Phyllis Barnwell

Dear Miss Phyllis,

We wanted to thank you for helping make our honeymoon the adventure of a lifetime. Because we wanted to share photos of your gifts, we decided against sending more traditional thank-you cards; instead, below is a picture gallery of what your contributions made possible!

<nerdy statement> A decade's worth of psychological research suggests that experiences make us happier than material possessions. </nerdy statement> Because we're fortunate enough to share a home with the appliances and furniture we need (IKEA furniture, but hey), we opted for a less traditional spin on wedding registries. It was our hope that a Honeyfund would offer a month's worth of incredible experiences—from dinners to sightseeing, from train tickets to hotel rooms—that we could directly attribute to the loved ones who made those experiences possible. We even carried a spreadsheet with us everywhere we went that indicated who had sponsored each activity, which helped guide us through each day.

Please enjoy the photos and captions below! If you'd like to see more pictures of our honeymoon travels, you can view the full gallery here.

Thank you again for your generosity and friendship, and for making this first chapter of our marriage possible.

Love from,

What you sponsored: Eating in Bern

Thanks to you, we ate wonderfully while in Bern! We had to try Swiss sausages, sauerkraut, mustard, and beer, which we loved immensely; but we were also excited to try Swiss interpretations of some of our favorite cuisines, like Mexican and Thai. (We have no photos of our Thai experience in downtown Bern because we were sitting outside and it was raining, but the food was incredible.) Below are some photos of what you made possible!

We spent our first day in Bern exploring the historic part of the city on foot. We were so lucky to have great weather; the skies were blue and temperatures were perfect, unlike what we were promised in weather forecasts (which only predicted rain). So we took advantage of the great visibility and crossed the Nydegg Bridge (visible to the righthand side of this photo), passed around Bärenpark (which is exactly what its German name would suggest: a 15,000-square-foot park with bears roaming around), and had lunch at the Altes Tramdepot. Not only does the Tramdepot offer fantastic views of the city, but it's also a craft brewery, so Ryan was particularly happy.

Our lunch at Altes Tramdepot. This was our best meal in Bern--simple sausages, sauerkraut (which I didn't even realize I liked), and homemade mustard with bread.

There are no Starbucks (not a single one) in the entire country of Italy, which comprised our first three stops before we got to Bern. Ryan, if you didn't know, is a Starbucks fanatic and even worked as a barista there for three years while in school. The moment we got to Switzerland, he all but dragged me to the nearest Starbucks for iced coffee and our favorite dessert, stroopwafels.

As ridiculous as it sounds, we were less interested in having more sausages and sauerkraut (especially because we still had another 4-5 days in Interlaken, Switzerland) than we were in trying Swiss interpretations of Mexican food. So we went to Bigote Verde ("Green Mustache"), an outdoor Mexican restaurant housed in a wooden hut-like cart.

We weren't let down; if you can tell from the photo, Swiss-Mexican food is very, very different from what you'd find in Arizona. The upper plate is their interpretation of a tostada (typically on a fried tortilla in the U.S. and Mexico). It was delicious!