Beach Time! Finally!

The work day on Friday was the usual normal stuff.  I did make a decision regarding Puerto Rico though, and that was to not go.  The price had increased even more that morning and it just didn't make sense for me to still go and not be able to enjoy the visit due to a lack of money.  I decided that on my next trip to the DR I'll add on a side trip to PR, even though I was hoping to add one more country stamp to my passport before this one expires.  I spent Friday night at home, just relaxing.

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.

Cool ship kite!

Trond and Robert eating apples

Pushing out the sides a bit

And this is what I got if I just laid there

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.

One of the owners on facebook at the bar

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.

More Adventures in Public Transportation and a Gift Exchange

So not only was I locked out of the apartment on Monday night, but I was also locked out when I got home after work on Tuesday.  They were home though, and near the door, so it wasn't a big deal.  I guess they just have to get used to having another person around who may or may not be home at the same time as them.

For the most part, this week was pretty normal.  Work has been busy with a lot of small projects here and there.    A few of my highlights from the week were as follows.

On Tuesday, I got to be the person who exchanges money between carritos!  It's stupid, I know, but I was kind of excited to be sitting in F2 which meant that I passed my carrito driver's RD$100 over to the carrito driver beside us to get change. I also had a really nice lunch from Sweet Bakery, although I didn't realize how little money I had left, and spent just about all of it on this lunch.

On Wednesday, I had a nice lunch with Mari and Robert at Taco Bell.  It was a cloudy, rainy and windy day, and we ended up just sitting at the restaurant for much longer than usual just chatting since we didn't want to go outside.  I decided to walk over to Tiradentes after work to meet Robert to check out his way of going home now when he's at the bank.  We had to wait for quite a while to find a carrito, but once we did, I was very pleased to find out that the end of the Tiradentes line is about 2 blocks away from my new place!

Since we had been paid on Wednesday, Robert and I splurged on Thursday lunch.  We went to Emparedado and then to Sweet Bakery.  Instead of the cheap espressos we usually get, we got their cold caramel macchiato.  It was delicious!

Robert was at the office for most of the day due to a computer issue, so we took a carrito together after work.  We left a bit early and by the end of the carrito ride, it was just the two of us in the car.  Robert got off first and then the driver turned around and started talking to me in Spanish.  While I hate having these sort of discussions with carrito drivers, I was happy to practice my Spanish.

Robert

Carrito Driver

Driver: Is that your husband?
Me: No, he is my friend.
Driver: Where are you from?
Me: I'm from Canada, he's from Norway.
Driver: Do you work here?
Me: Yes.
Driver: You're so beautiful.  Are you married?
Me: No, but I have a boyfriend in Canada.
Driver: (something more about me being beautiful, etc.)
Me: (needing to make it clear that having a boyfriend in Canada is serious) I am only here for one year, and I already have 10 months here.
Driver: ahhhh Where do you live?
Me: I live near here, with a Dominican family.
Driver: (confused about if it is my Dominican family).
Me: No, I just live with a woman and her daughter.
Driver: ahhh
Me: donde pueda!
Driver: okay, bye beautiful, you are so lovely, goodbye, so beautiful.
Me: UGH.

Yep, good times.

On Friday, it seemed as though there was a real lack of carritos all day.  It didn't help matters that the traffic was really bad and backed up.  I ended up having to wait for one for about 15 min.  While I waited though, I got to watch this guy discuss a minor fender-bender with a police officer.

At lunch, I set off to meet Robert and Mari at Pola.  Our office is right beside one of the government ministry offices and they were having their Christmas lunch/party outside.  They had live music, people were dancing and eating and opening presents!  Very festive!

We went to Sweet Bakery after lunch, as per usual, and I ate a delicious little apple caramel bar/crisp thing.

Mari and I also spent some time chatting in English with SB Paula.  Well Mari did more of the chatting, which is typical, but it was still nice to get to know her a bit more.  Turns out, SB Paula thought that the three of us were all American.  We quickly cleared that up.

Today, I had a carrito driver who seemed to be extremely paranoid about being seen by "someone."  He kept glancing behind him and trying to hide himself from view in the car.  He turned around and talked to the other lady and I about it, but I didn't understand much other than the fact that he was trying to ask us if we saw "the car."  Very odd.  At the office, it was the beginning of our Christmas gift exchange.  Instead of calling it a secret santa, J told me that it is called something like "Little Angel."  We have to give two gifts, one small one, that is the devil gift, and then one big one that is the angel gift.  Today was the devil gift.  I was told that it could be a funny gift, but I don't know the guy who I have, so I just got some good chocolates.  I also thought that we had to leave the gift on their desk, so when I got in, I was trying to find someone to do that for me.  Then I found out, through JCL, that it actually had to be put in a box with the others and then distributed.  Great, except all the gifts in the box were wrapped up all fancy.  I mean, I had attached a nice card to mine, but I figured for this gift, it wasn't necessary to wrap it up.  They have gift wrapping at Pola, but I didn't know if it was free or not.  JCL told me that it was, so I ran over to Pola, receipt and gift in hand, to get it wrapped.  There was a pretty big line up and I saw that V was one of them.  He told me that I'd have to wrap it myself using their supplies since the old lady in front had A LOT of gifts that needed to be wrapped.  So, I did just that, grabbed some scissors and some paper, a bit of ribbon, and ta-da, I came up with this.

The entirety of Christmas events at the office has just been one surprise after another.  Not enough communication.  I didn't even know that I had to buy two gifts until just the other day!  And then today, I found out that there was a little event after work to exchange gifts.  It turned out well though.  My angel/secret santa got me some laundry soap (which everyone laughed about when I opened it... I tried not to take it personally haha) and some chocolate.   Other people got funny things too.  One of the girls in auditing got a bottle of listerine and another girl got a razor - I'm sure they tried to not take it personally too.  Robert received a mini Spanish dictionary and I think my favorite was this bright green and yellow shirt that someone got for JD that said (in Spanish), "More Dominican than Platanos." Also, there was a guy, I think one of the new auditing staff, who first offered me his seat.  He said it to me in English and when I responded in English he was surprised and said, "oh you speak English?" I was in slight shock since that isn't a reaction I have ever gotten here...   Then he asked if I was American, and I said, "no, Canadian." Then he went on to tell me how he likes Alanis Morrisette and Celine Dion. Then after I had received my first gift of the soap, he came by to tell me that the soap was really good for white clothing.  Once again, I tried not to take it personally.   He made a point of chatting with me several more times during the party.  A new admirer perhaps?

After the party, Robert and I went to his apartment so that I could grab a table runner and magnet that Gerardo had left for me.  Robert, Mari and I ended up going over and getting colmado sandwiches for lunch before heading to Zona Colonial so that I could buy a few more Christmas gifts.   After we grabbed some ice cream, I headed into one of the stores I like for Dominican gifts and when I went to pay, my credit card was denied.  I have been doing a lot of shopping lately but not THAT much.  So I will have to give them a call tomorrow to find out what is up.  Hopefully they didn't have to cancel it again, like they did earlier on this year.  For the trip home, Mari had mentioned that last time she was there she took a guagua home that ended up going down the street I live on.  I don't like guaguas and really never take them.  But I agreed since it would be cheaper than having to take two carritos.  Our guagua was insane.  First of all, the guy who takes your money and shouts out at people where they are going was a little crazy.  He kept kind of swinging in and out of the guagua and I was sure he was going to end up falling into the traffic.  The driver had a heavy foot and did some hard braking and swerving.  It all brought back memories to my first few public transportation experiences in the DR when I was sure that the public transportation would be the death of me.  We arrived sort of safely.  The guy helped me out but I still bumped my head on the top of the door.  When I was standing on the ground waiting for Robert and Mari to hop out, he said to me, "God bless you baby!" UGH.

Ants in my Purse

Yes, that is correct.  I had ants (and tiny spiders) in my purse on Friday morning.

I was sitting in the carrito when I noticed a tiny ant crawling on me.  This isn't weird, often this happens in the carrito.  So I squished it and went back to staring out the window.  A few blocks later, I noticed another one.  That's odd.  And then I looked down at my purse and saw several of the tiny ants and tiny spider type things crawling in my purse.  UGH.  So I tried to squish as many as I could without looking suspicious.  Then I realized why they were there.  I had two Daim chocolates in my purse that they had found.  UGH.  I tried to remain calm for the rest of the trip, including my stop at Sweet Bakery.  When I arrived at work, I promptly emptied out my purse, got rid of the chocolate, and then attempted to wipe it out with one of my kleenex wet wipes.  Horrible!

My new room has some of the tiny ants running around and the purse incident was enough to make me buy some ant traps.  I figured that I would try the traps first before the sprays.  Probably better for my health.  So that's what I did after lunch.  Lunch, by the way, was kind of exciting for me.  I love getting the fruit salad, but normally there is too much papaya in the mix.  And living here has taught me that I don't like papaya.  But on Friday, it was essentially all pineapple, kiwi and grapes!  Hurray!

By the end of the day I was exhausted with a headache.  I decided not to go to Romanian night as a result.  Instead, I spent the evening listening to Beethoven and reading my book.  It was exactly what I needed.  I was also able to have a chat with mom and with Bart, which was nice.

On Saturday, I ended up at work really early.  When I turned on my computer I looked at the time and thought, what, how did I get here so early??  I even slept in a bit and chatted with the girls at Sweet Bakery too.  I was in before JCL!  After work, I met up with Maria at Nacional.  From there, we headed to the place that brings in packages that are shipped to her Miami address.  Then we went to a copy shop to get some shirts printed for a few of her friends.  It turned out that they didn't have the right sizes in their own shirts, so, after a quick stop at Maria's place, we were off to Plaza Lama to get plain white shirts.  We then headed back to the copy shop and waited while they made the shirts.  From there, we walked back to Lincoln and took a carrito to Independencia, then to Zona Colonial.  Our first stop was finding the American who sells his cave drawing photos.  I had to pick up a few to take back home.  Then I picked up some more Christmas gifts, and a replacement doll for the one I had given to mom for her birthday (it ended up breaking on the flight home from Turks and Caicos).  By that point, Maria and I decided it was time for a drink, so we headed to Plaza Espana.  I was kind of excited to go there because Mari had told me that a while back, they were putting up a big tree in the plaza.  However, when we turned the corner and saw the tree, I had a good laugh.  I was expecting something beautiful and classic.  Okay, well it was classic... coca-cola classic:

The restaurant we went to had this weird deal on their menu where you could eat as much as you wanted from the sampler plates for RD$500.  The waiter convinced us to go with this.  But the servings were tiny!  The gnocchi dish had 5 gnocchi in it.  FIVE.  And then I had this dish with mashed potatoes, peppers and cod.  I finished it in about 8 bites.  Not worth the money at all.  I mean I could have had more, except, there was nothing else on the menu I wanted.  Anyway, here we are enjoying our drinks and what the tree looked like once the sun went down.

When I got back home, I was happy to be able to chat with mom, dad and Jonathan!  That's a rarity.  It was so nice though!

Today, I had exciting plans!  Maria had invited me to go with her to San Pedro to visit her mom.  Her mom had planned on making sancocho.  I got up just a bit later than my regular time and on my way out the door, I sort of met the parents of the lady I live with.  It was kind of awkward, but I just smiled, said Hola and went on my way.  I met up with Maria at Nacional, although I was a bit early so I grabbed an espresso.  Then I went to check out if Casa Cuesta was open yet.  Turns out, it didn't open till 10.  Since we needed to go there, I decided to go and have some breakfast at the cafeteria to kill time until the store opened.  That's where Maria met up with me.  We went to Casa Cuesta in search of decorations for Maria's tree at her mom's house.  We found the decorations for the tree and I also picked up a poinsettia for Maria's mom as a thank you for having me over.  We caught a carrito to Duarte and then walked to the bus station.  There is something about Duarte which I love but also which I am afraid of.  I find it fascinating to just watch people shopping and checking out what things are being sold, and at the same time, I know it is not the safest place in the city for me to be.  Anyway, once we got to the bus station, we met up with Nicole who was coming along with us.  The best part of the trip was when a guy on the bus stood up and was trying to sell these toothbrushes that folded up, so that the brush part was covered... it was so random.  He talked about how they were especially good to keep your toothbrush away from the cockroaches.  And something about not wanting to play hide and seek with the cockroaches.  It seemed as though he managed to sell a few.

When we arrived in San Pedro we were bombarded with motorconcho drivers wanting to take us to where we needed to go.  They were incredibly persistent.  Finally Maria yelled at the one that was coming up onto the sidewalk with his bike, telling him that he needed to let us pass.  He replied that he was just working, and she told him, not on the sidewalk.  It was really annoying.  Then another guy said to this other guy, in regards to the three of us sitting and waiting for a taxi, "Did they move the toy store?" Then he carried on by indicating that he was confused about where it was now since he was looking at 3 beautiful dolls right there.   UGH.  Then the other dude replied, "no they are stars that have fallen from the sky."  UGH x2

Finally the taxi came and we headed over to the house.  We were greeted at the door by Maria's mom and 3 totally fun dogs!  Maria's mom made vegetarian sancocho just for me!  The first thing I had to do when we got in was taste test it to ensure it had good flavors!  And it did!  Then I played with the dogs, drank some beer and helped Maria and her mom decorate their Christmas tree.  So enjoyable!

Soon it was time to eat!  The sancocho was really good.  I also liked it with a bit of rice in.  I even ate two servings!  MMM.

After we ate lunch, it was determined that I had to learn how to play dominoes.  So Maria gave me a quick lesson, and then her mom joined us.  We played for quite a long time.  I was doing quite good for it being my first time.  At one point, her mom was getting frustrated with me blocking her moves and she told me to go back to Canada!  It was so lovely to be sitting there, playing dominoes and drinking beer with amazing people.

It was a truly fun day.  I felt very Dominican.  In the best possible way.  Maria and her mother were gracious hostesses and I am so pleased to have been welcomed into their home!  When it was time to leave, we said our goodbyes and Maria decided to take home the 4th dog, a baby chihuahua.  So the three of us, plus the dog, hopped into a taxi to catch the bus back to Santo Domingo.