Long Weekend

Well Inception on Friday night was awesome!  Often I go into movies that are hyped up a lot and end up disliking them.  This was not the case.  It lived up to the hype!  Yay!

On the way to work on Saturday, I decided to go to Pola to get some breakfast.  Robert was worried about being late, so he got out of the carrito near the office and I carried on towards Pola (another block away).  There was another man in the front seat who, after Robert got out, kept turning around and looking at me.  Whatever, I thought, I get stared at a lot here.  Then when I asked the driver to stop after the intersection, he turned around again.  As the car crossed the intersection, he started saying to me, "Baby, baby..." He was saying other things too but I couldn't tell if he was speaking English or Spanish, not that I cared.  I just kept ignoring him as I got out of the car and walked into the supermarket.  And he kept hollering things at me.  I really hate this about the Dominican (assumedly I would hate this wherever this happens).  It makes me feel so awkward and uncomfortable.  It makes the odd holler or honk women get back home seem appealing.

When Robert got to the office, he met up with V on the walk to the office who proceeded to tell Robert that he was late, and that we start at 9 on Saturdays.  Robert told me this and my response was, well you weren't the only one who was late.  Lately V has been really getting on my nerves.  It's like he doesn't know what the boundaries are.  It's tough for me too because while I attempt to integrate into the culture I know that there are some things I don't fully understand and thus don't know whether it is just friendly coworker stuff or more creepy stuff.  Most of the time, what V says and does around me would be considered inappropriate by Canadian standards, but here, it is different.  I just haven't figured out where the figurative line is.

Big bag of the Peanut Lovers Variety!

After work on Saturday I ended up purchasing a myriad of cleaning supplies, including a new mop, at Nacional.  I also splurged on a chocolate find.  They were selling a giant bag of Snickers and M&Ms (who could resist!) for RD$500.  That's a lot, I know, but it should last me quite a while.  Only thing is that most of the M&Ms appear to be broken...  I still can't find any regular Snickers though.  My goal for the long weekend was to get our place nice and clean.  And that is what I spent most of my Saturday doing - cleaning!  I also had date night with Bart that evening, which was fun, as always.  The cleaning and general relaxing carried over to Sunday and Monday.  On Sunday night, Robert and I were both feeling geeky and in need of junk food.  We took a walk to the other colmado near our place (our regular one had already closed for the day), got some chips and coke, and then proceeded to sit at the dining room table while playing computer games on our respective computers.  Yep - total geek night.

My big excitement of the weekend came on Monday.  Bart finally got the call as to when his surgery is scheduled for.  They were supposed to give him two weeks notice, but instead, he got a week and a bit notice.  So I quickly started searching for flights since I knew I had to leave within the next week in order to get to Edmonton a few days prior to the surgery (it's on the 26th).  I ended up going with a flight out of Punta Cana which will have me arriving in Edmonton on Monday night and departing again in the wee morning hours of September 6th.  Manuel was nice enough to stop by the apartment and give me some info on getting myself to the Punta Cana airport.  It seems fairly simple.  I will take a real bus (not a guagua) to Punta Cana which leaves Santo Domingo at 7am.  I will have a lot of time to chill at the airport, but the next bus out leaves too late.  Once I arrive in Punta Cana I'll have to get myself a taxi to the airport.  I'm hoping this won't cost me too much...  Right now, I am very excited but also nervous for obvious reasons.  I'm sure it will all go fine though!  Another amazing feeling was getting to make actual plans (not just skype dates) with Leslie.  I loved being able to write to her and say, "I'm going to stop by next Tuesday morning to grab my AGA pass."  There are so many things I have to do like getting insurance put back on my car, scheduling an oil change for the car, booking appointments, making plans...  My two weeks already seem to be completely full!  Anyway, in the evening, Robert and I watched The Break-Up with David since our tutor didn't show up.  David even made jello for the occasion!

When I got to work this morning, I walked upstairs to my office and ended up in a bit of shock.  Everything was off the floor and on the desk, the boxes looked like they had water damage and the floor was quite dirty.  JCL and I attempted to get stuff back into place, without putting anything on the floor so that I could actually work at my desk.  Still not sure what happened.  Now J is busy trying to reorganize his stuff.  He keeps a lot of papers on the floor so I think a lot of his stuff is damaged.  For O and I it is just stuff in boxes which is slightly better.  Slowly we're getting things back to normal.  Unfortunately, the A/C is still off due to a few power outages this morning, so I'm kind of gross. I ended up going to Pizza Hut for lunch with Robert and Pavol.  At first, since we've had a storm most of the day, I figured I would order something in, but then it stopped raining long enough to get to Pizza Hut.  The carrito we took back though had damp seats, which was rather unpleasant.  Hopefully it won't be raining for the walk home...