back from the dominican...part 1

Richie and I just got back from the Dominican Republic last night. We had a great time! All in all, it was a pretty laidback trip with no major drama or anything, but here's the play-by-play anyway.

Day 1 - Thursday night
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We took the redeye out of SFO to Miami. Lisa and Tony were flying out the same night out of SFO (via NYC to the DR, so we weren't on the same flight), so we got to the airport at about the same time and ate dinner at Subway together. The flight was mostly uneventful, other than a FOB sitting next to me (I'm always in the middle seat so Richie can stretch his legs in the aisle!) that kept putting his bare feet up on his chair, and a kid behind me who stuck her feet in between the crack of my seat back and seat bottom. So all around me, I was surrounded by strange feet all up in my face and my ass. Foot up my ass the whole trip...yeah, I loved it.

Day 2 - Friday
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I think maybe because I was so excited, I didn't really sleep on the plane very much - even Richie got more sleep than I did, which is a first since he never sleeps on airplanes! Anyway, we landed in Miami at 5am Friday and had 5 hours to kill before our next flight, so we found our gate (after a 25 minute walk to a different terminal - someone should complain to the ADA!) and I passed out in a chair for awhile before I decided to just bite the bullet and lay down on the floor in a corner that wasn't crowded (the airport was basically empty since it was 5am). I was so exhausted that I really wasn't even caring that I was sleeping on the floor of an airport!

At the point when I moved to the floor, it was starting to get a little bit more crowded. Richie and I both passed out for over an hour and when we woke up, there was no one around other than a janitor. At first I thought we missed our flight, but then we went to check the monitor and they had changed our gate back into the terminal we had started at. So after another 25 minute walk, we made it to our gate shortly before boarding.

It was a pretty uneventful 2-hour flight to the Dominican Republic from Miami. No foot up my ass that time!

We landed in Punta Cana and got our baggage.





The airport was kind of strange because on the walk from the airplane to the terminal, there were various groups playing music, basically asking for tips. Then as we got into the airport, everyone had to pause and take a picture with 2 Dominican women in pretty dresses and flowers in their hair. On the return flight home, you have the option to buy the picture for $7. Then in the bathroom, there was a lady in there handing out paper towels in exchange for tips. I definitely got the feeling that they were trying to squeeze out whatever money they could from the tourists, but not in a shady way, it was more like a poverty thing, which was definitely reinforced on the trip to the resort.

So after we got our baggage, we got loaded onto a shuttle to head to the resort. It was ridiculously hot and fairly humid, although not as bad as I was expecting. The trip took about an hour and the road was lined with tiny, rundown shacks. Some of the shacks were houses, but some had signs saying they were restaurants or banks (???). It was just a huge contrast to the resort which was totally elegant and $$$$. The road was narrow and filled with potholes. We had to drive around cows in the road and people drove like maniacs (although not as bad as in Europe!) - we had a couple close calls and there was lots of horn honking! This was actually a neat part of the trip because at least we got to see some of the island away from the resort, but it was kind of sad too to think about the disparity between the resort vs. the "real" Dominican Republic.


Anyway, we got to the resort and got our room around 2pm. The lobby area is beautiful - it's got all this marble with a bar, and a huge staircase leading down into the resort, and it's all in open air with huge ceilings and no walls. The room was a little on the small side, but the furniture was nice and clean, so all in all it was a pretty good room. We grabbed a little lunch (they were pretty much closing by the time we got there, so that kind of sucked) while waiting for the bellman to bring our luggage, but after we got our stuff, we hit the pool!


This pool was *the* best pool I've ever been to by far, and that includes Mandalay Bay in Vegas. The pool basically stretches from one end of the resort all the way to the other, and the buildings with the rooms are located along the sides of the pool. So from every room, you just have a short walk (10 feet or so) to get to the pool. Anyway, the water was a *bit* on the warm side probably from the sun and probably also because the hot tubs were directly connected to the rest of the pool. Even though the resort was completely booked up, you could always find an area that was secluded. There were at least 3 bars along the pool, and a swim-up bar.

The best was that they provide these floating mats that you can totally relax and lie down on. Sometimes it was a struggle to find a mat, but usually if you wandered around for a couple minutes you could find one. It was pure heaven, though, just laying out in the sun on the mat, floating on the water.

We also managed to find Brenna. We would go, "Is that Brenna?" every time we passed a tall blonde white girl. And finally we actually did find her sunbathing beside the pool. It was hard to tell it was her at first since she was lying down with sunglasses on, but I took one look at her toes and knew it was her (Brenna has these jacked up toes that go all in different directions and end up smashed on top of each other)! So the 3 of us hung out in the pool for an hour or so before we had to get ready for the rehearsal dinner.

The dinner was supposed to be on the beach, but it started storming in the evening - thunder and lightning like you wouldn't believe. It was amazing because it was so sunny during the day, but really quickly it just turned to cloudy and storming. You'd think it was kind of a downer but actually it wasn't that bad - I've never seen lightning like that before! And, it wouldn't be a vacation for Richie and Ally if there wasn't some kind of storm of biblical proportions...

Anyway, so the dinner got moved into one of the restaurants that's right on the beach. The food was o.k. - steaks, ribs, baked potatoes, various side dishes, fruits, and desserts. In general, at the resort, the quality of the food was just o.k., which is supposedly pretty typical of all-inclusive places. Some people complained about it a lot, but I always managed to find something decent to eat, so it wasn't that big of a deal!

The rehearsal dinner was the first time I got to see Angela and Nkem, and they both looked amazing!



Lisa and Tony finally got there during dinner (they had been delayed in NYC for several hours). After dinner, Tony and Richie went on a bus with the rest of the guys to a bachelor party for Nkem (I told Richie - "lookee, no touchie"), and Lisa, Brenna, and I went to the resort's club for Angela's bachelorette party. We stayed at the club for a little while, but the music was pretty bad (mostly reggaeton), so the 4 of us went back to Angela's suite and hung around chatting for awhile. That was the first time all 4 of us had been together since my wedding, so it was one of the highlights of the trip!

Richie and Tony finally straggled in around 5 in the morning and Lisa and I grilled them independently on what happened the night before to make sure their stories matched. They both said they ended up going back to the bus while the rest of the guys were out...uh huh, a likely story. :P