I'm always complaining to Ruben that we don't do anything together. We do sometimes but we really ought to do more activities together out of the comfort zone of our daily lives: go on a city trip, do a biking tour, visit a museum, ... I'm a big fan of doing fun things and building happy and unique memories together but for some reason we're kind of bad at it. We always stay in our comfort zone and at times we even get bored at home with no idea what to do other than play some ping pong or badminton which Ruben is always begging me to. Lately the number of "special" activities we do together has even dropped from few to none. Being in the midst of renovating our apartment there doesn't seem to be much time left to have some quality time together and get away from it all. Past weekend we decided to do just that. We got ourselves some take out french fries (I know I know, don't judge) and went down to the river to watch the sunset.
There's a large river not that far from our apartment with a pier and a little ferry going back and forth to the other side. We have actually never taken the ferry but as soon as we move into the apartment this will be one of the first activities on our to do list. Saturday we just sat there on a bench, eating our simple fastfood take-out, watching the sun go down. It was the perfect getaway evening. It's such an easy thing to do together, costs nothing yet is so breathtakingly beautiful. Watching the wonders of nature always makes me feel very humble and warm on the inside. Looking at my life partner in this lighting made me feel even warmer, filled with love and gratitude. All the daily worries seemed to get washed away by the calm, even if it was just for a little while.
Of course I couldn't resist snapping a few pictures with my beloved Canon 600D DSLR. It was more of a trial and error experiment with the settings of my camera but I think most of the photographs turned out super beautiful (with a little editing after though)! I'm no photographer, but I really love capturing these special moments. Looking at them again later (now) fills me with the same love and gratitude I felt while watching the sunset in real life. It's like the pictures are a portal into my memories.
Watching the skies turn from blue and golden yellow to soft orange and deep raspberry red feels almost magical. I know the sun sets every night, that it's not unique or special per se. I know it is just the Earth rotating around its axis, making the sun disappear behind the horizon. I know it's science, not magic ... but everything I feel while watching this sky and the reflexion of it in the water disagrees with that. I should tell you I'm an emotional person. I've always been this way and I always will be. I'm the girl that sobs while watching a movie. I'm the girl in tears while reading a book. I'm the girl that laughs out loud at funny jokes in a play. I guess you could call it empathy: I feel very deeply about everything. I also have a lot of imagination. The combination of those two things makes me a dreamer. And watching a beautiful sunset at a river is the perfect place for dreaming.
So, if you could pick anything (for free), how would you spend your getaway evening?
