So let's see.... we met up with Mom and Dad and followed them to O'Hare airport on Dec. 25th p.m. Chris and Robyn I think were at her Mom's house. Mom and Dad, Ian and I went and had drinks at Harry Carey's bar in our hotel. Then we went to bed.
Ian and I woke up at like 2:45a.m. Dec. 26 (we had to be on the shuttle at 3:30am). I was wide awake because I was flying across the ocean and super excited even though I slept like 4/5 hours.
We met up in the lobby, got all our stuff, Mom and I got some coffee. I got to see Chris and Robyn (who showed up later). Then we went to the airport. We sat forever. I listened to my new Nano ipod (it had a radio since I didn't have time to upload songs on it). I read a lot. There was this woman on the same flight as us in the airport dressed in this HUGE purple puffy coat and she and her daughter had these huge stilleto boots and the dad had skinny jeans. It was awkward. It felt like we sat there forever. Then we finally loaded the plane. I sat by Ian and some weird guy reading that weird sci-fi book that's like choose your adventure and time travel... I can't think of it now. I think it was a movie too. Ohhh something to the galaxy. Anyway the plane ride wasn't bad at all. I slept the entire time. They de-iced the plane forever.
We landed in the open hut airport which was weird.
After we finally got to our resort, I went to set up all our reservations for dinner since you had to do it right away. Ian hung out with Dad, Mom, Chris and Robyn. They tried out the many types of drinks the Platnium Lounge had to offer.
The next time I had my camera out was I believe the next day before we went to the beach. I took a billion pictures of our room because I was bored and it was a big room. I had got up early and went to the Platinum (shortened to Plat from now on cuz I can't spell Platinum) to get Caramel Cappuccino. It was amazing and came out of a machine. SO GOOD. Ian was sleeping on our porch when I got back LOL
The ocean from our porch
Our Porch
The view of the ocean if I walked down the little path to the other side of our building
My normal essentials: Journal/later book because I got lazy, Caramel Capp., phone (that later got put in the safe), key card
This is what I saw when I looked the other way off our porch...
For a while, my parents and Robyn and Chris were far away from the ocean like a block away from us (or a building or two ... however you want to word it) but they moved closer to us. Chris and Robyn became our next door neighbors! They lived on the top and we lived on the bottom of buildings facing each other.
That's my brother on his porch taken from my porch after they moved in. It was nice to look out and have my brother right there again. It was like living at home.
We also had a gecko, I named Lucky living on our porch
Besides sitting on our porch, we were at the Plat., or at the beach under a hut or eating. LOL most days. We met up for dinner every night. I tried to dress up for dinner. I mostly ate lobster (if on the list) but I also had lamb, salmon, cavier and always white wine (that wasn't very good). For lunch I usually had a hot dog and fries from the beach place, and at least one of the following for lunch mashed potatoes, cheese, pineapple, Italian food. Or a combo of some. LOL and I always got a plate of every dessert for everyone to sample if we were at the buffet. It was the easiest way since most of them were awful LOL
This was the day before our Licey (fancy and pron. Lee-say) dinner. Chris, Robyn, Ian and I all went shopping for Mom at the local out of the resort place before dinner. We got her cute turtle (tortuga) earrings and a pendent for her slider.
Us at Licey
All of us at Licey
On Thursday, they had some huge market at the Lobby so we all went to it. I found this necklace I LOVED and made the mistake of exclaiming this in front of the guy. So he wanted to overcharge Ian and my dad for the necklace when they tried to buy it for me. Ooops. At the same place though I found ANOTHER vendor who had the SAME necklace and I learned from my mistake and ignored it but secretly told Ian. He was able to talk this vendor from 130 down to 30 for me!!! So I got the necklace!!!
One day we went with Mom and Dad to the exotic animal zoo thing they had. I saw lizards and hissed at them. Parrots that I said 'hola' too like a billion times until one of them said 'hola' back to me. I saw a bunch of birds. And a bird with no leg. It was sad and hobbling. And a LOT of peacocks. Later that week I went back to feed the peacocks after stealing a lot of bread from the lobby buffet. :) I decided for some odd reason that day that it would be a great idea to wear my sarong as a top over my swimsuit. It wasn't and it looked awful. Ian decided not to tell me until I bent over to feed the birds and he took pictures of me only to say you'll hate this picture you look fat. LOL thanks hun.
It ate right out of my hand!!!
This picture pretty much sums up my whole vacation. This is where I spent like 630a-5pm every day. They brought us water, drinks and we only moved once or twice for food or to swim in the ocean.
I'm under my hut, on a big comfy bed chair (as you can kind of see in front of me), looking at the ocean, partially tanning at times, reading a book or napping)
More view
To my right - the non-VIP section full of blue chairs! poor bastards.
The giant beds by the ocean. they were like queen or king sized beds that you could lay on in full sun. I thought they were too hot. That woman is the woman who every day in our VIP section gave us fresh towels. She was like 4 foot tall. I think her name was Maribel.
Ian couldn't sit on the beach and do nothing as long as I could so he wandered around a lot. Went to the pool for a dip, went to the ocean, walked down a bit to the bar to get his own drink... this is him walking back.
Funny story... I couldn't figure out why after this picture he didn't walk towards me. I thought he was lost so I started yelling IAN! And he walked down past me to the left and then circled back towards me... I thought that was weird. So as I'm taking pictures of him and laughing because he's lost and I'm catching it on camera... I realize he's not lost... he noticed this...
He comes back and says
They were PIERCED! hahahaha
It was hilarious.
This is me with teeny towel woman.
I don't know how she had her arm but thank you Teeny Towel Woman for making me look SO skinny!!!
I'm telling you all I did was sit on the beach.
This is awkward Lifeguard swimsuit man. All day he was in front of us one day and when he bent down it was not pretty!
We finally got off the beach long enough to go the swim up bar at the pool one day. I didn't have my camera but I did some shots and talked some really nice guy. He was in his 30s and single. He was there with his 13 year old daughter. He was trying to find a woman to talk to for a date or something after his daughter fell asleep at like 10p but it was hard because everyone looked so young there or was married. He was a nice guy though, from Texas. I tried to find him a date. They were all married LOL poor guy. He took his daughter on a big trip every year for winter break. I thought that was nice.
Another day, we walked down to another resort. Chris and Robyn went ahead of us because they were doing something or we had to do something... I don't remember. I think Mom wanted to change so we stayed back with them. And then went. Well Mom, Dad, Ian and I ended up at a resort and Robyn and Chris ended up at a different resort! You could go to 3 different ones (including ours) with your VIP band to swim or whatever. They were all owned by the same people. So Ian and I played this Frisbee hit the water bottles on the table game. I came in second (tie) and Ian didn't hit any. I made fun of him.
While we were there we met about a billion Canadians. From Motreal, Quebec, Toronto, Ottawa. Every one was Canadian. Some were super Canadian, some spoke French, some spoke French and English. It was crazy... the amount of Canadians. I met some cool people the first day I got there in the Plat Club. That Ian and I hung out with a lot. They had two college-aged kids - both equally hot - girl and boy. LOL The parents were around more and super fun. They were drunk from dawn to dusk. We also met a nice older couple that kicked some guy out of his chair for us. LOL We had NOTHING to do with this. We got there and the beach was PACKED for being like 8am. It was one of our first days. Ian and I got out there early to get a spot. Well this older couple saw us looking for a spot and said to us these chairs have been covered all morning and no one has shown up! And went and told the towel woman (who has apparently authority to toss them) I dunno. We were like its okay we'll find somewhere and she was like no sweetie you guys are new here and should have a spot! So we walked around and they found us like 2 seconds later and said Honey there is a spot! So we went and sure enough it was empty. Well we had no idea who was there or wasn't there or what. It was empty, under a hut, so we sat. Like maybe a hour later, this random guy comes up to us and starts yelling that we took his spot and we were liars and we stole his things and all this stuff. We had no idea what he was so irate about. He was cussing at us at yelling LIARS! It was insane. He stormed off and the towel girl had his stuff. He was crazy. It wasn't us! We thanked the old people and found out was her birthday. They were our friends all week :) I almost am positive they tipped every person there 20 dollars a day. LOL I found out they had a lot of pull and were good people to have. They did the same thing for a younger couple later that week and the same guy flipped out. We were amused. That guy deserved it. He was a jerk even without people moving his stuff. I don't even think he was VIP.
I wanted to swim with the dolphins because I never have. So Mom and I went on the Dolphin Excursion together. I'm glad she went with me! We both LOVE animals. It was fun!!! It was nice hanging out with her all day. We rode a bus forever and hung out. We swam with the dolphins, we ate amazing ice cream (the first real sweets we found the whole trip), we looked at our pictures, we hung out with a nice Canadian woman and her daughter and this crazy Russian mail order bride and her American husband. It was such a fun day!!!
Sasha the dolphin kissing Mom
Kissing me
Mom and I trying to pet the dolphin.
We were in the middle of the ocean in a fenced-in-underwater area.
The dolphin doing its trick for me and Mom. (next to Mom - crazy Russian and weird American husband)
After that we just rode back and probably went to the beach! HAHA or had lunch.
The next day or a couple days later... I dont' remember was New Year's Eve. We laid on the beach all day. And then got ready for dinner.
Striking a pose in my NYE outfit
Ian and I at NYE dinner
Mom and Dad at NYE diner.
Robyn and Chris at NYE dinner.
All of us at NYE dinner plus the funny waiter that I called Guapo HAHA
Mom and I. LOVE this pic.
Some lobby NYE decorations.
Me with everything in our free NYE bag (hat, lei, beads, party horn thing, party cranker noisemaker) Oh and champagne. My like 10th glass.
My parents with their noisemakers. HAHA LOVE IT
Ball dropped/bells rang/people yelled/we danced
The ENTIRE NYE night before and after this we hung out with this awesome kids our age from Quebec. Two spoke English and French, two spoke French and little English. We speak little French. But the two that spoke English - Sebastian and Valerie (dating) were awesome! They were there with Valerie's brother and sister-in-law, their kid (Valerie's niece) and parents (Valerie and her brother's parents).The brother and SIL didn't talk much and left early. And the parents had stayed home with their granddaughter. So most of the night it was just me, Ian, Val and Sebastian. Sebastian was an IT guy in Canadian so he and Ian talked all night long. It was boring but okay because Sebastian was hot LOL Valerie is a psychologist and really nice. Ian thought she was hot so it was even. :) This is an awful pic of Sebastian but these are our NYE friends!
Ian, Me, the SIL, the brother, Sebastian and Valerie
After that we stayed up until Indiana turned 2010 and went to bed pronto.
The next day (our last full day) Ian and I were on the beach again before the sun rose.
We ended up in the non VIP section on our last day because we slept in and ALL the VIP chairs were claimed!!! At least we had a hut.
The other side of the rope is the VIP section where we usually sat.
We did have a nice view of the ocean that day though. I tanned ALL day. I decided not to lay out until Thursday and Friday because I knew I'd just burn regardless of suntan lotion...
I went in the ocean. The waves were HUGE on Friday and I got dragged on the ocean floor on my ass. My entire swimsuit fell down and had to be reassembled under water.
After the reassemble!
And back under my hut
After the beach, we took some pictures before our late late 9:45 dinner at the Japanese hibachi place. All of us went to the shops owned by locals outside the resort across the street. I got a sarong and some gifts. It was fun listening to the guys barter!!!
Before we went to barter. Robyn and I randomly were wearing the same shirts that day.
The lighting sucks but this was after shopping before dinner.
Dinner was alright.
The last day we had to pack and be at the Plat to check out early so Ian and I got there early and took pictures.
Me and my coffee machine
Me outside the Plat
Ian and I with our Platinum bracelets (took like our wedding ring picture LOL) being VIP was AMAZING. Thank you Mom and Dad!!!!!!!!
This was across from Mom and Dad's room and they wanted a picture on it all week long LOL
Ian and I
All of us with Mom and Dad 'driving'
In the lobby waiting for our shuttle to get us to go to the airport.
After that we drove around forever picking up more people, almost missed our flight. I asked a question to the security people about my drink and they said no and then grabbed me to get frisked for the flight! I was almost separated from everyone else. Luckily I grabbed Ian. Dad and Mom waited for Chris and Robyn who didn't eat and were grabbing food. We had no idea we were so late. The people in the D.R. operate on their own time LOL so we thought we were early. It was a chartered plane so they didn't leave us. We had to walk to our plane outside down the runway. It was so weird. Ian, Mom, Dad and I had 1st row seats. So we had like 3 feet of leg space. It was weird! We could see everything the flight attendents were doing and the pilot when he had to pee. LOL it was funny. I didn't even take my medication on the way back I was so amused. The flight back seemed to take FOREVER due to wind they said. Like flying against the grain. I got so bored. I wasn't tired. I didn't feel like reading. I started coming up with states and capitals for some reason in my notebook. The only amusement I had was that my Nano radio was actually picking up stations from below! So every time I found a new station it said a city or state and I started mapping our route. We flew over North Carolina, Kentucky, Tenneessee, West Virginia for a little bit. It was fun. I challenged Dad to the states and capitals game. He lost. It was funny and amused Dad too because we were both getting stir crazy.
We both could not come up with Tenneessee in our list of states. After a while the flight attendents played the game with us LOL cuz they were right there bored too. The pilot even helped on one of his stretching periods. (obviously they had like 3 pilots). When we left the Dominican it was 87 and when we landed in Chicago, it was -5 degrees. I changed on the plane. Then we got our cars from the hotel, ate some pizza with the fam and drove back to Indy.
The end. :)
