Cabrera, Northwestern Paradise - Dominican Republic

When I first got married, we spent a lot of time in Cabrera. Amalio's dad and sisters still live in the campo they grew up in, and despite the four hour trip in public transportation, it was a nice respite from the hustle and bustle of the city.

We now have cars, and the drive is easier than public transportation. But we also have three kids and, between us, I think four thousand jobs. It makes getting to the campo a little harder.

I do love the beach. LOVE the beach. So, the fact that Cabrera has some of the most beautiful - and kid friendly - beaches on the island, we often head up on our free days. 

When we do make the trip, we always go to the beach and hop around the small ocean-front town. Playa Diamante is our favorite - it's a lagoon with no waves and waist high, crystalline waters. The sand is soft and the kids can play without fear of the waves. We also love Playa El Caleton - a fun beach with modern art sculptures representative of the local indigenous tribe (long extinct) adorning the coastal cliffs. The water is deeper than at Diamante, but the waves aren't strong and the beach is shady and relaxing.  Our last go-to beach is La Entrada, a bit further out of town. A river meets the ocean and the beach goes on for days. People swim in the river and in the ocean. The food shacks along the beach have fresh fried fish and other delicious local food. 

When we leave the beach, head into town and get ice cream from the local Bon Heladeria, and head to the malecon, a walk-way overlooking the cliffs of Cabrera, to eat our treats. We drive through town - sometimes visiting family and friends before heading back up the mountain to where we'll stay. 

 My sister in law has a cute garden where we pick cherry tomatoes and starfruit, and my father-in-law has a conuco - a piece of land used for cultivating root vegetables like yucca, sweet potatoes, and taro root. The kids can spend time running free and breathing fresh air, helping their grandpop with moving the cows and feeding chickens. They play with their cousins and eat fruit from the trees. 

The trips to the campo are often too short, but sweet. Filled with laughter and fun. There is no better place to visit family than in Cabrera - we're lucky to have a reason to return so frequently!

santo domingo

if you've been following the past few weeks, you'll know that i'm on the path to acquiring my dominican citizenship, making me a dual citizen just like my kids. it's not a complicated process, but there are some trips to the capital involved.

the capital is not my favorite place in the country. it might not even make it to the top of my fifty favorite places in the world,  but it's where things move here and i can't avoid it. besides, a good friend of mine lives there and she makes it an excellent place to visit. (who doesn't love visiting old friends?)

since i was going to have to run back and forth a few times, i tried to piggyback some other things that i needed to do (like a trip to ikea. need.) and a visit to some of my husband's family. when my friend kate from college emailed me and said she'd be on the island, could we meet up somehow? i was thrilled.

i love visitors.

i especially love catching up with old friends who come to visit (hint).

she was at a resort pretty far from us, but i needed to go to the capital (and i would have met her there even if i didn't) and i figured why not get it done all at once. so, she and her husband went with amely and i to the police station to turn in my paperwork and then we headed downtown to the zona colonial. i never carry a camera, but the blackberry did a decent job (thank you daniel, again, for my lovely phone!)

beautiful arches in the first cathedral in the new world!

chapel #3 - someone is buried in there, don't ask me who.

creepy little cherubim above the door. creepy.

those cherubim are creepy, but not nearly as creepy as these little boy statues lining the building asking for donations for seminary. CREEPY

jonathan standing next to some cannons.

pirates in the carribean (ha! i know, not funny. but i had to)

if you look closely you'll notice that he glasses are on upside down.

view of ozama river from the top of the fort.

looking toward the city from ozama fort.

amely doesn't warm up to people a lot. but she loved her some jonathan.

i'm an illegal immigrant

last week, amely and i packed out day bags and headed to santo domingo to see a friend from college who was honeymooning in punta cana. (man it was a long trip, but so worth it to catch up!) i have been hemming and hawing about my legal status, not really sure what i was going to do about my illegal immigrant status. we finally decided to do the dual citizenship when my employer forced my hand (get something, anything, or you're out of a job). with all the paperwork together, i figured i'd double dip and hit the police department to drop off the papers.

here's where things kind of tilt. i didn't want to do my paperwork because it's such an ordeal. there are lines, and a lot of people who don't know what's going on. wait for hours in line a just to be told to go to line b and line b tells you it's back to line a. i can't handle it. amalio went once to get the information we needed to complete the process, and in the same building they gave him four different papers, all with different requirements for the same thing.

so, i had asked for help. i put out the word of what i was doing and, please, for the love of god, does anyone know who can help me? not a lawyer (because they're the worst), but someone who maybe works in the right office, or even in the right building?

i hit the jackpot and was connected to someone in the right building. it's always a crapshoot because even though people say they can help, it's not always true. let me tell you, this guy came through.

arriving at the correct building (after arguing in the wrong building about my friends' inappropriate clothing), we were met by an assistant, taken to an office, given fresh-squeezed juice. i handed over my packet of papers and the fee (not a bribe) and while some guard ran my errands, i relaxed and caught up with my friend and her new husband.

i don't really know how long the process really takes, but i will take my citizenship test on wednesday (6 days after depositing my paperwork!) and will be sworn in when the depositions from the proper international agencies come in and declare me felony free.

me and kate at the ozama fort

i've talked to others who have waited months and months for things to "fall into place." because if yo don't know someone, things here don't work. i've got some studying to do - i still don't know who the first president of the republic was (trick question!) or any of the 87 different independences, but i see the light at the end of the tunnel... i will no longer be the illegal and i'll still have a job.

supermarket-selection overload.

have you been in the supermarket lately? have you seen the rows and rows and rows of the same thing for sale? 

seriously, who needs that big of a selection of milk or juice? or salt. or drinking water. really?
the supermarket isn't hard for me. after all, there are very nice, big, modern supermercados in the dominican republic. really nice ones. with a lot of selection. i mean, there are aisles of wine which is impressive in itself since most of the country just drinks brugal. 

there are some things, though, that just boggle my mind and sometimes throw me into sensory overload. 

i don't think our food is any more natural than north american food - but it looks a little, well, different. my brother bought an onion the other day. a big white ball of onion-y goodness (i l.o.v.e. onions). it was huge and perfect. like, unnaturally perfect. (i would have taken a picture, but remember how i didn't bring my tools for the cell phone camera?) it looked like a giant softball. pure and white and not a dimple on its skin.
i, admittedly, borrowed these pictures from the internet. however, they make my point. do you see the oranges over there? perfect and round and orange? i haven't seen an orange orange in the dominican republic, ever. i don't know why, i don't know how these things work - but when you're accustomed to this kind of "home-garden-y" type of fruits and vegetables, it is a little disturbing to see such aesthetic perfection.

on every visit to the states, the first trip to the grocery store is weird. this trip, though, i got thrown by the drug store. my mom sent me to get some cold medicine. luckily, she was kind of specific - she wanted mucinex. did you know how many different selections of mucinex there are? i stood, perplexed, for a few minutes looking for the one. they were all the same thing as far as i could tell. there were different milligrams, different types of pills, a syrup. had i been alone in the store i might have hyperventilated. good thing i had someone with me just as clueless to the medicine chest as i am (the joys of being 14 and having mom take care of that stuff!) 

i picked the box of meds that matched the price my mom told me - a syrup that was not on sale - and headed to the register. we walked past the aisles of everything in the world - 17 different kinds of cotton balls, 12 different brands of cotton swabs, perfume, makeup, 16 varieties of nail clippers. 

i paid quickly and got out. i haven't been back in the drugstore since, but i'm going to need to venture out before we head back to santiago - after all, there are some things i need to get.

an open letter to american airlines.

to whom it may concern:

let me start this letter by saying that i understand that your company is claiming bankruptcy, that the nasty economy finally caught up to you and you're in a sticky situation. how can you keep up the service and quality that your repeat customers are accustomed to and still make enough money to stay afloat? however, i don't think you are all that concerned with your customers. making enough money? enough, i'm sure, considering your prices and all of your hidden charges. taking care of passengers? not so much. let me tell you why i think that.

you see, a few days i boarded a plane with my two small children and my father. a tricky situation to begin with - a game of who sits where and with whom? who walks and who gets the stroller? and what in the world do i do with these kids on a two hour flight? i planned out naptimes, snacks and activities for two hours on a plane. then, different activities for the insane layover and more activities for the second 2 hour flight.

everything was planned. and, of course, i know that not everything goes as plans. but explain to me why i sat on your airplane for two hours because of some paperwork problem? two hours on a fairly full plane, sitting at a gate with two small children, because your mechanics made a simple and supposedly easy repair and then, presumably, filled out two hours of paperwork. regardless, two hours sitting on a plane? and what do you do to help this problem? a glass of water and free headphones for a tv program that went twenty minutes without sound. seriously,

the flight was uneventful, but upon arrival in miami, we practically ran through the airport - the seventy two miles from your plane to customs - so as not to miss our connecting flight. two small children, remember? collect our bags, leave the airport and go back through security. i get it. i do, really. people died because some crazies got on a plane and now we have to take our shoes off and get body scans. but didn't we go through security for the first flight?

with just a few minutes to feed my children, we found our gate and then found something to eat. quick. because our plane was going to board. except it wasn't. because again, dear american airlines friends, your flight was delayed. not by much, but enough to make our race through the airport completely unnecessary. we board. and then sit. again. this time because the airport took the ground crew away from my flight to service another.

delay upon delay.

again. uneventful flight. luckily my kids slept most of the flight. they would have slept peacefully for the full flight except that not only had the flight been delayed in the beginning, it circled the philadelphia airport for at least 25 minutes in the air before landing. thank you, american airlines. that's what i needed to end my day. 25 minutes of kids asking why the plane wasn't "going down" and were we "stuck" in the air.

i sincerely hope that you figure out the mess you're in because it is no longer pleasant to travel with your airline. and, like you say on all of your flights, we customers do have a choice. you are not the only option out there.

sincerely,
girlinthedr.

3-2-1 almost time!

we’ve got two pretty big countdowns going on here. grandpop is coming to visit on monday night, and then on thursday we’re going to get on the plane with him! the kids are thrilled because mostly people leave here when they’re sleeping, and this time they get to leave, too.

of course, we’re sad because we still haven’t gotten amalio a visa to visit the states, so he’ll be staying behind – yet again – but we hope that this summer he’ll finally make it north, and not just to the beach an hour away. (in fact, I think I’ll make a countdown for the kids to count the days until they see their papi while we’re away!)

I’ve seen these countdown chains all over the internet, and at first (I’ll admit it) I thought it was kind of dumb. and then samil starting going to sleep every night talking about how manana he’s going to grandpop’s house. and then he’d wake up in the morning and look for his suitcase. the chain has been helpful because he count it down together and then he or amely cuts the last link off (or number). the countdown to our trip has numbers on it for him and the countdown for grandpop is plain, so that’s what amely cuts (and… amely sucks with scissors, so ripping construction paper links is easier on us all). 

sweet sweet chicago.

it's been quite a while since i graduated from college. and i haven't been back to the windy city since.

not that i haven't wanted to.

but it's complicated, and expensive, to fly to new york and then to the midwest. i've been blessed by friends who've come to philly to see me (and more recently, us.)

but now it's time.

on saturday morning, the kids and i will fly to chicago!! i've got no itinerary other than "see people we LOVE".

it's a little overwhelming, but i'm beyond excited.

it's cold out there!

it's been unseasonably hot in the santiago this year. november and december usually are presents of fresh breezes and cool nights. a gift from the universe for having to endure 99% humidity 10 months of the year.

but this year. well, this year the humidity has been 110% with temperatures touching 90 nearly everyday.

no, really, i have no clue what the temperature is because with the lack of a weather channel, i'm a little lost. but it's hot. H.O.T.

and the nice afternoon rains that cool things off in the summer are non-existant. and the baby? she's allergic to hot. so you can imagine the craziness the ensues when the scales tip a high 60, it's screaming and pure locura.

now, my mom is a little nuts about the heating bill and the heat here is just as amely loves it. f.r.e.e.z.i.n.g. she's happy as a clam in her cute little winter clothes and when i took her to the store today she kept pushing that pesky fleece blanket away from her face. because, shoot, who needs a blanket when it's just a little above freezing?

blankets are for sissies!!!

samil, i think, is cool with the cold. he loves his hat and coat and even his little red mittens. not a fan, though, of the wind. yesterday the wind blew so hard he looked at me, all serious like, and said "fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu, whoa mama".

home again home again jiggety jig

back in philadelphia with internet access and a phone. running water and a water heater.

the only drawback is the snow.