The Move and the Princess Room

Well, I am settled into the new place, sort of.  Of course everything is still new and I have to sort of figure out how my two lovely roommates work before I’ll feel totally comfortable.

The past few days have felt hectic, but at the same time, not too stressful.  On Friday, I was at work, like usual.  We had internet again so I was much more productive.  I asked to have Saturday off since I was moving, which obviously wasn’t a problem.  At lunch, I met up with Robert and Mari at Pola.  After lunch, I went to grab some toothpaste and saw this guy:

Ah Santa in the Dominican Republic!

After work I was busy packing and had to pick up the keys from Delaine, my new roommate/landlady.  Mari came with me and once we grabbed the keys and checked out the room again, we went to La Cadena (another supermarket) for some groceries.  I had to laugh when we were at the new apartment because since Delaine is a music teacher, she had a guitar student over at the time.  And he was plunking out the same notes over and over.  That could get annoying after a while!  However, I was quite pleased to find a big Christmas tree in the living room!  

Mari and I made our way to pilates at 7:30.  It had been moved from Thursday to Friday since our instructor couldn't make it on Thursday.  When we arrived, a karate session was in full swing so we sat outside with Paula, who had already arrived.  She was actually on the phone with Sylvia, who had called to ask what she was doing.  Sylvia told Paula that she had extra tickets to the Diego Torres concert that evening and was wondering if we wanted to go.  Sure we all said.  So she told us to head home to get changed and that she'd pick us up right away.  So we did, left pilates and caught a carrito home.  Just as we were getting out of the carrito by the apartment, Sylvia called to inform us that she had messed up - that the tickets were for another event and their was some miscommunication with her source of the tickets (Arturo's dad).  It turns out she only had two tickets so we were to decide between us who would go.  In the end, Mari and Robert ended up going.  They really enjoyed the concert.  It was probably for the best that I didn't go since I ended up packing until after midnight.

On Saturday morning, I was up quite early to do the last minute packing.  It went quite smoothly and I was actually ready to go well before Sylvia and Arturo arrived to transport my stuff.  We piled everything into the truck and headed to the new place.  Only issue was that my key for the outside door didn't work, so the watchman had to open it for me.  He was quite nice though and even helped us carry up the stuff.  Delaine wasn't home when I arrived but I was able to settle in pretty well before her and Allison got back.  Allison was super cute, quite shy though.  I think she will warm up to me more once she is used to seeing me around all the time.  I had some issues with the internet in the afternoon when I was talking to Bart.  I kept losing the internet connection about every 5 minutes, and then within 30 seconds or so, it would be back.  Super frustrating.  I also realized, after looking outside my window, that the empty lot beside us is full of chickens and roosters.  So the cock-a-doodle-doo is going to be a permanent sound in my life now.

Saturday evening, I met up with Robert and Mari and we went to Beer House for Pavol's going away party.  I was quite sad to discover that they no longer had Molson Canadian on their menu!  Pretty much everyone showed up so it was good to catch up with a few people I haven't seen in quite a while.  Marola also gave me 3 totally cute bracelet/elastic things:

Shark, Hedgehog and Crocodile

It was a fun night, but also a really late night.

Today, I tried to sleep in but still managed to wake up at 8am.  I did stay in bed though and kind of snooze for a while before getting up and getting ready.  At around noon, I went back to the old apartment to grab the rest of my stuff from the fridge and hand in my keys.  Then I headed back to the new apartment, had some lunch and then had a nap.  I'm suffering from the sickness I get frequently here, head cold plus fever so essentially all I want to do is sleep right now.  Later on in the day I threw some laundry in and made dinner.  Just finished chatting with mom and am now waiting for date night with Bart to begin.  Here's hoping the internet holds up!  I will leave you with some shots of the view outside my window and of a video I took depicting the roosters and the noisy colmado on the corner.

Chickens and roosters

More poultry and garbage

Barbed wire below my window

Strawberry bed

The room, including Tinker Bell

The big stuffed dog and some fairies

Closet

Internet Withdrawal

On Monday morning, I hopped in a carrito, as per usual.  I was in B2 and there was a larger man beside me in B1.  What made this particularly odd was the bag of sweaty, melty marshmallows he was eating from.  I was kind of disgusted by this generally, but even more so when he turned to me and offered me one.  I politely declined, “no, gracias.” 

At the office, the day ticked along like usual.  We were supposed to have lunch with Ozumy but she couldn’t make it over to meet us.  Robert, Mari and I went to Pola instead.  Often, Robert and I will split a pasta dish since the serving size is too big for one person to finish completely.  One of the other workers was manning the pasta station and he wasn’t very good at making the pasta.  His first attempt at making it was alright, except just as he began to combine the pasta with the sauce, I saw a hair in the pasta.  Gross.  So I pointed it out and he kind of looked at it, not sure what to do.  He asked me if I wanted him to start over again, and I said yes.  So he started fresh with the sauce, except this time, he put in A LOT of sauce.  That was the most saucy the pasta has ever been.  When we went to Sweet Bakery after lunch the power was out there so we couldn’t have our usual afternoon espresso.  I always get a kick out of how they will ask us if we want espressos, we say yes, and then they say no, we can’t.  Not sure why they don’t just say right off the bat that we can’t have espressos today because the power is out.

The main excitement on Tuesday was having lunch with everyone (Me, Robert, Mari, Pavol, Paula and Gerardo) at Quiznos.  When I arrived, there was a young boy outside the entrance who was asking for money and such.  He had such big bright eyes and was missing a bunch of his front teeth.  The kids really get to me, in that I just feel the need to adopt all of them and help them out.  He seemed to have the same affect on the rest of us.  I ended up getting my combo with an oatmeal raisin cookie instead of fries, with the intention that I would give him the cookie on my way out.  But, he was nowhere to be found by the time we were finished.  I feel kind of guilty saying this, but that cookie was really delicious and I’m kind of glad he had disappeared, thus leaving the cookie for me.

In the evening, Mari helped me with a secret project I was working on before we took off for pilates.  I was able to get a few more pictures of some of the Christmas decorations around that area.

Lanterns at Banco BHD

Plaza Lama

Nativity Scene at Banco BHD

Stained Glass Nativity Scene

Flowers and Christmas Lights

I was so tired at pilates and the workout was rather hard.  Well not difficult, but just exhausting.  I did notice that my flexibility has improved even more!  That’s always exciting.  I’m really disappointed about the price increase for pilates.  I’ve really enjoyed going there.  I’ll just have to make a point of doing workouts at home now. 

Pilates Studio

When I got back home, I got a load of laundry done over at Robert and Mari’s place (I’m afraid of going into our back area, even though Pavol has assured me that there are no friends back there).  We didn’t have internet since the ladies above us had taken the router to be fixed.  Bart ended up giving me a call on my cell instead of skyping.  It was nice, but it is harder for him to understand me because he gets a weird noise on his end when he calls here.  I spent the rest of the evening tidying up my room since the landlady was supposed to pop by the next morning to inspect the place. 

I was up quite early on Wednesday since I didn’t want the landlady to arrive before I was ready.  I ended up leaving the apartment just after 8:00 – about half an hour earlier than I usually do.  As it turns out, she didn’t actually show up, but instead decided to stop by today.  The ladies from above us also brought over the new password for the internet.  Unfortunately, there was an error in it and Pavol couldn’t get it to work.

Then I got to work.  Since I was there early, I wasn’t surprised to find that there was no internet there either.  Often, when I get in before R, I have to wait a bit for the internet to start working – it’s like he has to turn it on or something.  I’m on a different connection than most people since my computer has to be plugged into the internet as my wireless doesn’t work here for some reason.  Instead, I put in my headphones and listened to the first disk of Michael Tomas’ Spanish.  Finally, my other coworkers started trickling in and there was still no internet.  I went to ask R about it but he wasn’t in his office.  Suddenly fear struck.  What if he is sick and I don’t have internet for the entire day!?!?  I went back to my desk and every few minutes I would unplug and replug in the cable.  Nothing.  All of my assigned work is internet based at the moment so I literally had nothing to do.  I made it till lunch time without losing my mind, which was good.  Mari and I met up at Pola.  I did pretty good by having a meal worth only RD$51 (less than $2 CAD)!

Cheap Lunch

We wandered over to Sweet Bakery for our espressos.  We sat for quite a while chatting about this and that.  Mari had had a good day so far, getting a teaching job offer at one of the private schools!  We had a really nice conversation, but eventually I felt the need to head back to work.  Again, I prayed that the internet would be back on.  It wasn’t.  I kind of wanted to cry.  What was I going to do for the next 3 hours???  It seemed as though a lot of people were in a similar predicament as there was a lot of milling around happening at the office. 

I ended up taking a carrito home because I was so tired.  When I got home, I was determined to figure out the password situation for our internet there.  I tried changing the numbers around in case there was a bit of dyslexia when it was written.  The second part of the password seemed to be a name, and it was capitalized.  I thought about it and figured if I was writing out the password which contained my name in, I might automatically capitalize my name because I’m used to it.  So I tried the password with the letter in lowercase and sure enough, it worked!  Hurray!  The rest of the evening was quite relaxing.  I could have gone to bed at 7:00 but figured I should stay up and chat with mom and with Bart and then go to bed after that.  So that’s what I did. 

This morning, the landlady did come over.  I had to let her in the door and she seemed not very pleased about this.  I’m not sure why.  I tried to be very polite, saying good morning, asking her how she was, inviting her in, but I just got a cold good morning back from her.  Luckily Pavol came out and took over from there.  So once again, I was off to work early.  Instead of walking down to the metro station to catch a carrito, I just went to the park by the apartment.  I should have gone to the metro though since it took a really long time to find a carrito that wasn’t full.  I wandered over to Sweet Bakery and passed by a drowned r*t in the gutter by the Red restaurant.  Eeew.  I also passed A on the way to the bakery.  He was still standing outside the office when I returned and kind of chuckled at me carrying in my breakfast. 

My worst fears came true when I turned my laptop on.  No internet.  Again.  2 days in a row.  I had meant to bring a book with me today, just in case, but my dealings with the landlady distracted me and I forgot to.  But at lunch, I picked up a copy of “Prevention” to occupy me for the afternoon – and as an added bonus, a way to practice my Spanish comprehension!  Prior to leaving for lunch, I wanted to get a picture of the office Christmas tree.  When I went down to the reception area I asked the receptionist, “Puedo hacer una foto?” which means, “Can I make a photo?”  But because I screw up a lot with Spanish, she figured I meant Puede – which changes to, can YOU make a photo?  So she took my camera and made me stand by the tree.  But the battery was low in my camera so that didn’t happen.  Then a visitor came in the door so I just pulled out the blackberry and took a picture that way.  But the receptionist didn’t think this was good enough, so she made the visitor wait while she took a picture of me in front of the tree.  I was kind of embarrassed.  Okay, I was a lot embarrassed.  Anyway, the picture is alright.  As you can see, I have sleepy eyes and a wicked “gringo pose”.

Gringo by a Christmas Tree!

We finally got internet back at the office about 9 minutes before I was supposed to leave.  Sigh.  I took a carrito home because I was too tired to walk again.  When I arrived at the apartment, I turned on my computer in the hopes of sending all of the emails I had written up in Word at work and posting my blog.    But there was no internet at home.  Luckily I have two amazing neighbours who let me come over to use their internet.  They even fed me some bruschetta.  I will be sad to not have them next door after this weekend.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

First of all, an apology.  I neglected my blog for a bit longer than I like to without having an actual reason to do so.  That being said, it was a fairly busy week!

It all began last Monday, and being back at work after vacation.  It seemed as though I was missed as I got a lot of "KIERSTIN!" at the office.  When O came in, he said right away, "Oh good, you're back, I tried calling you!"  Uh oh.  In the end it turns out that he had wanted some advice on his impending move to Canada.  At least it wasn't work related.  It was nice to be back at the office and I got stuck with a lot of work.  Some of it was interesting, at least for a while, and the other stuff, well not so much.  I ended up spending a lot of the week doing research on poultry farming.  Random.  I met up with Ozumy, Marola, Robert and Mari for lunch at KFC.  I haven't eaten there in a long time!  We also grabbed some ice cream at Wendy's on the way back!  Mmm...

On the way home from the office, I met up with Mari and Robert at Nacional.  A few exciting things happened there.  First of all, we saw something that was ridiculous but because it was ridiculous, I had the urge to buy it.  I resisted though.

Vodka wrapped in faux fur.

Then I found star fruit for RD$20 which is less than $1 Canadian!  Amazing!  And they tasted way better than the ones we get at home!

Cheap Star Fruit

Then I decided it was time to start getting into the Christmas spirit, and what better way to do that then by buying a festive box of tissues!

Christmas Tissues

The three of us decided to make dinner together.  Rather, I made some pasta and Robert and Mari made some bruschetta.  It was nice to sit and have a meal together.

On Tuesday, I was supposed to meet up with Lostania at lunch to go over some of the things that need to be done for the mentoring process.  She ended up having to stay at school longer than planned, so I called up Mari to see if she was interested in a late lunch.  Luckily, I caught her just as she was heading out the door to get some food.  We met up at Sweet Bakery and had giant salads!  In the evening, we went to pilates.  We both had to pay our November fees and that's when we found out that starting in December the monthly rate is increasing from RD$1000 to RD$1300.  Unfortunately, this means pilates is now unaffordable.  In addition to the increased rate, our usual ride home from Sylvia will be no longer since she is moving back to Wales in December.  Since the taxi costs us RD$150 each night, plus the RD$40 for carritos to the studio, we're looking at a total cost of RD$2220 per month, each.

I was able to meet up with Lostania for a late lunch on Wednesday.  We went to Emparedado for some sandwiches and had a nice chat.  I was also quite happy to finally get paid on Wednesday.  It was only 2 days late, but still.  I mean it shouldn't be late at all.  I miss direct deposit.  In the evening, we went over to Sylvia and Arturo's place.  It was a bit difficult to find but eventually we saw Sylvia standing out on the street outside the house.  Gerardo, Paula, Yeimy and Pavol were on their way as well.  They were a bit lost so Sylvia was on the phone with them and had them honk so that we could figure out how close they were.  It was rather amusing.  We were originally supposed to have a movie night but ended up playing Cranium again.  I was on a team with Arturo and Pavol.  We sort of won.  By that, I mean, when we called it a game, we were one card away from the win, and no one else was in the middle section yet.    It was nice to have the gang all together again.  It's been awhile since we've done that.  It was a really late night though which set me up for extreme exhaustion for the rest of the week!

I had another late lunch with Mari on Thursday.  Just as she was about to leave to meet up with me, the Gas Guy showed up to look at their gas tank.  Luckily my lunch hour is flexible so I was able to chill out at work and wait for her to finish up at home.  We decided to go to Pola, and while I was waiting there for her I saw a kind of funny sight: a motorbike with about 10-15 plastic lawn chairs piled up on the back.  I really wish I was able to get a picture of that.  Mari and I also saw a monk at lunch time too, as we were heading over to Sweet Bakery, dressed in the awesome brown robe.  I was so tired after work but I still managed to drag myself to pilates.  More and more businesses and other areas of the city are getting all of their Christmas decorations up.  Judging from the sheer amount of lights that are put up, I fear that there will be more power shortages in December!  This is at one of the big banks.  From the other side, their giant nativity scene is visible.  

Christmas lights at Banco BHD

Mari and her socks to keep her warm at pilates

I left work a bit early on Friday to meet up with Adaica.  She was taking me to see the apartment in which David had been living in before he left.  The apartment is quite close to where I currently live.  In the mornings, it will be a slightly shorter walk to where I go to catch the carrito, but a longer walk home in the evenings.  The lady was very nice.  She lives there with her young daughter.  She is a music teacher and had opera on in the background when we arrived.  I knew right away that I would like her!  The apartment is small but quite nice.  It has a modern kitchen which I enjoy.  The room that she has for rent is affectionately known as the "Princess Room."  This is because there are princess murals on the walls and the bed is in a princess type shape (I can't remember if it is like a flower or a crown or what).  It's cute and while not really my style, I can deal with it for 3 months.  There is also a TV in the room with cable which excites me a lot since I never get to watch TV here and I really want to watch more shows in Spanish to help me learn!  So, I said I'd take the place and decided to move in this coming weekend.  I'm so relieved to have a place to live!  I'm also nervous and a bit excited too.

After viewing the apartment, we headed back to the current apartment so that I could get changed out of my work clothes.  Then Adaica, Robert and I headed over to the AIESEC office since the trainees were having a meeting with the MC team.  The meeting went well and afterwards many more AIESECers and other friends showed up for "Russian Night."  Sasha had prepared several dishes for us to try and a St. Petersburg shot (vodka, grenadine and tabasco).  She also did a short presentation on Russia and had us learn a few words in Russian.  We also had the opportunity to meet two of the interns that are in the other city, San Francisco de Macoris.  At the party, we got some bad news about our Saturday plans.  We were supposed to go to 27 Charcos but because multiple cholera cases had surfaced in the Dominican, they were advising us not to go since the chance of ingesting water is fairly high when you're jumping into waterfalls...  We're all wondering if someone is trying to make it clear to us that we shouldn't be going on that trip!!

Robert and Mari

The party.  And Mari.

Since we were no longer going up north, I went into work on Saturday morning.  As I do every morning, I wandered over to Sweet Bakery before heading into the office.  While I was walking, a gray car pulled up beside me and someone did the sssssst ssssst thing at me.  For some reason I actually turned and looked.  It was A, the driver from work.  He asked me where I was going (he seemed confused, since I have to pass the office to go to the bakery), and I replied, "Sweet Bakery," and pointed up ahead. He seemed confused by this but realized that I wasn't going far.  I added in, "tengo hambre" (I'm hungry) to make sure he understood me.  We waved goodbye to each other and then I carried on my way.  It was J's birthday so once I found out I made a point of saying Happy Birthday to him.  He was very happy that I did so!  After work I picked up a few groceries and headed home to have a nice nap.

That evening, Mari and Robert invited Pavol and I to go to the movies with them.  We went to see Social Network.  It was actually quite good!  That and I was happy to have some popcorn.  Mari is always cold (I don't understand this at all!) and had brought along socks and a blanket to the theatre.  I'll admit that by the end my feet were a tad cold but still.  After the movie, we headed to the colmado for some drinks and sandwiches.  They messed up my order though and gave me a sandwich with only cheese instead of tomato and cheese.  Oh well.

Me, Pavol and Robert with a giant coke outside the theatre

Umm Yumm Yuumm

Cute new Presidente bag for the beer

On Sunday, everyone went to the beach.  I decided to stay home since I wanted to get some cleaning and packing done plus I had plans to skype with Leslie earlier on in the day, and an early date night with Bart later on.  A fairly low key day overall but I definitely needed the time to myself.  Plus it rained a bit that day at the beach anyway, so I didn't miss out on much.

Another Rat Encounter

On Sunday, I spent the day around the apartment, doing laundry, catching up on emails, unpacking, etc.  Pavol was in Bayahibe for the weekend and Robert and Mari had went to the beach for the day, so it was just me.

About 2 weeks ago, Pavol told me that he saw a rat clinging on to the wire mesh that covers our back gate area.  I thought this was odd and pondered whether or not he was crazy.  Regardless, we kept the door between our kitchen and the back area closed ever since.  We had also noticed that a hole was forming at the bottom of the mesh.  Also not a good sign.

So, back to Sunday.  I had done a load of laundry which meant I was in and out of the back area with the door open for most of the morning.  Once all my clothes were hung up and drying, I closed the door nearly all of the way (It gets stuck about 2 inches from actually closing and to fully close it, you have to give it a good hard shove).  Then I went and sat down at the dining table to do some more work on my laptop.

All morning, our landlady and a couple workers had been cleaning up the yard, removing trees, garbage, etc.  I thought they had finished but was still hearing some noise that was coming from behind our kitchen.  I thought perhaps they were fixing the mesh that had gotten the hole in.  I walked over to sneakily check out what the guy was doing, but when I went to peek through the opening in the door between the kitchen and the back area, my eyes were drawn downward.

There sat a rat.  A fat rat.  Just looking at me.  I had a brief moment of shock and just stared back at it.  Then it dawned on me that there was a fat rat IN my house.  I quickly slammed the door shut as hard as I could.  It was then that I noticed what the noise was.  The rat had been chewing away at the edge of the door and the door frame, leaving a good sized pile of wood chips.  The space that was left when I had not fully closed the door was just a tad too small for it to get through so it was trying to eat its way through.

For those of you that aren't aware, where I come from (Alberta), we don't have any rats.  In fact, when a rat is found in our province, it makes the news and is promptly removed from the province (see links at the end).  So I have no experience with rats.  What a day to be home alone.

I went back and sat at the table and pondered what I should do.  Should I make sure it is out of the back area and then try to block its entry through the mesh hole?  Should I get a rat trap?  Rat poison?  I tried calling Manuel, since he lives the closest.  No answer.  Then I tried calling Pavol to see if he had already discussed this with the lady and to get his advice on what he wanted to do.  Call couldn't be put through. Next closest person: Maria.  Maria was available.  Of course, I hadn't talked to her since I got back from vacation so I felt bad when I had to say, "so Maria, there is a reason I'm calling..." She was extremely helpful (like usual!) and told me that she would ask her mom (a veterinarian) what was the best type of poison/trap and get back to me.  She called me again after a bit to tell me that she was going to the grocery store later and she would pick something up there since the best type would depend on what was available.  Ok good.

So I went back to my work on the laptop.  A little while later I heard the noise again.   The rat was back to eating at the door (even though it was now closed fully).  I tiptoed into the kitchen and could hear the rat gnawing away.  I figured it would be best to scare it for now so that it would quit doing damage to the apartment.  So I kicked the door really hard and loud.  I heard it scurry away.

Even though I was finished my computer work, I decided to stay out in the dining area so that I could hear if it came back.  About half an hour later it did.  I tiptoed over again and scared it off again with another giant kick to the door.  More scurrying.

Finally, Maria called to say she needed to know whether I preferred to set out a trap with some food in or to set out some poison that would kill it and any other rats within a few days of ingesting it.  I didn't want to have to deal with a rat stuck in a trap, so I opted for the poison.  When she arrived, we slowly opened the door and put the poison out.  While Maria guarded the door I took down all of my clothes that were drying so that I wouldn't have to go back into the area.  We closed the door up tightly and went to wash our hands.

I remained in the dining area for the rest of the afternoon and early evening but I never heard the rat come back.  Then the guilt started setting in.  I was a murderer.  I know it is a rat, but I'm a big softy for animals.  My image of the rat staring at me earlier kept getting more cartoonish.  Suddenly I was envisioning a nice rat like the one from Ratatouille.  I was thinking about how the rat probably had a family and friends, and you know, it was just hungry; starving even (I mean come on, it had eaten through wire mesh and part of a door!).  Then the other side of my conscience said, "yeah but it is a rat and no matter how bad you might feel, you had to do it."

I'm going to be able to handle just about anything after this year!




Related Links:
History of Rat Control in Alberta
Canada Province Rat-Free for 50 Years
Rodent Gets Free Flight from Rat Free Alberta to Vancouver

Turks & Caicos Vacation!

Well, despite the hurricane messing with our travel plans, the trip to Turks & Caicos turned out to be very enjoyable!

I left Santo Domingo on Saturday afternoon.  Don Pedro came to pick me up around 11:30am and took me  to the airport.  There was a bit of confusion with American Airlines over the flight switch, but it all worked out fine.  I was quite happy to go through immigration without being charged for staying more than a month in the country!  It seems that here, my visa does mean something!  The difference between the tourist airport (Punta Cana) and the regular airport (Santo Domingo)?  I was also rather amused by the fact that the plane was full of Americans, many of which were here as missionaries.  The lady working at the Dominos Pizza by my gate seemed quite pleased that someone (me) was actually speaking in Spanish to her.  I also received my first US $1 coin - it looks fake.  When it came time to board, I handed over my boarding pass and passport, and then the lady gave me back my passport and took my boarding pass over to another attendant who then took me to the side and put me in a lineup for a full search.  Now I understand when this happens at security, but I was a little bit surprised to have this happen in the walkway between the gate and the plane.  Everything was taken out of my backpack and purse.  I even had to take the lens off of my camera and show her the insides.  Intense.  Of course, I got the full pat-down too.

On my flight, I sat beside a lady and her son.  It appeared as though this was his first flight.  Unfortunately, it was not a good "first flight" to have.  The entire trip was full of turbulence.  So much so that the flight attendants couldn't even bring the beverage carts out until we were nearly at Miami.  The landing was a bit of fun too.  The plane swayed back and forth as we approached the runway.  The poor little guy beside me didn't seem to enjoy this too much.  My connection in Miami was quite short and the trip from my arrival gate to my departure gate took quite a while.  At one point, I even had to go outside the airport and then walk around to another entrance just to connect.  On the flight to Providenciales, I sat beside a nice couple.  The wife chatted away the entire flight about random things.  Our landing for the second flight was rough.  The plane touched down hard.  So hard that we bounced up and hit again.  People shrieked, and all of us had our hands pressed against the seat in front of us since the pilot was braking so hard.  When we were getting off the plane, I overheard the pilot having to explain the landing issues to a few unimpressed passengers.  The baggage seemed to take forever to be unloaded, but finally it was and off I went to find a taxi.  It was quite nice to not have to be bombarded by taxi drivers shouting, "taxi? taxi?" but rather to be met with airport staff politely asking where I was headed to and then finding a taxi who was going to that location.  I was the only one at that point heading to our hotel, so it was just me and the driver.  We chatted a bit about Hurricane Tomas and he said that they barely noticed it.  There were a few areas he pointed out where the water had built up a bit, but that's it.

When I arrived at the reception, the front desk lady thought I was the one who another group was waiting for.  In the end, I got it straightened out and had her call to mom and dad's room to let them know that I had arrived.  Then a man who I soon came to know as Oscar asked me if I was meeting my fiance Bart.  It was one of those situations where it is best to not get into the technicalities so I replied, "yes, that's right."  Apparently Oscar was the one that had taken Bart to the room when he arrived.  We saw him several times while we were there and he always had a big smile and a hello for us.  Although, his smile made him look like Mike Tyson... Anyway.

The four of us went for a quick bite to eat at the hotel's restaurant.  They had a special that night that was a salad with baked brie.  Of course, I had to have that!  It was really windy still that evening since the remnants of the storm were still around.  It was very nice, however, to be hanging out with Bart, mom and dad.

View from our balcony

On Sunday, we ate the Sweet Bakery pastries that I had brought with me for breakfast and then headed down to take a look at the beach.  It was still a very windy day and the waves were quite large.  We took a few pictures before heading up to the reception to borrow 4 bikes to go for groceries.  Only 3 bikes were available so we waited a little bit until the other 2 were returned.  I hadn't rode a bike in 4 years.  The last time was in Japan, and then before that... who knows.

Can you tell that it is windy?

Mom chilling by the reception

We soon found out that we couldn't buy any alcohol since it was a Sunday and that was not allowed.  The grocery store was amazing and carried so many interesting and healthy products!  For a rather small store, they had an great selection of unique items!  We loaded up all of the groceries and headed back to the hotel.  It was a nice bike ride!  When we returned, we decided to go down to the ocean, despite the wind.  We played in the waves for a bit and then relaxed on the beach chairs.  It got kind of chilly so we went up to the quiet pool and hot tub (which wasn't actually hot), and sat around there for a while before dinner.  We also got our first real interaction with the two cats that live at the hotel, they were pretty cute.  Mom and dad made a Mediterranean salad for dinner which was delicious.  After dinner we sat around and played cards.  I made some guacamole, as well, which was quickly devoured!

On the bikes with the groceries

Monday was a cloudy day so we decided to head out on the bikes again to do some shopping.  Unfortunately, some other people had taken the bikes out earlier and did not abide by the 2 hour time limit, so we ended up walking instead.  We stopped at nearly every shop along the main road by our hotel.  Mom bought a painting by a local artist at one store before we headed further down the road to grab some lunch.  We ate at a brightly colored diner.  The portions were large and the food was good - and very reasonably priced.  I opted for the tuna melt which was delicious!  We then headed onto another road to check out a craft market that one of the staff at the hotel had told us about.  On our way, we happened upon a pottery place where I found a bowl I really liked.  I was unsure about purchasing it though since I wanted to check out the craft market first.  So off to the market we went.  It was an interesting place, made up of a bunch of small shacks with essentially the same goods in each.  There wasn't a whole lot that was particularly exciting, but mom managed to buy a very cool metal lizard thing for her garden and Bart picked up a conch shell for Ola.  Since conch shells are a protected species, you can only bring them back into Canada if they have been purchased and you have a receipt.  It took quite a bit of effort to get a receipt from these guys, but eventually, we did.  By this point it had started raining.  We began to head back towards the pottery shop and then broke out into a run as it began to pour.  I ended up purchasing the bowl!  It was made by the lady that ran the shop and painted by a British lady who winters on the islands.  She is a painter for Royal Doulton.

My new bowl

When the rain calmed down a bit, we headed to the grocery store for some wine.  It was still raining when we were done there, so we sat outside at their cafe area until it was good enough to go the rest of the way.  There were several giant puddles on the road so we were careful to watch for traffic in order to avoid being splashed.  Most of the drivers were quite courteous about it though and did their best to avoid any splashing.  Bart and I watched Alias in our hotel room for the rest of the afternoon before heading over to mom and dad's suite for dinner.  In the evening, we decided to sit outside and play a game of scrabble.  Mom and dad took 1st and 2nd place.

Mom and dad's suite

Bart unimpressed with Scrabble 

On Tuesday, we had our first full day at the beach!  The day started with a delicious breakfast on the patio.

Breakfast!

It was a beautiful sunny day and for the most part, we just lazed around and read our books.  We also had some very yummy mango mojitos!

Mmm Mango Mojito

Reading!

Beautiful!

Bart and I took the opportunity to walk down the beach to see what we could see.  We went as far as a rather large house near the end of Grace Bay.  I wouldn't mind having that place.

Big house on the beach

And we finished up our evening at the beach by making a sandcastle.  It was my idea.  I have lovely memories of building ridiculously awesome sandcastles when we would go to the lake as a family.

Bart and I building the sandcastle

Entrance and bridge

The three builders

That evening, we played Monopoly.  Bart took dad and I out of the game quite early, and it looked like mom was next.  Until she came back.  It was epic.  She went from actually owing money to the other players to taking Bart's thousands of dollars.  Epic.  Sorry Bart.

On Wednesday, we decided to book a tour to go to the Iguana Island.  As it turned out, the tour also included some snorkeling.  Since none of us are big into snorkeling, we had originally planned to take a separate tour in a semi-submarine with a glass bottom to the reef, but we figured we would see how the snorkeling went and then decide after that.  So we headed up to the reception and booked the tour.  Since snorkeling was involved I figured I should get myself an underwater camera.  Mom wanted to go back to the craft market for some conch shells as well as trying to find the "National Trust" stores which were rumored to carry unique shirts.  So we hopped back on the bikes.  Mom and dad went to the craft market while Bart and I headed to Regency Village to get a camera.  Bart and I were done quite quickly and so we stopped by where the National Trust store was supposed to be.  It was still closed up so I went to a nearby shop to ask them about it.  The lady there told me that it had moved to a new location near the IGA.  I had an idea of where this was, and so when we met up with mom and dad I suggested that we bike over there.  This turned out to not be my best idea ever.  I hadn't been on that road since I arrived (and it was dark then) and thus I didn't know that the trip was actually quite long and sort of uphill.  Anyway, portions of it were a struggle but we made it to the IGA only to find out that the new store hadn't actually opened yet.  Sigh.  Also on the way, Bart saw a dead snake.  One good thing to come out of the grueling ride was that we got to see the south side of the island and Juba Point Salina.

Juba Point Salina

The remainder of the afternoon and evening was spent resting my poor legs and watching Alias.  Mom and dad were rather adventurous though and got back on the bikes and took a trip out to the east side of the island all the way to the Leeward Marina.

Thursday was our tour day so we were up early to eat a quick breakfast and meet to catch the bus to take us to the boat.  Essentially, the tour consisted of our group of four and a big wedding party.  Kind of awkward.  Anyway, we were taken out to a boat at Turtle Cove.  From there, our captain, Pringles, took us to the Iguana Island (Little Water Cay).  It is essentially a national protected area for iguanas.

Turtle Cove

Iguana Island

Iguana!

After the iguanas we headed out to one of the barrier reefs to do some snorkeling.  I was super proud of mom for the amount of snorkeling she did.  Bart and dad, on the other hand, spent the majority of the time on the boat which was too bad.  I enjoyed looking at lots of fun fish.  I'm hoping that my pictures turn out well (film).  Apparently some other people in our group saw turtles.  This made me sad since I didn't see any, but that's life.  After the snorkeling, we headed to a beach near or on Pine Cay where we were able to go seashell hunting.  Sand dollars were also a popular find here.  We ended up with a couple but they didn't make the trip home, unfortunately.

She sells seashells...

On the hunt!

Coconut!

We were dropped off at the Leeward Marina and taken back to the hotel.  After a quick lunch at the restaurant, we spent the remainder of the day on the beach again.

Mom and her book.

Sunbeams through the clouds

On Friday morning, I called dad to tell him that we would be a bit late meeting them for breakfast and he then told me that he and mom had a bit of an adventure that night.  I was intrigued.  When we got over there, I immediately inquired as to this adventure.  Turns out that at 4am, dad awoke to something on his head.  He jumped up and swatted it off, and saying a few curse words in the process.  Mom woke up and asked if he was having a bad dream and he replied that there was a lizard in the bed.  Mom quickly leaped out of bed and turned on the light to find that it was actually a frog in the bed!  More freaking out ensued and eventually they captured the frog (who at that point had attached himself to the wall) and released it outside.  Before they could go back to bed, they were sure to stuff towels under their outside door so that no more frogs, or lizards for that matter, would get in.  Too funny.  I asked them if they took a picture of a frog, but at the time mom was more concerned with just getting it out of their room.

Friday was another beautiful day, so we headed to the beach right after breakfast.  Another round of mango mojitos was enjoyed before mom and dad decided to go and do some last minute shopping.  Bart and I stayed at the beach and then decided to get some lunch at the restaurant.  Bart had another mojito with lunch which left him a little bit tipsy which was pretty amusing!  We sat around on our balcony waiting for mom and dad to get back.  Once they did, we decided to spend the next while in the hot tub before heading to the restaurant for dinner.  This time, the hot tub was actually hot!  I brought in my beach ball that I had desperately been wanting to use the entire trip but never had the chance.  Our final dinner together was very tasty and enjoyable.  Then came the tough part.  Packing and saying goodbyes.  Since my flight was leaving just before 8 am, I said goodbye to mom and dad that evening.  The customer service at the hotel was really quite excellent overall.  Anytime we were out and about on the property every staff member, whether they be a maid, gardener, bartender, would say hello and ask us how our day was.  They even called to our room in that evening to find out if we needed a taxi since we were scheduled to check out the next day.  I was floored.  Normally that's something you have to make a point of arranging with the hotel reception!

The four of us, after dinner.

I was up bright and early to catch the taxi to the airport.  I sat next to a couple with a toddler on the flight to Miami.  He was pretty tame although he kept trying to pull my headphones out of the arm rest.  We got into Miami early and I was through customs and the baggage check quite quickly, despite having to do an additional baggage scan.  This gave me time to enjoy a sub at Subway and a Pumpkin Spice Latte at Starbucks.  The flight to Santo Domingo was good as well.  This time, I sat beside a woman and her toddler.  This guy was quite energetic and active, but still well behaved considering.  And, once again, the plane was full of American missionaries.

Don Pedro was waiting for me at the airport and he quickly whisked me back to the apartment where I was greeted by Mari and Robert relaxing in their new hammock.