On Saturday, I was up early to head to work. Robert and I had a sit-in breakfast at Sweet Bakery which has become a rarity as of late. A few hours later, we received a call from Ozumy, saying that she was nearby and was wondering if we wanted to go to Sweet Bakery with her. Since Saturdays are usually quite slow getting going, we were able to sneak out for 15 min to see her. Once the day did get going though, we were very busy and ended up having to stay late just to get enough of the projects finished. This caused delays with our next plan: meeting up for lunch at Paninoteca. Mari and Robert's friend Trond were patient and waited for us to finish. As luck would have it, Maria (who we were also planning on meeting for lunch) ended up having to run an errand that was taking her longer than she had planned. The unfortunate part of that was that she ended up not arriving until after we had finished eating. Anyway. So Robert, Mari, Trond and I walked over to the restaurant and had some sandwiches. They weren't super impressed with the place - I, on the other hand, love it. Trond and Mari had purchased some wine before meeting up with us, and Trond had to show us the bottle he found for RD$100: La Fuerza.
Maria and Nicole showed up just as Robert, Mari and Trond were getting ready to leave. I stayed with them as they ate their lunch and I ate some nutella gelato!
After lunch, the three of us headed to Maria's place so that we could drop off a few things, including Nicole who wanted to sleep, and also pick up a few things. Then Maria and I went over to her friend Lorena's place as Lorena was selling Maria her old blackberry. When we arrived, we were greeted by the entire family, including grandma and a cute dog! We sat and chatted for a bit and Lorena's mom decided that I didn't know enough Spanish. Maria defended me, saying that I understand more than you'd think. It was funny. Lorena and her sister were planning on going to the salon to have their hair done. Since that was also part of Maria's plan for the day, I said that we could forego a trip to Blue Mall and go to the salon instead. So Lorena's mom drove us there, however, on the way we had to stop at Maria's again so she could pick up her shampoo and other hair products. I was left in the car, and the mom decided that she was going to test my Spanish by having a conversation with me. I did quite well, I think, although got confused once when she asked where I lived - as I thought she meant where I lived in the city but she meant it as in where I lived in my country. I guess she thought I was American so I had to clarify that I was actually from Canada. Anyway, it was pretty funny.
At the salon, I decided to get a manicure and pedicure. I mean, why not? I was actually done before Maria.
Then Maria and I wandered over to the Orange store on Tiradentes so that she could activate her blackberry. She was so excited - it was super cute! We both had to stop by Nacional to pick up a few things so we walked over there, got what we needed, and then found a table to sit at so that I could help Maria get her blackberry set up. After that, I headed home and spent the rest of the night having Date Night with Bart. After I whooped him in Monopoly we decided to play Chess since I'm kind of wanting to learn the game and such. The first time we played, I think I made it 13 moves, which was short of my goal of making it 15. So we played again, I improved a lot, and Bart made a few mistakes. Our game lasted 42 moves. He did end up winning though which wasn't surprising. I learned a few new things that I didn't know - like being able to switch around the Rook and King - which Bart had done and I responded with WHAT? How did you do that!?! Then we played Dominoes. The game online has different rules than the ones I learned here in the Dominican, but I still managed to dominate the game.
On Sunday, I was up early to meet Mari, Robert and Trond at La Cadena before we went to the beach. I was so excited to wake up to sunshine. I haven't been to the beach since Turks and Caicos in November, and it shows! While I waited for the three of them to pick up some food, I stood and watched one of the employees cleaning the glass with Windex and newspaper, which apparently is a good way to clean glass but I don't understand how it doesn't get all ink-smeary.
We caught a taxi to the bus station and then waited for their other friends, Trygve and Silje. They had a few issues getting there since the taxis kept wanting to take them all the way to the beach. But it all worked out and we had a nice bus ride out to the beach. Before we stepped onto the sand, we made a quick stop at the store. I had some ice cream and a coffee. Breakfast of champions.
The beach was nice and quiet for the first while. I did a bit of reading, tanning, napping and even played some Frisbee. Later on in the day, I tried out Robert's new hammock. If I didn't keep my arms outside of it, it just wrapped right around me.
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| Cool ship kite! |
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| Trond and Robert eating apples |
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| Pushing out the sides a bit |
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| And this is what I got if I just laid there |
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| Presidente in the cocoon |
When it was time to head home, we ended up deciding to eat near the beach, since the three of us girls were not dressed appropriately for going out to one of the restaurants in the city. We all had a hankering for Mexican and Mari and Silje had asked some locals if there was a Mexican place. Turns out there was. We passed by it the first time since it was actually a sort of combination of American, Italian and Mexican cuisine, judging by its signage. However, we decided it was worth a shot so we headed in.
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| One of the owners on facebook at the bar |
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| 3rd picture is weird and creepy and they didn't actually have pizza |
We were the only ones in the place that seemed to be run by a foreign family with one Dominican waiter. I had ordered a chinola juice to drink and when it arrived, it tasted a little off. I had Robert and Mari taste it just to make sure it wasn't just me and they agreed that it tasted a bit fermented. I took it up to the bar and told the lady that it was a little bit fermented and didn't taste good. She promptly told me that I was wrong, to which I replied, no, it is not good. I requested that I get an iced tea instead. The extent of the Mexican on the menu was 4 options, a variety of tacos/burritos. Everyone got the burrito except for myself (pasta) and Trond (chicken). We ended up waiting over an hour for our food, which was utterly ridiculous. The family that owned the place were kind of weird as well. The main lady was wandering around in sweat shorts and a t shirt making kind of loud calls on her cell phone. There were kids running around too but they were fairly well behaved.
When the food finally arrived, we were all disappointed. My pasta tasted as though someone had taken a can of stewed tomatoes, blended it up, and added some salt and pepper. I paid RD$250 for it, which, again, was utterly ridiculous. The burritos were not much better, apparently.
By the time we had actually eaten, it was nearly 9:00 pm. I had texted Maria to find out how late the buses ran and she thought it was either until 8 or 9. So, we decided that we'd have to just get a taxi to take us back to the city. We had one of the family members at the restaurant call us a van taxi, and while we waited, we debated how much it should cost us. A regular car taxi trip between Santo Domingo and Hemingway is RD$1500. Since it was a van and it was later at night, we figured RD$2000 was reasonable. The taxi driver wanted RD$2600, which we were not okay with. We asked the guy who had called the taxi for us how much it should cost. He said US$55 (RD$2035). Robert got the guy to go with him to bargain with the taxi driver. We had originally wanted two stops (the first in Zona Colonial for Trygve and Silje, and then the second in our area) but the driver ended up saying that he would do one stop for $2250 and two stops for $2600. Since we can get from Zona Colonial to our area for RD$150, the choice was easy: one stop.
The ride back was decent, I sat and talked to Trond about lots of random things, including cars and dogs. We passed a bad accident on the road. All the windows were shattered and the car was facing the wrong way, sitting on its right side with the roof against the barrier in the middle of the highway. It didn't look good. There were tons of Dominicans gathered around, and a semi stopped so traffic got a bit backed up. Once we arrived in Zona Colonial, we said goodbye to Trygve and Silje and then went to find a taxi to take us to our place. Of course, the first guy we talked to wanted RD$200. It's so annoying when they do this. We told him, that we knew the cost was only RD$150 and he assured us that we were wrong. We said fine, we'd find someone else. And we did.
At lunch yesterday, Robert and I went to Taco Bell. He tried out their new deal which was two flat-bread chicken tacos, a regular taco, fries and a drink for RD$150. I had the 7 layer burrito, small nachos and a drink for RD$210. Obviously one of us got a better deal... In the evening, Delaine wanted to talk to me and she told me that someone was coming today to fix the hot water tank. THANK GOODNESS! I haven't written about it because, you know, complaining is annoying, but we've been without hot water for the last week and a bit. This did mean though that I had to tidy up my room since the hot water tank is in my closet. Not that it was messy, but just put away more personal things that I don't need some random plumber checking out. Oddly though, this morning, when I went to shower, there was no water in the shower but we did have water from the sink. I'm not sure how that happened.
La Fuerza: Cooking wine, not for drinking...
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