Thursday, March 26, 2009
Our last full day at the resort! Tomorrow we check out around 7:40 am, and the bus picks us up at 8:30 am for our 12:30 pm flight. The day dawned bright and sunny, and we were early to breakfast – around 8 am. We sat on the patio and got Rosa, the waitress who really likes us (although Torsten is really mean to her and always frowns when she tries to talk to him). Actually, all the staff have been really nice to us; the Dominicans generally seem to be a friendly lot and really seem to like children.
Breakfast was the same old food, minus some of the things I normally eat, like the tinned peaches. Sunny and her family also came in for breakfast and sat on the patio, and as we were leaving, she asked us where we were going. Then she TOLD us where to go – we should go back to our room, change into our bathing suits, and then meet them at the little pool. During this speech, her mother just covered her eyes with her hand. We met Marty and Erin coming up the path to have breakfast, and Torsten went to meet them, but Erin ran away, and eventually buried her head in her mother’s skirt. Marty listened to what she had to say, and then told us that Erin said that she was too sad to talk to Torsten! Hopefully she’ll be more cheerful later.
When we got back to the room, Torsten didn’t want to get changed, and put up a fuss about getting his bathing suit on. Ingo decided to take the opportunity to go see if Glenn was waiting for us at breakfast (since we hadn’t told him we were having an early breakfast), and when he returned, informed us that Glenn had asked Rosa if we’d eaten already. In the meantime, I had managed to get Torsten sunscreened and into his bathing suit by asking him if he thought he could get his clothes off by himself. We then went off to the Kids’ Club. As we walked there, we saw Glenn on the beach, and I went to talk to him. Turns out that the only time that they do the raffle with the certificates to win a trip back to the resort is on Friday, so Glenn is out of luck. Now he has a bunch of certificates that he can’t use because the auction for souvenirs was last night – so he’ll end up giving them away to someone. That Glenn!
Torsten puttered away happily at the little sandbox for a while. There was a little girl there who played with a really miserable face, and didn’t seem to want to play with Torsten at all. After a while, we suggested a change of scene, and Torsten decided he wanted to walk on the big sandbox. So we strolled along the beach, stopping along the way to wave some badminton rackets around. We wound up by the marina with the small sailing catamarans (which were beached, as the flag was red), and Torsten climbed across all three. Then we walked up to the little wading pool where Sunny was splashing around with some other kids.
Although Torsten played in the wading pool a little while and went in the big pool with Ingo, he was quite tired, and spent a lot of time sitting with me on the deck chair and eating popcorn. I had a nice chat with Sue, Sunny’s mother, who had apparently been born and raised in Hong Kong until she was a teenager! She’s Jewish, as it turns out, and has travelled extensively in Asia, so we talked about that. A photographer came around and took some pictures of the kids, but Torsten didn’t seem to want his picture taken, and came to sit with me. The photographer (Nestor) then took a bunch of photos of me with Torsten, and then took some of Torsten with Ingo – I think he sensed a sale. At any rate, we’ll take a look at the photos when they’re at the digital photo shop in the main building tonight, and see whether there are any we want to buy.
Because Torsten was drooping, we took him back to the room to see whether he’d fall asleep before lunch again. He did, but was very restless, so after a little while, he woke up and was upset. Ingo took him in his arms to sleep, thus putting paid to any packing we might have done during the nap. However, this early nap does mean that we have some more time in the afternoon to enjoy the resort!
When Torsten woke up, he didn’t want to leave the room, and it took some time to persuade him to go out. By that time, the World Café was close to being closed, so we decided to head down to the Oceana Restaurant, which was open till 4 pm. However, Torsten had no interest whatsoever in going into a restaurant, so instead we went to the Barefoot Grill on the beach and picked up a few burgers and nachos to eat in the Kids’ Club. Torsten played there for a while, and then it began to get towards closing time (5 pm), so we began to pack up. Over the fence, we saw Glenn on the beach, starting to play a game of beach volleyball with a pretty girl (turned out to be Natasha, the girl he’d been interested in), and people who looked like her family. I yelled that it wasn’t, perhaps, the BEST activity for a healing broken ankle, and he yelled back that he could stay in one spot and just hop if he needed to move – and then began hopping on one foot ostentatiously. Sigh.
After a short walk on the beach (Torsten wanted to join in the volleyball game, but we dissuaded him), we started heading back up the path, as I wanted to see how the pictures from earlier today turned out. However, we were sidetracked when we passed the little wading pool and saw Sunny and her parents, as Torsten said, “Want to go there! Yes, I do!” So he splashed around there for a little bit, until we told him it was getting late, and we should get going. As we had brought dry diapers with us, we changed him into dry clothes then and there and went up to the main building, where we looked at the pictures. They were really good, so we bought them (on CD and 10 6x9 prints). Then we settled down to wait for Glenn for dinner.
While we were waiting, Ingo was approached by a manager and invited to go to the wine tasting that was set up in the lobby. He took a look at the wines, and they looked good, so he went. Torsten and I, meanwhile, watched some Teen Titans on my BlackBerry. After a bit, Torsten became a bit bored with them, so we played in the chair. Suddenly, we noticed that a strange and dour family had joined us in our chair grouping. The father had sat in the seat across from me, and looked like he was glaring, although he was probably watching the photo slideshow on the monitor behind us. Torsten hid behind me. Thankfully, the mother soon showed up and they went into dinner. Glenn showed up shortly thereafter, and we had dinner as well. Rosa saw us come in, and told the usher to seat us in her section, which was nice. Dinner was uneventful, and after we were done, we went back to the room to pack.
Packing didn’t take very long, and now we’re watching TV. Tomorrow, we’re flying back to Canada – and I for one say hooray!
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Not a very exciting day
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
When we woke up in the morning, it was pouring with rain. Fortunately, we are able to get from our building to the World Café by way of covered pathways, so it didn’t really affect us much – and we could see some blue sky in the distance, so it didn’t look as though the day would have to be spent inside. By the time we had finished breakfast, the sun was out (hopefully the sun was also shining on Glenn and his excursion!). A man with some parrots walked through the lobby, and one of the parrots pooped (Ingo says it’s my secret power, to make birds poop, since the flamingoes always do when I’m there), so he put them down on a wall while he cleaned it up. Torsten stopped to look at them, and had a lot of fun pointing out what they were doing. Suddenly, he said, “What’s he eating?” We had no idea – maybe a leaf? When the man came back, he hit the bird upside the head, and it spat out a rock. It was so funny, watching the man casually smack the bird’s head.
We then walked back to our room, changed into our bathing suits and went out. The sky was still a little overcast, but the sun made frequent appearances. Torsten, surprisingly, went down a small path to the big pool. There he stood, looking around, then crossed a bridge, walked around in a circle on the path, and re-crossed the bridge. Upon enquiry, it turned out that he was looking for the small wading pool, so we walked by the poolside till we got there. We were soon joined by Sunny and her parents, and the kids splashed around in the small pool all morning (joined intermittently by other small children), while the parents read and threw the odd comment at each other. Torsten occasionally wanted to go into the big pool, and Ingo took him in on a floating mat. The big pool was, however, quite cold, so they didn’t stay in there for too long. I went and got some popcorn for Torsten to munch on, and that was quite popular. On looking at the time, it was past noon, so we collected Torsten and went back to our room to get into dry things and have lunch.
By the time we got back to the room, Torsten was quite droopy. We managed to change him into dry things fairly quickly, and then Ingo toted him around for 5 minutes – and he was asleep. 12:30 is pretty early for his nap, but we thought it would be better for him to sleep than to be cranky at lunch. To tide us over, Ingo went to the World Café and got a pepperoni pizza for us to have as a snack in the room – it was remarkably good, albeit somewhat small. When Torsten woke up at around 2:30, we immediately went to the World Café to catch the last of the buffet before it closed at 3. Torsten was, of course, ravenous, and ate quite a lot – and made quite a mess.
After we got Torsten cleaned up, we went out to the Kids’ Club. There were two little girls there, playing inside the building, and a man and a woman sunbathing by the splash pool, talking loudly. I suspect, from the number of drinks around the area, that they may have been a bit drunk. We’d changed Torsten into swim diapers, but his bathing suit was still wet, so he ran around in his diaper. However, it was quite windy in the Kids’ Club and by the beach (there were very few people out), so we persuaded him to put his clothes back on and headed back up the path toward our room. On the way, we stopped at the little wading pool and splashed around a bit with Erin and some other kids. Unfortunately, there was a little French boy who kept screaming with delight (and Erin joined in as well) when one of the adults made the fountains splash up. Torsten wasn’t too pleased with the noise, so after a very short time, we dried him off and went back to the room. There we watched a bit of TV, and then strolled toward the main building to see whether the vendors had set up yet.
The vendors were pretty pushy, but very friendly. We ended up buying a pretty necklace from one guy who said he was giving us a discount to “open his luck” with other buyers. I told him that if his luck really opened, we wanted a commission, and he laughed. We saw Glenn on the path with another vendor, who threw an arm around his shoulder and gave him a friendly hug, and called him his “collega”, so we went to join him. Glenn really seems to have made a lot of friends with vendors and staff! Later, we found out that he had gotten free stuff out of some vendors by bringing them a pizza from the buffet.
After dinner, we went straight back to the room and had a family bath in the Jacuzzi (well, Torsten had a bath, while Ingo and I sat in it in bathing suits). Then we watched a bit of TV, and went to bed.
When we woke up in the morning, it was pouring with rain. Fortunately, we are able to get from our building to the World Café by way of covered pathways, so it didn’t really affect us much – and we could see some blue sky in the distance, so it didn’t look as though the day would have to be spent inside. By the time we had finished breakfast, the sun was out (hopefully the sun was also shining on Glenn and his excursion!). A man with some parrots walked through the lobby, and one of the parrots pooped (Ingo says it’s my secret power, to make birds poop, since the flamingoes always do when I’m there), so he put them down on a wall while he cleaned it up. Torsten stopped to look at them, and had a lot of fun pointing out what they were doing. Suddenly, he said, “What’s he eating?” We had no idea – maybe a leaf? When the man came back, he hit the bird upside the head, and it spat out a rock. It was so funny, watching the man casually smack the bird’s head.
We then walked back to our room, changed into our bathing suits and went out. The sky was still a little overcast, but the sun made frequent appearances. Torsten, surprisingly, went down a small path to the big pool. There he stood, looking around, then crossed a bridge, walked around in a circle on the path, and re-crossed the bridge. Upon enquiry, it turned out that he was looking for the small wading pool, so we walked by the poolside till we got there. We were soon joined by Sunny and her parents, and the kids splashed around in the small pool all morning (joined intermittently by other small children), while the parents read and threw the odd comment at each other. Torsten occasionally wanted to go into the big pool, and Ingo took him in on a floating mat. The big pool was, however, quite cold, so they didn’t stay in there for too long. I went and got some popcorn for Torsten to munch on, and that was quite popular. On looking at the time, it was past noon, so we collected Torsten and went back to our room to get into dry things and have lunch.
By the time we got back to the room, Torsten was quite droopy. We managed to change him into dry things fairly quickly, and then Ingo toted him around for 5 minutes – and he was asleep. 12:30 is pretty early for his nap, but we thought it would be better for him to sleep than to be cranky at lunch. To tide us over, Ingo went to the World Café and got a pepperoni pizza for us to have as a snack in the room – it was remarkably good, albeit somewhat small. When Torsten woke up at around 2:30, we immediately went to the World Café to catch the last of the buffet before it closed at 3. Torsten was, of course, ravenous, and ate quite a lot – and made quite a mess.
After we got Torsten cleaned up, we went out to the Kids’ Club. There were two little girls there, playing inside the building, and a man and a woman sunbathing by the splash pool, talking loudly. I suspect, from the number of drinks around the area, that they may have been a bit drunk. We’d changed Torsten into swim diapers, but his bathing suit was still wet, so he ran around in his diaper. However, it was quite windy in the Kids’ Club and by the beach (there were very few people out), so we persuaded him to put his clothes back on and headed back up the path toward our room. On the way, we stopped at the little wading pool and splashed around a bit with Erin and some other kids. Unfortunately, there was a little French boy who kept screaming with delight (and Erin joined in as well) when one of the adults made the fountains splash up. Torsten wasn’t too pleased with the noise, so after a very short time, we dried him off and went back to the room. There we watched a bit of TV, and then strolled toward the main building to see whether the vendors had set up yet.
The vendors were pretty pushy, but very friendly. We ended up buying a pretty necklace from one guy who said he was giving us a discount to “open his luck” with other buyers. I told him that if his luck really opened, we wanted a commission, and he laughed. We saw Glenn on the path with another vendor, who threw an arm around his shoulder and gave him a friendly hug, and called him his “collega”, so we went to join him. Glenn really seems to have made a lot of friends with vendors and staff! Later, we found out that he had gotten free stuff out of some vendors by bringing them a pizza from the buffet.
After dinner, we went straight back to the room and had a family bath in the Jacuzzi (well, Torsten had a bath, while Ingo and I sat in it in bathing suits). Then we watched a bit of TV, and went to bed.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Genie's day of grumpiness
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
It was cloudy in the morning, and I had had a really restless night, so I was quite tired. Going to breakfast, we ran into Sunny (her real name is Elizabeth) and her parents, and Sunny insisted on having breakfast with Torsten (although she kept calling him Jason until her dad made her repeat “Torsten” about 12 times), so we got a table for 6 and had breakfast together. She just kept talking all through breakfast, wanting to go to the big pool, and wanting Torsten to go with her. We told her that it was really up to Torsten, so she kept trying to persuade him, saying, “You want to go to the big pool, right Torsten? We’ll go to the big pool?”, to which Torsten would just look at her and say, “Little sandbox”. After about 10 minutes of this, she went back to her mom and asked if she could go to the little sandbox with Torsten after breakfast. It was really funny.
After breakfast, Sunny and her mom went back to their room, while we went off to the little sandbox. The fountains were quite high again, and Ingo showed Torsten how to put his hand over one of the returns and make them go even higher. After a while, Torsten got a little bored, as the toys weren’t out for some reason (he loves to play with the little plastic trucks), so I asked the cleaning person where they were (in Spanish – I was very proud of that). She brought out the big tub of toys, and Torsten immediately collected all of the trucks. He then proceeded to give them all an undercarriage wash – he figured out that driving them over one of the fountains would make that fountain stop leaping up, and he thought that was tremendous fun.
Some urgent work came in for me, so I went back to the room to do it. Ingo and Torsten stayed at the Kids’ Club a little while longer, then walked along the beach and played shuffleboard. They also found a little shell which Ingo picked up for a souvenir. Then they came back to the room to pick me up for lunch. By that time, I was really tired and quite grumpy, and so was Torsten, so lunchtime wasn’t particularly lively. Glenn was worried about his certificates – if you win events here, you get a certificate, and if you get 5 certificates, you can get an entry into a raffle to win a trip back to the resort. Glenn had won quite a number of events (he’s good at archery and shooting, and they have that every day), but for some reason had failed to pick up his certificates. He hurried off after lunch to try to get them, as you need to redeem them for the raffle, which happens every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and you must be present at the raffle to win the prize. Since he’d be on another excursion on Wednesday, he was concerned that he wouldn’t be able to get his certificates in time – and we wouldn’t be here on Friday for him to try to win then. We, of course, laughed at him for not figuring this out sooner.
On the way back to the room from lunch, Torsten fell asleep while being carried by Ingo. We were very pleased about this, since we thought it would mean a good nap, and I also intended to take a nap to catch up on sleep. Unfortunately, 15 minutes into the nap, he pooped and woke himself up – and was then very upset about having to be changed. It took us a while to change him, and after that, even though I lay down with him to have a nap, he just wouldn’t sleep. In the end, he never finished his nap, and Ingo took him off so that I could try to take a nap.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get back to sleep at all. I got up, watched some mindless TV, and then tried sleeping on the couch. That didn’t work, so I got out the laptop and did some work, as quite a lot of it had come in that day. Meanwhile, Ingo and Torsten went down to the little splash pool, where he played a bit on his own, then went down to the Kids’ Club, where other children were playing, including Erin. They played together in the plastic play structure, going down the slide and playing with a plastic wheel. Then they played with some of the little chairs that were available for kids to sit in, carrying them around. Torsten, of course, played with the toy trucks, and then saw someone closing up a dolls house, so he went to investigate. He looked in through the doors, put a fork and knife in one door and pulled it out the other side, and generally had a good time checking it out. Eventually, he and Ingo decided to go to the “big sandbox” (ie. the beach) and walked down to the little marina, where he climbed on some of the boats. On their way back across the beach, they saw a big sandcastle that someone had built, but it was a bit too close to the ocean for Torsten’s comfort. They looked at it from a distance for a while, then chased another little boy (Daniel) and started heading back to the room. Along the way, Torsten decided that he wanted a dip in the big pool, so Ingo obliged him – he walked along a submerged ledge for a while. Finally, they made it back to the room, just as I was finishing my last bit of work.
After a lot of struggling to get Torsten into dry clothes, we went off to dinner (I was still grumpy). Magically, some of that grumpiness disappeared once I got some food into me. I had thought that I was just cranky from fatigue, but it looks like I was also hungry! Glenn was still worried about his certificates, as he had only managed to get 2 out of the 7 or 9 that he was owed; it turned out that only 2 people had the key to the safe where the certificates were kept, and he wasn’t even sure whether they had retained his old ones. He went off again after dinner to see what he could do about it, while we went back to our room and did our usual TV watching before going to bed. This time, everyone got a good night’s sleep.
It was cloudy in the morning, and I had had a really restless night, so I was quite tired. Going to breakfast, we ran into Sunny (her real name is Elizabeth) and her parents, and Sunny insisted on having breakfast with Torsten (although she kept calling him Jason until her dad made her repeat “Torsten” about 12 times), so we got a table for 6 and had breakfast together. She just kept talking all through breakfast, wanting to go to the big pool, and wanting Torsten to go with her. We told her that it was really up to Torsten, so she kept trying to persuade him, saying, “You want to go to the big pool, right Torsten? We’ll go to the big pool?”, to which Torsten would just look at her and say, “Little sandbox”. After about 10 minutes of this, she went back to her mom and asked if she could go to the little sandbox with Torsten after breakfast. It was really funny.
After breakfast, Sunny and her mom went back to their room, while we went off to the little sandbox. The fountains were quite high again, and Ingo showed Torsten how to put his hand over one of the returns and make them go even higher. After a while, Torsten got a little bored, as the toys weren’t out for some reason (he loves to play with the little plastic trucks), so I asked the cleaning person where they were (in Spanish – I was very proud of that). She brought out the big tub of toys, and Torsten immediately collected all of the trucks. He then proceeded to give them all an undercarriage wash – he figured out that driving them over one of the fountains would make that fountain stop leaping up, and he thought that was tremendous fun.
Some urgent work came in for me, so I went back to the room to do it. Ingo and Torsten stayed at the Kids’ Club a little while longer, then walked along the beach and played shuffleboard. They also found a little shell which Ingo picked up for a souvenir. Then they came back to the room to pick me up for lunch. By that time, I was really tired and quite grumpy, and so was Torsten, so lunchtime wasn’t particularly lively. Glenn was worried about his certificates – if you win events here, you get a certificate, and if you get 5 certificates, you can get an entry into a raffle to win a trip back to the resort. Glenn had won quite a number of events (he’s good at archery and shooting, and they have that every day), but for some reason had failed to pick up his certificates. He hurried off after lunch to try to get them, as you need to redeem them for the raffle, which happens every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and you must be present at the raffle to win the prize. Since he’d be on another excursion on Wednesday, he was concerned that he wouldn’t be able to get his certificates in time – and we wouldn’t be here on Friday for him to try to win then. We, of course, laughed at him for not figuring this out sooner.
On the way back to the room from lunch, Torsten fell asleep while being carried by Ingo. We were very pleased about this, since we thought it would mean a good nap, and I also intended to take a nap to catch up on sleep. Unfortunately, 15 minutes into the nap, he pooped and woke himself up – and was then very upset about having to be changed. It took us a while to change him, and after that, even though I lay down with him to have a nap, he just wouldn’t sleep. In the end, he never finished his nap, and Ingo took him off so that I could try to take a nap.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get back to sleep at all. I got up, watched some mindless TV, and then tried sleeping on the couch. That didn’t work, so I got out the laptop and did some work, as quite a lot of it had come in that day. Meanwhile, Ingo and Torsten went down to the little splash pool, where he played a bit on his own, then went down to the Kids’ Club, where other children were playing, including Erin. They played together in the plastic play structure, going down the slide and playing with a plastic wheel. Then they played with some of the little chairs that were available for kids to sit in, carrying them around. Torsten, of course, played with the toy trucks, and then saw someone closing up a dolls house, so he went to investigate. He looked in through the doors, put a fork and knife in one door and pulled it out the other side, and generally had a good time checking it out. Eventually, he and Ingo decided to go to the “big sandbox” (ie. the beach) and walked down to the little marina, where he climbed on some of the boats. On their way back across the beach, they saw a big sandcastle that someone had built, but it was a bit too close to the ocean for Torsten’s comfort. They looked at it from a distance for a while, then chased another little boy (Daniel) and started heading back to the room. Along the way, Torsten decided that he wanted a dip in the big pool, so Ingo obliged him – he walked along a submerged ledge for a while. Finally, they made it back to the room, just as I was finishing my last bit of work.
After a lot of struggling to get Torsten into dry clothes, we went off to dinner (I was still grumpy). Magically, some of that grumpiness disappeared once I got some food into me. I had thought that I was just cranky from fatigue, but it looks like I was also hungry! Glenn was still worried about his certificates, as he had only managed to get 2 out of the 7 or 9 that he was owed; it turned out that only 2 people had the key to the safe where the certificates were kept, and he wasn’t even sure whether they had retained his old ones. He went off again after dinner to see what he could do about it, while we went back to our room and did our usual TV watching before going to bed. This time, everyone got a good night’s sleep.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Splashy day
Monday, March 23, 2009
Despite the gloomy forecasts, today dawned bright and sunny. Since Glenn had gone on an all day excursion to Saona Island, we were able to go to breakfast early, and got a seat on the patio. There weren’t any tinned peaches (which I normally eat as my morning fruit), but they had a steaming bowl of hot chocolate. Unfortunately, by the time I got to it, it was a tepid bowl of chocolate – I got back to the patio with my food, to find that Torsten had stood up on his chair, tipped it over and fallen flat on his back on the patio, and needed comforting. I didn’t actually see him fall or even lying there, as, by the time I got back, Ingo and several waiters were buzzing around trying to comfort him. I took Torsten and cuddled him, while a waiter brought a high chair that was less prone to tip than one of the normal patio chairs. I told him it was his own fault for being disobedient and standing up on the chair, but I’m not sure whether that sank in.
He didn’t want much breakfast after that, but after he had calmed down a bit, he was fine, and we managed to get some nourishment into him. We then went back to our room to change into bathing gear. Torsten is becoming very willful and whiny; I really hope this tendency stops once we’re back home and in our normal routine! On the other hand, he’s saying some startling things that are very funny – like informing us that Daddy wants to go back to work, and Mummy and Torsten will stay in the hotel, or offering various types of foods to birds. We’ll see what happens when we get home.
In any case, we eventually got ready, and headed towards the “little sandbox”. Torsten played there happily for about an hour – the fountains in the wading pool were especially high, and he walked under them as though they were a tunnel – and then we went for a walk along the beach, taking care to stay well away from the ocean (it was a red flag anyway). After stopping for a quick game of shuffleboard, where Torsten would push one of the disks to the other end using one of the sticks, while Ingo and I shot around him, we went to see if we could find Erin.
Erin and several other little girls were playing in the wading pool where we’d seen her yesterday. There was one little girl there named Sunny, who was quite the little bossy boots – she was 3 ½. Her parents are from New York and are quite friendly. Torsten had a good time there, surrounded by little girls. Erin then left to take a nap, and for a minute Torsten wanted to go back to the Kids’ Club, but soon decided to go play in the big pool with Daddy instead. After a little while longer, we decided to go for lunch, and led Torsten back to our room for a change. Marty had left her stuff by the wading pool and had said that she would be back soon, but she hadn’t returned by the time we left, which was about 40 minutes later. As we left, we heard the New York couple (Sue and Tommy) saying that they were going to leave too, so Ingo went back to the wading pool to collect Marty, Joe and Erin’s stuff and take it to their room. However, as he was pushing their stroller and things back, he met Marty coming back, and she thanked him but said they hadn’t left anything they couldn’t replace.
When Ingo came back, Torsten and I were sitting on the balcony. Ingo said he’d be right up, and Torsten jumped up, ran to the door, and opened it to run or look out. I called him back and closed the door, but I can see that I’ll really have to watch out for him once we get home!
Lunch was the normal buffet stuff, and we got a seat on the patio again. Torsten had some soup and made a bit of a mess, but was kept entertained by the little black birds who constantly flew over and perched on the empty chairs at the tables. One of them even flew onto an empty table, pecked at the bowl containing sugar packets, and flew off with a sugar packet in his mouth! Our lunch also had some entertainment in that a quartet of loud, boisterous young people came onto the patio – one girl had on a bikini top, and they wouldn’t allow her into the restaurant. Her friends went to get their lunch, and when the guy of the group came back, he peeled off his T-shirt and handed it to her so that she could go and get her lunch! After lunch, we went back to the room and had stories and naptime. Thankfully, Torsten fell asleep fairly quickly and stayed asleep for about 2 ½ hours, getting back into his normal routine.
When Torsten woke up, we had a few potato chips and then went to look at the parrots before dinner. Midway through dinner, we were joined by Glenn, who had returned from his excursion. He said he had a lot of fun – it was a good thing that the weather had held up. He described the local houses, which were all in bright pastel shades, and said that they would hang meat up outside to dry for several days before eating them. He also saw a church with a tall arch that was much taller than the church was wide. He couldn’t remember the name of the church, or even the town, but I later looked it up based on the photo he showed me, and it was the Basilica de Nuestros Senora de la Altagracia in Higuey, which is about 40 minutes from here. It is dedicated to the Virgin Mary who apparently performed a miracle in Altagracia (defeating the French) and is therefore the patron saint of the island.
After dinner, we hurried back to the room so that we could give Torsten a hairwash, and then spent the remainder of the evening before bedtime watching Spanish cartoons (including the Backyardigans, which was really cute – featuring a robot that walked around saying “Queso” (cheese)).
By the way, no photos will be posted till we're back, since I can only post through my BB (not wanting to pay for Internet access if I don't need to).
Despite the gloomy forecasts, today dawned bright and sunny. Since Glenn had gone on an all day excursion to Saona Island, we were able to go to breakfast early, and got a seat on the patio. There weren’t any tinned peaches (which I normally eat as my morning fruit), but they had a steaming bowl of hot chocolate. Unfortunately, by the time I got to it, it was a tepid bowl of chocolate – I got back to the patio with my food, to find that Torsten had stood up on his chair, tipped it over and fallen flat on his back on the patio, and needed comforting. I didn’t actually see him fall or even lying there, as, by the time I got back, Ingo and several waiters were buzzing around trying to comfort him. I took Torsten and cuddled him, while a waiter brought a high chair that was less prone to tip than one of the normal patio chairs. I told him it was his own fault for being disobedient and standing up on the chair, but I’m not sure whether that sank in.
He didn’t want much breakfast after that, but after he had calmed down a bit, he was fine, and we managed to get some nourishment into him. We then went back to our room to change into bathing gear. Torsten is becoming very willful and whiny; I really hope this tendency stops once we’re back home and in our normal routine! On the other hand, he’s saying some startling things that are very funny – like informing us that Daddy wants to go back to work, and Mummy and Torsten will stay in the hotel, or offering various types of foods to birds. We’ll see what happens when we get home.
In any case, we eventually got ready, and headed towards the “little sandbox”. Torsten played there happily for about an hour – the fountains in the wading pool were especially high, and he walked under them as though they were a tunnel – and then we went for a walk along the beach, taking care to stay well away from the ocean (it was a red flag anyway). After stopping for a quick game of shuffleboard, where Torsten would push one of the disks to the other end using one of the sticks, while Ingo and I shot around him, we went to see if we could find Erin.
Erin and several other little girls were playing in the wading pool where we’d seen her yesterday. There was one little girl there named Sunny, who was quite the little bossy boots – she was 3 ½. Her parents are from New York and are quite friendly. Torsten had a good time there, surrounded by little girls. Erin then left to take a nap, and for a minute Torsten wanted to go back to the Kids’ Club, but soon decided to go play in the big pool with Daddy instead. After a little while longer, we decided to go for lunch, and led Torsten back to our room for a change. Marty had left her stuff by the wading pool and had said that she would be back soon, but she hadn’t returned by the time we left, which was about 40 minutes later. As we left, we heard the New York couple (Sue and Tommy) saying that they were going to leave too, so Ingo went back to the wading pool to collect Marty, Joe and Erin’s stuff and take it to their room. However, as he was pushing their stroller and things back, he met Marty coming back, and she thanked him but said they hadn’t left anything they couldn’t replace.
When Ingo came back, Torsten and I were sitting on the balcony. Ingo said he’d be right up, and Torsten jumped up, ran to the door, and opened it to run or look out. I called him back and closed the door, but I can see that I’ll really have to watch out for him once we get home!
Lunch was the normal buffet stuff, and we got a seat on the patio again. Torsten had some soup and made a bit of a mess, but was kept entertained by the little black birds who constantly flew over and perched on the empty chairs at the tables. One of them even flew onto an empty table, pecked at the bowl containing sugar packets, and flew off with a sugar packet in his mouth! Our lunch also had some entertainment in that a quartet of loud, boisterous young people came onto the patio – one girl had on a bikini top, and they wouldn’t allow her into the restaurant. Her friends went to get their lunch, and when the guy of the group came back, he peeled off his T-shirt and handed it to her so that she could go and get her lunch! After lunch, we went back to the room and had stories and naptime. Thankfully, Torsten fell asleep fairly quickly and stayed asleep for about 2 ½ hours, getting back into his normal routine.
When Torsten woke up, we had a few potato chips and then went to look at the parrots before dinner. Midway through dinner, we were joined by Glenn, who had returned from his excursion. He said he had a lot of fun – it was a good thing that the weather had held up. He described the local houses, which were all in bright pastel shades, and said that they would hang meat up outside to dry for several days before eating them. He also saw a church with a tall arch that was much taller than the church was wide. He couldn’t remember the name of the church, or even the town, but I later looked it up based on the photo he showed me, and it was the Basilica de Nuestros Senora de la Altagracia in Higuey, which is about 40 minutes from here. It is dedicated to the Virgin Mary who apparently performed a miracle in Altagracia (defeating the French) and is therefore the patron saint of the island.
After dinner, we hurried back to the room so that we could give Torsten a hairwash, and then spent the remainder of the evening before bedtime watching Spanish cartoons (including the Backyardigans, which was really cute – featuring a robot that walked around saying “Queso” (cheese)).
By the way, no photos will be posted till we're back, since I can only post through my BB (not wanting to pay for Internet access if I don't need to).
Monday, March 23, 2009
Rainy day and Sunday
Sunday, March 22, 2009
We woke up to a drenching cloudburst, and it looked like we were in for a rain day. There was a brief break in the rain as we walked to breakfast, but not 5 minutes after we got into the building, it began to pour again. Ingo turned to me and said, “So, no patio today then?” While we were waiting for Glenn, we met a nice English couple with a small girl about Torsten’s age (it later transpired that their names were Marty and Joe, and their daughter was named Erin). Torsten and Erin seemed to take to each other right away, but we went our separate ways, as they had already eaten breakfast.
Breakfast was the usual fare, only distinguished by the amount that Torsten ate – he was apparently quite hungry – and the fact that Glenn ate too quickly and spat up. It was still raining after breakfast, so we went into the shop and bought Torsten a pair of imitation Crocs, as he had hurt his toe the first day of the trip, and we thought that his present sandals might be preventing the sore from healing as quickly as it should. It was still raining after we were done, so we went back to our room.
Ingo decided that it was a good day to do some laundry, so he collected some things to wash and went out to the Jacuzzi with some detergent. Torsten followed, and soon the two of them were happily doing laundry in the Jacuzzi. After they’d finished, we dried Torsten off and changed him into some dry clothes, and then went to mass, which was being held at noon in one of the conference rooms.
Mass was interesting, as it was conducted wholly in Spanish. Nobody there really understood what was being said, so responses were muttered until we came to the portions of the mass that people knew, in which case the English responses were nice and strong. The music was also interesting – I’d expected the usual sort of hymns, but of course our music is strongly influenced by English, French and German composers, so what we actually heard were hymns with a strong Spanish and Latin American influence sung by one Spanish girl.
After mass, we met Glenn for lunch. Torsten had fallen asleep halfway through mass, and slept for about an hour, which meant that he woke up just as we were finishing lunch. Luckily, as it’s a buffet restaurant, we were able to fetch some food for Torsten, and he ate a bit, albeit somewhat groggily. We thought that he might fall asleep again after lunch, so we went back to our room, but he stayed awake, and eventually demanded to go to the “little sandbox”. I didn’t think I needed to change into bathing gear, so I stayed in my dress, but Ingo and Torsten changed, and we set out.
We never actually made it to the Kids’ Club, as we passed a small wading pool along the way, and Torsten saw some children, including Erin, playing in it. We went over and joined them – the adults sat around the pool in deck chairs chatting, while the kids played. Marty and Joe were from Cambridge, so we chatted about England for a while, and it also turns out that Marty is pregnant, so there were plenty of things to talk about. There were a couple of incidents – Torsten banged his mouth on a deck chair and had to be comforted, and he also ran over one little girl with a boogie board and then got upset when told to apologize. It was quite apparent that he was getting tired (having only slept for about an hour earlier), so after a little bit more playtime, we said our goodbyes and trundled back to our room to try to get him to nap a little more before dinner. Unfortunately, that didn’t work, as he simply noodled around, sang little songs, and generally didn’t nap, so we let him get up and have some snacks while we waited to go for dinner.
At dinner, Torsten was generally cranky, and didn’t want to eat very much, but the denouement came when we tried to give him his malaria pills. He yelled and wouldn’t take them, and when we got them into his mouth, he spat them out. Finally, we managed to get them into him, amid shocked looks from nearby tables. After that, he calmed down and cuddled into us, and we soon left the restaurant to go back to our room. We didn’t want to put him to bed too early though, and further disrupt his routine, so we watched some TV and went to bed at the normal time.
We woke up to a drenching cloudburst, and it looked like we were in for a rain day. There was a brief break in the rain as we walked to breakfast, but not 5 minutes after we got into the building, it began to pour again. Ingo turned to me and said, “So, no patio today then?” While we were waiting for Glenn, we met a nice English couple with a small girl about Torsten’s age (it later transpired that their names were Marty and Joe, and their daughter was named Erin). Torsten and Erin seemed to take to each other right away, but we went our separate ways, as they had already eaten breakfast.
Breakfast was the usual fare, only distinguished by the amount that Torsten ate – he was apparently quite hungry – and the fact that Glenn ate too quickly and spat up. It was still raining after breakfast, so we went into the shop and bought Torsten a pair of imitation Crocs, as he had hurt his toe the first day of the trip, and we thought that his present sandals might be preventing the sore from healing as quickly as it should. It was still raining after we were done, so we went back to our room.
Ingo decided that it was a good day to do some laundry, so he collected some things to wash and went out to the Jacuzzi with some detergent. Torsten followed, and soon the two of them were happily doing laundry in the Jacuzzi. After they’d finished, we dried Torsten off and changed him into some dry clothes, and then went to mass, which was being held at noon in one of the conference rooms.
Mass was interesting, as it was conducted wholly in Spanish. Nobody there really understood what was being said, so responses were muttered until we came to the portions of the mass that people knew, in which case the English responses were nice and strong. The music was also interesting – I’d expected the usual sort of hymns, but of course our music is strongly influenced by English, French and German composers, so what we actually heard were hymns with a strong Spanish and Latin American influence sung by one Spanish girl.
After mass, we met Glenn for lunch. Torsten had fallen asleep halfway through mass, and slept for about an hour, which meant that he woke up just as we were finishing lunch. Luckily, as it’s a buffet restaurant, we were able to fetch some food for Torsten, and he ate a bit, albeit somewhat groggily. We thought that he might fall asleep again after lunch, so we went back to our room, but he stayed awake, and eventually demanded to go to the “little sandbox”. I didn’t think I needed to change into bathing gear, so I stayed in my dress, but Ingo and Torsten changed, and we set out.
We never actually made it to the Kids’ Club, as we passed a small wading pool along the way, and Torsten saw some children, including Erin, playing in it. We went over and joined them – the adults sat around the pool in deck chairs chatting, while the kids played. Marty and Joe were from Cambridge, so we chatted about England for a while, and it also turns out that Marty is pregnant, so there were plenty of things to talk about. There were a couple of incidents – Torsten banged his mouth on a deck chair and had to be comforted, and he also ran over one little girl with a boogie board and then got upset when told to apologize. It was quite apparent that he was getting tired (having only slept for about an hour earlier), so after a little bit more playtime, we said our goodbyes and trundled back to our room to try to get him to nap a little more before dinner. Unfortunately, that didn’t work, as he simply noodled around, sang little songs, and generally didn’t nap, so we let him get up and have some snacks while we waited to go for dinner.
At dinner, Torsten was generally cranky, and didn’t want to eat very much, but the denouement came when we tried to give him his malaria pills. He yelled and wouldn’t take them, and when we got them into his mouth, he spat them out. Finally, we managed to get them into him, amid shocked looks from nearby tables. After that, he calmed down and cuddled into us, and we soon left the restaurant to go back to our room. We didn’t want to put him to bed too early though, and further disrupt his routine, so we watched some TV and went to bed at the normal time.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Photos
Here's the link to some photos so far!
http://picasaweb.google.com/gflyon/PuntaCanaUpload?authkey=Gv1sRgCIDYkaDFqdut5wE&feat=directlink
Hope it works for you!
http://picasaweb.google.com/gflyon/PuntaCanaUpload?authkey=Gv1sRgCIDYkaDFqdut5wE&feat=directlink
Hope it works for you!
Feather day
Friday, March 20, 2009
At breakfast, Ingo tested the second half of Torsten’s hypothesis and found that, yes, birds did indeed like to eat bacon. Torsten was also excited to see tiny millipedes crawling around the paths, although he refers to them as “antipedes”. Then, after breakfast, we saw someone with “Animal Park” on his shirt sitting outside smoking, with two brightly coloured parrots sitting on the wall next to him. Naturally, we stopped to look, and as we watched the parrots preening, a small blue feather came off. Although the man wasn’t allowing any photographs to be taken (they usually go around with a professional photographer who then makes the photos available for sale later), he didn’t care if we took the feather – so now we have a parrot feather for a souvenir.
Since we had spent all morning yesterday at the Kids’ Club, and since I really wanted to get into the pool, we changed our clothes and strolled down to the pool. While Ingo searched for a floating mat, Torsten and I played with a green pool noodle. It started to rain a bit, and I was amused to see that most people packed up and went for cover – seemed odd, as they were all wearing bathing suits and hanging around by the pool! However, we stayed by the pool, and the rain passed fairly quickly. Ingo came back with a floating mat, and we pushed Torsten around the pool a bit. At one point, he overreached with the noodle on the mat and fell in, but we quickly pulled him out and dried his face, and he was none the worse for wear. As it remained a bit cloudy, though, we decided to change into dry clothes, since Torsten was getting somewhat chilly.
By the time we had changed, the sun was out again. We walked down to the Kids’ Club, pausing along the way to look at the flamingoes. They were preening as well, and Ingo managed to snag a flamingo feather to go with our parrot feather! At the Kids’ Club, Torsten played briefly with Austin and Sophia, then looking at my watch, I saw that it was time to get back to meet Glenn for lunch, so we cut his playtime short and dragged him back to the World Café. Throughout lunch, he kept yawning, so we made it quick and whisked him back to the room for a nap. I think he’s beginning to miss some of the things that we have at home – all his toys and so on – as he now occasionally says that he wants to go back home (actually, saying “want to go back to new home”).
While Torsten and I napped, Ingo went down to the beach to see if he could do some snorkeling. When he’d checked the flag in the morning, it was yellow, indicating “Swim with caution – unstable ocean conditions”, so he thought he’d be fine. He went out, and described it as snorkeling in the jet stream – he really had to fight the current to get back, and visibility was between 4 – 6 feet. There were apparently some nice corals and fish, but he was whisked past them pretty fast. One good thing was that the current was so strong that the fish had no time to get out of the way before he was on top of them! He didn’t stay out too long before deciding that it was ridiculous to try to snorkel in those conditions, and swam back to shore. That was when he saw that the flag was red – indicating “Prohibited to enter the ocean – dangerous currents”. He came back to the room to tell me all this, and said that he wouldn’t go in again unless the flag was green (Ocean calm). Unfortunately, we’ve never seen a green flag – the best we’ve seen is yellow – so he may not get any snorkeling at all this trip (I don’t think that I will at all, even with a green flag, given his description)!
Torsten woke up with about an hour and a half to spare before dinner, so we took a walk. There were no less than three bridal parties around the resort! I have a feeling that this resort does a brisk business in weddings, and I can really see why. It’s a lovely setting, and has all the right amenities (the drawback, of course, is that it’s a bit far from anything else – like airports). We made our way down to the beach, where Torsten was slightly disappointed because the Kids’ Club was closed, but he was quickly consoled, as Austin, Sophia and their families were playing on the beach with a ball. He and Austin had a run-along-the-sand-and-fall-down game, and then everyone watched the funny beach competition going on, as they brought out 2 burros and had people race them. As this was going on, I was peacefully sitting in a deck chair, listening to an audio course on the elements and origins of jazz, and looking at the ocean, the blue sky, and the waving palm trees. It really felt decadent.
Eventually, everyone decided to go their separate ways – Austin and Sophia were leaving the next day, which was a pity, but there will be other children for Torsten to play with. We meandered up to meet Glenn, and had our usual nice dinner at the World Café. While we were eating, one of the male dancers came to our table to tell us to go see the entertainment that night, and actually greeted Glenn by name! Glenn certainly gets around. He finished his dinner, and went to see if Sonya was back from the excursion that she’d gone on that day. Turns out that Sonya lives in Toronto, so I asked if he planned to keep in touch with her. He replied, “Well, I don’t know, her mother won’t let her go on Facebook”. I decided not to mention that there WERE other methods of keeping in touch other than Facebook.
After we finished dinner, we followed Torsten, who went racing along the paths back to our room. There he sat, like a little couch potato, watching TV until it was time to go to bed. We’re really beginning to like the Backyardigans, and can’t wait to see what it’s like in English!
At breakfast, Ingo tested the second half of Torsten’s hypothesis and found that, yes, birds did indeed like to eat bacon. Torsten was also excited to see tiny millipedes crawling around the paths, although he refers to them as “antipedes”. Then, after breakfast, we saw someone with “Animal Park” on his shirt sitting outside smoking, with two brightly coloured parrots sitting on the wall next to him. Naturally, we stopped to look, and as we watched the parrots preening, a small blue feather came off. Although the man wasn’t allowing any photographs to be taken (they usually go around with a professional photographer who then makes the photos available for sale later), he didn’t care if we took the feather – so now we have a parrot feather for a souvenir.
Since we had spent all morning yesterday at the Kids’ Club, and since I really wanted to get into the pool, we changed our clothes and strolled down to the pool. While Ingo searched for a floating mat, Torsten and I played with a green pool noodle. It started to rain a bit, and I was amused to see that most people packed up and went for cover – seemed odd, as they were all wearing bathing suits and hanging around by the pool! However, we stayed by the pool, and the rain passed fairly quickly. Ingo came back with a floating mat, and we pushed Torsten around the pool a bit. At one point, he overreached with the noodle on the mat and fell in, but we quickly pulled him out and dried his face, and he was none the worse for wear. As it remained a bit cloudy, though, we decided to change into dry clothes, since Torsten was getting somewhat chilly.
By the time we had changed, the sun was out again. We walked down to the Kids’ Club, pausing along the way to look at the flamingoes. They were preening as well, and Ingo managed to snag a flamingo feather to go with our parrot feather! At the Kids’ Club, Torsten played briefly with Austin and Sophia, then looking at my watch, I saw that it was time to get back to meet Glenn for lunch, so we cut his playtime short and dragged him back to the World Café. Throughout lunch, he kept yawning, so we made it quick and whisked him back to the room for a nap. I think he’s beginning to miss some of the things that we have at home – all his toys and so on – as he now occasionally says that he wants to go back home (actually, saying “want to go back to new home”).
While Torsten and I napped, Ingo went down to the beach to see if he could do some snorkeling. When he’d checked the flag in the morning, it was yellow, indicating “Swim with caution – unstable ocean conditions”, so he thought he’d be fine. He went out, and described it as snorkeling in the jet stream – he really had to fight the current to get back, and visibility was between 4 – 6 feet. There were apparently some nice corals and fish, but he was whisked past them pretty fast. One good thing was that the current was so strong that the fish had no time to get out of the way before he was on top of them! He didn’t stay out too long before deciding that it was ridiculous to try to snorkel in those conditions, and swam back to shore. That was when he saw that the flag was red – indicating “Prohibited to enter the ocean – dangerous currents”. He came back to the room to tell me all this, and said that he wouldn’t go in again unless the flag was green (Ocean calm). Unfortunately, we’ve never seen a green flag – the best we’ve seen is yellow – so he may not get any snorkeling at all this trip (I don’t think that I will at all, even with a green flag, given his description)!
Torsten woke up with about an hour and a half to spare before dinner, so we took a walk. There were no less than three bridal parties around the resort! I have a feeling that this resort does a brisk business in weddings, and I can really see why. It’s a lovely setting, and has all the right amenities (the drawback, of course, is that it’s a bit far from anything else – like airports). We made our way down to the beach, where Torsten was slightly disappointed because the Kids’ Club was closed, but he was quickly consoled, as Austin, Sophia and their families were playing on the beach with a ball. He and Austin had a run-along-the-sand-and-fall-down game, and then everyone watched the funny beach competition going on, as they brought out 2 burros and had people race them. As this was going on, I was peacefully sitting in a deck chair, listening to an audio course on the elements and origins of jazz, and looking at the ocean, the blue sky, and the waving palm trees. It really felt decadent.
Eventually, everyone decided to go their separate ways – Austin and Sophia were leaving the next day, which was a pity, but there will be other children for Torsten to play with. We meandered up to meet Glenn, and had our usual nice dinner at the World Café. While we were eating, one of the male dancers came to our table to tell us to go see the entertainment that night, and actually greeted Glenn by name! Glenn certainly gets around. He finished his dinner, and went to see if Sonya was back from the excursion that she’d gone on that day. Turns out that Sonya lives in Toronto, so I asked if he planned to keep in touch with her. He replied, “Well, I don’t know, her mother won’t let her go on Facebook”. I decided not to mention that there WERE other methods of keeping in touch other than Facebook.
After we finished dinner, we followed Torsten, who went racing along the paths back to our room. There he sat, like a little couch potato, watching TV until it was time to go to bed. We’re really beginning to like the Backyardigans, and can’t wait to see what it’s like in English!
Friday, March 20, 2009
Torsten dictates the day's events
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Breakfast was, as usual, at the World Café. We sat on the patio in the morning sun, and it was very nice. Our breakfast was somewhat enlivened by the sight of the woman two tables down leaping hastily to her feet as the water spout above her table suddenly gushed a torrent of water. There was a flurry of activity as various staff members tried to see what had caused the downpour and scurried to relocate the woman and her family to a dry table. As we weren’t affected, it was tremendously funny. Torsten saw a lizard, and was proven to be correct when Ingo tested his hypothesis – the bird did, indeed, like scrambled eggs. However, he hopped off before Torsten could give him any bacon, saying “Want some bacon, bird?”
I had thought that we were going to go to the pool after breakfast, but Torsten had other ideas. We all changed into our bathing gear, and then Torsten informed us that we were going to the “little sandbox” – and that’s just where we went. He spent the whole morning playing in the Kids’ Club with Austin and Sophia (although, when we got there, there were a lot of kids because the Explorers’ Club had stopped in), and was only dragged out of there with difficulty to go have lunch with Glenn. We tried to take him to the beach area again, but he refused to go anywhere near the ocean, saying repeatedly, “I’m afraid of the ocean”.
On the way back to the room to change for lunch, we saw Glenn, and were accosted by a woman who said, “Oh, are you with Glenn? I’m *forgot the name*, Sonya’s mom – Glenn’s friend”. Looks like Glenn picked up a girlfriend. Glenn then came up, with Sonya, and asked if he could go sea kayaking instead of going to lunch with us, to which we of course said yes. So off he went.
The rest of the afternoon followed the normal pattern of lunch, napping and going for dinner. Ingo varied the programme a little by taking a short nap, then going to see if he could go sea kayaking. Unfortunately, the marina closed at 4 pm, so he couldn’t go, but he did discover where there was some decent snorkeling just off the beach, and determined to go some time when the ocean was calmer.
When we met up with Glenn for dinner, he informed us that he actually hadn’t had any lunch, so he made up for it at dinner. He then headed off to see if he could find Sonya. There was a Manager’s Party out in the plaza, but as they were serving alcohol, we weren’t able to go. There was also a beach party at 9:30 (which of course was too late for Torsten, but which Glenn later informed us was great). Instead, we went back to our room. Torsten hopped on the bed, picked up a remote, and managed to turn on the TV. He then exclaimed, “I turned it on! Yay for Torsten! What could we do after that but watch TV and then go to bed?
Breakfast was, as usual, at the World Café. We sat on the patio in the morning sun, and it was very nice. Our breakfast was somewhat enlivened by the sight of the woman two tables down leaping hastily to her feet as the water spout above her table suddenly gushed a torrent of water. There was a flurry of activity as various staff members tried to see what had caused the downpour and scurried to relocate the woman and her family to a dry table. As we weren’t affected, it was tremendously funny. Torsten saw a lizard, and was proven to be correct when Ingo tested his hypothesis – the bird did, indeed, like scrambled eggs. However, he hopped off before Torsten could give him any bacon, saying “Want some bacon, bird?”
I had thought that we were going to go to the pool after breakfast, but Torsten had other ideas. We all changed into our bathing gear, and then Torsten informed us that we were going to the “little sandbox” – and that’s just where we went. He spent the whole morning playing in the Kids’ Club with Austin and Sophia (although, when we got there, there were a lot of kids because the Explorers’ Club had stopped in), and was only dragged out of there with difficulty to go have lunch with Glenn. We tried to take him to the beach area again, but he refused to go anywhere near the ocean, saying repeatedly, “I’m afraid of the ocean”.
On the way back to the room to change for lunch, we saw Glenn, and were accosted by a woman who said, “Oh, are you with Glenn? I’m *forgot the name*, Sonya’s mom – Glenn’s friend”. Looks like Glenn picked up a girlfriend. Glenn then came up, with Sonya, and asked if he could go sea kayaking instead of going to lunch with us, to which we of course said yes. So off he went.
The rest of the afternoon followed the normal pattern of lunch, napping and going for dinner. Ingo varied the programme a little by taking a short nap, then going to see if he could go sea kayaking. Unfortunately, the marina closed at 4 pm, so he couldn’t go, but he did discover where there was some decent snorkeling just off the beach, and determined to go some time when the ocean was calmer.
When we met up with Glenn for dinner, he informed us that he actually hadn’t had any lunch, so he made up for it at dinner. He then headed off to see if he could find Sonya. There was a Manager’s Party out in the plaza, but as they were serving alcohol, we weren’t able to go. There was also a beach party at 9:30 (which of course was too late for Torsten, but which Glenn later informed us was great). Instead, we went back to our room. Torsten hopped on the bed, picked up a remote, and managed to turn on the TV. He then exclaimed, “I turned it on! Yay for Torsten! What could we do after that but watch TV and then go to bed?
Spa Day
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Neither Ingo nor I had slept too well the night before, due to some stomach issues, so we were a tired crew heading into breakfast. However, I was quite excited because it was my day to get a haircut, manicure and pedicure! Breakfast consisted of the usual stuff (although I chose blander fare), and Torsten was excited to see both a lizard and a bird. He came down on the side of the predator, telling the bird where the lizard had gone (as it had, of course, vanished when it saw the bird). I told him that the bird wanted to eat the lizard, and he said, “No! Bird doesn’t like lizard.” I asked him what the bird liked, and he said, after some thought, “Scrambled eggs and bacon”!. Afterwards, I went off to the spa while Ingo and Torsten went to the beach and Glenn went to the Core Zone.
I had to wait for half an hour at the spa before finally being ushered into the salon area, as there was a bride getting ready for her wedding. My esthetician was Katrimia, and she didn’t speak much English, but she understood enough to know what I wanted done. She seemed rather shocked that I wanted my hair cut short, but complied. It took quite a long time, because I have a lot of hair, and she took a lot of pains over drying and styling it (with an incredibly hot blow dryer – I’m surprised my head didn’t burn!). The end result was great. Another esthetician came in while my hair was being cut, stopped in horror, and said “Por qué?”(“Why?”), and held up a lock of my hair against her head. Turns out she doesn’t have much hair, and couldn’t understand why I would chop it off.
After the haircut, I waited around some more, and then was taken to the manicure and pedicure area. Katrimia had thought that all I was getting was a haircut, and was surprised when the front desk told her I was also getting a “manicuro y pedicuro”. So she came in, and started to give me a pedicure. I had paid for a Café Café pedicure, which was supposed to be an exfoliating one, and it didn’t seem like she was giving me one, but heck, I don’t know anything about pedicures, and by that time, I was getting really impatient to be out of there. I’d forgotten how long this sort of thing takes, and I was really getting tired of the supposedly soothing music that they recycled over and over. Besides that, I had a bit of a headache from lack of sleep, and I don’t have a lot of patience for spa treatments at the best of times. At any rate, she was almost done my pedicure when someone came in, shot some rapid fire Spanish at her, and, upon hearing her reply, went away looking disturbed. Then she turned to me and asked, “Were you supposed to get a Café Café pedicure?”. When I said yes, she apologized, and said that she’d given me a normal manicure, and that I could have a Café Café manicure instead, and that they hadn’t told her (which I agree with, since I’d heard them say “pedicuro” – how was she to know it was a special one?).
After some confusion, I told them I didn’t care about the pedicure, and perhaps they could give me a Dreams manicure (with paraffin wax) instead. So that’s what she did. I felt a little bad, because it looked like everyone was blaming her (a woman came in, they had a conversation, and she said sneeringly to me, “You like her?”, to which I replied, “Yes”), and I thought it was just a simple misunderstanding with blame on both sides.
I finally got out of there, about an hour after I thought I would, and walked over to the World Café to meet the others for lunch. Torsten came flying out to meet me and give me a hug, with a big grin on his face, which was lovely. Ingo told me that they had spent the morning at the Kids’ Club, after stopping to visit the flamingoes and look at a turtle in the pool. Apparently, upon reaching the beach, Torsten became very excited and said, “I found it! Yay for me! Yay for Torsten!”. They also saw numerous lizards, so it was a good wildlife day.
We ate, and then because it was so late, we left Glenn to his own devices and went back to the room to get Torsten to take a nap. It turned out that all of us were pretty sleepy, so we all settled down for a nap, and only woke up when it was almost time to meet Glenn for dinner. We had agreed on the World Café for dinner, since we wanted to try it out, and after eating there, determined that we would take all our meals there in future – as it’s a buffet, it has a large selection, and the quality of the food was just as good as the restaurants. Apart from that, it was the only place where you could consistently get fruits and vegetables with your meal.
There were a bunch of vendors set up in the little plaza by the main building, so we wandered around them, experiencing some moderate pressure to buy, and collecting some freebies in the form of necklaces. We bought a few small souvenirs, and then took Torsten back to the room so that he could have a bath and hairwash. As there is no bathtub in the room, Ingo bathed him in the Jacuzzi. All went well until it came time to rinse off the shampoo – I brought normal kids’ shampoo, not the baby shampoo, and some got into his eyes because he wouldn’t listen to Ingo. I had to take him in through the window and finish rinsing him off in the shower. However, he was quickly soothed by watching Spanish-dubbed cartoons, and we all went to bed, sleeping like logs.
Neither Ingo nor I had slept too well the night before, due to some stomach issues, so we were a tired crew heading into breakfast. However, I was quite excited because it was my day to get a haircut, manicure and pedicure! Breakfast consisted of the usual stuff (although I chose blander fare), and Torsten was excited to see both a lizard and a bird. He came down on the side of the predator, telling the bird where the lizard had gone (as it had, of course, vanished when it saw the bird). I told him that the bird wanted to eat the lizard, and he said, “No! Bird doesn’t like lizard.” I asked him what the bird liked, and he said, after some thought, “Scrambled eggs and bacon”!. Afterwards, I went off to the spa while Ingo and Torsten went to the beach and Glenn went to the Core Zone.
I had to wait for half an hour at the spa before finally being ushered into the salon area, as there was a bride getting ready for her wedding. My esthetician was Katrimia, and she didn’t speak much English, but she understood enough to know what I wanted done. She seemed rather shocked that I wanted my hair cut short, but complied. It took quite a long time, because I have a lot of hair, and she took a lot of pains over drying and styling it (with an incredibly hot blow dryer – I’m surprised my head didn’t burn!). The end result was great. Another esthetician came in while my hair was being cut, stopped in horror, and said “Por qué?”(“Why?”), and held up a lock of my hair against her head. Turns out she doesn’t have much hair, and couldn’t understand why I would chop it off.
After the haircut, I waited around some more, and then was taken to the manicure and pedicure area. Katrimia had thought that all I was getting was a haircut, and was surprised when the front desk told her I was also getting a “manicuro y pedicuro”. So she came in, and started to give me a pedicure. I had paid for a Café Café pedicure, which was supposed to be an exfoliating one, and it didn’t seem like she was giving me one, but heck, I don’t know anything about pedicures, and by that time, I was getting really impatient to be out of there. I’d forgotten how long this sort of thing takes, and I was really getting tired of the supposedly soothing music that they recycled over and over. Besides that, I had a bit of a headache from lack of sleep, and I don’t have a lot of patience for spa treatments at the best of times. At any rate, she was almost done my pedicure when someone came in, shot some rapid fire Spanish at her, and, upon hearing her reply, went away looking disturbed. Then she turned to me and asked, “Were you supposed to get a Café Café pedicure?”. When I said yes, she apologized, and said that she’d given me a normal manicure, and that I could have a Café Café manicure instead, and that they hadn’t told her (which I agree with, since I’d heard them say “pedicuro” – how was she to know it was a special one?).
After some confusion, I told them I didn’t care about the pedicure, and perhaps they could give me a Dreams manicure (with paraffin wax) instead. So that’s what she did. I felt a little bad, because it looked like everyone was blaming her (a woman came in, they had a conversation, and she said sneeringly to me, “You like her?”, to which I replied, “Yes”), and I thought it was just a simple misunderstanding with blame on both sides.
I finally got out of there, about an hour after I thought I would, and walked over to the World Café to meet the others for lunch. Torsten came flying out to meet me and give me a hug, with a big grin on his face, which was lovely. Ingo told me that they had spent the morning at the Kids’ Club, after stopping to visit the flamingoes and look at a turtle in the pool. Apparently, upon reaching the beach, Torsten became very excited and said, “I found it! Yay for me! Yay for Torsten!”. They also saw numerous lizards, so it was a good wildlife day.
We ate, and then because it was so late, we left Glenn to his own devices and went back to the room to get Torsten to take a nap. It turned out that all of us were pretty sleepy, so we all settled down for a nap, and only woke up when it was almost time to meet Glenn for dinner. We had agreed on the World Café for dinner, since we wanted to try it out, and after eating there, determined that we would take all our meals there in future – as it’s a buffet, it has a large selection, and the quality of the food was just as good as the restaurants. Apart from that, it was the only place where you could consistently get fruits and vegetables with your meal.
There were a bunch of vendors set up in the little plaza by the main building, so we wandered around them, experiencing some moderate pressure to buy, and collecting some freebies in the form of necklaces. We bought a few small souvenirs, and then took Torsten back to the room so that he could have a bath and hairwash. As there is no bathtub in the room, Ingo bathed him in the Jacuzzi. All went well until it came time to rinse off the shampoo – I brought normal kids’ shampoo, not the baby shampoo, and some got into his eyes because he wouldn’t listen to Ingo. I had to take him in through the window and finish rinsing him off in the shower. However, he was quickly soothed by watching Spanish-dubbed cartoons, and we all went to bed, sleeping like logs.
St. Patrick's Day
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
After our normal morning ablutions, we went to the World Café for breakfast. This time, we scored a table outside on the patio, which was very pleasant, as there were many small black birds flying about. Today, instead of empanadas as their ethnic dish, they had chicken burritos – also quite tasty. Their selection of fruit was also good.
Because Torsten had had such fun at the Kids’ Club, we went there first. It took a little bit of time, because he stopped every few steps to say “What’s that?”, to which we would reply “They’re ants”, and he would watch them for a while. We also stopped for quite a long time to look at the flamingoes, who live in a small pond near our building. One of them in particular is very colourful, and looks like he is getting more than his fair share of shrimp. As it was St. Patrick’s Day, there were also banners being set up along the beach, and one poor schmuck wandering around in a giant foam shamrock costume. Another staff member in a felt shamrock poncho didn’t look much cooler, and the poor aerobics instructor in a green hoop dress teaching the morning aerobics class just looked ridiculous.
At the Kids’ Club, we met a couple of children around Torsten’s age, named Austin and Sophia. Austin was engaged in throwing things into the small wading pool, and Sophia just happily splashed around. They were very happy to play with Torsten. We spent some time there, watching the kids playing, and also watching the aerobics instructor hopping about in her green hoop dress. Then we took a walk along the beach front. Unfortunately, Torsten took a dislike to the ocean; the undertow is quite strong, and although I held tightly to his hand and he stood on the side away from the waves, I don’t think he liked the sensation of the water washing around his feet and the sand dissolving under his feet. He soon demanded to go back up the beach, away from the ocean.
As I had some work to do, we headed back to our room, passing some truly ridiculous organized activities in honour of St. Patrick’s Day (green beer chugging competition, a sort of dancing competition to try to pop balloons around other peoples’ ankles, etc.). The really good thing is that, because the resort is so large, the activities are not really that obtrusive, so you don’t feel any pressure to join in.
At the room, I settled down to do my work while Ingo and Torsten changed and then went down to the pool. After my work was done, I changed and joined them. They had met a nice older couple from Cleveland, who were watching their belongings while Ingo pushed Torsten around the pool on a floating mat and “beached” him at various points along the side. I mostly sat on the low ledge in the water and watched them. Then we hit a highlight – a lizard was floating in the water, and one of the Cleveland people rescued it and put it on the side. It obligingly stayed there till Torsten returned to ooh and aah over it.
By that time, it was well past lunchtime, so we hopped out of the pool and had a hamburger from the grill at the poolside (Torsten had a hot dog). Glenn managed to find us there when we’d almost finished, and grabbed a hamburger as well. Torsten was quite tired by then, so we left Glenn to his hamburger and went back to the room, pausing on the way at the soft serve ice cream machine for a treat. That turned out to be rather exciting, because although Ingo and I ate the ice cream cone without mishap, Torsten had a messier time of it – and because of the ants in our room, we really didn’t want any drips anywhere. He therefore finished his cone in the shower, dribbling all over the place.
After his nap, it was pretty much time for dinner. We had arranged with Glenn to meet him at 6 pm at Himitsu, the Asian restaurant. Apparently, it only seats 30, and there are 3 seatings, so if you come too late, you’re mostly out of luck. As it happened, we got in for the 6 pm seating, but unfortunately, as Torsten is so young, we could only have dinner in the Chinese section of the restaurant, not the Japanese section (which looked like it might have been Teppanyaki-style, or at least a seating plan where the chef cooked directly in front of the dinner guests). The food was okay (I had a beef rice, Torsten had chop suey noodles, and Ingo and Glenn both had some sort of noodle dish with a side of rice), but the restaurant was so loud! There was a waterfall feature which was noisy, and background music which was loud to compete with the noise of the waterfall. When you add noisy diners and the same squalling baby that we had experienced the night before to that, the din was really quite something.
Escaping outside was very nice. After dinner, we took a quick walk around the Core Zone, which has a selection of sports areas and a teen-friendly atmosphere, as well as (randomly) two parrots. Glenn then decided to go off and look around some more, and later check out the nightly entertainment (it was karaoke night), while we headed back to our room. On TV, we found the Discovery Kids channel in Spanish, and Torsten happily watched the Backyardigans and other cartoons dubbed in Spanish until it was time for bed. We had a bit of difficulty when he discovered that I had brought The Little Duck, but not The Little Lamb (a lot of repetition of, “Where’s The Little Lamb? You forgot it at home!”), but he soon settled down and went to sleep.
After our normal morning ablutions, we went to the World Café for breakfast. This time, we scored a table outside on the patio, which was very pleasant, as there were many small black birds flying about. Today, instead of empanadas as their ethnic dish, they had chicken burritos – also quite tasty. Their selection of fruit was also good.
Because Torsten had had such fun at the Kids’ Club, we went there first. It took a little bit of time, because he stopped every few steps to say “What’s that?”, to which we would reply “They’re ants”, and he would watch them for a while. We also stopped for quite a long time to look at the flamingoes, who live in a small pond near our building. One of them in particular is very colourful, and looks like he is getting more than his fair share of shrimp. As it was St. Patrick’s Day, there were also banners being set up along the beach, and one poor schmuck wandering around in a giant foam shamrock costume. Another staff member in a felt shamrock poncho didn’t look much cooler, and the poor aerobics instructor in a green hoop dress teaching the morning aerobics class just looked ridiculous.
At the Kids’ Club, we met a couple of children around Torsten’s age, named Austin and Sophia. Austin was engaged in throwing things into the small wading pool, and Sophia just happily splashed around. They were very happy to play with Torsten. We spent some time there, watching the kids playing, and also watching the aerobics instructor hopping about in her green hoop dress. Then we took a walk along the beach front. Unfortunately, Torsten took a dislike to the ocean; the undertow is quite strong, and although I held tightly to his hand and he stood on the side away from the waves, I don’t think he liked the sensation of the water washing around his feet and the sand dissolving under his feet. He soon demanded to go back up the beach, away from the ocean.
As I had some work to do, we headed back to our room, passing some truly ridiculous organized activities in honour of St. Patrick’s Day (green beer chugging competition, a sort of dancing competition to try to pop balloons around other peoples’ ankles, etc.). The really good thing is that, because the resort is so large, the activities are not really that obtrusive, so you don’t feel any pressure to join in.
At the room, I settled down to do my work while Ingo and Torsten changed and then went down to the pool. After my work was done, I changed and joined them. They had met a nice older couple from Cleveland, who were watching their belongings while Ingo pushed Torsten around the pool on a floating mat and “beached” him at various points along the side. I mostly sat on the low ledge in the water and watched them. Then we hit a highlight – a lizard was floating in the water, and one of the Cleveland people rescued it and put it on the side. It obligingly stayed there till Torsten returned to ooh and aah over it.
By that time, it was well past lunchtime, so we hopped out of the pool and had a hamburger from the grill at the poolside (Torsten had a hot dog). Glenn managed to find us there when we’d almost finished, and grabbed a hamburger as well. Torsten was quite tired by then, so we left Glenn to his hamburger and went back to the room, pausing on the way at the soft serve ice cream machine for a treat. That turned out to be rather exciting, because although Ingo and I ate the ice cream cone without mishap, Torsten had a messier time of it – and because of the ants in our room, we really didn’t want any drips anywhere. He therefore finished his cone in the shower, dribbling all over the place.
After his nap, it was pretty much time for dinner. We had arranged with Glenn to meet him at 6 pm at Himitsu, the Asian restaurant. Apparently, it only seats 30, and there are 3 seatings, so if you come too late, you’re mostly out of luck. As it happened, we got in for the 6 pm seating, but unfortunately, as Torsten is so young, we could only have dinner in the Chinese section of the restaurant, not the Japanese section (which looked like it might have been Teppanyaki-style, or at least a seating plan where the chef cooked directly in front of the dinner guests). The food was okay (I had a beef rice, Torsten had chop suey noodles, and Ingo and Glenn both had some sort of noodle dish with a side of rice), but the restaurant was so loud! There was a waterfall feature which was noisy, and background music which was loud to compete with the noise of the waterfall. When you add noisy diners and the same squalling baby that we had experienced the night before to that, the din was really quite something.
Escaping outside was very nice. After dinner, we took a quick walk around the Core Zone, which has a selection of sports areas and a teen-friendly atmosphere, as well as (randomly) two parrots. Glenn then decided to go off and look around some more, and later check out the nightly entertainment (it was karaoke night), while we headed back to our room. On TV, we found the Discovery Kids channel in Spanish, and Torsten happily watched the Backyardigans and other cartoons dubbed in Spanish until it was time for bed. We had a bit of difficulty when he discovered that I had brought The Little Duck, but not The Little Lamb (a lot of repetition of, “Where’s The Little Lamb? You forgot it at home!”), but he soon settled down and went to sleep.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Exploring the resort
Monday, March 16, 2009
Mindful of our meeting with the Air Canada representative at 9 am, we got up at 8 am and, after futzing around a bit, headed to the reception building. The reception building contains the main theatre, tour desks, some shops, the Internet Café, and a few restaurants, including the World Café, a large buffet restaurant. We listened to the French Canadian rep tell us about the procedures for checking out in time to meet our flights and explain some of the dos and don’ts for the resort and the Dominican Republic. She told us to be wary of booking tours through anyone but her (and presumably other resort-sanctioned reps), since people had a tendency to show up on the beach offering tours, rides, etc. and then leaving with the money, without providing anything, since they were not official resort people. One woman apparently called the Air Canada rep, frantically demanding the return of her daughters, who had gone on an ATV tour and hadn’t returned by 7:30 at night. The rep asked her who she’d booked with. The answer was, “some black man on the beach”. The rep then asked her if she’d noticed the company that the man was with. The woman didn’t know. The rep then cautioned us that in situations like that, there was very little that she could do (my internal answer was, “Duh!!”) and that luckily, the girls had eventually returned.
After the briefing, and the provision of a sheet detailing extra excursions that we could book, we went to breakfast at the buffet. It was an extensive buffet, featuring a smoothie bar, an omelette station, a crepe station, cold meats, a fruit bar, a vaguely Caribbean/Mexican/ethnic station, an oatmeal bar, and the usual American breakfast buffet foods. I was somewhat turned off by the tiny ants crawling around the open bread baskets (although I doubt there’s anything they can do – those ants are everywhere, including the room – and they really are incredibly tiny), but everything else seemed fine. The coffee is very good, which I would expect, since they grow it on the island.
Having eaten our fill, we set out to explore the resort (Glenn, despite protestations of being tired, had apparently done a lot of exploring the evening before). We dropped by the spa so that I could make an appointment to have my hair cut as well as a manicure and pedicure – the prices were quite reasonable. Then we meandered along the path by the pool, down to the beach. We passed flamingoes, fish and parrots – it was very tropical. Every so often, there is a bar near the pool, and people definitely take advantage of them. We were amused to see that the so-called Manatees Bar (a swim-up bar) appeared to be peopled mostly by men and women who looked quite like manatees. The Kids’ Club is located by the beach, and on the beach itself were people doing aerobics.
Realizing that the sun was steadily getting higher in the sky and that we had neglected to put sunscreen on, we headed back to the room to remedy that error and to put on bathing suits. We then spent several hours happily splashing in the pool and towing Torsten around on a pool mat. He particularly liked going under the various bridges that cross the swimming pool. My favourite part was the non-alcoholic pina colada that Ingo brought me. It really felt like vacation then.
After Glenn rejoined us from wherever he’d gone after breakfast, we decided on a change of scene, and headed down to the Kids’ Club (Glenn sat on the beach while Torsten played). The Kids’ Club has a small play structure with a slide, situated on a sand box. It also has a shallow wading pool with fountains, and some ride-on animals on springs. An adjacent building houses a large play area with a TV showing the Cartoon Network, a change room with change table and 2 cribs, a small plastic play house, and a washroom for boys and girls with the cutest little toilets and low sinks. It’s actually quite nice; it just pales a bit in comparison with the facilities that the Explorers’ Club boasts.
It was hard to tear Torsten away from the Kids’ Club, but by that time it was 2 pm, and we hadn’t had lunch. We meandered along the incredibly soft sand to find Glenn, and then went to the Oceana restaurant, right next to the beach. The food came out commendably fast (Ingo and I had chicken burritos, Glenn had a salad of some sort, and we ordered Torsten a hot frank (ie. hot dog)). Even so, Torsten was very droopy and getting cranky – the food revived him a bit, but we headed straight back to the room after lunch so that he could take a nap. It took him a while to get settled (he tried to keep himself awake by singing little songs and rolling around the bed), but he finally dropped off, well past 3 pm. Ingo and I also napped a bit. I woke up before Ingo, and watched a few episodes of Ben 10: Alien Force on my BlackBerry. I can’t describe how lazy I felt – but after all, it IS vacation! After a while, Ingo woke up, and had to hold Torsten, who had awakened upset and still tired (he fell asleep again in Ingo’s arms). We managed to play a game of Scrabble Scramble while Torsten slept on.
By the time Torsten finally woke up, it was more or less dinner time, so we dressed and made our way to El Patio, the Mexican restaurant. Glenn was just coming up the path, and we sent him back to get changed, as the restaurant was supposed to be a bit more formal (as it turned out, judging by some of the people who showed up, that doesn’t seem to be very true). That worked out well, as Torsten wanted to go shopping – actually, he wanted specifically to go shopping in the toy store, and was somewhat disappointed to find that there were basically no toys in the shops at the resort. However, we did pick up more sunscreen (at an exorbitant price) and a pool toy for the next day.
The restaurant was quite good. Our waitress’ English was a bit limited, so I got to try out some of my non-existent Spanish. Nachos with guacamole and salsa came out to tide us over – very Mexican. When the main courses came out, I really admired the plating – everyone got the same side dishes of a mound of rice, some refried beans with a nacho stuck in it, and a few fried plantain slices. They took up half the dish. The main course took up the other half of the dish. Efficient, yet pleasing to the eye and sufficiently different so as not to look production line-ish. Also quite tasty! I had the beef enchilada, Torsten had chicken tacos, Ingo had beef fajitas, and Glenn had chicken mole. We ended the dinner with a three milk cake – very moist and quite tasty. There was another child in the restaurant (less than a year old) who made the most appalling noise, prompting Torsten to turn to me and say “I’m a good boy!” – to which the only response could be, “Yes, you are!!”.
It had been such a busy day that we were all pretty tired after dinner (with the exception of Glenn, who went on to see the night’s offered entertainment, which he later described as lame), so we went back to our room, finished unpacking and tidying, relaxed, and eventually went to bed.
Mindful of our meeting with the Air Canada representative at 9 am, we got up at 8 am and, after futzing around a bit, headed to the reception building. The reception building contains the main theatre, tour desks, some shops, the Internet Café, and a few restaurants, including the World Café, a large buffet restaurant. We listened to the French Canadian rep tell us about the procedures for checking out in time to meet our flights and explain some of the dos and don’ts for the resort and the Dominican Republic. She told us to be wary of booking tours through anyone but her (and presumably other resort-sanctioned reps), since people had a tendency to show up on the beach offering tours, rides, etc. and then leaving with the money, without providing anything, since they were not official resort people. One woman apparently called the Air Canada rep, frantically demanding the return of her daughters, who had gone on an ATV tour and hadn’t returned by 7:30 at night. The rep asked her who she’d booked with. The answer was, “some black man on the beach”. The rep then asked her if she’d noticed the company that the man was with. The woman didn’t know. The rep then cautioned us that in situations like that, there was very little that she could do (my internal answer was, “Duh!!”) and that luckily, the girls had eventually returned.
After the briefing, and the provision of a sheet detailing extra excursions that we could book, we went to breakfast at the buffet. It was an extensive buffet, featuring a smoothie bar, an omelette station, a crepe station, cold meats, a fruit bar, a vaguely Caribbean/Mexican/ethnic station, an oatmeal bar, and the usual American breakfast buffet foods. I was somewhat turned off by the tiny ants crawling around the open bread baskets (although I doubt there’s anything they can do – those ants are everywhere, including the room – and they really are incredibly tiny), but everything else seemed fine. The coffee is very good, which I would expect, since they grow it on the island.
Having eaten our fill, we set out to explore the resort (Glenn, despite protestations of being tired, had apparently done a lot of exploring the evening before). We dropped by the spa so that I could make an appointment to have my hair cut as well as a manicure and pedicure – the prices were quite reasonable. Then we meandered along the path by the pool, down to the beach. We passed flamingoes, fish and parrots – it was very tropical. Every so often, there is a bar near the pool, and people definitely take advantage of them. We were amused to see that the so-called Manatees Bar (a swim-up bar) appeared to be peopled mostly by men and women who looked quite like manatees. The Kids’ Club is located by the beach, and on the beach itself were people doing aerobics.
Realizing that the sun was steadily getting higher in the sky and that we had neglected to put sunscreen on, we headed back to the room to remedy that error and to put on bathing suits. We then spent several hours happily splashing in the pool and towing Torsten around on a pool mat. He particularly liked going under the various bridges that cross the swimming pool. My favourite part was the non-alcoholic pina colada that Ingo brought me. It really felt like vacation then.
After Glenn rejoined us from wherever he’d gone after breakfast, we decided on a change of scene, and headed down to the Kids’ Club (Glenn sat on the beach while Torsten played). The Kids’ Club has a small play structure with a slide, situated on a sand box. It also has a shallow wading pool with fountains, and some ride-on animals on springs. An adjacent building houses a large play area with a TV showing the Cartoon Network, a change room with change table and 2 cribs, a small plastic play house, and a washroom for boys and girls with the cutest little toilets and low sinks. It’s actually quite nice; it just pales a bit in comparison with the facilities that the Explorers’ Club boasts.
It was hard to tear Torsten away from the Kids’ Club, but by that time it was 2 pm, and we hadn’t had lunch. We meandered along the incredibly soft sand to find Glenn, and then went to the Oceana restaurant, right next to the beach. The food came out commendably fast (Ingo and I had chicken burritos, Glenn had a salad of some sort, and we ordered Torsten a hot frank (ie. hot dog)). Even so, Torsten was very droopy and getting cranky – the food revived him a bit, but we headed straight back to the room after lunch so that he could take a nap. It took him a while to get settled (he tried to keep himself awake by singing little songs and rolling around the bed), but he finally dropped off, well past 3 pm. Ingo and I also napped a bit. I woke up before Ingo, and watched a few episodes of Ben 10: Alien Force on my BlackBerry. I can’t describe how lazy I felt – but after all, it IS vacation! After a while, Ingo woke up, and had to hold Torsten, who had awakened upset and still tired (he fell asleep again in Ingo’s arms). We managed to play a game of Scrabble Scramble while Torsten slept on.
By the time Torsten finally woke up, it was more or less dinner time, so we dressed and made our way to El Patio, the Mexican restaurant. Glenn was just coming up the path, and we sent him back to get changed, as the restaurant was supposed to be a bit more formal (as it turned out, judging by some of the people who showed up, that doesn’t seem to be very true). That worked out well, as Torsten wanted to go shopping – actually, he wanted specifically to go shopping in the toy store, and was somewhat disappointed to find that there were basically no toys in the shops at the resort. However, we did pick up more sunscreen (at an exorbitant price) and a pool toy for the next day.
The restaurant was quite good. Our waitress’ English was a bit limited, so I got to try out some of my non-existent Spanish. Nachos with guacamole and salsa came out to tide us over – very Mexican. When the main courses came out, I really admired the plating – everyone got the same side dishes of a mound of rice, some refried beans with a nacho stuck in it, and a few fried plantain slices. They took up half the dish. The main course took up the other half of the dish. Efficient, yet pleasing to the eye and sufficiently different so as not to look production line-ish. Also quite tasty! I had the beef enchilada, Torsten had chicken tacos, Ingo had beef fajitas, and Glenn had chicken mole. We ended the dinner with a three milk cake – very moist and quite tasty. There was another child in the restaurant (less than a year old) who made the most appalling noise, prompting Torsten to turn to me and say “I’m a good boy!” – to which the only response could be, “Yes, you are!!”.
It had been such a busy day that we were all pretty tired after dinner (with the exception of Glenn, who went on to see the night’s offered entertainment, which he later described as lame), so we went back to our room, finished unpacking and tidying, relaxed, and eventually went to bed.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Flight and arrival
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Torsten woke up laughing in his little KinderKot tent at 7:45 am, which set the tone for the rest of the day. When my parents returned from church, we had a nice cup of tea, and then went to the Promenade Mall with Uncle Mike and Aunt Josephine for a large brunch at the Pickle Barrel. Glenn then took advantage of the time we spent buying snacks at T&T to go and buy himself a few shirts – not T-shirts, as you would expect, but formal button-up shirts from Mexx, as he’s gotten used to wearing his school uniform shirt and likes the style. For the more formal restaurants here at the resort, he is by far the best dressed of us! But I get ahead of myself…
Dad then drove us to the airport in my car and dropped us off. It works out very well, since they will then take my car and park it at the airport when they go on their trip, and we will thus pay less for parking, while they will save themselves the hassle of getting to the airport on the Go bus (although they will still go home that way). As we had checked in online that morning, all we had to do was go to the baggage drop-off. There was still a line, but Glenn was able to sit down and rest while we waited – and then, after we got through security (where there was no line at all), we were able to get a lift to our gate on one of the little cars! Hooray for Glenn’s crutches!
We were extremely early for our flight, as we had been worried about the March Break rush, so Torsten had plenty of time to look around and play. There was a very cool sculpture, shaped like 2 giant sets of parentheses, which people walked through, and which had neat acoustics – footsteps and voices echoed distinctly. At the gate, we had a wonderful view of an Air Jamaica plane being unloaded, and there was a lot of other baggage handling activity. The occasional plane being towed around also added interest. Torsten loved it, especially after Ingo bought some Doritos and orange juice for him to snack on. Glenn listened to music on his mp3 player, and I converted and loaded some videos onto my BlackBerry, so the time went by very quickly.
There was a bit of a delay in taking off, as they had a “communications system problem”, which prompted Ingo to make several lame jokes about the advisability of using Windows as their communications operating system. Finally, we took off – Torsten was very interested in everything, especially the onboard entertainment system. Early in our flight, he managed to crash his (I don’t know how), so he was forced to rely on Ingo’s and mine to keep him entertained. All in all, he behaved well on the flight – although there was a funny moment when the flight attendant came up to me after Ingo had gone to change Torsten’s diaper, and told me that “Your husband would like a diaper – I can bring it back to him – I think he forgot to bring one and only found out when he was in the middle of changing your son”. I, of course, knew better – and was proven correct. It turns out that Torsten hadn’t wanted to pee on the toilet, and, in the middle of his change, let fly. There was pee everywhere, including on his socks – although he had managed to miss his pants. He therefore landed in Punta Cana with shoes but no socks on.
The Punta Cana airport didn’t have gates that opened directly into the aircraft, so we had to descend a fairly long and steep flight of stairs to get to the ground. We then walked over to the airport, where we were met by bored looking women in traditional Dominican Republic dresses, and had our pictures taken with them. It was very random, since I didn’t see any spot where they were selling the resulting photographs – perhaps it was simply a subtle way of having a photo ID of everyone visiting the island! We cleared customs quickly, got our bags, and declined the relatively pushy porters who told us we weren’t allowed to take our trolley out of the airport – they seemed very disgruntled, but their expressions turned to grudging admiration once they saw the extent of Ingo’s pack-mule-like abilities.
Once out of the airport, we were directed to an Air Canada vacations bus (a little mini-bus), where there was a nice young woman who told us that the ride to Dreams Punta Cana would take one hour and that there would be an Air Canada briefing session the next day at 9 am. She then gave us a quick rundown of facts about the Dominican Republic and the resort, and introduced the driver. The lights in the bus were then switched off, loud salsa music blared from the speakers, and we set out to the resort – on the worst ride that I have ever had in my life. At first it wasn’t too bad – a bit bumpy, but all right. Then the bus began to do some slaloming to avoid what Ingo described as craters in the road, and I began to feel somewhat motion sick. The rest of the ride (about 40 minutes worth) was horrible, with jerky motion in all directions – and all in pitch blackness, except when we passed through villages or met other traffic. It really wasn’t the driver’s fault – the state of the roads is awful, and I think he was trying to avoid bottoming out on some of the potholes. Still, not very comfortable. Luckily, Torsten had fallen asleep early in the bus ride (he hadn’t had a nap all day, and it was then about 9:30 pm!), and didn’t wake up till we reached the resort.
Walking into the resort was like arriving at a calm oasis (despite the loud music from the stage show). The reception area is very spacious, with a very high ceiling featuring soaring beams of tropical wood, sisal fans, and leafy greenery. Many couches and chairs were arranged invitingly on the cool ceramic floor (I dropped into one, carrying a sleeping Torsten, immediately). The neutral colours were tremendously soothing. Glenn joined me in my couch grouping, and Ingo went to check us in. We were given Room 8215, and Glenn was given Room 5307 (Ingo subsequently talked to the desk and had Glenn’s changed to a first floor room – 5129 – as Glenn would have difficulties getting up to a third floor room; it turned out to be the handicapped room!).
After arranging for our bags to be brought to our room – during which time Torsten woke up – we walked to our room. The resort is arranged so that, upon exiting the reception area, there is a large green space with a gazebo, and then the winding swimming pool goes all the way down to where the beach begins. The 9 buildings housing the rooms are arranged on either side of this winding swimming pool, and there are numerous palm trees and other greenery dotting the landscape and generally making a pleasant walk. Even at nighttime it’s beautiful, as small lights are placed at frequent intervals to light the way, reminiscent of twinkling stars. Our path took us past the Explorer’s Club, which is where parents can drop off their kids (aged 3 -12) for the day; it features a massive playground with a pirate ship and other climbing paraphernalia. Torsten was immediately taken with it, but alas, he is not allowed in. Instead, he may play in the far inferior Kids’ Club down by the beach (mind you, he doesn’t seem to mind playing there at all).
Our room, on arrival turned out to be a large room with a large sitting area (it’s a Junior Suite). There is a large walk-in shower, and also a walk-in closet. We also have two sinks. From the sitting area, one can access the balcony, which is quite long and has a Jacuzzi at one end. Generally, a very comfortable room. Good thing, too, since Torsten immediately had a very large poop not five minutes after we got in. I can only be thankful that he waited for such a convenient moment!
There was some confusion about the time difference, which led to our ordering room service from the much more limited after-hours menu for our dinner. As it happened, we could have had a larger selection, since it was not, as we thought, after 11 pm, but rather only after 10 pm. I blame the USA for the confusion. We Canadians, being followers, have come off daylight savings time already, while the Dominican Republic has not. In consequence, although the Dominican Republic is technically on Atlantic Time (ie. 1 hour ahead of us), for the purposes of our stay here, they are on Canadian Eastern Time, since we have sprung forward to meet them. Confused? Yes, so were we.
After dinner, it being very late, we packed Glenn off to his room, and prepared for bed ourselves. Our plan had been to put Torsten in the pull-out sofa bed, but upon pulling it out, we found that it was stained and disgusting, with no extra sheets anywhere in sight. We have therefore dubbed it the “yucky bed”. However, our bed is massive – about 6 ½ feet wide – so the three of us fit in quite nicely. There was a bit of difficulty, since Torsten didn’t want Daddy in the bed (first telling him to sleep in the yucky bed, and then telling him to sleep with Cousin Glenn), but after that was settled, we had a good night’s sleep.
Torsten woke up laughing in his little KinderKot tent at 7:45 am, which set the tone for the rest of the day. When my parents returned from church, we had a nice cup of tea, and then went to the Promenade Mall with Uncle Mike and Aunt Josephine for a large brunch at the Pickle Barrel. Glenn then took advantage of the time we spent buying snacks at T&T to go and buy himself a few shirts – not T-shirts, as you would expect, but formal button-up shirts from Mexx, as he’s gotten used to wearing his school uniform shirt and likes the style. For the more formal restaurants here at the resort, he is by far the best dressed of us! But I get ahead of myself…
Dad then drove us to the airport in my car and dropped us off. It works out very well, since they will then take my car and park it at the airport when they go on their trip, and we will thus pay less for parking, while they will save themselves the hassle of getting to the airport on the Go bus (although they will still go home that way). As we had checked in online that morning, all we had to do was go to the baggage drop-off. There was still a line, but Glenn was able to sit down and rest while we waited – and then, after we got through security (where there was no line at all), we were able to get a lift to our gate on one of the little cars! Hooray for Glenn’s crutches!
We were extremely early for our flight, as we had been worried about the March Break rush, so Torsten had plenty of time to look around and play. There was a very cool sculpture, shaped like 2 giant sets of parentheses, which people walked through, and which had neat acoustics – footsteps and voices echoed distinctly. At the gate, we had a wonderful view of an Air Jamaica plane being unloaded, and there was a lot of other baggage handling activity. The occasional plane being towed around also added interest. Torsten loved it, especially after Ingo bought some Doritos and orange juice for him to snack on. Glenn listened to music on his mp3 player, and I converted and loaded some videos onto my BlackBerry, so the time went by very quickly.
There was a bit of a delay in taking off, as they had a “communications system problem”, which prompted Ingo to make several lame jokes about the advisability of using Windows as their communications operating system. Finally, we took off – Torsten was very interested in everything, especially the onboard entertainment system. Early in our flight, he managed to crash his (I don’t know how), so he was forced to rely on Ingo’s and mine to keep him entertained. All in all, he behaved well on the flight – although there was a funny moment when the flight attendant came up to me after Ingo had gone to change Torsten’s diaper, and told me that “Your husband would like a diaper – I can bring it back to him – I think he forgot to bring one and only found out when he was in the middle of changing your son”. I, of course, knew better – and was proven correct. It turns out that Torsten hadn’t wanted to pee on the toilet, and, in the middle of his change, let fly. There was pee everywhere, including on his socks – although he had managed to miss his pants. He therefore landed in Punta Cana with shoes but no socks on.
The Punta Cana airport didn’t have gates that opened directly into the aircraft, so we had to descend a fairly long and steep flight of stairs to get to the ground. We then walked over to the airport, where we were met by bored looking women in traditional Dominican Republic dresses, and had our pictures taken with them. It was very random, since I didn’t see any spot where they were selling the resulting photographs – perhaps it was simply a subtle way of having a photo ID of everyone visiting the island! We cleared customs quickly, got our bags, and declined the relatively pushy porters who told us we weren’t allowed to take our trolley out of the airport – they seemed very disgruntled, but their expressions turned to grudging admiration once they saw the extent of Ingo’s pack-mule-like abilities.
Once out of the airport, we were directed to an Air Canada vacations bus (a little mini-bus), where there was a nice young woman who told us that the ride to Dreams Punta Cana would take one hour and that there would be an Air Canada briefing session the next day at 9 am. She then gave us a quick rundown of facts about the Dominican Republic and the resort, and introduced the driver. The lights in the bus were then switched off, loud salsa music blared from the speakers, and we set out to the resort – on the worst ride that I have ever had in my life. At first it wasn’t too bad – a bit bumpy, but all right. Then the bus began to do some slaloming to avoid what Ingo described as craters in the road, and I began to feel somewhat motion sick. The rest of the ride (about 40 minutes worth) was horrible, with jerky motion in all directions – and all in pitch blackness, except when we passed through villages or met other traffic. It really wasn’t the driver’s fault – the state of the roads is awful, and I think he was trying to avoid bottoming out on some of the potholes. Still, not very comfortable. Luckily, Torsten had fallen asleep early in the bus ride (he hadn’t had a nap all day, and it was then about 9:30 pm!), and didn’t wake up till we reached the resort.
Walking into the resort was like arriving at a calm oasis (despite the loud music from the stage show). The reception area is very spacious, with a very high ceiling featuring soaring beams of tropical wood, sisal fans, and leafy greenery. Many couches and chairs were arranged invitingly on the cool ceramic floor (I dropped into one, carrying a sleeping Torsten, immediately). The neutral colours were tremendously soothing. Glenn joined me in my couch grouping, and Ingo went to check us in. We were given Room 8215, and Glenn was given Room 5307 (Ingo subsequently talked to the desk and had Glenn’s changed to a first floor room – 5129 – as Glenn would have difficulties getting up to a third floor room; it turned out to be the handicapped room!).
After arranging for our bags to be brought to our room – during which time Torsten woke up – we walked to our room. The resort is arranged so that, upon exiting the reception area, there is a large green space with a gazebo, and then the winding swimming pool goes all the way down to where the beach begins. The 9 buildings housing the rooms are arranged on either side of this winding swimming pool, and there are numerous palm trees and other greenery dotting the landscape and generally making a pleasant walk. Even at nighttime it’s beautiful, as small lights are placed at frequent intervals to light the way, reminiscent of twinkling stars. Our path took us past the Explorer’s Club, which is where parents can drop off their kids (aged 3 -12) for the day; it features a massive playground with a pirate ship and other climbing paraphernalia. Torsten was immediately taken with it, but alas, he is not allowed in. Instead, he may play in the far inferior Kids’ Club down by the beach (mind you, he doesn’t seem to mind playing there at all).
Our room, on arrival turned out to be a large room with a large sitting area (it’s a Junior Suite). There is a large walk-in shower, and also a walk-in closet. We also have two sinks. From the sitting area, one can access the balcony, which is quite long and has a Jacuzzi at one end. Generally, a very comfortable room. Good thing, too, since Torsten immediately had a very large poop not five minutes after we got in. I can only be thankful that he waited for such a convenient moment!
There was some confusion about the time difference, which led to our ordering room service from the much more limited after-hours menu for our dinner. As it happened, we could have had a larger selection, since it was not, as we thought, after 11 pm, but rather only after 10 pm. I blame the USA for the confusion. We Canadians, being followers, have come off daylight savings time already, while the Dominican Republic has not. In consequence, although the Dominican Republic is technically on Atlantic Time (ie. 1 hour ahead of us), for the purposes of our stay here, they are on Canadian Eastern Time, since we have sprung forward to meet them. Confused? Yes, so were we.
After dinner, it being very late, we packed Glenn off to his room, and prepared for bed ourselves. Our plan had been to put Torsten in the pull-out sofa bed, but upon pulling it out, we found that it was stained and disgusting, with no extra sheets anywhere in sight. We have therefore dubbed it the “yucky bed”. However, our bed is massive – about 6 ½ feet wide – so the three of us fit in quite nicely. There was a bit of difficulty, since Torsten didn’t want Daddy in the bed (first telling him to sleep in the yucky bed, and then telling him to sleep with Cousin Glenn), but after that was settled, we had a good night’s sleep.
Pre-vacation day
Saturday, March 14, 2009
The really funny thing is that I had tried to avoid having a mad rush on Saturday, knowing that we would have a lot to do before driving to my parents’ place for the night. Unfortunately, Glenn had 2 appointments during the week, and a lot of work showed up on Friday, which meant that a lot of tasks – like packing, laundry and cleaning – were shoved to Saturday. We wound up doing 8 loads of laundry, packing, going out to buy last minute items (such as cleaning brushes for Ingo’s braces), mailing some important letters, trying to prevent Torsten from “helping” too much, getting Torsten to settle down and take a nap (which lasted until after 6 pm!) and having dinner at the Daily Grill with Andy before we drove to my parents’ house.
As it turned out, our timing was wonderful, since my parents had just arrived home. Torsten immediately headed up to the living room with Gung Gung to play with trains, and the rest of us just relaxed, secure in the notion that the next day would be relatively relaxing.
The really funny thing is that I had tried to avoid having a mad rush on Saturday, knowing that we would have a lot to do before driving to my parents’ place for the night. Unfortunately, Glenn had 2 appointments during the week, and a lot of work showed up on Friday, which meant that a lot of tasks – like packing, laundry and cleaning – were shoved to Saturday. We wound up doing 8 loads of laundry, packing, going out to buy last minute items (such as cleaning brushes for Ingo’s braces), mailing some important letters, trying to prevent Torsten from “helping” too much, getting Torsten to settle down and take a nap (which lasted until after 6 pm!) and having dinner at the Daily Grill with Andy before we drove to my parents’ house.
As it turned out, our timing was wonderful, since my parents had just arrived home. Torsten immediately headed up to the living room with Gung Gung to play with trains, and the rest of us just relaxed, secure in the notion that the next day would be relatively relaxing.
Thank you for your patience
For those of you who have been anxiously awaiting news from the Dominican Republic, this is just a quick post to say that I'm working on some more comprehensive posts. I just got connected to the Internet today (it looked for a while as though I wasn't going to post at all, since they only advertise WiFi as available in the hotel lobby, and there's no wired connection in the room). However, we've worked it out - we have WiFi in the room, and so there will be blogging!
More to come soon...
More to come soon...
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