Photo shoot!
Trip Start
Jan 01, 2008
1
5
8
Trip End
Jan 08, 2008
Sosua, Dominican Republic
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Saturday, January 5th was fairly unmomentous and so I didn't bother writing yesterday - plus I was feeling too sick (head cold) to bring myself to the computer at the end of the day. Leanna and I, again, could barely get out of bed in the morning. I was feeling ill - no sore throat anymore, but just a cold, going to my head (I have stopped using the A/C at night so at least it's not progressing). We got up after 10am. Our dad had already gone out for breakfast and he said he was going to take everyone out into "Beyond" to show them around and go shopping, and Leanna and I wanted to go - I particularly wanted to go because I hadn't really had a chance to shop the last time we had went and going with this large group of 14 people would mean I would be that much less "singled out" by the scary DR people soliciting us, asking us to go into their stores or braid my hair. Well, we waited and waited for our dad to come get us, as we thought he would, but he didn't. So then Leanna and I finally went to lunch around 12:30pm and then Lynette and our dad came to us at lunch, getting back from "Beyond" - they had gone without us!
1 - Me in the earlier part of the day
! Really nice. And they knew we had wanted to go too - my dad took everyone except Leanna and I. That was probably our last chance to go out there - oh well, I guess that means I'll be taking my $300US back home with me. On a positive note, at least I'll have that money to spend later on necessities and not frivolous Dominican jewellery and such. At the least, my dad got his conch shells he wanted, but at $10 each.Again, it was another dismally wet day. I so badly wanted it to be dry and for the sun to shine, but no matter how many times I look at the weather forecast for the upcoming days, it still shows the same thing: showers, showers, showers. And then on Monday, it's supposed to be "chance of showers" with maybe some sun, and Tuesday, our last day, some sun and "cloudy". Wednesday, the day after we leave, it's back to "sunny" (no showers) again. At least it has still remained pleasantly very warm all these days. The coldest has been 23 degrees, but it's been 27 degrees a lot too, which is darn warm!!
After lunch, Leanna and I went to the internet place here at the resort, which is a room consisting of 3 computers where you can go online. It costs $3 for a half hour, and $5 for an hour, which is reasonable. I spent a total of about 1 hour and 40 minutes online, but I still didn't get this blog emailed out to my contacts - not enough time
10 - Me at the beach
! I did a really quick job of getting the blog online and then uploading the photos. The computer doesn't like pop up windows, so several times I lost all of my photo uploads and had to do them all over again. And the computers are kind of slow in general so that ate up time as well. So, disclaimer to my readers: if you notice that some pictures seem out of place (posted for the wrong days), that is true and I apologize for that carelessness in my haste. And if you see any typos, that is because I was planning to proofread in the internet room, but then realized I didn't have time to! (I hate typos.) So, sorry. LAfter our time on the computers, Leanna and I went to the beach where we were going to meet our dad, and Lynette and her family, and everyone else. But they had just left the beach because apparently it got shut down for swimming (red flag again, due to the choppy waters). Very unfortunate. Despite that, and the random showers we were experiencing all day (yes, I was smart enough to carry my umbrella with me!), we decided to go down anyways, to the quiet beach. I really wanted to go to the water.
Because I could actually go in the water (and Leanna has not gone into the water all this time - she refuses to), I decided to employ Leanna's photographer services in a photo shoot, of me
11 - Leanna at the beach!
! So she took many photos of me standing on the beach by the ocean, and you can really see the big waves behind me there. Then we sat on our beach chairs for awhile and it rained a few times and then it started to really pour (we have pictures of that too - us hiding underneath the towels). Crazy weather! We went up back to our room then and then fell asleep for awhile. I was still not feeling well.Our dad came back to the room before dinner time and he offered to get me some medication from a pharmacy in town (being so familiar with this city, he has no problems in venturing "Beyond"). My sinuses were completely blocked by this point and I was dying for some Otrivin. I was sceptical that they would even have it here in this country, but he said he would go looking for it, so it was an offer I couldn't refuse. I wrote down "Otrivin" on a piece of paper for him, plus "racio nasal" ("nasal spray", I hope that was), and "decongestionante nasal", so that he could show the person working there and get me SOMETHING to subside my misery.
20 minutes later, he was back in the room, with my Otrivin! Well, not Otrivin exactly, but a Spanish nasal spray for children, and it actually worked too, so I was very thankful to start feeling a little bit more normal again
12 - Leanna at the beach!
. He said at the pharmacy there was a little girl there around 6 years old (her mother was working there) and my dad said to her: "Como te llames?" (sp?) ("what is your name?") and she said "Rachely". And my dad said to her "Mi espousa es Machely" ("My wife's name is Machely." My mom's middle name, actually.) I had brought a bunch of toys from Canada that I had bought at the Dollar Store before I left, to give to the poor Dominican kids, and he asked me for some to give to her, so I made her a bag of toys and then he went right away and gave it to her and she liked it very much!We went to the show after dinner - it was a Hollywood movie themed show - and then we went to bed (as already noted, I was quite tired.)
