One Week Later...

Similar to how I felt when I arrived in the Dominican, I feel like I've been here forever already.  So far, the adjustment has been good and the "reverse culture shock" hasn't been too strong.  The biggest adjustment has been the cold.  Living in 30 degree weather for an entire year, and then having to come home to -25 (-35 with windchill) was a huge adjustment.  However, I am happy to report that yesterday, it was about -14 and it felt bearable to me!  Hurray for becoming acclimatized!

The thing I miss most so far are the people.  Oddly though, I still sort of feel like I'm on vacation and that soon I will be going back.  I think I'll actually go through a much harder time in a few weeks.  Since I left, I've also gained a new friend I didn't know that I had back when I was there.  One of my coworkers just started talking with me during my last few days in the country and then sent me an amazing email earlier this week in which I learned just how much we have in common.  While it was sad to think that we could have had this friendship for longer and in person, I am happy that it was able to be discovered, regardless of the timing.

I am definitely more aware of my surroundings and how crazy we Edmontonians are to live in such a climate.  While driving over to Bart's place yesterday, I started laughing about the size of the snow piles on the lots of the houses.  I just thought about how ridiculous this would seem to most of my Dominican friends.  I made sure to snap some pictures to give you an idea.

Also, when I'm out driving with Bart or my brother (I've yet to put insurance back on my own car) I keep thinking to myself, if we were in the Dominican, we could totally run this red right now, or we could totally decide this was a turning lane... But at the end of the day, I am comforted by the order and all the rules we have here.

I've also been working hard to push myself back into my old life - but only into the parts of my old life I want to keep.  Bart and I went to the symphony last weekend, I've done a bit of shopping at some of my favourite stores, attended my first committee meeting in a year for Encore, and tonight, we went to the Art Gallery for the new exhibition opening and a lecture on Emily Carr.  I get really excited by these things, it is like the parts of me that had to be suppressed before, for survival, are able to be freed again.

I've been spending most of my days at the condo, organizing and unpacking, although it is slow going.  The job search is still happening, with more applications going out every few days.  I have also been making a lot of time for my goals, especially the cooking one.  Bart has been spoiled by lots of homemade meals and treats!

I also got my hair cut yesterday.  It feels quite different, especially after going for a year without one!  I am also taking every chance I get to drink water straight from the tap and, slowly, I am becoming less paranoid that every little tickle I feel on my arm is an ant or a mosquito.

So overall, lots of little changes, but so far, things are going rather smoothly!  It will be interesting to see what the next few weeks bring!

Carrito Gandhi and Canada Night

I usually try to leave the office right at 5, because if I leave any later I have serious issues trying to catch a carrito.  On Tuesday, I didn't leave the office until 5:10 since I had to help Robert with something.  I waited until 5:30 on Lope for a carrito and couldn't get one at all.  So I gave up, walked to Tiradentes to see if I would have better luck there.  I did, but I still didn't get home until 6:00.  However, I suppose it was meant to be, since the carrito driver was sort of unique.  First of all, he had these really nice cushions on the front seat so the ride was quite comfortable.  I looked at the driver ID hanging off his rear-view mirror and realized that the guy driving the carrito was not the guy in the ID.  Not by a long shot.  After closer inspection of the driver, I realized he looked like a Dominican version of Gandhi.  Random.  I also noticed that he was driving with his bare feet.  Also random.

The next day, in the carrito going to work, our driver pulled over into the left hand lane and stopped to talk to one of the police officers.  They seemed to know each other well, and when they went to shake hands, they just kept their hands in the shake/holding position for a really long time.  Just as I got my phone out to snap a picture (since I was in B1) they let go.  The remainder of the week was pretty blah at the office.  Robert had gone to Jarabacoa to do his paragliding pilot course and I only had a few small projects to take care of, but I didn't mind since I needed a bit of extra time to work on my Canada presentation for Saturday night.

After work yesterday, I made a big shopping trip to Pola to get all the supplies I needed for making poutine, bannock and caesars.  I wanted to make Nanaimo squares but I don't think I could have done it well with the lack of kitchen supplies available to me.  Anyway, I took all the groceries over to the MC to store them there until the evening (since I was doing the cooking there) and then went to Nacional to grab a few other ingredients (gravy mix and cheese) before heading home to finish the presentation.  I had some issues with my ride to the MC and ended up arriving late.  Mari came with me and the taxi we took got totally lost.  Unfortunately, Mari and I were busy talking and when he went down Lincoln instead of Lope, we realized a split second too late to direct him the right way.  So I figured that he was just going to go that way in order to end up on the right side of the street for the MC... but no, he had no idea where he was going.  He went into an area that I'm not that familiar with and we had to direct him out of there and back to the MC.  Insanity.  Luckily, Sasha had started cooking the fries which was a huge help.

Maria and Lorena arrived just before us and they ended up helping me cook the food (THANKS!!).  Maria took care of the gravy and Lorena helped me make the caesars.  We even had a bit of an assembly line going for the poutine.  I put the fries on the plate, Lorena added the cheese, held it for Maria to put the gravy on and then the two of them coordinated putting the dishes out.  Everyone liked the poutine a lot.  The caesars got mixed reviews - which I expected.  Some people loved them, others were like, meh.   I think a few people felt bad that they didn't like it so I made sure to tell them that I actually rarely drink them since they aren't my favorite - but I wanted to serve a drink originally created in Canada so that's what they got.

Getting ready to serve

Me talking about poutine and caesars

More of me talking

Dig in!

Maria and Lorena looking fabulous

Lorena, me and Maria: poutine chefs!

Then I made a batch of bannock and just fried it on the stove.  It was good, basic, like it should be, and everyone seemed to like it as well.

Manuel and Mari eating bannock

Everyone eating bannock!

I was about to start getting ready for my presentation - and to put on an Our Lady Peace request for Arturo - so I wandered over to where my MacBook had been sitting blasting Canadian tunes for the evening.  To my horror, someone had spilled something on the laptop and just left it there!  I was super pissed and quickly went to grab a cloth to clean it up.  Luckily, it didn't get in the keys.  And then, as I was wiping the computer off I noticed that the left hand corner on the base had a small dent in it.  Upon further inspection, I noticed that the top corners of the screen were scraped, as well as the bottom corner. So apparently someone dropped my precious baby and didn't say anything.  It still works fine but I was just really upset that someone would not even tell me that it happened.  Obviously it was an accident, but when you don't fess up, that's not cool.

It took me a bit to compose myself, which delayed the beginning of the presentation.  Eventually though, we got everyone gathered inside and I did my best to teach everyone about Canada.  One of my favorite parts was a section I entitled, "Speaking Canadian," where I taught the group some Canadian words and phrases, like: eh, double double, timbit, pop, bunnyhug (a Saskatchewan favorite), loonie and toonie.  Everyone seemed to enjoy guessing what each was (I had pictures of everything on the slide as well for them to choose from).  I also had a few objects to pass around, including a stuffed beaver, a toque and a loonie and toonie.  I finished off the presentation with a photo montage video that showed varying Canadian landscapes, cities and animals by province/territory.  Then it was question time.  I was so pleased by all of the interesting questions people asked me!  The best moment though was after all the questions were finished, Felix said out-loud, "I really love Canada."

I forgot to have someone take pictures during the presentation, so with Arturo's help, we recreated what I'm sure I looked like during the presentation.

Everyone seemed to enjoy the night a lot which made me happy and I was so glad to have been able to teach everyone about the amazing place I call home.  Thanks again to everyone who came out!

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.

Mari!

Laura and Peru

Venue

Flowers in Bloom

Marlon and Robert

Moi

AISECers!

Our table

Me, Mari and Manuel

Robert and Mari, so hungry she's eating her cup!

Yeimy is still hungry after the grapes and raisins

The "appetizer"

Food Finally!

Yeimy is happy!

My plate

A special liquor

Lostania and I

Brunost and Svele

The highlight of the past few days was definitely Wednesday.  In the morning, on the way to work, I helped Robert do some filming.  He literally filmed our entire commute to work.  He was doing this because he was supposed to prepare a video presentation of his life here for AIESEC Norway.  It was so much fun.  it made the commute kind of exciting and adventurous.  In the process we also got a picture of me with the lovely chicas from Sweet Bakery!

Me and the Sweet Bakery girls 

During the day, my main excitement came from a package that had arrived from Bart.  Inside was an adorable book he had made for me!  Wednesday was also the start of my lonely afternoons, as Robert and Mari are taking a Spanish course from 4-6pm each weekday.  So I have a few months of walking home by myself ahead of me.  In the evening, Silje and Mari came over to do some baking at our place (their stove wasn't working) for a sort of impromptu Norwegian/Guatemalan night.

Gerardo prepping his black bean dip

Robert, keeping cool...

Silje and Mari in the kitchen

Skillingsbolle

Norwegian Brown Cheese (Brunost)

Brunost with butter inside svele!

In the end, there was myself, Robert, Mari, Silje, Gerardo, Pavol, Sylvia and Manuel in attendance.  Robert and I were rather anti social though since we were working at getting the video put together.  Here's the end result:

The morning commute on Thursday seemed really boring in comparison to Wednesday.  The day was fairly normal at work.  Robert and I were both craving the Burger King chicken wrap so we decided to head there for lunch.  We were quite disappointed though, since upon our arrival, we found out that they didn't have it at that location.  Regardless, what we did end up getting was still good. When we left BK to head back to the office, we experienced a bit of a shock upon seeing something in a pile of garbage.  It was absolutely horrible and it really had an impact on me.  I was in shock the entire way back to the office and ended up having a little breakdown at my desk because of it.  And here, I was just getting over my fear of piles of garbage.  That sounds random, but my first few dead rat sightings were always in piles of garbage, so until recently, I'd still get nervous and paranoid each time I passed one.  Now those feelings are back in full force.

That evening, I went to pilates which was a really good way to get my mind off of the day's events.

Friday was a much better day.  I still didn't have my laptop back at work, and since the power was out until close to 11:00am I ended up getting a lot of reading done.  As a result, I ended up finishing The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People last night!  For lunch, Robert and I met up with Gerardo, Mari and Silje at Taco Bell.  I ordered their 7 layer nachos cause it looked really good on the menu.  When I actually got the meal I realized how incredibly small it was.  I ended up having to order an additional bean burrito just to fill myself up.  We finished off our lunch with a trip to Sweet Bakery for some coffee.  Always a great way to spend a lunch hour.

On my way home from work I snapped a few pictures:

Christmas decorations at Nacional.  It feels so weird.

Guy on a quad in the city (in front of the black car)

Today, I had to work during the morning but I am heading to Bayahibe with Robert, Mari, Silje and Gerardo for the weekend.  Should be fun!

Apparently it is October

Well September just flew by!  Not that I'm upset about that, I'm on the home stretch and tending to focus more and more on returning home. 

So on Wednesday night, Mari and Robert had everyone over for some food and drinks.  I made a caprese salad and Mari made amazing Focaccia bread from scratch!!  It was an enjoyable evening with yummy food! 

The spread at the beginning of the evening

Early arrivals

Robert eating the caprese salad

Ozumy, Mari and I

Also, that evening Bart received my anniversary gift in the mail - a photo album of our first year together!  So I ran back to my apartment for a while so that I could chat with him quickly to get his reaction, and then headed back to the party.  After I had returned, David announced to the entire group that he was moving out of our apartment the next day.  I was a bit shocked, since while I had known of his intensions to look for another place, I had no idea it was going to happen so soon.  This stresses me out a lot since with him gone, my rent increases.  I already have to be careful with my money and it is not that I can't afford the increased rent, it's just that it stresses me out a lot when I have to purposely eat for cheap and buy lesser quality (and non-imported) food, for example.  That's something I don't believe in cheaping out on.  No more asparagus or pre-washed lettuce for me!  Nope, my last splurge will be today: truffle oil.  Which I think is an okay splurge since it will for sure last me the rest of my time here and most likely will end up coming home with me!  Now I just have to learn to make popcorn on the stove.

It has been raining a lot this week so its actually quite cool outside.  Still warm, but a more comfortable temperature.  On Thursday, work was quite slow.  Lunch was with Mari, like usual.  In the afternoon, I got a call that someone was downstairs to see me.  I had a pretty good idea of what it was about.  Sure enough, Bart had sent me a lovely bouquet of roses for our anniversary.  All of the ladies at the office were extremely jealous!  I ended up having to take a taxi home just so I could transport them properly.  I once saw a lady taking flowers in the carrito and the end result was water spillage and flowers on the road. Even though I was (and still am) incredibly tired, I dragged myself to pilates.  I'm so glad I did though!  I have always had a lot of trouble with the flexibility of my hamstrings.  Pilates is great because it forces me to work on that particular flexibility a lot.  One stretch that I have particular problems with is sitting, and bending towards my feet  - especially when my legs are in the V position.  But last night, Rina (our instructor) told me to push harder, so I gave it a try, and magically I was able to grab my foot.  Wow, that sounds really pathetic.  But like I said, this is something I have struggled with for a while.  I still have memories of "Fitness Tests" in junior high and when we had to measure how far we could bend like that.  I always felt so inadequate.  It's amazing how good you feel when you notice that you've made progress with something like that.  Anyway, after pilates, Sylvia took Mari and I home, Mari gave me some guacamole and chips (mmmmm) and I spoke to Bart for a bit on Skype before heading to bed.

Rose Closeup

Gorgeous Bouquet

Today has been a decent day so far.  "Watchieman" (our "security" guard) was already at the apartment so I was able to get out without having to get Mari out of bed.  On my way to catch a carrito, I came across an adorable homeless puppy.  When I walked by him, he got quite scared and kind of skittish.  I told him that he didn't have to worry (although I'm sure he doesn't understand English) and that I wasn't going to hurt him.  He had a little bone that had a tiny bit of meat on.  While I stood and waited for a carrito, I watched the little guy and my heart just melted.  I've thought about that puppy all day today.  I just want to take him home and feed him well, love him and spoil him, take him for walks to the ocean and teach him some fun tricks.  Sigh. 

Can I keep him?

Once I arrived at the office, I walked into the area where my desk is and was hit with a blast of freezing cold air.  That's right, the air conditioning was fixed!  The maintenance guy (who looks a bit crazy and is always really excited) stopped by and asked if I could leave my area while he checked on some things with the A/C.  I figured this was going to be quick so I just wandered over to J's desk and did some reading on my BB.  Well, it wasn't a quick thing, so once I found out that Robert didn't have time to meet at Sweet Bakery, I headed on over by myself to get some coffee and breakfast.  When I returned, they were still checking it out.  The three of us, O, J and myself, were all so pleased that we no longer had to work in the sweaty, smelly environment of the past couple of months.

Gerardo and Paula came to pick me up at lunch.  They wanted to check out Sweet Bakery, so we went there so they could try it out and we could wait for Mari.  Once Mari arrived, the four of us went to IKEA for lunch.  I was kind of surprised by how busy IKEA was.  On our way out, they had given us some free brewed Swedish coffee.  We were joking about where Swedish coffee actually comes from, so when Mari was paying for a couple things she grabbed on the way out, I went into the food store to find out the origin of their coffee.  While there, I saw a wall of Absolut Vodka.  Alcohol in IKEA never gets old. 

Absolut in IKEA

Tonight is officially girls night.  Unfortunately, my body will probably kill me if I went out, so I'm going to stay in and get to bed early.  This week has been brutal because of my lack of sleep.  Mmm sleep...