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.