, festivals, salsa-dancing, cooking classes, extravagant parties, good friends and of course, travel.

HIS

I’m entitling this entry “The Keeper.” All the guys out there know what I mean.

I could talk about how we met, and say all kinds of sweet things about love at first sight…but this is supposed to be a guy’s perspective. So instead I’ll talk about why I quickly realised Melanie was A Keeper.

The day we met, Mel brought people back to HER place after the pub closed. Even when she had to work the next day.
Score: +1

When Mel throws a party, she feeds people better than I do during my fanciest attempts at a dinner party. And when I fall asleep on the couch before the party’s over? Instead of throwing my friends out, she joins them in drawing a moustache on my face.
Score: hard to explain when called into work early the next day, but +1

The final keeper moment? Well, a traveller can’t be with a non-traveller; it just won’t work. So, thinking there was no way the corporate executive would bite, I proposed the ultimate challenge: an entire year on the road. To my astonishment (and despite tears on her family’s part), she sold her house, quit her job, and packed her shiny new backpack.
Score: +100

Somewhere between the acrophobe agreeing to hang glide (and paraglide) with me; the princess dealing with public squat toilets, wildlife in her hotel room and food she’d never even heard of; and Christmas in the 3rd world with no electricity, I decided: she’s A Keeper.

Four years, 26 countries, an engagement and a wedding later, we’re hoping to add even more adventures to the BREL Love Story–by traipsing around the world as the Runaway Bride and Groom.



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