I know you all have been sitting on the edge of your seats awaiting our next post about the honeymoon... Well let's just say we have been really busy!! Rod started his new job at UAB and has been working 7 days a week since, we are swamped at Fravert Services (my job) and basically we come home from work, walk to the dogs, eat dinner and go to sleep and repeat. Wooo... This past weekend gave me time to catch up on a lot of things, including this blog! So here it goes:
Honeymoon: Day Two, August 20, 2012
We had to wake up around 9:30 am to make it to our transportation company's meeting at 10am. The guide was so funny!! He told us about Mama Juana, a "special" Dominican Republic drink. (Just Google it, I won't go into detail about the history of it here) He also told us about all of the different tours we could take! We chose the Truck Safari. It seemed like it would be a trip where we'd get to see more of the country and learn a little about the natives and their culture.
We then grabbed a delicious coffee (they just don't do coffee in America like they do in Central America and the Caribbean) and headed back to get ready for a beach day!
We relaxed by the beach and pool all day. It was so nice. We kayaked for a while on the ocean and put on my awesome goggles and got to see an area of coral reef! It was beautiful. We met 2 couples while we were out there, they were from Utah and were pretty cool. It seemed like a lot of people at the resort came in their own groups so it was nice to meet people for a change. We spent the rest of the afternoon at the pool and then headed back to get ready for our steakhouse dinner.
The waiter didn't understand what "Cabernet" was, haha, but after I said "vino rojo" he brought us a decent red wine for me and "vino blanco" for Rod. I was surprised at a lot of the Spanish that came back to me on this trip. Mrs. Dawn Hager (Beck) would be proud! I ordered a ribeye that was HUGE and Rod had a sirloin. The sauces we got with the steaks added a lot. They were amazing! Rod tried the cheesecake for dessert and I had an apple pie. Both were great!
We walked around some to some of the over-priced souvenir shops on the resort and then played on an oversized set of checkers!! It was a perfect day of total relaxation!
Honeymoon: Day Three, August 21,2012
Truck Safari day!!! We met in the lobby at 8 am and hopped in the back of a large pickup truck that was covered and had padded benches on either side. We met people from Canada (who were originally from Egypt!), people from New Jersey as well as Colorado and Iowa! Our guide "Eddie Murphy" (or Sweet Eddie) was awesome!! Our driver's name was "Scissor"... haha
We rode all throughout the gorgous Dominican Republic countryside. Mountains began to appear in the distance! Our first stop was at a horse ranch where we each got on a horse and got to ride along the beautiful deserted beaches! Rod's horse was the fastest!! He actually galloped way ahead. I thought at the time that Rod wanted him to do that, but apparently he just wouldn't stop. Finally there was another tour group up ahead that caused Rod's horse to stop. Scary!! We got back to the ranch soon after this. There was dogs and cats everywhere. There was a dog chewing on a chicken foot!!! NASTY! Our next stop was after another long ride up into the countryside in the mountains. Eddie talked about how a new political party had just been elected. He talked about how they are trying to keep the kids in school until 8th grade and to prevent them from turning into beggars. He told us not to give any money to the kids. He talked about Haiti which is connected to the Dominican Republic and how Haiti is a lot worse off than them. Haiti cut down all of their tress and have no regulations so there are mudslides and deaths. There was a hurrican in 2004 that killed over 1000 Haitians and only like 70 Dominican Republicans because they have regulations on how many trees can be cut down. He talked about how architects and engineers will hire like 20 Haitians and 10 Dominican Republicans to work on constructions because the Haitians cost like $3/ day and the Dominicans cost like $12/ day!! Crazy... Everyone is so happy though, on so much less. It's such a lesson to learn!!
We learned about the different types of pal trees. One has very strong wood that a lot of people use in building houses and one is called the Silver Palm. This is what the city Puerto Plata got it' name from. Christopher Columbus thought he saw tons of silver on the land in the distance. It ended up, however, that it was just the underside of the palm leaf reflecting in the sun.
He talked about the aboriginal people and how when the Spaniards tried to colonize the area they introduced all kinds of new diseases so the "doctors" at the time combined herbs until they came up with Mama Juana. It contains 8 different ingredients and you mix it with sweet red wine, honey, and rum. He told us of theses trees with spikes on the bark that the aboriginals used as torture for the Spaniards.
We arrived at the natives house made of the strong palm tree wood. Here we learned about the cocoa and coffee making process. He described the process of the cocoa plant and how when the shell turns red it is ripe and you have to crack it open and remove the cocoa beans, dry them, roast them, and then grind them either with a mortar and pestel or with a hand crank grinding machine. The process is similar with coffee. We walked through the family's house which was basically two rooms, a separate kitchen and outhouse. There were two beds in one room with one dresser and just a few outfits and shoes hanging up. They had a propane tank which Eddie said was rare. They had just a couple of lights which often have black outs so they have to rely on gas. We tried a delcious hot cocoa drink along with some STRONG coffee! We also had some amazing fresh fruit and Mama Juana!! It was good, didn't seem "magical" or anything though, haha. We bought some of the vanilla extract as well as a couple things of coffee to take back with us!
We then rode back down the mountain into a rain forest area where we had a traditional Dominican lunch. Rice, beans, pinto beans, beef, chicken and random, Spaghetti!! We ate and watched a man roll cigars! We both tried one and got to take one for later! A shop was set up next to it selling paintings and wooden figures. Rod liked this elephant but the guy wanted $200 for it!! he gave me a wooden figure that means happiness as a gift. Rod found a smaller elephant and we got the guy down from $80 to $20! We then walked down to play in the river. We didn't wear our suits so we just walked around on the rocks while the others swam. Our last stop on the trip before we headed back was at the famous Catholic church "Basilica de Higuey". This is a very important monument to Dominicans. We made one last surprise stop to a beautiful public beach where we just viewed it from the distance and we also stopped at a convenient store to buy some Brugal Rum. It is much cheaper than what they were selling it at the resort. It's rum made in the Dominican Republic and it is very good!
This tour really made me have a passion for helping this country. It also renewed my love for Spanish as I had to use it several times! We learned so many interesting facts about the country and got to see a lot of different parts of the country!
That evening, once we were freshened up, we headed over to our reservation at the Japanese restaurant. We enjoyed some Sushi (it was no Kyoto from Decatur, but that's really hard to beat. The hibachi was delicious!! Our chef formed the fried rice into a heart and made it "beat" with the spatula.. He was funny. We walked around the resort after this, but then headed back and crashed because of the long, eventful day!
Honeymoon: Day Four, August 22, 2012
We slept in!!! It was awesome, and then we laid out at the beach and played in the HUGE waves. They had gotten a lot bigger and stronger since Monday because of Tropical Storm Issaac. He tried so hard to rain on our parade! The kayaks were put away because of this :(
We still swam around in the water and enjoyed a couple more of the Elegance Club's private pools. Just a pretty relaxing day all around! It was great!
Rod's tooth began to hurt that afternoon. He had just been to the dentist just before the wedding and they didn't find anything wrong, but he was in so much pain!! The rest of the evening was spent together in the room watching old Friends episodes. It seems lame, but it was so nice to just have down time together where we had NO responsibilities at all. We did go down every so often to check flights because several people on Delta's flights were just totally cancelled up until September 5th!!! We were ok with our US Airways, but we still prayed for the next couple of days that we would get to head home on Saturday, especially with the pain that Rod was in!
Honeymoon: Day Five & Six, August 23-24, 2012
Rod was in even WORSE pain! I ran around all morning trying to talk to the pharmacist in to finding medicine "mas fuerte" than tylenol! She didn't have anything. She kept telling me to give him that. All she spoke was Spanish. I know it's their country, but you would think in a resort you would have a pharmacy that could speak at least a little English just in case there was an emergency!
Anyways, I found the doctor on site and he was VERY helpful. He sent me to another pharmacy on the other side of the resort. She also didn't speak English, but had set aside "Oxaforte" which helped his pain a lot more than the tylenol did, but not much more. I felt so bad for him! However, Friday night we were able to make it to the Circus Show at the resort. It was so much fun!! They did all kinds of cool tricks, poses, trapeze stunts, etc. It was great!
We didn't really miss much on Thursday because the weather was so bad, so we were thankful for that!! It would have been a lot harder if it was sunny outside! Friday I did go swim in the pool for a little while. Once again, it sounds uneventful, but it was fun taking care of my husband and it felt so good to be able to do that and share that with him. I can't wait for many more years of caring for him!!
Honeymoon: Day Seven, August 25, 2012
Today was the trip home! We walked around to a few shops while we waited on the bus. I attempted to weigh our bags on a scale in the resort gym... It was about 5 lbs under at the time...
Well, we load up the van about 1 pm and rode 30 minutes to the airport. We met a couple who was from Birmingham but lived in South Carolina now. They were nice! Kept talking about football to us..haha. The husband was an Alabama fan and the wife a South Carolina fan, so they were pretty interesting. They invited us to their tailgate if we ever made it over to Columbia.
So we get unloaded and get up to the baggage check, and the lady tells us we cannot carry-on straighteners, wood, and a couple of other things, so we had to put those in our checked bag. This means, that that 5lbs under quickly turned into 5lbs over! So we had to remove clothes and other supportive items that were keeping our bottles of rum and other breakables from breaking and had to put those in our carry-ons! UGH! So we got to worry about rum and vanilla being splattered all over our suitcase if it broke on the trip home. Gotta love airports and flying...
As we are boarding our plane, which we have to do so outside, a bee KEPT chasing me. I had just sprayed on Marc Jacobs Daisy perfume in one of the duty free shops, and I guess it really does smell like a freakin' daisy, because this bee would NOT leave me alone. I have never been stung before, and I believe it is due to me frantically running around waving my arms every time one gets near. I did this and got several funny looks from passengers. I even frantically handed my coffee to an airport employee thinking that would get the bee away from me... Nope.. Well, finally we boarded the plane and the bee was gone, thank God, right along with mine (and probably Rod's) dignity. haha
Our pilot made it to Charlotte very quickly!! We experienced some rough patches of turbulence (probably the worst I've ever been in) but we landed safely in the US and it felt good! We then had a decent layover, but a quick flight back to Huntsville where Rod's dad picked us up!
And that's it!! We had a great, relaxing week. A perfect week spent together. And hey, since Rod was in pain most of the trip that just gives us a good reason to go on another trip soon!! But that week was a perfect end to a chapter in our lives but also a perfect beginning to a new chapter of being married and growing, caring, and supporting each other no matter what, and I can't wait for the many more memories to come!
xoxo-L
