The Smyth's take on DR

I feel like a lot has happened over the past few days.  My apologies, in advance, for the long post.

May 13th - My Birthday

At the office, Sr. S ended up finding out that it was my birthday.  This led to several people stopping by and wishing me Happy Birthday followed by hugs and kisses.  It was quite nice.  To make it even better, they ended up getting me a large bouquet of flowers.  Very beautiful!  I ended up leaving around 2:00 and met up with Zak, David, Ozumy and Karim to have lunch quickly at Pola.  From there, I took David to Nacional so he could buy a few things from his gigantic list he had made!  I didn't end up getting a real nap, so I was still very tired when I went to dinner.  I tried calling a taxi, but they misunderstood my directions, which I knew, and tried to clarify, so that taxi never showed up.  It was getting late and I didn't have much time, so I called Ozumy and got her to call me a taxi.  It arrived and the driver was quite nice and patient with my Spanish.  Which was good, since we ended up getting stuck in traffic.  The PLD was having a parade through the colonial zone, which caused us to sit having to watch the parade go by for over 20min.  Now, I was close enough that I could have walked, but because of all the crowds and vehicles that were a part of this parade, I didn't really feel comfortable being on my own.  So I stuck it out, in the car, with my funny taxi driver.  I had to call the hotel to let mom and dad know I would be late, since it was well past the reservation time.  Finally I arrived and we went to dinner at the restaurant La Residence.  I had an amazing cheese soup to start (even though it had bacon on as a garnish), 3 lobster tails with a side of rice and vegetables, and I finished it up with an amazing caramelized banana dessert with a rum and raisin ice cream.  It felt so nice to get dressed up and have a fantastic dinner.  Oh and a bottle of malbec was involved too!  Mom and dad told me all about their day - I was quite impressed at how well they did for their first day! 

I ended up getting home and to bed around midnight.


May 14 - Isla Saona

At 5am, my alarm went off.  I had to be ready to leave at 6am to catch a taxi and get to the hotel by 6:30am.  The tour bus was going to pick us up at 6:45 and I could not be late!  I didn't sleep well at all that night since I was very afraid that I would sleep in or that the taxi company wouldn't be able to understand me when I called, or that there would somehow be crazy traffic that early in the morning...  I made it, with time to spare.

When the tour bus came, the guy (Leo) that came to greet us was way too happy for that time of the morning.  However, his energy and humour was very appreciated once I was slightly more coherent and awake.  Already in the bus was a couple from Columbia that now lives in Miami.  He travels to Santo Domingo a lot for business, but they decided to come together to celebrate their 4 year anniversary.  They were very lovely and we had several nice conversations with them.  The next people we picked up were a newly married couple (he was from Mexico, she was from California) and the woman's sister (also from California).  That trio ended up being rather annoying.  They were loud, obnoxious and just kind of oblivious to the fact that they were sharing a bus with other people.  They provided the rest of us with too much information and too much PDA from the couple.  The sister, was constantly putting on makeup and eating random food that she had in her bag.  The bus ride took just over two hours as we drove out past La Romana.  We also made a stop at a hotel near our boat departure point, where the American/Mexican trio were heading to next and where we picked up an elderly couple.  They were quite old (75) but full of spunk.  They were from Arizona (although she was actually born in Caroline, Alberta), he was in the paramilitary and he couldn't stop bragging about how great it was to stay at an all inclusive hotel.  They were adorable though.  They talked so much about how they had booked everything online and just about everything in general.

We began the main part of our excursion by taking a speed boat out to an area in the ocean where it is very sandy and shallow.  The elderly lady hadn't put her swim suit on, so I lent her my skirt so that she could put her swim suit on without having to show off her goods to everyone else.  In this area, there were also starfish that you could touch and take pictures with.  However, Leo told us that if a woman touches the starfish from this place, they will get pregnant in 3 months.  I didn't touch any starfish, and I wouldn't let mom either...  We spent about an hour in this area, swimming around, drinking rum, etc.

We then continued on the boat to Isla Saona where we plopped down on the beach chairs to relax.  Mom was anxious to explore the island, so we did so.  We happened upon several amusing things, like crabs, a melon floating away to sea, lots of interesting pieces of coral, fully intact conch shells, some eggs (not sure of what animal), etc.  It was a lot of fun, as we were constantly like, "oh, come here, look what I found!"  Following our excursion around the island, we headed back where I did a bit of napping on the beach before lunch.  The lunch was quite extensive and quite tasty.  After lunch, I slept some more on the beach, in the shade.

Our return to the main island was on a catamaran.  We drank more rum, danced merengue and took in some more sun.  One of my favorite moments was when mom, dad and I were laying out on the netting at the front of the boat, and all the sudden, mom lets out a little squeal.  I figured she must have just had some water splashed on her (this was her first thought too), but then she squealed a bit more.  It turns out that a small, bright blue, flying fish had jumped into the netting under her.  It was then wiggling around.  I tried to get a picture of it, but it managed to get back through the netting before I could.  All of us on the boat had a good laugh about this.  By the time we got back to the main island, I was exhausted.  It was a lot of adventure and on so little sleep.  We dropped off the elderly couple and the American/Mexican trio at that hotel, and had a quiet trip back to Santo Domingo, since all of us were trying to sleep (some of us succeeded).  Apparently, in the city it had rained quite a bit - we were lucky to have such a beautiful day where we were.  We didn't get back in until after 7.  I quickly ate dinner with mom and dad at their hotel before catching a taxi back home to get ready for Maria's birthday party that night. (It was also sort of my birthday party too).


May 14 - The Evening

Once I was ready to go, Pavol and I met up with Manuel, Zak, Karim, and Alejandra.  We then picked up Maria and Julia and headed to Zona Colonial.  We hung out at Plaza Espana, drank some rum and watched a performance of music and dancing.  More entertaining though were these two small children who were dancing merengue together (they were maybe 7 years old?)  It was adorable!  We soon headed to a club/bar called Doubles.  Maria had originally reserved the private lounge area for us, but something happened and another girl ended up using it and not us (still a bit fuzzy on the details since they were being yelled to me while being bombarded by loud music).   Anyways, we had a lot of fun, and I even did some dancing!  I was quite surprised by how they made my drink.  I asked for a vodka cranberry but the drink was 3/4 vodka and 1/4 cranberry.  It was very strong.  It was also the only drink I had all night.  I got home sometime after 1am and got to bed at around 2.  It sounds like most people got home at around 5...

May 15 - The Real Santo Domingo

This morning I met up with mom and dad again at their hotel.  It had been raining on my way there, so I was tired, humid and my feet and sandals were still wet.  They took me to the artisan fair that they had been to that morning.  I ended up getting a simple bracelet.  Then we went to catch a carrito to Lincoln.  I had a few issues with this, as I haven't taken a carrito from Zona Colonial by myself before.  However, it all worked out.  And we got to be squished in (4 in the back) which made the experience much more of a, uh well, experience.  Once at Lincoln, we caught another carrito to the MC.  Here, we met up with Zak, Ozumy, Orlando and Adaica.  We had to pick some food up at Pola, since we found out that everything was closing early today since the election is tomorrow.  We also found out that you can't buy alcohol 24 hours before the election...  Then we hopped into two taxis to go to the Botanical Gardens.  I think that mom and dad quite enjoyed themselves.  I brought along my good camera this time so I had fun taking pictures.  We also got to try this interesting fruit (Ozumy please comment as to what it is called) that I have never seen anywhere else.  It is very interesting.  After the botanical gardens, we stopped quickly at the MC so I could grab my groceries and take my flowers home (I had left them at the MC since I had no way of getting them home on Thursday).  We had told the taxi that it was supposed to wait and then take us the rest of the way to my apartment.  For some reason though he started driving off with just dad and we had to stop him.  It was kind of funny, but the thought of what would have happened if he had succeeded in taking my dad to my apartment was scary (no phone, not actually knowing where my apartment is, etc.).  All was well though and we were able to laugh about it.  I chilled with the parents for a while, we made dinner, and chilled some more before sending them in a taxi back to their hotel.

There is a party tonight at the MC but I am just way too tired to go.  A good nights sleep is all I want right now!