The Final Post

The last month has been a bit of a whirlwind.  It has been a bit of an adjustment, in a lot of ways, but also fairly easy in other aspects.

Not a day goes by that I don't think about something from the Dominican, the people, places and things I miss.  Sometimes I forget that my friends are so far away.  Take the other day for example, when I was standing at the bus stop waiting to catch a bus downtown and I saw a silver VW drive by, exactly like the one that Manuel owns.  My first thought was, "oh, I wonder if that was Manuel," and then immediately my brain kicked in and reminded me that it was definitely not Manuel.  I've had a few skype dates so far, but it still feels weird and horribly distant.  Luckily, all of the various forms of communication we have are really handy.  I finally got a blackberry again and I love being able to instantly send pictures in the moment to Ozumy and Maria showing them what I'm doing or seeing, and I love being able to receive pictures from them of those people, places and things that I miss so much.

At the same time, I have enjoyed a lot of what I love about home.  Being able to see my family and friends on a regular basis, going to my favourite restaurants and other places in the city, wearing my favourite clothes and shoes, cooking, getting to feel cozy again - it is all so wonderful!  I have even got to take in 2 Oilers' games since I got back, and even though we lost both of the games, it felt really good to be singing my national anthem, drinking Molson and cheering on my team!

Today, I started my new job, and because of that, it seemed fitting to write my last post that would wrap up the insane adventure that was this past year.  Going to work today made reality set in.  I'm back in Canada and here to stay (at least for the foreseeable future).  So now, I just get to reminisce about all the crazy memories, both good and bad.  Everything from eating green Mangos that Paula picked off a tree on our walk home, the day David lit the sink on fire to kill a centipede, having rats eating at our kitchen door, living in the princess room, relaxing on catamarans, eating beach food, breakfasts with Ozumy, Saturday afternoons with Maria, learning how to play Dominos, drinking at the colmado, power outages, explosions in the night, the pouring rain, the insanely hot sun, Orlando and I with our fry masks, Pavol making his own rum infusions in our fridge, looking out to sea on the Malecon with Andrew, videotaping the morning commute with Robert, Marola teaching and testing me and my Spanish over lunch, driving with Manuel, riding in carritos, chinola juice, mentoring Lostania, never understanding Yeimy when she spoke in her extremely quick Spanish, Sylvia's driving making me car sick, paragliding with Arturo and his friends, pilates with Mari, all those crazy Norwegians, prepping O for his move to Canada, teaching JCL English, all the laughs I shared with Sr. S and J, finding ways to communicate with L, learning I had a good friend in E, the girls at Sweet Bakery, Super Pola, lunches at the MC with Zak, rides to and from the airport with Don Pedro, Gerardo and 2 Pinocchios, eating at IKEA, the watchiman, the fruit vendors, to the slow internet, the ants, Marlon and Mariangeles' wedding, my mosquito net, moldy clothing and Zona Colonial.  All of it.  I wouldn't change a thing and will cherish all of these moments forever.

Gracias por todo!  Abrazos y besos!

One Week Later...

Similar to how I felt when I arrived in the Dominican, I feel like I've been here forever already.  So far, the adjustment has been good and the "reverse culture shock" hasn't been too strong.  The biggest adjustment has been the cold.  Living in 30 degree weather for an entire year, and then having to come home to -25 (-35 with windchill) was a huge adjustment.  However, I am happy to report that yesterday, it was about -14 and it felt bearable to me!  Hurray for becoming acclimatized!

The thing I miss most so far are the people.  Oddly though, I still sort of feel like I'm on vacation and that soon I will be going back.  I think I'll actually go through a much harder time in a few weeks.  Since I left, I've also gained a new friend I didn't know that I had back when I was there.  One of my coworkers just started talking with me during my last few days in the country and then sent me an amazing email earlier this week in which I learned just how much we have in common.  While it was sad to think that we could have had this friendship for longer and in person, I am happy that it was able to be discovered, regardless of the timing.

I am definitely more aware of my surroundings and how crazy we Edmontonians are to live in such a climate.  While driving over to Bart's place yesterday, I started laughing about the size of the snow piles on the lots of the houses.  I just thought about how ridiculous this would seem to most of my Dominican friends.  I made sure to snap some pictures to give you an idea.

Also, when I'm out driving with Bart or my brother (I've yet to put insurance back on my own car) I keep thinking to myself, if we were in the Dominican, we could totally run this red right now, or we could totally decide this was a turning lane... But at the end of the day, I am comforted by the order and all the rules we have here.

I've also been working hard to push myself back into my old life - but only into the parts of my old life I want to keep.  Bart and I went to the symphony last weekend, I've done a bit of shopping at some of my favourite stores, attended my first committee meeting in a year for Encore, and tonight, we went to the Art Gallery for the new exhibition opening and a lecture on Emily Carr.  I get really excited by these things, it is like the parts of me that had to be suppressed before, for survival, are able to be freed again.

I've been spending most of my days at the condo, organizing and unpacking, although it is slow going.  The job search is still happening, with more applications going out every few days.  I have also been making a lot of time for my goals, especially the cooking one.  Bart has been spoiled by lots of homemade meals and treats!

I also got my hair cut yesterday.  It feels quite different, especially after going for a year without one!  I am also taking every chance I get to drink water straight from the tap and, slowly, I am becoming less paranoid that every little tickle I feel on my arm is an ant or a mosquito.

So overall, lots of little changes, but so far, things are going rather smoothly!  It will be interesting to see what the next few weeks bring!

Last Week in the DR (Part II)

On Monday, I was alone at work again, since Robert had decided to stay the extra night in Las Terrenas with Mari and her family and friends.  I was quite busy at work trying to get a project to a point in which it could be easily taken over by Robert and that Sr. S was happy with.  I had plans for lunch with Ozumy.  We decided to go to Super Pola, for old times sake.  It was there that I gave her one of my paintings, since she had told me how much she liked it when she first saw a picture of it.  I had a good RD$50 lunch of rice and coleslaw. 

After lunch, we went over to Sweet Bakery.  Ozumy gave me a going away gift, which I was so excited about: a Dominican cookbook!  I had actually been looking for one for quite a while so it was a lovely surprise that she had found one.  I had a bit of a laugh though when I was reading through some of the recipes and saw a word I didn’t understand.  Turns out it called for 1 ½ “little spoons” of salt.  I asked Ozumy – does that mean teaspoons?  She just laughed – it just means little spoons.  After I finished my coffee, I went to pay and then it was time to say goodbye to the Sweet Bakery girls.  I’m glad Ozumy was there to help me explain better in Spanish why I had to leave.  It was definitely sad, but I passed along my email address to them and said they could find me on facebook – so we’ll see if I end up hearing from them or not. 

After lunch, I quickly finished things up at work so that I would be ready to go by 5:00.  But as the time neared, L asked me what time I was leaving.  When I said 5, she asked me if I could stay a bit later.  I told her that I could stay a bit later and she assured me that it wouldn’t be longer than 15 min.  I sent Ozumy a message letting her know this, but unfortunately she was already on her way to meet me.  I soon found out that they had bought a cake for my goodbye.  So I packed everything up, gave Sr. S the other painting (which he seemed to like) and waited for the cake to arrive.  I gave JCL the dictionary I had bought her and made sure to get a picture with her too.  She told me how much she was going to miss me which was really sweet - I'm going to miss her a lot too.  I also got a picture of the consulting team!  Finally the cake came and we gathered in the back meeting room with all of the staff on the top floor.  It was nice and they all said sweet things about me – although since it was all in Spanish, I didn’t understand all of it.  More pictures were taken, lots of hugs, sad goodbyes and I continued to fight back the tears.

I didn’t actually leave the office until nearly 6:00.  Poor Ozumy had been outside for over an hour.  She understood though.  We called a taxi and off we went to Zona Colonial.  On our way over, we found out that Mariangeles and her sister, Marlon and Mabellina were in Zona Colonial already so we made plans to meet them when we arrived.  I was a bit disappointed since I was hoping to get there before a particular store closed at 6pm.  Luckily, when we arrived, I saw that the doors were still open.  We rushed over and I was able to get what I wanted.  Turns out they were actually open until 7 (the guidebook lied!). 

We met up with the others and wandered around the area.  It was really nice to be in my favorite area of the city again.  Soon it was time to head to the meeting place for my AIESEC goodbye party: Segafredo.  Ozumy and I had pizzas while we waited for others to show up.  Sasha and Urska were first to stop by, then Robert, Mari and Trond, followed by many others, including Rene, Karen, Felix, Adaica, Claudia, Maria, Lostania and Manuel.  Because there was so many of us, we ended up having to move inside for the rest of the evening.  It was a great night and I really enjoyed being around all of my wonderful friends I met in the Dominican.

On Tuesday, I tried to sleep in a bit, but wasn’t too successful.  I spent the day packing and cleaning.  I was surprised when I discovered that everything was going to fit in my bags without being “overpacked!”  At around 4:30, Manuel came by so that we could take some stuff over to the MC.  Since we arrived around 5, we called Robert and told him to come over to the MC so that he could catch a ride back with us.  I spent the rest of the evening doing the last minute packing and getting stuff together to give to Maria and to Robert.  At 8:30, I headed over to the old colmado.  Robert was waiting for me when I arrived, Manuel and Mari showed up shortly after and we woke Pavol up from a sleep and he came by too.  It was nice to enjoy some Presidente and a colmado sandwich on my last night in the Dominican.

When it was time to head home, Maria and her friend Orlando showed up and picked me up.  We went over to my apartment so that Maria could pick up the stuff I was passing along to her.  Saying goodbye to her was difficult.  I tried hard to not cry, but I did.  After doing a few more things around the house and chatting to Bart for a bit, I went to bed.

This morning came early.  I was up at 6 to ensure I’d have plenty of time to finish up the last minute things and get ready.  I was sure to tell the roosters that I wasn’t going to miss them, same thing to the ants and a spider I found in the sink.  Around 8:20, Delaine showed up to get the keys and to pack up a bit more of her stuff.  Robert showed up right after to grab the last minute things I wasn’t taking with me and at that same moment, we noticed that Don Pedro was waiting in the adjacent lot.  I went out and waved Don Pedro over, so that he could drive into our parking lot to load up the stuff.  The watchiman even helped us bring the bags down.  Another hard goodbye was completed with Robert and then Don Pedro and I were off to the airport.  He also told me that he was going to miss me and we chatted a bit about why I had to leave and I was sure to tell him that I would come back to visit for vacation.  He was pleased to hear this and told me that he looks forward to me calling him to tell him that I need a ride from the airport!  I was also sure to get a picture of the two of us before I went into the airport.

I was extremely surprised when my heavy bag weighed only 50.8 pounds, so they let that through without a charge.  Then we put on my lighter bag and it weighed 58 pounds.  I have no idea how that happened.  Anyway, the guy at the counter was super nice and let me take out 5 lbs of stuff to put in my carryon and let the extra 3 pounds slide.  I was really happy.  I still had to pay the $45 charge for a second bag, but I didn’t care.  I figured my bags would be over the 70 pound mark and thus I had mentally prepared myself to drop $200 just on baggage fees.  However, my carryon was suddenly really heavy since I had moved the books over.  But then I realized that once I got to Philadelphia, I could throw the books back into the luggage!  I also made a stop at Duty Free and picked up some Oliver and Oliver rum.  Pavol had told me the night before that I may not be able to get all the brands since they were in a bit of a dispute with the sort of Rum Overseeing Board.  Happily, I picked up a bottle of Optimus and Atlantico, and then threw in a bottle of mamajuana for good measure. 

The flight to Philadelphia was good.  I managed to sleep a few hours but was still quite tired.  When I arrived, I had to get a special pass to go through security without a boarding pass so that I could walk through the airport to the United/Air Canada check in.  Once I got the boarding passes, I headed back through security and plopped myself down at Vino Volo for a glass of 2007 Jade Mountain Merlot and a penne with a cheese sauce and truffle oil.  I figured I deserved a little bit of spoiling.  I sat and people watched and listened to American businessmen on their phones sounding really stupid and fake.  Then it was off to get some more food (I was still hungry!) and to have a rest before my next flight to Toronto.  While waiting for my food, I looked outside and saw my two suitcases sitting ready to be put on the next flight.

The flight to Toronto was good.  Had a few issues when I got on since there was no room for my bag.  The flight attendant ended up asking a man to put it under the seat that was beside him (not occupied).  The plane was mostly businessmen and they kept bugging me about my large bag.  I watched a movie called "Unstoppable," which I had never heard of.  I mean it was a typical normal day, something goes wrong, it all looks like disaster until right at the end when they save the day, even though you know the entire movie how it will end.  Regardless, it was entertaining, and the shortest film - thus I could watch it during the 1.5 hr flight.  And Chris Pine was in it, which at least made it easy on the eyes.  

Now, I am sitting in Toronto, sipping a Caramel Macchiato, waiting for the next flight.  I'm sort of in a daze.  Realizing I'm back home, but at the same time, I'm pretty sure I still think I'm just on vacation and will be heading back soon.  When the reality hits, I'm sure it will be hard.  In the mean time, I am looking forward to watching RED on the next flight!

Last Week in the DR (Part I)

I'm having a hard time believing that my last week in the DR is complete.  Understandably, I've been quite busy getting things in order for the move home and even threw in a trip to the North-East side of the island.  So let's recap.

On Thursday, I was at the office by myself since Robert had gone to Isla Saona with his dad and Trond.  I ended up being quite busy and even had to work through lunch (not that I minded since that meant a free lunch from Emparedado).  I spent the evening doing more painting and organizing.

On Friday, we had another busy day at the office.  At lunch, Robert and I went to Pizza Hut.  We took a carrito there, since the walk is about 15 min long, and I was so excited when we got into the carrito and discovered it was a female driver!  But not the female driver that I had seen before, a new one!  

When it was time to leave, it started pouring rain.  We decided to wander around the building that the Pizza Hut was in, and came across another "super" business.  

I was hoping to pick up some rum at Nacional, but when we arrived, I was quite disappointed to find that they didn't have any of the brands I wanted.  Normally they carry what I was looking for.  Now I will just have to see what is available at the airport.  (This may be a good thing though since it will mean my bags will be a few pounds lighter since they will be weighed and tagged before the duty free gets stuck into them!)  Anyway, so we decided to go over to the bookstore since I've been wanting to get something for JCL in the line of a phrase book or dictionary.  I settled on a nice English dictionary.  I remember my French tutor forcing me to look up words in a French dictionary (not an English-French dictionary) since it would help me learn more, so I figured the same would be true for English.  Maria was kind enough to help me write up something nice for the inside in Spanish.   I also bought the Little Mermaid, on DVD in Spanish.

After work, I went home for a bit, changed and headed over to one of our coworker's house for a goodbye party for Oscar.  I had a sneaky feeling that it was also for me, since people kept confirming that I would be there.  It was a nice evening, there was good food and drinks, and Oscar and I were presented with some gifts!  Very thoughtful!

I was up early on Saturday to head over to Robert and Mari's at 7:15 am.  I got to meet Mari's parents and then we headed off to Caribe Tours to take a bus to Sanchez.  When we arrived, we met up with Trond, and two of Mari's coworkers, Silvia and Claudia.  The trip to Sanchez was uneventful.  I slept the entire way.  When we arrived in Sanchez, we were greeted by many taxi drivers, wondering where we were headed to.  One guy had a mini-bus (there was 8 people in our group) and wanted RD$1500 to take us to the hotel in Las Terrenas.  I thought this was reasonable, since we were a large group and the trip was a bit long.  Others in our group didn't agree and wanted less, so we ended up standing around with no one making an executive decision for a while.  I found this to be kind of frustrating.  Per person, it was less than RD$200.  I can deal with that.  Anyway, we ended up going with him.  He went over a rather nasty bump and totally scraped the bottom of the mini-bus and then it seemed like something happened to his front left wheel.  He proceeded to stop every few minutes at first to check on it.  The road to Las Terrenas was steep, curvy and in not so great condition, but the view was fantastic!

We arrived at our hotel, Las Palmas, and got checked in.  We had 3 apartments between the 10 of us (Lars and Line met us there) and the grounds were quite beautiful.

Once we got settled, we all went out to grab some lunch.  I ate a giant pizza and it was very tasty.

After lunch, we all went to hang out at the beach, except Mari's parents who went back to the hotel to chill and do some reading.  While the beach was not the greatest, it was still nice to just hang out in the sun.  We did have a bit of an adventure watching Robert climb up a palm tree and toss down two coconuts, after which, him and Lars worked hard at getting them open (eventually they did!).

After our beach time, we all showered up, some of us had a quick nap, and then we were off to find groceries to have a BBQ.  Unfortunately, as we were about to leave, it started pouring rain.  So we ended up just hanging out by the reception area until it stopped.  We walked into town and ended up finding out that the main grocery store had already closed and the only one open was a small colmado type store.  We checked it out inside and it didn't have enough for the dinner but we were able to get some food delivered for breakfast and snacks.  Lars was kind enough to walk back to meet the delivery at the hotel, while the rest of us went in search of a restaurant for dinner.  On our way, Trond had seen a place that served crocodile so the plan was to go there.  I was a bit worried since the menu they showed at the entrance had no idshes without meat.  Once we were seated, I was happy to find that the full menu had some vegetarian dishes.  I setlled on a plate of 4 cheese gnocchi.  All of the guys tried the crocodile and said that they liked it.  There was one not so fun part about dinner, and that was the insanely high pitched and constant noise coming from, what we believe, was a lone cricket, strategically placed to make his sound much bigger and much more annoying than it should have been.  Literally, when he would pause, all of us would bolt to attention and get excited over the mere seconds of relief from this annoying sound.

When we returned, the hotel's watchiman wouldn't let us into the hotel.  I guess we confused him because there were 10 of us.  We even showed him that we had 3 keys.  It took a lot of convincing for him to let us in.  Then, once we were inside and thought we had settled things with him, we were all going to walk over to the apartment that had our groceries that were delivered earlier.  But then the watchiman was more confused and so we just went to our apartment so he wouldn't cause any more issues.  He also kept trying to talk to Lars (since Lars had been by earlier to receive the groceries) even though he didn't speak any Spanish.  They ended up having to say to him, "Alright, there are 4 beds in each apartment right? Right.  Okay and we have 3 apartments, which makes 12 beds, and we are 10 people..."  Finally he understood.   I was just too tired to stay up and hang out, plus we had a taxi scheduled to pick us up at 7:20 am, so Silvia and I decided to go straight to bed.  The others followed shortly after.  The next morning we were up early and I was sure to take a few pictures of the hotel.

The taxi driver took us to Samana.  The majority of the trip had us passing through small villages.  There was something so beautiful about watching the locals, adults and kids alike, out just going about their day.  Little girls helping their mom wash clothes, boys practicing baseball, women singing, men waiting for rides to construction sites, etc.  When we arrived, we found out that the whale watching tour actually left at 10 am, not at 9 am like they had told us on the phone.  So we took the time to find a bite to eat and to take some photos.

At 10:00, we all boarded the boat.  It was a nice size, with two decks.  Kim, the lady who runs Whale Samana, is a Canadian marine biologist who has been extremely influential in ensuring the protection of the humpback whales and the area they mate and give birth in, near Samana.  She essentially started the whale watching industry in the Dominican.  The trip was quite informative as she was sure to tell us lots and had her staff hand around pictures and models so that everyone knew what they were looking for.  I believe I was the first one to spot a spout, but I was kind of unsure of myself so didn't yell it out, and instead just told Robert and Silvia.  Sure enough, the spouts I saw were the first two whales we ended up approaching and viewing!  They weren't that exciting though so we went in another direction and came across a female and her male escort.  In addition to the two of them, there were two challenger males who were trying to become her escort.  It was very interesting to see the escort showing how macho he was by doing things like making long bubble trails.  She seemed to be enjoying herself and we watched her breaching, flapping her fins in the air and slapping them on the water, and at one point, she was on her back with both fins in the air.  It was an amazing sight!

After watching the female for a while, we ended up seeing a few more whales before it was time to head back in.  By this point, we had been out for over 3 hours and most of us were really tired.  When we arrived back on shore, Claudia, Silvia and I said goodbye to the rest of the group since they were heading back to Las Terrenas and we were heading back to Santo Domingo.  The three of us went in search of some lunch.  We ended up at a cute restaurant but the food took forever.  We ended up having to scarf down the food quickly and run out the door and onto the bus.  The bus we had for the trip home was quite luxurious.  Only 3 seats per row (two on one side, one on the other) that reclined fully with foot rests.  I had a good sleep on the way home!

When we arrived in the city, I shared a taxi with the girls and headed home.  I was really tired but ended up doing quite a bit of packing before bed.