Farewell et Adieu, Home and Native Land: An Early Christmas Dinner

This weekend went by quickly but was a lot of fun.

On Saturday, I headed to work, like usual. I was also sure to not arrive as early as I had last week. After work, I met up with Maria and we walked over to Blue Mall. Blue Mall is a brand new mall that just opened that is very high end, containing the likes of Louis Vuitton, BCBG, Armani along with slightly more affordable options like Zara, La Senza and MAC. I ended up purchasing a cute shirt at Bershka and nearly bought a pair of jeans there but I decided to wait until after Christmas to pick up a pair.

Maria was also successful in finding "leather" leggings!

I grabbed a slice of pizza from Sbarro (I was disappointed though that they didn't have pasta like we do back home) and then we went and sat outside at the food court which is on the 4th floor and provides a nice view of the city. Unfortunately this was also where all the smokers went... Also inside was a faux-ice skating rink. I don't really understand how it works. Next to La Sirena, there is another, larger, one (pictured below).

After that, we wandered over to Acropolis to check out dresses at Mango. I wanted something to wear to Christmas Eve dinner with Bart's family. I tried on several dresses and found 3 that I really liked. It was really painful to be trying on winter dresses in the Dominican. It was so warm! One of my top choices was a cute gray number with beading details around the neck. It was a bit on the expensive side, but not too much over my budget. The only thing though was that it was sleeveless and thus would require a little wrap or sweater. In fact, it would have looked very cute with a little faux fur wrap. Because of that, it was just too expensive. So we decided on a nice form fitting white knit dress with very fun sleeves. I'll save the pictures of that for the actual night I have it on. It was funny to shop with Maria. She kept admiring all of the winter coats that they had. I kept saying, well if you move to Canada... you'll have an excuse to buy that! I was also amused by the fact that there are things I think about when buying a dress for a winter event that Maria has never had to think about. Besides the wrap/sweater for the sleeveless dress, another item that she hadn't thought about were tights. I asked her, so what color of tights should I wear with this? She told me that my legs looked good on their own in it. Then I said, "I agree, but they will freeze." We ended up deciding on some fancy thigh high grey/silver sock/stockings! Then it was time to head home. I took a nap once I returned to the apartment before having date night with Bart. My monopoly winning streak remained unbroken!

On Sunday, I got up early and put in a load of laundry. I didn't feel sleepy at the time, but once I started doing some other stuff around my room I got tired again. So I went back to bed for about 2 hours. Then I got back up, put in another load of laundry and decided to get ready for the day. After a quick chat with Bart, I headed out to meet Mari and Robert for a trip to the grocery store. We had to pick up some food to bring to the Dominican Christmas Dinner we were attending that night. I bought some apples, pears and grapes (which here are traditionally eaten around Christmas) to put together into a fruit salad. While I was wandering around, I noticed this. It made me giggle. Random.

When I got back to the apartment again, I did some cleaning and started packing for Christmas (I'm attempting to take as much stuff home as I can to make the final trip home in February a bit easier). I got tired again and had acquired a nasty headache, so I had another nap. I woke up just in time to throw on a dress and head over to Robert and Mari's to prepare my fruit salad before heading to dinner.

We arrived at the party shortly after 5:00, as we were told. We helped set up the tables and chairs and then we sat around and talked and waited for everyone else to show up. The event that was made on facebook said that it was from 5:00-8:00. This seemed reasonable to us since it was at an AIESEC Alumni's house and it was a Sunday night. As it turned out, dinner wasn't served until 8:05. We were all starving. This isn't too surprising as it has happened on a number of occasions where dinner isn't ready until late at night even though the event started hours earlier. Because of this, we had even called the MC ahead of time to confirm that it was starting at 5:00. Sigh. Anyway. Such is life in the Dominican. But the food was amazing. It was a traditional Christmas Eve dinner. It also felt odd to be having a Christmas dinner outside. After the event finished, Marlon, Robert, Mari and I shared a taxi home. This was when we learned that the street near the old apartment was turned into a one way street the other day! Craziness. Since we all got dropped off near the old apartment, Robert and Mari were so kind as to walk me home. Mari even lent me one of her comfy flip flops since my sandals were giving me blisters.