Of trips ...
Mar. 11th, 2002 09:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sinjunSo, while I was off I kept a journal. And I figured I'd start typing it in, just to annoy anyone who bothers to read it.
Arrival Excitement
Or ... My Trip to the Dominican Republic. If you're interested.
Day 1 ... March 3, 2002. Sunday.
Woke Ariel at 3:45am and we were out of the house by 4:10am.
We picked up submarine sandwiches to eat on the plane, and had those by 4:20am. By 5:10am, we were at the airport, just as the rest of our party arrived. Well, the rest of the Toronto contingent, anyway. We got through the line up with a bit of patience, and no big problems. Through Security, and had some coffee while we chatted in the waiting room. Of course, we ended up with almost 2 hours to wait, though I'm sure if we'd tried arriving later, we'd have missed the plane. It's got to be one of Murphy's laws.
Anyway, eventually we got on the plane and took off. There wasn't a lot of turbulence, but enough to delay us midair by about 15 minutes. So we arrived in Puerto Plata at about 12:30pm. Cleared Customs and Immigration, found our luggage, found the Conquest people and got on the bus that drove us through Sosua and Cabarete to our hotel - Paraiso del Sol.
This is when the only real sour note struck. Our rooms weren't ready yet. In fact, neither were the rooms of the Halifax contingent, and they'd arrived at the hotel at about 12:30, though it was about 1:30 by the time we got there. The front desk staff figured out who was who, anyway, and they gave us our arm bands. Handcuffed, donchaknow. Such a strange thing, where that little purple plastic band - yes, it really was purple. How neat is that? - got us just about anything we wanted. Well so far as food and drink went, anyway.
Grabbed a pina colada, found our swimming clothes in our luggage, and off to the pool and explore the hotel grounds.
We were on our second pina colada ... slow drinkers no doubt... by 3pm. Everyone else got their rooms at this point, but the room assigned to Ariel and me ... no key. They couldn't find the key, no matter how they looked. Oops? So finalyly, by about 3:30pm they changed our room. All things considered, I'd have prefered the original room, but the one we got was passable. It was on the the third floor so we got lots of exercise going to and fro. Probably better than the other, which would have been poolfront.
In any event, we went off to find the beach with the rest of the crew. It was a RED flag day - very windy and swimming was not recommended. There were huge whitecaps out there, we actually could see them from the plane as it came down. The sand stung as it blasted skin in that wind. It seemed to blow right from the water onto the beach too, so there was no escaping it, not if you were on the beach anyway. Right. Time to walk around the hotel grounds again, and orient ourselves, figure out where all the rooms are - we had someone in each of the hotel buildings except number 1. So we did a bit of travelling here and there around the grounds.
Shower and relax a bit before dinner, and then head to the buffet. Oh, for those who are wondering ... this is who went on the trip: Me!, Ariel, Estherg, Roy, Annette, Pauline, Russell, Anna, Donny, Leah, and Clarence. yes, the boys were outnumbered, but they put up with it well enough.
There were fish-ke-babs at the buffet, and they were really good. After staying awake all night Saturday night though, I fell asleep before the show started at 10pm. All I remember from the preshow stuff is that the merengue and salsa music has a great beat.
Arrival Excitement
Or ... My Trip to the Dominican Republic. If you're interested.
Day 1 ... March 3, 2002. Sunday.
Woke Ariel at 3:45am and we were out of the house by 4:10am.
We picked up submarine sandwiches to eat on the plane, and had those by 4:20am. By 5:10am, we were at the airport, just as the rest of our party arrived. Well, the rest of the Toronto contingent, anyway. We got through the line up with a bit of patience, and no big problems. Through Security, and had some coffee while we chatted in the waiting room. Of course, we ended up with almost 2 hours to wait, though I'm sure if we'd tried arriving later, we'd have missed the plane. It's got to be one of Murphy's laws.
Anyway, eventually we got on the plane and took off. There wasn't a lot of turbulence, but enough to delay us midair by about 15 minutes. So we arrived in Puerto Plata at about 12:30pm. Cleared Customs and Immigration, found our luggage, found the Conquest people and got on the bus that drove us through Sosua and Cabarete to our hotel - Paraiso del Sol.
This is when the only real sour note struck. Our rooms weren't ready yet. In fact, neither were the rooms of the Halifax contingent, and they'd arrived at the hotel at about 12:30, though it was about 1:30 by the time we got there. The front desk staff figured out who was who, anyway, and they gave us our arm bands. Handcuffed, donchaknow. Such a strange thing, where that little purple plastic band - yes, it really was purple. How neat is that? - got us just about anything we wanted. Well so far as food and drink went, anyway.
Grabbed a pina colada, found our swimming clothes in our luggage, and off to the pool and explore the hotel grounds.
We were on our second pina colada ... slow drinkers no doubt... by 3pm. Everyone else got their rooms at this point, but the room assigned to Ariel and me ... no key. They couldn't find the key, no matter how they looked. Oops? So finalyly, by about 3:30pm they changed our room. All things considered, I'd have prefered the original room, but the one we got was passable. It was on the the third floor so we got lots of exercise going to and fro. Probably better than the other, which would have been poolfront.
In any event, we went off to find the beach with the rest of the crew. It was a RED flag day - very windy and swimming was not recommended. There were huge whitecaps out there, we actually could see them from the plane as it came down. The sand stung as it blasted skin in that wind. It seemed to blow right from the water onto the beach too, so there was no escaping it, not if you were on the beach anyway. Right. Time to walk around the hotel grounds again, and orient ourselves, figure out where all the rooms are - we had someone in each of the hotel buildings except number 1. So we did a bit of travelling here and there around the grounds.
Shower and relax a bit before dinner, and then head to the buffet. Oh, for those who are wondering ... this is who went on the trip: Me!, Ariel, Estherg, Roy, Annette, Pauline, Russell, Anna, Donny, Leah, and Clarence. yes, the boys were outnumbered, but they put up with it well enough.
There were fish-ke-babs at the buffet, and they were really good. After staying awake all night Saturday night though, I fell asleep before the show started at 10pm. All I remember from the preshow stuff is that the merengue and salsa music has a great beat.
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Date: 2002-03-11 08:14 pm (UTC)