Kuala Lumpur to meet the Best-Man and how to Avoid Prison

So, I had yet to meet our best-man until a few fine days ago.

To back-pedal a bit, as I speak about my husband and my upcoming wedding at the same time...


Not auditioning for Locked Up Abroad: M.E.

I had decided to move to Qatar before our big June '11 wedding and did not want to stand the chance of being on an episode of "Locked up Abroad: Middle East" for living "immorally".

Visiting my fiance meant getting a nice hotel to apply for my single-woman-visa for me, they copy my passport and monitor my stay. The last time I went they thought I was a working-girl as I checked into my five-star digs (a visa requirement) and hardly spent any time there.

Heading out to the Middle East to visit, far less live with a single man is illegal, so to get the months-long permanent resident process started so that I could live with my fiance, we'd have to get married sooner..  so marry we did in a lovely and intimate civil ceremony that my dad graciously hosted for us, with only four days notice. Thanks dad.

The outpouring of joy and support for us was moving, Ryan was welcomed into my family with open arms and despite all the usual Trinidadian bacchanal, baby-on-the-way rumors at work, and family that were 'shocked' and 'aren't acknowledging the marriage for five years' (see you at the wedding folks), we had an absolutely wonderful day.

So, Off to KL to meet the Best-Man 

As I was saying,..
I had not met our best-man, Ry's childhood friend, and boarding-school partner-in-crime, Pete; so we hopped on a plane to Malaysia to meet my newest favorite person.

Pete is the COO of a leading PR Firm in Malaysia, and as as one would imagine of someone at the top of the PR food-chain, he is every bit the gregarious, confident, creative character, and then some.

We spent our two days in Kuala Lumpur at Pete's place. We went shopping, then out to a swank hotel for champagne, beer and lattes, met up with a few other friends, Ezra and Abbas Saad ("Malaysia's Beckham"), then to dinner at a great little dive that Ryan loves for their pork-something-or-other (it was delicious) before heading home for more drinks and old-talk and Sarah Brightman-singing 'till the wee hours of the morning. How Pete made it to work the next day was beyond me. Ryan and I woke up at noon.

We had lunch with Pete before his driver took us back to the hotel at the airport. It was home-time already.

See you in Trinidad in June for our (second) big day Pete !