A little Anniversary get away…

We’ve been a little mia lately, sorry about that. We are alive and well, not need to worry! We headed off to the Domincan Republic-vowing not to work or even hardly open the computer! Maybe you noticed, maybe not! Anyway…

I used to be more of a stickler for things like celebrating special events on the actual day they occurred.  But over the years I have come to terms with the reality that it can’t always happen. Life happens. People have busy schedules, others have strict working environments, and I have come to see that it’s simply important that the person, event, or date gets celebrated-regardless of the execution of timing-within reason of course!

Brandon and I had a week get away planned during our actual anniversary, the 24th, but some things came up where we pretty much had to be in Haiti during that time for work. And thus, it was ‘celebrate early, or not at all’ and of course I chose early! We looked at some exotic Caribean destinations, but kept coming back to the Dominican Republic. Mainly, it is close, cheap to get to, and, well, they have a huge downtown, Santo Domingo, and all I could think about was shopping!!! I just wanted to do ‘normal’ things that I, we, have been missing so much. Things like going to the movies, going grocery shopping like normal people, going to the mall to buy anything or everything, getting ice cream, eating fast food. And so we picked the Domincan, going to the amazing beaches near Punta Cana-tossed in with a day in Santo Domingo on the way there an back to satisfy my cravings for normalcy.

It was delightful. It took about seven hours to get to Santo Domingo where we stayed one night downtown. I don’t know what I loved more-the warm shower (I realized why I was dawdling.. we have not had a warm shower for five months!!!), the amazing fast internet, the Baskin Robbins within walking distance, or the grocery store just down the street. I was in heaven. The next day we loaded up on another bus and made our way to the gorgeous coast. We happened to get a killer deal-who cares if it’s off season and the very beginning of hurricane season?- at what I would argue was one of the nicest hotels in the whole crazy mecca of tourism there. We were about 10 miles from all the other resorts, and the hotel we stayed was off by itself with a gorgeous tropical setting. Our room was only about 100ft from the beach with a full ocean view. None of the usual  ‘We have an ocean view if I stand on the balcony and lean on one foot with half my body falling over the railing’ nonsense. I’m talking full ocean baby! And they decorated our room with flowers and towels molded into creature-like on cruise ships. So fun!

Our vacations are usually more active, we like to get out, explore, and do things. But since this hotel was out on its own, with taxis being grossly overpriced, and us needing to just chill out, we decided staying put was just what we needed. Each day the only decisions that had to be made were which of the amazing, all right on the ocean, restaurants we wanted to eat at, or which deserted beach on their six miles of endless white sand and crystal clear water, we wanted to settle into.

The hotel also had this amazing aquestiran farm thing. It was a small trail that went back into a forest and had these bright aqua lagoons. We hiked in and through them and even went swimming in the crystal clear water. It was so strange and yet wonderful! Oh, and you golfers, especially you brother Ben, would have been so jealous-they have three different courses right on the water!

Okay, so we had to get out at least one day. We rented a car and drove around until we didn’t want to drive anymore and turned back. The country side was very pretty. Some areas were very similar to Haiti, and others so different you would never guess they shared the same island. There is much more industry and infrastructure there, which is seen is many ways. They do have many large cities that look just like LA-with a mix of very nice swanky areas and still have a few ghettos. Each little town in the country was different from Haiti in that many had municipal electricity, mostly paved roads, actual shops and restaurants, and were very tidy and clean.