Island Time

Wrapping it up

2008-12-19T10:47:00.013-04:00

We've been gone from the DR for more than 9 months now. Hard to believe it has been that long. I never ended up writing that final post on this blog before leaving the DR. Perhaps it was just too emotional to write that final post. Or perhaps it was like, how do you wrap up 3 years of an incredible life experience with so many amazing memories? It just seemed like an impossible task. Thus I didn't even try. I have felt like I just left the blog hanging though and don't want it to end with that crazy picture of the utility guy with all the wires, although that is just such a CLASSIC DR scenario.

A boatload of pictures and the blog itself captured many of the experiences, although in no way could convey all that happened for us. It certainly was tougher to leave the DR than I think either one of us thought it would be. With today being the first major snowstorm to hit here in Boston, it seems an appropriate time to wrap up this blog, put a bow on it, and send it off into the cool life experience category of our lives.

So on that note, I'll just jot down some of the extraneous things that we are bound to forget, and perhaps some other things we would LIKE to forget but can now probably laugh at or at least swallow.....in no particular order:

Cabarete:

The motoconcho competition for our biz when you neared the Ocean Dream gate
Trips to Playero, to the butcher who went back to motherland and landed in jail, to the new German butcher where if you didn't speak German or Spanish, forget it
Hardware stores that have 3 types of screws and not 33. WTF?!!!
Finally figuring out we can pay someone like 25 cents to carry those water bottles up 3 floors to our place instead of us!
The Thai restaurant with the snake
Rata
"Aqua caliente, porque?"; "When this place is sold, there will be no running water in the house because the neighbor controls the water supply."
"La musica" guy with guitar on Cabarete beach and all the other vendors that never gave up on you
The criminals we met and perhaps didn't even know we were meeting - you know the guy who got hauled off by the FBI, that butcher, the owner/rep of land across from FB's........
Just where are those mangroves and where does the land really end at the mouth of the river - thank you very much (not), DR surveyors.
Measuring and analyzing LB, FB's land, land across from area 51 - lots of wet shoes and ignoring what sorts of creepy crawlies might lay in the terrain
Villa #83 at SHR - I'll take one of those please, or better yet how about Michael's oceanfront villa.....someday
The front gate guards at Ocean Dream, Henry our gardener
Our Kia....oh, the Kia. Not a great statement jeepeta, but it sure was economical and reliable.
Family members screwing their relatives on commissions. Nice people, huh?
The Cabarete Police station and its holding cell (no we were not in it, THANK GOD)
Trying to read surveys made in like 1950
That one piece of land without title.....SO frustrating
Las Canas - we could have doubled our money there had we bought from Dean on our fateful trip down. Who would have thought that possible out there?
Perla Marina - lots of memories but don't forget that tree in Leemans' yard

Las Terrenas and Las Galeras experiences:

Unpaved roads in Las Terrenas causing major traffic jams & dust
Hauling Jack & co out to the Survivor-like locations of Playa Anse del Norte and La Cana
Dario and his machete getting into our car
Arriving by boat and stepping foot on to JS's land near Rincon
The ride to Las Terrenas through Nagua with all its palm trees but brown ocean and thin slice of beachfront
The road over the mountains into Las Terrenas - don't fall over the edge or ruin your car in the potholes
Maria and company at Playa Colibri - such nice people...we'll be back someday

The time has come and gone to say goodbye to the DR. We miss you and of course all the friends we made down there. It was quite a ride.......and now it's on to new adventures. Check out my newest blog -- http://susieparish.wordpress.com

2 tales of how a business operates

2008-01-31T08:50:00.001-04:00

ok, so you have 2 companies: Cable Company USA and Cable Company DR and this is how they vary in their business practices:

let's take the scenario that the cable customer has channels that are scrambled and not coming in properly. here's how it goes for that person:

Step 1. Set Up Appointment
Cable Company USA - customer calls the 1-800-number and speaks to a customer service rep who schedules an appointment for the cable guy to come to house to diagnose and fix on the spot the problem.

Cable Company DR - customer has to physically go to the cable company to tell them the problem because the cable company never picks up the phone. No date is set, nothing, just told that they will come when they can. Good thing we work from home and can have one of us at the house AT ALL TIMES in case the cable guy decides to select our trouble slip as the one to make his house call on that day.

Step 2. Arrival of Repairman at House
Cable Company USA - shows up at the house on the scheduled day within the timeframe that they specify. Note, if customer is not at the house, the cable company leaves a note that they came and to call the service number again to reschedule.

Cable Company DR - cable repair man nevers shows up FOR 7 DAYS. no notes, no calls from service reps, nothing. still no TV and no idea how to motivate the cable company to want to solve our cable problem.

Step 3. - Solving the Problem
Cable Company USA - during the scheduled visit, cable repair man determines that the cable box is broken. he handily goes out to his well stocked van and grabs a new box. he plugs in the box and christens it by either calling in to activate it or doing something remotely from some sort of handheld device. Off he goes on to his next scheduled appointment and we can now know that we will be able to watch the debates, the Superbowl, ESPN, and whatever else our hearts desire.

Cable Company DR - we can't fix the problem yet until the cable man finally makes his appearance at our house.

Step 4. Beg the DR Cable Company to Send a Repairman Over to the House
Cable Company USA - N/A

Cable Company DR - drive over to the cable company to see if they are open. (It's 8:25am). Have no idea when they open because the sign on the door is missing the first number for the opening hour but does have the closing hour as 7pm. impressive closing hour, considering how non-customer service oriented they are. luckily the office gal shows up just then - don't know whether she is early for the 8:30am opening or late for the 8:00am opening. we tell her that the repairman has still not shown up and it's now been a week since we logged the complaint. she calls him on the phone (yes, there is just one repairman) and says he'll be at our house within half an hour. we leave the office, drive the 100 feet down the road to the entrance to our complex, and see him coming in behind us to the complex. up we go into the house together. he does his fiddling with the cable box and remote, then brings in another cable box from his tiny (and i mean tiny) van to test something out, and determines that it is the cable box that is broken. ok, i'm thinking, excellent, he has actually figured out the problem, which is NOT always the case. (in our last apartment, they never figured out why cable did not work in one of the rooms and just never ever came back to the apartment to try to fix it. nice, huh?) i'm also erroneously thinking that he will just leave us with the box that is working. NO, HOW COULD I BE SO FOOLISH? he can't give us that box and has to take our box to get repaired. don't be so smart either in thinking the office has extra boxes. NO, NOT EXTRA BOXES AT THE OFFICE. HUH? now how long do you think it will take to get that box repaired AND get the repairman to bring it to our apartment when we are actually home because remember there are no set appointments and arrival window timeframes. well, who knows because when we ask how long it will take to get the box repaired, he says the famous MANANA! SHIT!

Step 5. It is Now Manana - Go to Cable Office to See if Box is (Miraculously) Fixed
Cable Company USA - N/A because Cable Company USA would have had EXTRA BOXES. (can you imagine having a cable company and having an inventory of ZERO extra cable boxes? what happens when a new customer wants to sign up? sorry, no boxes, please wait......until manana....???!!!!)

Cable Company DR - go to office at 8:40am. cable office gal is in. she is either early for 9am or late for 8:30am opening. who knows. we ask if our cable box has been fixed and can she call the (only) repairman. just at that moment she sees the cable guy in his tiny (and i mean tiny) van pulling up into the office parking lot. up he comes up the stairs, sees us, sighs and puts his head down, and enters office barely looking at us. v asks if the box has been fixed. he mumbles something in spanish and calls over to wherever the box is getting repaired. after hanging up, he says today in an hour possiblemente. POSSIBLEMENTE? possiblemente. off we go home where i have to write this blog entry about the experience to get out my frustration on the whole thing!

Step 6. - Wait for Box to be Fixed and Be Brought to Our Apt (or More Likely Picked Up by Us at the Office)
Cable Company USA - N/A

Cable Company DR - in process

Step 7. (Anticipating a Problem that the Box will Actually Not Be Really Fixed and We Will Have to Repeat Steps 5 & 6)
Cable Company USA - N/A

Cable Company DR - we'll see if this step is needed. i may just have to give up TV if we do!

all this for under a $1

2008-01-29T13:45:00.000-04:00

off to market we went today, including a trip to the famous arugula guy to see if he had arugula. we've heard so much about him from our friend Jenny and then yesterday Haudy reminded us of him too. he's a farmer located close to kite beach on the street to la cienaga , which is basically a barrio that floods everytime it rains because it is built right on top of the lagoon. the arugula guy isn't near the lagoon though. he has a small patch of land on which he grows arugula, lettuce, basil, and a few other extraneous things. by small, i mean the lettuce/arugula area is probably 150 feet by 100 feet. maybe he has more land in the back where he's growing something off trees but that was unclear as our goal was strictly arugula. there's no sign out front or anything denoting it as a farm. it certainly does not look like a farm stand either. next time we go, we'll have to take a picture of him and his land.

so he asks us how much arugula we want. we say, "i don't know, i guess a pound." he starts plucking away and away at the arugula. we're both thinking that's a lot of arugula so he can just stop with what he has in his hand. we ask for a head of lettuce too, and he uses his machete to cut one out of the lettuce patch. back over to his little house we go where his wife is inside watching TV. some guy pokes his head out from a corner within the house and hands him a scale, which the farmer proceeds to hang up from the ceiling of the little covered outside area we are standing under. he says "tres cuartos de una libra" (3/4 of a pound). we say "cuanto es" (how much?) he says treinte pesos (about 90 cents). full of guilt at this unbelievably low price, i pull some coins from my pocket and hand them to him. off we go - both feeling like we just robbed the guy because we think that the produce is worth WAY more than that. i wouldn't have been surprised if he had said 100 pesos. in boston, i think we'd have paid something like $6 for that all.

some things are cheap here, especially when you get away from the tourist areas. still though, how much time does he have to spend tending to that arugula? i feel a bit guilty....!

showing off the DR

2008-01-27T20:52:00.000-04:00

we had lots of guests over Christmas, New Year's and into January - my mom, Veronica's parents, and Vica with her husband, Alexei, mother-in-law, and 18 month old daughter Sasha. i wanted to post a few pictures as there is just too much to say about what we did while they were all here. i will say though that we spent 5 great days in Las Terrenas with our parents, including a trip out to Playa Rincon, which was spectactularly beautiful as always.

here's a couple of shots of the Janssens clan on Playa Bonita:

mother and daughter out on the balcony for Christmas eve:

mother and daughter admiring the turquoise waters and scenery of Playa Rincon:

Rolf selecting our fish to be grilled for lunch at Rincon:

a shot of the view from our balcony in Las Terrenas:

Vica and Alexei enjoying an evening at our place:

Vica and Sasha having fun in the ocean:

next up in terms of visitors are kim and emily. they arrive next weekend. i am sure we will have a blast with them!

the tight ass cafe (yeah that's really the name)

2007-12-16T21:31:00.000-04:00

the sun finally came out today. it feels like an eternity since we had a full day of sunshine. we were eager to spend lots of time outdoors, including going out for lunch, which resulted in us finding a great new lunch spot - the tight ass cafe on kite beach. it's run by an american woman named Calin whom we have recently gotten to know. (we spent thanksgiving at her house with some other friends.) it's set in a little beach shack along with a kite surfing school, kite lounge. the seating is outside at a couple of picnic tables with old sails hung above for some shade. if you feel like being adventurous while you wait for your food, you can jump around on the trampoline built into the ground for practicing kiting jumps. this is just the kind of place to spend a sunny afternoon. we love the tight ass cafe!

the menu is small and cheap but with a great selection - wraps, burgers, tacos, fried plantains, brownies to name a few. we both had a tuna wrap with pineapple salsa. this is fresh tuna, not from a can. very good! it's definitely a spot to bring my mom and friends when they come.

with marabu out of commission due to tropical storm olga and not wanting to endure the torn up road to get to claro, we were searching for a good lunch spot. i know we have found it!

a year older

2007-12-05T13:25:00.000-04:00

today is my birthday but we did some celebrating of it last saturday at Playa Grande with a bunch of friends. we did the lunch thing at tables and chairs set right on the beach. the little beach shack restaurant served us fish (really fresh!), fried chicken, rice, salad etc. it's a great way to celebrate an occassion or just spend an afternoon.

the weather wasn't the best but after some initial rain out came the sunshine. the waves were big so not a heck of a lot of swimming though i did go along with V, Sara, and German. some of the guys went surfing...here are Will and Greg.

friends brought their kids....and nannies (about 8 kids & 4 nannies)

and some friends even brought their the dogs....here are ziggy (as in Ziggy Marley because of his dreads) and portia.

once everyone left, it was time to reflect on a nice afternoon.

more passport pages, please

2007-12-03T20:12:00.000-04:00

we just got back from a quick overnight trip down to to Santo Domingo. we had to go to the American Embassy so that i could get more pages added to my passport. believe it or not, i am nearly out of the pages that immigration officials can stamp upon entry into a foreign country. that's what happens after going on a big 3 month backpacking trip in '01, taking many business trips to London while working for Orange, and entering and exiting the DR many times over the past 2.5 years.

well, the american embassy was a disappointment. i guess i had this romantic notion of an embassy and instead found myself in a building that felt more like a bad ER waiting room. panel ceilings, linoleum floors, glass enclosed rooms, and signs about getting a reward for turning in terrorists were the sights, and of course the more than 150 people (Dominicans) waiting in the visa line at 7am to get into the building and be granted the right to make the trip of their dreams. luckily i did not have to wait in that line, as there was a separate line for us American citizens. still, i was there at 7am because they only process the passport stuff mondays and wednesday mornings 7:30am-9:30am. you wanna be there early just in case

there were 3 things i found quite astonishing during my 2 trips to the embassy today (i had to go early in the morning and then return at 3pm to pick up my passport with add'l pages). first was the lack of English speakers both outside and inside the building. this was accompanied by a complete LACK of signage for what to do, where to stand, which of the 28 "windows" to go to once you were inside the building, where to sit, what would happen when some people had ticket numbers and others (like me) did not. lastly the bathroom was unbelievably terrible - toilets filled with urine and reeking due to the relative heat in the place. not quite what i would expect that we would want to present to our citizens and those looking to get to the US. i guess the Santo Domingo embassy is not the highest of priorities for Condoleeza Rice.

anyway, i got my pages and we bolted out of town. we've been back an hour now. the drive is just so exhausting. first you have to contend with the zany capitol traffic. we're talking cars squeezing into any free space such that there really are no lanes. this means instead of 5 lanes, you have 8 lanes of traffic all bottlenecked at lights. trucks are belching out smoke and passing on the right. cars looking like they will fall apart at any minute are cutting you off while motorcycles weave in and out of the whole mayhem too.

once you make it out of the capitol and onto the highway, then it's on to motos coming straight at you in the "shoulder" of the highway or pedestrians walking along the side that you have to avoid as the souped up rally car maniacs go flying past you. there's always the occassional car in the fast lane that is going about 20mph while you are coming up behind them at 65mph along with the nut in back of you who will now pass you on the right. throw in the occassional lane drop due to "men working" that comes without any warning around a bend, and you can see how this is not a country for which cruise control was created.

once you get through the 1.5 hour highway stretch, it's on to the mountain road from Moca to Cabarete. a beautiful windy road with chicken trucks, over-anxious Cabarete taxi drivers, slow pokes, and people, usually like a 5 year, walking or playing on the edge of the road is the name of the game here. it was getting dark by the time we hit the mountain road so we were anxious to get through that as quickly as possible, but you gotta be careful not to go too fast around the hairpin turns.

once you arrive home, the first thing you want to do is take a shower. i like windows versus AC but that means that you feel like you are wearing the road and all its smog by the end of the trip. i'm not sure there is another activity where you get as dirty without really doing anything.

so that's the drive, one i can't say i would love doing very often. give me Las Terrenas anyday over a trip to Santo Domingo!

oh, speaking of the capitol, we should say that we did enjoy our time in the Zona Colonial. highlights included a few coffees and lunch at the Conde restauarant where we sat at the outdoor tables overlooking the park and the whole world going by. drinks and dinner at the segafredo place. some empanadas from the authentic reposteria. sitting in the park on Padre Billini, just relaxing and looking at the 15th century building in front of us. last but not least, by far the most memorable aspect of the trip was stumbling upon a small bar blasting merengue and lots of locals dancing away with their hips swaying just right to the beat. these were older folks who really knew how to dance and clearly had gone out specifically to dance that night. the music was fantastic, though very loud! that was just the kind of place that you hope to find in the Zona Colonial as it is such an authentic Dominican experience.

ok, i am done for the day! veronica took lots of photos so maybe she'll add one or some later to this post. buenas noches!

birthdays galore

2007-11-12T16:55:00.000-04:00

after Fabricio's party, then came Alex's birthday party on sunday....she turned 2. Christina and Will organized a party for her at eZe. all the kids (and parents) were there. presents, pinatas with candy, cake, sand to sit in/play with/eat, bubbles to blow, balls to kick around - it was all covered.

a few more shots...

Christina, Greg, Jordi, and V:

Will and a horde of kids getting excited for the pinata to bust open:

Sara, Begonia, German, and Arlen:

Greg, Jordi, Alex, and me:

Fabricio's party at Onno's house

2007-11-11T16:22:00.000-04:00

it was Fabricio's birthday yesterday. we met him through Christin. he's Italian and owns one of the mozzarella cheese companies here. he was all psyched up and having a great time at Haudi's place, Cabaha, before a bunch of us headed over to the party, which was held at Onno's house. Onno being the one who until recently owned the legendary Onno's Beach Bar here on Cabarete Beach. well, i think we found ourselves at one of the coolest houses in Cabarete in terms of design and atmosphere. i should more say the grounds and outside spaces were what was cool, as we never went into the house itself. the place gave off a vibe of the mediterrean, bali, and cabarete all in one! the mediterrean feeling came from the terra cotta walkways and archways with vines. the use of wood for the second floor of the house and the guest bungalow gave off the balinese feel. the lush tropical grounds and palapa styled roofs were Cabarete all the way. loved the pool all lit up, the palapa covered dj/dance space, and the outdoor fireplace and accompanying seating area! the fireplace was making us all hot as hell while dancing but did a great job of keeping away the mosquitos that were lurking in the lagoon right to the back of the property.

normally the area around the pool is set up with tables and functions as a restaurant on thursday nights or by reservation with big parties. we will for sure have to go back for dinner sometime, though i don't think you can top the kind of fun we had there last night!

with Onno spinning some great tunes, people were dancing and dancing. here are some pictures starting with Christin, Fabricio, and us:

Gordon getting some attention from Christin and Pinky:

a group shot towards the end of the night:

Christo and Pinky - that's quite a dance move and check out the stream of beer:

once Gordon started lying down, we knew it was time to leave.

halloween - cabarete style!

2007-11-01T18:01:00.000-04:00

some pics from last night's halloween bash here in cabarete. we started at a party at michelle's and then on to Lax with a brief stop at Voy-Voy. every year i am always impressed by the costumes here. i mean it's not like we have a Boston Costume around the corner or a Wal-Mart for all those needed accessories. i managed to pull together a flapper costume, using the only dress i practically own, the feather boa that veronica's dad brought over to wear during the dutch world cup games last year, a mardi-gras necklace i got at jose o'shay's this past st. patrick's day, and a rolled up magazine page for a cigarette holder. v was the ocean, which was very creative. some blue shirt & shorts, glue, cabarete beach sand & seaweed, and fish from the streamers stubbs brought to tortola and v had her costume! toss in a diving mask and we were all set.

v making her costume

kill bill outfits were popular. michael from iguana mama was unrecognizable in his hip hop outfit...really well done!

a shot from up on michelle's roofdeck

some concern that steve would lose his "hawaiian skirt"

me and open shirt mike with his shirt actually buttoned!

do you wanna buy some property?

a brief stop at Voy-Voy where we were reunited with daniel and his girlfriend

all in all a fun night!

World Series Champs!

2007-11-01T17:35:00.000-04:00

Well, I am 4 days late in writing about this, so the euphoria has died down, but still, the SOX WON! I was so nervous when Delcarmen was in there. Then when Oki was pitching and gave up that homer to make it 4-3, I had to turn the sound off. Just before Atkins' homer, I was thinking of Oki having given up a homer to the first batter he ever faced this season. Must have been bad karma as that is what happened a second later. When Papelbon came in, I had to wonder how much gas he had left in him. Well, he had quite the tank-full, though that screamer out to left that Jacoby Ellsbury caught took my breath away for a second. Then when he bounced one of the throws in the dirt to Sean Smith, I thought "Oh geez, he's nervous." Afterwards Papelbon admitted that during the Smith at-bat, he had started to think about the guys all rushing out from the dugout after the final out. I bet that was when he bounced that ball in the dirt.

Anyway he pulled it together and scorched one past Smith. I had a slightly delayed reaction as I thought Smith may have fouled it off, but then I saw Varitek jump up. Wahooooooooooooooooo!

We both were really bummed not to be in Boston for the final out and the parade! Over the next 2 days, I read just about every Sox story online I could, which was not the same as being in Boston and seeing the live coverage. Maybe we'll be there next year! Hey, now that's some new found confidence that never was there before for this Sox fan.

I hope they do resign Lowell. As for Schilling, I think he's done, at least I think the Sox may be wiser to not resign him. I think he made it through the playoffs on adrenaline and willing himself to succeed more than having the talent anymore.

I just gotta say how much I love Pedroia, Ellsbury, and Papelbon. It's great that we get to experience them for many years to come.

boys in barrels

2007-10-24T14:34:00.000-04:00

we were out looking at land this morning, driving along dirt roads well off the beaten path. stuck waiting for a truck to pass on the narrow road, we came across this group of boys having fun. the first thing that struck me was that they were being entertained by barrels. i told Veronica to grab the shot and while she did so, i noticed the Red Sox shirt on one of them! nice! only about 100 feet before coming across these boys there was a guy walking up the road wearing a Sox hat. i had a thought then which was to do a series of photos on Red Sox (los Medias Rojas) fans in the DR. there probably is not a day that goes by without seeing someone wearing some Sox, or heaven forbid Yankees, garb.

i am very excited about the Red Sox of course. wish we were in Boston now for the games.....

watching the sox in the DR

2007-10-12T23:54:00.000-04:00

sox won tonight and are up 1-0 in games in the ALCS. nice! i had to post a shot of the sox and liked this one of Manny from the ALDS series when he hit the walkoff homer. hope i don't get in trouble with posting that pic but they offer it as wallpaper, so i thought it would be OK.

we are of course watching the sox playoff games as we did all season with the regular games. tonight's game was only in Spanish, which is never my favorite way of watching due to my (still) not understanding the language. (very bad of me, i know). they actually cut over to the Rockies/Diamondbacks game when Gag-Me came in for the 9th. perhaps they did not want to watch him pitch - i don't blame them - but then i had to switch over to watching the game on MLB's Gameday little app. with the sox win in the bag, i am now watching the other game which is in English on ESPN interestingly enough. Fox has the TV rights but somehow ESPN gets to show the playoff games here as long as their ads are only ESPN ads.

speaking of ads, during the regular season games, they play like 5 ads over and over. it's beer, rum, banks, the local viagra (la Pela), telcos, paint. Presidente, Brugal, Banco Popular, La Pela, Orange/Claro/Verizon, and Pinturas Toucan. every ad has some sort of singing in it. you know like the catchy tune to make you remember the product. well, when you see these ads over and over again for 3 hours during a game, possibly several times a week, they can drive you crazy! we are often singing the Pinturas Toucan song, which is just so pathetic, but that's what repetition does.

by far the funniest ad has to be for La Pela (the local Viagra). it's a cartoon with granny bouncing through the house with her boobs swinging every which way. the boyfriend/husband of the daughter comes over with some flowers and granny keeps boogeying because she is obviously happy with this match-up. however the flowers start to droop and the daughter becomes upset. her father, at least i think it is him, is comforting her. granny then pops a La Pela into the vase and bang, up the plants spring to life! granny does some more boogeying with boobs going every which way and everyone is happy.

interesting how they use multiple generations in the ad. the previous ad that they had was the same way. that involved a toll booth and a toll booth arm. this new one is way better!

anyway back to baseball. i had tickets to tomorrow night's game at Fenway....won't be making it. :-( i seriously thought about it, but it was just too much money to fly up there and we're busy with clients. if they hadn't won it in 2004, i probably would have gone. i'm still wondering what i'll do if they make it to the World Series. it would be tough to not be in Boston for that. no jinxing here - i did not say they were going to make it, though tonight was certainly a good start. go sox!

what, you mean you didn't want orange curtain bars?

2007-10-10T10:45:00.000-04:00

ok, so the challenges of furnishing the apartment continue. yesterday our curtain lady and her helper arrived at the condo to install the curtains. they came by taxi with the 9 foot curtain bars hanging vertically out the window. we had asked for brown colored bars that matched some accents on the curtains. well, she showed up with ORANGE colored bars. Veronica and I look at them, shake our heads wondering how she could have picked that color, and seriously contemplate just taking them since it would require the curtain lady to make a return to Santiago. well, neither one of us could swallow the color, so unfortunately for her, as it was her mistake, she has to make the trip to Santiago. having arrived by taxi to the condo, obviously she does not have car (not surprising actually). this means it will take her all day by public transport to go to Santiago and back.

we tried to help her out by seeing if they had bars at the hardware store here in Cabarete or at Hidelisa in Puerto Plata, but no luck of course. wrong colors and not the right size. that is often the experience here - half stocked store shelfs with not what you want or not enough of what you want. this was one of the many moments here when you just wish you had a Home Depot at your disposal.

on to the next fiasco...we pick up our bedside tables that we had made. see picture above of the guy doing the last few steps of the production. the good news was the guy finished with them on time. a real novelty here. the bad news was despite having a drawing in hand that Veronica had made of the design she wanted, he managed to screw it up. we wanted the main side to have an open shelf. well, he put the opening on one of the sides. the tables were 16X18. he made the opening on the 16" side. if you think about how the tables will be used, one would never have done that.

oh yeah, also the bedside tables are like this reddish brown color. totally NOT the color we wanted either. we probably should have gone to see a sample first of the color on a small portion of one of the tables and then given the green light or not on the color. next time....

so in both cases we said exactly what we wanted and did not get it. what up with following directions? in the case of the woodworker, he just didn't pay attention. in the case of the curtain lady, my guess is that she went to a few shops and they did not have the color we wanted and she just winged it with another color. in her case, i can kind of forgive because i know how difficult it can be to find exactly what you want here in shops that are unpredictably stocked. even if you did call ahead to inquire if they had something you wanted, you could very well go there only to find out that no they don't actually have that color and wouldn't orange be fine anyway? NO IT WOULD NOT.

curtains are washable, right?

2007-10-03T15:17:00.000-04:00

here's V in the post office in Puerto Plata, which was one of two errands we needed to do there today. the post office errand was successful and the other was not. let's start out on the positive with the post office. we went there to pick up a book that V had ordered.

here's the story on the infamous book. V had ordered it in July (yes, July) for a class that she wanted to take online. it was going to be hand delivered by one of our clients, Dennis, who was coming down from NJ. unfortunately the book did not make it to his house prior to his trip down here. so upon returning to the US, Dennis shipped it by Global Priority Mail with a promise from them of it being in the DR within 5-10 days. so by mid August it should have been here. it wasn't. we prodded our office to send someone to the Sosua post office more frequently than the usual once a month trip that they make to pick up the office's mail to see if it had arrived. (yes, once a month they go and pick up the mail.) well, of course, it's not so easy to ship something to the DR and days and weeks went by without the book arriving. V canceled her class because how could she take the class without the book? i said i thought it would take like 3 months and V would have to pay a duty of some sort, as that is what happens when packages are held up usually. it's a way for them to make money because of course you should have to pay some tax for a new book. well, the other day, a blue notice arrived from the Puerto Plata post office that there was something there for V. so off we went today to get the book that is no longer needed.

V had to pay the man at the post office 100 pesos (slight more than $3) for reasons not totally known as V couldn't really follow his explanation. probably the duty. that was a relief to her as she was expecting it to be 1000 pesos. i just took pictures of the place while she negotiated her way with the guy behind the bars that look like what they used to have at banks in the old days.

here's the post office:

it is run down one the second floor but could be a very nice looking building if it was restored. it's 2 blocks from the Malecon and the ocean. it is for sale. i wonder how much they want for it.

now on to the unsuccessful part of the trip. we went to Hidelisa to pick up the curtains that had been made for the Blue Fish condo. we had selected white material. probably the wrong choice since when we inspected the curtains, we found that half of them were dirty and/or had water stains. remember from my previous blog entry that sometimes the fabric rolls are strewn on the floor there. on the roll of material that we had chosen, we had seen that it was dirty at the beginning of the roll and told the saleswoman to make sure to not use that part. i mean it seemed like such commmonsense, but we did feel the need to say it because, you know, you have to not assume anything here. well, they used the dirty part anyway. :-(

so tell me, what do you think went on in the brain of the seamstress? "oh, let me use the dirty part of the material." or "geez, they're going to get dirty anyway, who cares, i'll just use the dirty part." or "oh this dirty part, they can just wash the curtains before hanging them up." or maybe they just weren't thinking.....

the funny thing is the saleswoman who we had worked with us on the measurements didn't have much of an apology nor did she seem surprised in anyway with the situation. probably happens all the time....

well today i was not amused by the STUPIDITY. it's a 40 minute drive to Puerto Plata and back. so we have to slog there again on Saturday to pick up the rest of the curtains that they will redo. i'll take a picture of the inside of the shop so we can remember the strewn fabric rolls and chuckle at it all later.

i certainly hope that this is the only folly with the things that we are having made, but somehow i suspect we still have some glitches to encounter with our furniture and other curtains. nothing is easy here.

cable TV

2007-10-02T15:54:00.000-04:00

our cable TV was out for 4 days. some ninkumpoop at the cable TV company hit the wrong switch or something and deactivated all the cable boxes in Cabarete. this meant that they had to manually type in the numbers of each and every individual cable box in Cabarete to reactivate the cable TV. you can imagine that this took quite some time. i think they actually figured out how to switch some back on in bulk, but this took 4 days. nevermind that i am sure no one gets their money back for 4 days of missing service.

up until yesterday, i was not actually that bothered by the lack of TV since i am enjoying a good book right now, Dark Star Safari, which is about a guy who travels from Cairo to Cape Town by bus/train/car/ferry/African guagua/whatever but no planes. yesterday though i was starting to get stressed because the Sox playoff games start tomorrow. today would have been panic day with a trip to the cable TV office which is about as fun as poking your eye with a nail. the lady in the office couldn't care less if your cable is out. it's such a helpless feeling. it reminds me of all the IT departments i ever had to deal with back in my desk job days. they're supposed to be there for you, to assist you. customer service, you know? yet somehow the tables are turned and you have to beg them to do something for you. throw in that it is in another language and forget it, you are totally at their mercy.

anyway, thank god our cable is back. we still have a horrific noise when we switch to some of the channels, which we have had ever since they came to install the cable. i just cannot be bothered to try to get them to fix it. again i'd rather not poke a nail in my eye, you know?

shopping, shopping, shopping

2007-09-30T16:32:00.000-04:00

we've been working hard at furnishing the Blue Fish condo. lots of progress over the last week and a half with decisions and purchases having been made on living room furniture, mattresses, curtains, lamps, bedspreads, decorative pillows, and paintings. the photo shows our 3 seater rattan couch being made. this and a 2 seater should be done this week and ready to be delivered to the condo.

as part of the effort, on Tuesday we went to Puerto Plata and on Wednesday to Santiago. we hit Hidelisa, Casa Nelson, Irene the seamstress, Ochoa Hogar, La Reina, Bellon, La Sirena, and Hache. we spent a significant amount of time in Hidelisa in Puerto Plata, deciding on the curtains. this is a store with all sorts of fabrics. it's pretty chaotic with rolls of material blocking aisles and lots of sales people swarming about you. i noticed in the shops in both Puerto Plata and Santiago that the salespeople stick to you like flies. you move 2 steps, they move 2 steps. and they practically stand on your feet, they are so close. it's a bit annoying, especially when you then ask them for help, and their help is of no help. i think they mainly are sticking to you to ensure that you do not steal anything, so it's not really about customer service.

in Puerto Plata, we saw 3 people we knew from Cabarete and another 4 in Santiago. again, there are only so many shops worth going to for items that foreigners like.

in Santiago, a well dressed, very friendly Dominican decided that he really wanted to hold a conversation with us in La Sirena. i think he heard us speaking English and maybe wanted to practice. he was a photographer and claimed that his brother was the ambassador for Costa Rica. his son was studying in Boston. he gave us his card and told us that it was good to have someone to call in case we ever had any problems. i think we're covered here, so maybe we'll need that contact more if we are ever in Costa Rica...

everything has to be paid for in cash or else you'll pay a whopping 16% to pay with a credit card. you don't really want to walk around with too much at one time, so this makes for many trips to ATMs where it's always dicey if the machine is rigged up for stealing your card number. to help ward against that, our normal drill is to look around at who is nearby and see if there are any lurkers. a slip of the hand along the card slot helps to see if there is a card reader jammed in there.

here are some random pictures from the shopping spree. first up, an old victorian style building in Puerto Plata that was being used as part of a school. there are many buildings like this in Puerto Plata that are run down and you'd love to see get fixed up.

we made a brief stop for lunch on the way back from Puerto Plata to Cabarete at a roadside parada, El Campito, which was a suggestion of Greg's. we got the cangrejo (crab), a Dominican specialty. it was really tasty! neither one of us could bring ourselves to have the chivo (goat) which Greg had also highly recommended. goat is a specialty here but not one i have ever chosen.

just outside Santiago, we saw this guy on a moto transporting a lawn mower. not as bad as the guy we had seen transporting a ladder while on a moto, but still, not something i'd want to have entangled with me, if i crashed.

Christmas comes early to the DR......the shop, Ochoa Hogar, was already displaying Christmas decorations.

rolf's party

2007-09-22T09:08:00.000-04:00

usually i keep the blog on topic with DR related stories, but i wanted to post some photos from Rolf's party (Veronica's dad) in Holland. the party was to celebrate Rolf's 70th birthday. they had invited 90 or so family and friends to go out sailing for a day on a huge 3 masted ship. i think the boat was about 180 feet long. it was a beauty and the party was a great success and lots of fun. we had fairly typical Dutch weather with clouds and a bit of a chilly day, but not much rain, so that was good.

here's another picture of the boat:

Veronica, her sisters, and her mother created a song for everyone on board to sing to Rolf and about Rolf of course and in Dutch, so too tough for me to sing along to. here's the family singing it all together:

the sisters each made speeches. this is Priscilla, Veronica's sister, leading off with her speech:

for a present, Elisabeth arranged for a small sculpture to be made of Rolf. the family opened up the present together up in front of the captain's area, which was a great vantage point for all the guests to see them:

and here's the sculpture of Rolf on his scooter - a fairly typical mode of transportation in Holland when one does not feel like biking or fighting the traffic in a car:

here's me with Fiona, Nincke (V's aunt), Carsten (F's boyfriend), and Priscilla:

this is V with her cousin, Barbara, and her aunt, Nincke:

as a side note, Barbara did a semester at UVM when she was in college, which is a neat thing for me have in common with her. we have talked Burlington and Vermont in the past. Barbara studied art history. i took one class at UVM in art history - my only Pass/Fail class. she actually did something relevant with that degree and worked at Sotheby's for a long time and recently starting working at a gallery in Amsterdam.

here's some of the group onboard - lots of bundled up people you can see:

a ship full of former expats....this is Rolf and his friends from the shipping industry that he met while living in various parts of the world during his career - friends from Sydney, Hong Kong, Buenos Aires. they're all Dutch and many now live in some of the warmer areas of Europe like southern France, Spain, and Portugal.

another boat sailing by us, with V's uncle, Jan, looking toward the camera:

Rolf really enjoyed himself. here he is with V's mom:

laundromat, beach dogs, swimming

2007-09-20T13:49:00.001-04:00

this is the laundromat where you can drop off your clothes to be washed. it's not a do-it-yourself affair. we use them for pressing our shirts - 50 cents a shirt. kinda high priced, i think, but still way worth it to have someone else iron your shirts. if you do use them to wash your clothes, you can expect the whole world to see your underwear and everything line drying right there on the main road across from Janet's. my bigger concern actually would be if someone decided they wanted to steal one of my favorite t-shirts or something. it's all right there for the taking. there's not much recourse here, if that happens.

i guess their profits are higher when it doesn't rain and they can line dry the clothes versus using a dryer. i always wonder what they do when we have a few stretches of rainy days. does it take longer to get your laundry back as they hope for sunshine to come back out?

people live in the dilapidated structure in the back. i saw a C21 for sale sign there once being used as part of a makeshift door. everything and anything is of use to the many poor people here.

so we did our beach walk this morning - another spectacularly beautiful day. here i am making friends on the beach. the dog i am petting i have named Rebecca. i don't know her real name. she's our favorite beach dog and is not a stray actually, as recently she got a collar. maybe she was a stray and someone made them hers...who knows. we don't see her very often but when we do, she is always out and about on her own. she reminds me a bit of Gromit, at least in terms of sizing and her playfulness. she's a mix of Doberman and Dominican beach dog.

here's v swimming in our secret swimming spot...well, it's not that secret really but luckily no one is ever swimming there. it's right in front of the Ocean Point condos and is the perfect place to take a dip before heading back towards our condo.

we're furnishing the Blue Fish condo in order to help get it sold. lots to get done! we started in earnest today and picked out a bunch of rattan furniture to be made by Otto, the german furniture maker. we've also purchased some items made of wood from a Dominican whose shop is next to Otto's - dining room table, chairs, a mirror, and some coffee tables. most of that will get delivered tomorrow. we found some great pieces of art that will hopefully tap into people's emotions around having a condo by the beach and make them want to buy the place! we bought 2 large sized beach photos that are stretched onto canvas and a couple of oil paintings, one that looks like the Amalfi coast with beachside buildings and boats and another of a tropical flower. we'll be making a trip down to Santiago next week to pick up bedding and other items. it's been a really long time since we've been there, so i am actually looking forward to the roadtrip and going to the normal shops. i'll be sure to post some photos of the condo once we've completed furnishing it. it's going to take like 2-3 weeks to get it all set up. now's the time to do it while it is the low season.

in the meantime, go Greg Norman!

in transit

2007-09-08T11:32:00.000-04:00

here's Veronica in Punta Cana while we were in transit for 24 hours. yes, 24 HOURS. here's the story...so we were off to Holland as it was Veronica's dad's birthday celebration. we thought we likely had a stop before Amsterdam but did not know for sure. for some reason, the Martinair ticket did not say where we would be stopping, but the length of the trip was too long to be non-stop. most likely it was going to be Punta Cana on the south coast of the DR. little did we know that the stop would become a BIG DEAL.

we boarded in Puerto Plata, went for 30 minutes, landed in Punta Cana and then had to deplane so they could clean up the plane and put on food. the layover would be for 2 hours and more passengers would be joining us also there. well, apparently upon arriving in Punta Cana, something happened to one of the wheels and all the oil leaked out. they tell us this in 4 languages - English, Dutch, German, and Spanish - about 10 minutes before we are supposed to board. they say it will take 45 minutes to an hour to see if they can fix it and then the fix would minimally take 2-3 hours or POSSIBLY they might not be able to fix it and they would then have to put us up in a hotel and leave 24 hours later. WHAT? :-(

ok, so we cross our fingers and think about all the stuff we will be missing by arriving a whole day later. everyone else on the plane is going home from vacation of course while we are missing a day of our vacation. the hour goes by and of course the answer is we're putting you up in a hotel. they say we'll meet you at the hotel tomorrow night at 5pm to give you the next set of plans. BUMMER!

so off all 200+ of us go to pick up our luggage and go through immigration. the immigration officer does his job very thoroughly for the first 10 people, checking every page of their passports and then stamping them through. i'm swearing, thinking we'll be in the line for forever and to be in the airport on that side, we had to have shown our passports to begin with. there are no other flights now, we are the only plane and the immigration people know the deal. this is the first of Dominican logic that i think we are going to encounter and am wondering how the check-in of 200+ people will go at the hotel.

surprisingly the buses are in front of the airport ready for us and we all go off in 4 buses to the hotel. murphy's law that our bus is the last of the 4 to depart the airport and thus is the last of the 4 to get to the hotel, which means we will be last to check in. Veronica seems to be taking it all much better than me.

well, the hotel check-in actually happens really quickly and then surprisingly the hotel is NICE! the beach is killer! not that we have our bathing suits because remember we are going to our vacation in Holland not coming from our vacation in the DR. we went swimming the next day nonetheless in our underwear that looks close enough to bathing suits and no one noticed or maybe they didn't care, as they're Europeans and can deal with toplessness nevermind unconventional bathing suits.

here's the beach. not too tough to spend a few hours IN TRANSIT, huh?

we didn't actually hang out on the beach. instead we took advantage of being in Punta Cana to tour the area with one of our colleagues from C21, Dean, who just moved there to work within our new office there. so we worked! he took us around to see a villa at the Punta Cana Resort, which was connected with our hotel and is also where it is rumored that Bill & Hillary Clinton are buying. That's in a different part of the resort over by where Oscar de la Renta lives. we both were very impressed by the Punta Cana Resort. that is the original resort that was developed in Punta Cana and the same people built the Punta Cana airport too.

we also went to Cap Cana which is just an ENORMOUS development with golf courses, a marina, condos, villas & bungalows, land, etc. we went up to the area where Trump is selling lots - high up on a bluff overlooking the whole project. i can't say i loved Cap Cana, but i can see how people can be sold on it.

Dean drove us around Bavaro also. we saw the outsides of many all-inclusives and not much of a town, which was in line with what we thought it would be like. we also saw the new C21 office and then had lunch at Hard Rock Cafe which is in a shopping mall. while we were having lunch, i kept thinking how i could be anywhere and certainly not in the DR. i think i like Lax, eZe Bar, and Marabu a bit better with your feet in the sand. Punta Cana would not be for me nor for Veronica. it was fantastic though that we got to see it and now can talk to clients about it from firsthand knowledge versus what we heard it to be like. the thing that struck me the most though there was how much construction was going on. TOO MUCH. with much of it happening away from the beach and with it being difficult to get to a beach as the all-inclusives block you from it. the prices are HIGH for what you get. all in all it confirmed my belief that the North Coast is a better place to hang out and buy. but neither one of us is an all-inclusive type. i am a beach gal - give me access to the beach first and foremost and a funky town like Cabarete to hang out in!

we finally did arrive in Holland yesterday at 1:00pm - 28 hours LATE. they diverted a plane from Cancun to pick us up. more shenanigans around that plane and more delays, but i won't go into that. all in all we could have been stuck in worse places. it was just strange to go 30 minutes away by plane, be in the same country, and then be stuck. when you can't beat 'em, join 'em and enjoy that gorgeous beach and get in a free business research trip!

don't forget towels & sheets

2007-08-31T15:49:00.000-04:00

here's a picture in front of Vela which we took on Tuesday night. it was a great time of evening to be on the beach. they run a restaurant/bar at Vela called Voy Voy and Tuesdays is Taco Tuesday. tasty tacos for 150 pesos (less than $5) - can't beat that for a good cheap meal on the beach.

here's a few more shots at Vela:

we visited Rich, Sandy, and their newborn this week. all is well there. i had thought that Sandy might have had some horror stories to tell about the experience of delivering a baby in a DR hospital. well, aside from her doctor deciding a week before her delivery date that he would go off-island on business without telling her and then needing to line up a different doctor, all went off without a hitch. i think the only interesting thing she mentioned is that you have to bring your own towels, sheets, etc. to use at the hospital. they are not supplied for you. perhaps more often than not people stole that stuff from the hospital - or the hospital cannot afford it....? i guess that is one way to keep the cost of healthcare down! kind of like not getting served a meal anymore on an airplane ride.

not much else to report on this week. we've been busy making spreadsheets and crunching numbers for some analysis for a client. we also worked on better organizing the listings and sales data that we have. we have good stuff, but it was just scattered all over in various documents which had been annoying me. the effort is not done yet, but i think we made a good dent in it. it's always a challenge to keep the data current though. that requires constant maintenance. nothing is static in the real estate world....

Veronica has some sort of a cold or something and is not feeling well. so it will just be me tonight getting my ass kicked and sweating buckets at the spinning studio. hopefully she will feel better later though so we can go over to Lax where Joe's band, XXX, is playing. his daughter, Samantha, who is like 12 and has her own girl band, Crush, is the opening act. it should be interesting as we have heard that Joe is quite talented and perhaps Samantha will take after her Dad and rock the house as well. you're probably thinking, when was the last time i saw a kid band? high school? there are only so many entertainment choices here....

memorable moments, sightings, and stories

2007-08-25T10:11:00.000-04:00

i thought it would be fun to capture some of the crazy things we've seen and experienced here. in some cases, we did not actually witness the event, but it was worth noting as the source of the story was trusted enough to believe that it actually happened. ok here goes, starting with the photo above:

pig roasts (or preparation) on the side of the road (seen on some total boondoggle to find a property we had listed for sale in the mountains behind Cabrera)
roadside butcher stand near El Limon where the butcher's helper had a thick piece of wood in hand, a 200 pound pig was bracing itself for the deadly whack, and clients in the car are like "oh my!"
just down the road from the pig, there was a dead horse sprawled into the road, having been hit by a car in the night probably. another "oh geez" from the clients in the back.
the dead horses on the side of the road that are lit on fire as the means to "remove" the horse. i mean how else is the horse going to be removed....there's no public works group that will come by and haul it away. i guess you can call it a cremation.... i think we have seen at least 3 of these since we have been here on the stretch of road between Cabarete and Sosua. the smell is revolting.
the guy on the motorbike with an 8 foot ladder. his head was between the rungs. WOW, talk about a gruesome way to go if he crashes.
the 5 Dominicans on a motorbike, 2 or 3 of which are of course children between the ages of 1 (maybe even younger) to 8 years. no helmets. who could afford a helmet here? (this is no longer a head turning event, as you see it almost every day)
the motos driving the wrong way down the road at you. this still elicits some swear words from us and wonder around intelligence levels.
to get to Santo Domingo, after having come from Moca, you have to CROSS the highway to get on to it. there is no on-ramp or anything logical like that. there is barely enough room for you to sit in the middle after you have made it across the northbound side and need to wait patiently as the southbound frees up.
people throwing trash out of the windows of their car, on the beach, on the road. very frustrating and hard for a person from the 1st world to comprehend.
nicely standing in line at Janet's or Dick's and being cut by Dominicans , even if there is hardly even enough space for 1 person between you and the person in front of you. THIS is another difficult thing to handle. i gave some HUGE lip to a woman who once did that to me at Janet's - all in English of course where the effect was lost. the disgusted look on my was not lost however.
the 85 steps it takes to deposit a check into your bank here. WHAT are they doing in all those steps? it literally takes more than 5 minutes to deposit a check.
the bank teller counting out the STACKS of pesos brought in by the street money changers (in garbage bags by the way) INSTEAD of using the automated counting machine. does he think the machine will be WRONG?
the guards outside the banks with serious GUNS. perhaps they should consider not permitting you to go into the bank with a GUN...it's common to note the gun tucked into the side of the pants of the men in front of you who will wait have to go through their 85 steps before yours.
Sheila, Willowe, and Jesse picking up THREE HUNDRED PESOS from the ATM upon arrival. Um, that's a little less than $10, minus the $5 their bank charged them you for the international ATM usage, makes it a net of $5. we all got a huge laugh out of that!
family members requiring a cut of the commission for selling THEIR family's property. we have experienced this twice. talk about stabbing someone in the back. that's like a Dominican Shakespearian moment - greed and deceit personified.
politicians have been known to pay off voters who would vote for their competition by giving them 1000 pesos (about $30) to hold on to their cedula card, an ID card, on election day and therefore prevent them from being able to cast their vote. (we did not witness this but heard it from a reputable source)
Wilson, the maintenance guy at our old condo complex, asking to get back the screwdrivers that the gardener used to try to pry open our balcony door to rob us. as Wilson did not find it odd that they were on our deck, could he have possibly been in on the attempted robbery? well, the gardener took the full hit and was carted off to jail...Wilson stayed on only to have his fate soon sealed (see below)
Wilson rigging up the Haitian village behind the complex to run off our complex's generator. charging the Haitians and pocketing the money for 2+ YEARS. Wilson carted off and questioned by police, who somehow let him go home for the night with their intention of continuing the conversation the next day. Wilson ran off to Santo Domingo and was rumored to now own a colmado (small supermarket). those poor condo owners who paid for all that electricity for like 200 Haitians without even knowing it. they are the real owners of that colmado.
Wilson getting into the complex's pool to clean it. 2 offenses there. a) you are the maintenance guy - um, no going into the pool. EVER. b) no going into the pool especially when all you have on are your tighty whities....
the Haitian worker at Blue Fish swimming in the complex's pool before the pool was functioning and the water was ALGAE GREEN. his friend nearby drinking water straight from the hose. that is how you get a low average life span.
the Haitian worker asked to come in and clean up water that had seeped under the door into one of the Blue Fish condos. in he came with his mop with a big GLOB of mud on the end of the mop. swinging it wildly around in his cleaning, mud is flying everywhere. perhaps this is his way of ensuring job security? oh the frustation. what can you expect from someone who has never in his life come anywhere close to being in a place as nice as that? sad.
this one comes from Yohanna - there was a guy learning to kitesurf and died while doing it - likely from a seizure. well, after getting pulled out of the water, he was laid on the beach until the coroner could come. 4 hours pass while his body lays on the beach in the blazing sun while the cops, who are too hot to stand by the body, hang out under the palm trees 30 yards away. glad i missed that sight on the beach.
vendors on the beach still offering me jewelry, CDs, hair extensions, whatever, even though they have now seen me for 2+ years. do they really think today is THE DAY i will buy something? guess so.
Susie says to waiter, "what's in a Bar Fly?" waiter replies "I don't know" and makes no move or attempt to find out, just stands there. ok, ok, service is not their best skill.
going to preview a property before showing it to a client and seeing an 18 year old Dominican woman (girl?), hanging out, half dressed in the bed in the master bedroom. owner is usually a 40- something year old German, Italian, or whatever (not Dominican). we have seen this a handful of times, and even have seen a Dominican Toy Boy once with the mother-in-law (his mother) living on the property too - in the shed with a dirt floor. NICE way to treat your mother-in-law.
the $8.90 ten ounce can of mixed nuts. i think i'll stick to bananas as a snack, thank you.

it's a boy!

2007-08-23T15:15:00.000-04:00

so at 1:27am this morning the first SMS arrived from Rich announcing that it was a boy but had not yet come out. they were at the hospital in Santiago and all was OK with Sandy. at 5:16am, little Ricardo (actually Richard Edward Weber) had been delivered. we are excited for them and anxious to meet the new little guy. so no more big belly for Sandy! thanks to Open Shirt Mike for the picture of Sandy shown on the left in the last days of pregnancy!

wonder what it was like to have a baby in a Dominican hospital. i am sure Sandy will have some interesting tidbits to tell about that experience.

Richard will become the newest member of the Cabarete Boys Club! there must be something in the (bottled) water here because all the kids born to parents we know who have been living here are boys with 2 exceptions. there's Kai, Rodrigo, Elliot, Oshen, Guillermo, Alex, Jordi, and Jacobo. Zoe and Alexandra, the 2 lone girls, will certainly have their choice of boyfriends.

the availability of cheap nanny labor makes the experience of raising a kid a lot easier here i believe. most everyone has a nanny for their kids. it's too cheap not to! for like $150/month, you have a full time baby sitter 6 days a week for 8+ hours. i think some may even cook lunch for you (nice!) that same nanny will watch the kid in the evening too for some ridiculously low price. i mean do the math on the hourly wage on a monthly basis. the nannies welcome the work and the money. so there's none of that "we can't find a babysitter" thing.

this and that

2007-08-22T10:52:00.000-04:00

Veronica picked up this t-shirt from city sports when we were last in boston. it seemed quite appropriate...though the never return thing is stretching it a bit. the front of the shirt has an image of a palm tree on a tiny stretch of island. i like it and so does V.

we went to the original Taco Tuesday last night over at the Cabarete East condo complex. we had not gone for a long time and only when it was held back over at Coastal Cottages. the complex looks good and the restaurant turned out quite nice as well. we saw Rob & Sandy, the developers of the complex and who also live there. they moved down here from Seattle a few years ago. they're very nice people and i'm happy for them that they did so well with that development. they have been kicking back since the project finished up and will be traveling. good for them!

Juan returned from his trip to Greenland this past weekend. we saw him yesterday and caught him up on our clients and latest endeavors. we talked some red sox yankees together as well. it's fun that he is a red sox fan and so anti-yankees. he recently got himself set up with satellite TV so that he could watch all the sox games - he really is into it. he also has a high definition TV and keeps saying that he'll invite us over to watch a game. that would be fun to do! i also have never seen anything in high definition and am curious how it looks, as people rave about it.

the cleaning lady just left. she's always complaining about having a cold - must be from going in and out of air conditioned condos all day. well, today she said that all was well, so that was a welcome change. she's actually very nice as opposed to the extremely unfriendly one that we had at Windchimes - Francia. man, she was one grumpy individual. amazingly you really do not meet many grumpy or unhappy dominicans. they truly are a happy set of people - always smiling, laughing, and having fun. it's great to see and makes you lighten up too.

dean is passing by

2007-08-18T14:34:00.000-04:00

hurricane dean is a couple hundred miles south of the DR right now and not expected to significantly impact the DR. certainly not us up here on the north coast. that is because we're protected by the mountain range in the middle of the country that is as high as 10,000 feet and which separates us from the south coast. we just got a blast of rain a few moments ago. this morning we had a nice walk on the beach and it was hazy sunny with some big surf.

wonder how jamaica is feeling though as dean is heading right for them. not looking forward to all the news that will come out of this category 4 hurricane hitting there and what looks to be the yucatan peninsula after that. clients tend to get nervous about hurricanes (understatement) and mistakenly assume that this area of the DR (north coast) is in a high probability zone. not to jinx us or anything but we are not like all other places in the Caribbean in terms of likelihood of experiencing a hurricane. for that, again, we can thank the fact that majority of storms if they even hit the DR do so in the south and then run smack into that mountain range which dissipates them.

Veronica just got done IM'ing with Peter & Marjolein who announced that they will be moving from Portland, Oregon to London where Peter will work on a wind farm project in the North Sea. congrats to them and good luck! keep up the expat life!

speaking of expat life, i wonder how Antony is doing with his first few days in New Zealand. i have been enjoying his blog about the process of obtaining NZ residency, working permits, a new job, and recently the closing down of his life in MA & VT. http://fryphone.com/nzblog/ a big good luck to him too!

african art in the DR

2007-08-17T09:33:00.000-04:00

we went over to Alex & Francesca's house last night for a BBQ. Francesca is in the picture with V. they are colleagues of ours at C21, both are Dutch, and have 2 young boys, Francesco and Daniel, who of course have lots of energy. in and out of the pool they went, with constant (nice) prodding for us to join them in there or even better to play soccer with them. last time we were at their house i played soccer with them and had lots of fun but just wasn't up for sweating that much this time. they were disappointed, i know, but i'll have to make it up to them next time. here they are - boys being boys....

Alex used to have a shop in Amsterdam that sold African art - all sorts of masks and wooden and bronze statues and artifacts. Alex and Francesca shipped all their personal stuff here when they moved here about 4 years ago, including tons of boxes filled with what he kept from his store. his initial start in that business came when he bought out the inventory of a shop in Amsterdam that sold Indian art. from there he expanded to African art which he would get from a market in Utrecht where you could buy that type of art. as his shop grew in popularity, Africans would come to his shop with art to sell. his shop was located in the gallery area of Amsterdam and so after the Africans had made their selling rounds to the galleries, they would end up at his shop. by then, they were ready to just sell their remaining stuff, so it he seems that he was then in a great negotiating position.

here's a shot of Alex in one of the rooms in his house that are filled with the art.

the masks and statues are all over the house - on the walls, adorning countertops, and in custom made shelfs that were made to display the art. here's a shot of Alex with one of the masks on and you can see some of the masks on the walls in the background.

our beach walk

2007-08-16T14:19:00.000-04:00

here's a good picture of the stretch of beach that we walk almost every day. we usually head out in the morning around 8ish before it gets too hot. we go out to Ocean Point or sometimes a bit further to Extreme Hotel and back. it's so nice! it's a great way to start the day. there's usually a few other people out there then but no vendors or kiters to avoid. needless to say every day the ocean is different. out by Bahia De Arena we've picked up some really beautiful shells, which is fun.

there's nothing like living this close to the beach. this is one way that we take advantage of it!

cabarete cuisine

2007-08-12T18:13:00.000-04:00

one of the benefits to living on a tropical island is all the fresh fruit that we get to eat. pineapple, papaya, and bananas are staples of our diet here, as well as mangos when they are in season. there's nothing better than a fresh fruit salad made up of those fruits or just some yogurt and one of those fruits.

lately i have been enjoying a cookbook that i got during our Tortola trip that is perfect for here because of its many recipes including these fruits. it's called A Taste of the Caribbean Cookbook and i highly recommend it. it may even be better than Thrill of the Grill but that's tough to say since it was sometimes tough to get the ingredients for those recipes when i used that cookbook in Boston.

i've been making great tropical salsas from some of the recipes in there. i've also started to cook with a lot of spices that are a bit new to me - curry, cumin, coriander, turmeric, etc., that are called for within this recipe book. without an oven, we either have to BBQ or do things on the stovetop. in this heat, you really don't want to put on an oven anyway. the new cookbook is great because it does not contain a lot of recipes where you have to use an oven.

some new dishes we've made that have been great are Curried Pork Chops on the BBQ with Pineapple/Papaya Tropical Salsa, Curried Egg Salad in Tomatoes, a few chicken stews using either coconut milk, curry, and rum among other ingredients. i want to try out a Grilled Pineapple, Avocado, and Red Onion salad next - that one sounds tasty.

i've also been into making hummus lately. not very islandy, i know, but you cannot buy that pre-made in the store and it's something i really was missing. it turns out to be a really easy thing to make.

with such a small set of restaurants to choose from here, it is almost a necessity to come up with new recipes at home to please the taste buds. i'm a bit biased, but most of the time, i think we have much tastier meals at home than out, but that may also be in part because we're just kind of tired of most of the restaurants here, having been frequenting them for 2+ years now. on that note though, we do hope to try out a new restaurant soon. it's actually located at someone's home - Onno's - in Pro Cab. they only serve on Thursday nights, unless you reserve for a group on another night. it's prix fixe with 3 courses. reviews of the food have been good and the setting looks fantastic - similar to Bliss. check out this link to see some pics of the restaurant:
http://cabaretewinds.com/news/121/ARTICLE/1458/2007-07-20.html

sights, sounds, tastes of LT

2007-08-08T16:08:00.000-04:00

it's been a few days since i last posted an entry. we were in las terrenas over the weekend and have been busy with a client the past couple of days. even though the picture is a bit blurry, i wanted to post it. i just found this truck quite amusing with its cab cut off and a whole slew of guys in it and hanging off of it.

we came across this truck on our way down to playa bonita where we had a great day on saturday. we packed up the cooler with a baguette, some great italian salami, homemade hummus (my new speciality), and some other treats. we plopped down on the beach and had a relaxing afternoon of swimming, eating, and hanging out.

this is the place we stayed at for the weekend - Alisei condo hotel. it's sweet! this is the view from our terrace:

we got a room up at the front with great ocean views. while staying out a playa bonita would have been good this time too, this place is close to the restaurants in the Pescadores section of town. we frequented our usual spots - Mosquito Bar for drinks, Cuca Marina (1st night dinner), Syroz Bar, La Terrasse (2nd night dinner spot), and Palapa Bar for lunch. we just love it out there and especially enjoyed it this time because we were not running around looking at land.

monday & tuesday we spent the day with a new promising client. things went in a different direction from what we orginally thought they would be interested in, which made for some interesting diversions. we'll see what happens!

a birthday card

2007-08-02T11:27:00.000-04:00

we had fun this morning making a birthday card for Geoff in the sand. once we had the final product, we took a picture of the message and sent it to him. along with that, we sent a "Making of the Graffiti" power point slideshow with pictures of us making it. it was quite a production - we had to contend with waves, early morning runners, footprints, mispellings, and other nuisances to pull this off.....

island footware

2007-08-01T15:41:00.000-04:00

here's our footware collection! well i guess we should include our running shoes that we use for spinning. then, it's really complete! believe it or not i have designated beach flip flops and designated work flip flops.

we're so used to flip flops that they are all we brought with us to Boston on our last trip. one day we walked all the way from Central Square to the Financial District in our flip flops - probably about 2 miles. i think Jane thought it was nuts that we did not have any other shoes with us. it probably was. i couldn't believe how dirty my feet got each day there.

we both really enjoy the fact that we spend most of our time in flip flops or just plain barefoot. ok, we will admit that we do put shoes on for some clients, but it's so hot that it is really uncomfortable. i suppose i could upgrade to some sandals. i just haven't found any i really like. did i say yet how limited the shopping is here?

spinning!

2007-07-31T16:17:00.000-04:00

we have been spinning now for about 7 or 8 weeks. a british woman, Claire, runs a spinning studio in the basement of her home. after many times of saying we should try it out, we finally did and really liked it. well, i should say that we really like the workout but sometimes dread it because it is such an ass-kicking exercise. we call it "punishment" - as in, "we have punishment today..."

they play great music, turn off the lights, and use black lights, so it's kind of a wild experience when you first try it - unlike any other exercise program i have been through. the music is LOUD! when it is good, it can really motivate you. they've got A/C and fans but somehow we manage to be completely DRENCHED at the end of the workout.

little did we know that we would know most of the people who do spinning here. it is a small place in which we live and there are not that many exercise choices outside of the watersports. well, that's actually not true as there is yoga at Natura Cabanas, the gym in Sosua, and pilates here at Ocean Dream. i guess it's just that the expat community is relatively small, so it's not that surprising that we see many faces we know there. many of the spinners are kiteboarders, including some professionals, who just want to keep in shape. depending on how the wind is that day, you may or may not see them at the spinning studio.

the instructors are all quite fun. there's Claire who is like the most bad-ass of them all. you know you are going to be totally drained at the end of her classes. one of her dogs, Dill or Jasper, usually sits in the room during the class. they laze about on the floor which can be a bit of a tease to look at while you're practically falling off the bike with exhaustion. the dogs seem to love all the music and do their own stretching at the end while the group is also stretching. their behavior could not be better timed....

Coco is a total riot and always laughing as she is setting up for the class. you can't help but laugh too, so it's fun to be around here. she tends to kick your butt too. she likes spinning so much that she shows up on her own when not teaching a class herself. (man, they like the punishment!)

then there is Kit who doubles as our waxist as well. that's my latest joke - "the place we live in is so small that our waxist is also our spinning instructor". Kit has a lot of energy about her so that's fun too.

Lloyd is the only male instructor. he was our first instructor but then was away for a while. he has since returned, but we have not had a class with him again. Laurel Eastman should be returning as an instructor. i am curious to see what her style is like.

we go 3 times per week in the evenings. tonight is a night off which is a good thing because i would not be in the mood for it!

bbq at Yohanna's

2007-07-29T10:42:00.000-04:00

here we are with Yohanna inside her condo. she's an artist and does murals in people's homes like the one behind us in the photo. we were over at 106 last night for her BBQ party, which was fun. Yohanna is a riot - very funny and lots of energy. her storytelling of the adventures with match.com dates had us all in stitches. dates with men who essentially "lied" on their profiles. she thought she'd gone on 100 dates....all without any success and many very funny situations.

at the BBQ, we met Maggie's sister, Joli (sp?), who lives in NYC and has her own company, Musical Kids International, which is basically pre-school kids learning music in a foreign language - i.e, singing songs in Korean, Japanese, Spanish, etc. and being spoken to within those same languages during the class. she's having a lot of success with it and opening schools in Brooklyn and another section of NYC which i forget where. nowadays it's so in to teach your kids a language by the time they are like 6, so this seems to be a good supplementary element to that.

it turns out that Joli/Maggie are members of a large family that are the owners of the big land in El Limon that we have shown to several clients. we seem to be finding ourselves in these types of situations a lot recently where the island feels like it is getting smaller in terms of knowing people. apparently their great grandfather owned the El Limon land and over the years the many family members visited Samana and the land, but never actually built anything but the caretaker's house on the land. Joli told us about stories of going to Los Haiteses recently and seeing etchings of her family members' names in some of the caves ("so and so was here - 19xx") and how cool that was.

well, it's another sunny, hot day on the island. we just returned from breakfast at Claro's and visiting Sandy & Rich's new place where they are living. they've done a great job doing up the place and seem to be in good shape for the baby's arrival.

well, that's all for now.

off to market we go

2007-07-28T18:29:00.000-04:00

i have some photos from last night at eZe where the Brazilian band was playing, but they are on my phone. we'll download them later on veronica's laptop. in the meantime, i want to keep up the blog. so even if the above picture is not timely, i thought it worth posting. it's a shot of me in Janet's supermarket. things i now take for granted are still worth pointing out. for instance, notice the hanging banana stalk. here at the supermarket, bananas are on their stalk. you use a knife to cut off the bananas you want - usually a really dull knife that the supermarket provides and is often hard to find nearby. so there are no neatly prepared bunches of 5-6 bananas all set up for you. it's tough to get the bananas without them getting somewhat peeled during this operation. it also can be challenging to find a fully unbruised banana. that's the fault of the crappy roads here which make for lots of dented cans, fizzed up soda bottles, and bruised produce arriving at the stores.

here's another shot of the produce section as i think it's quite amusing how different it is from a produce section at Star Market - and certainly one at Whole Foods. Note the "green" tomatoes and the herbs come with their roots still attached and with much dirt still on them.

we do get fantastic fresh herbs here at super cheap prices - basil, dill (mispackaged recently as anise!), mint, and of course cilantro.

the last shot here is one of a very common sighting here - the little trucks that deliver produce to the stores.

the produce is sometimes in plastic crates but often is just tossed in and piled up in the back of the truck. slightly unsanitary for sure with all the dirt and everything that gets kicked up into the truck while it is driving on the road. this truck is out in front of the german grocer, which is chock full of overripe produce -- not the place we tend to go to.

v made a trip to janet's today to pick up some items for a bean salad we wanted to make for tonight's BBQ party being thrown by Johanna. she is a Belgian woman who lives most of the year in Naples, FL but has a place here at Ocean Dream. looking forward to some good food on the grill and an evening poolside!

nosotros retornamos!

2007-07-27T15:02:00.000-04:00

ok, it's time to start blogging again. first order of business was to put up a new picture so that we don't have to look at the beach regeneration photo anymore. the picture accompanying this entry is from one of the tables at Marabu. our favorite thing to do here on a sunday afternoon is to have lunch at Marabu. the whole world, at least the cabarete kiting world, is out in front of Marabu in the afternoons when there is wind. this picture is on a day without wind but gives an idea of the view anyway. of course there are tons of kiters out at kite beach always too, but kite beach lacks restaurants. with the Extreme Hotel closed, we really don't have much options out there for eating. anyway Marabu provides a great vantage point to take in the views and enjoy the breezes. sunday is a day of kicking back for us usually.

a plate of pasta, some dorado carpaccio, and vino blanco at Marabu make for an easy going afternoon. they usually have some good music going and it's always interesting to watch the people eating at Marabu, hanging out by Laurel's kite school, and those kiters launching and landing their kites - usually in the middle of all the unknowing tourists who are lazing on the loungers provided by the now defunct Caracol hotel. somehow now they want to charge us Ocean Dreamers 100 or so pesos for the use of the lounge chairs. that's a bit of a bummer.

we need to enjoy Marabu while we can because it's all going to change once Coutu starts building the Millenium Condos in back of it. Marabu is supposed to stay as well as Laurel Eastman's kite school but get moved around to accommodate the new condo hotel. hopefully they'll manage to keep the vibe, but somehow i expect it will not be as good. we shall see....construction last i heard was supposed to start in september, but we know how those things go.

it's friday afternoon now. Marabu will have to wait until sunday. our friend gordon is competing in a windsurfing competition over at the Bic Center/eZe today, so we'll be off to eZe Bar later to see that and enjoy the rest of the day. later this evening a Brazilian trio is playing at eZe. so perhaps it'll be a two trip walk down the beach and back today. we're still a bit tired from this morning's spinning, but that's another story....more on spinning and the studio here in
another post.

cabarete beach regeneration

2006-10-21T13:06:00.000-04:00

the sand has arrived! and it is a shade of white! it's still wet in the picture above, so it may not look that white, but it is!

the beach is twice as wide now! not to mention that the color is fantastic! it is a much lighter shade than the previous brownish type sand we had. the result is not only nicer sand to look at on the beach but also the color of the water now looks more aqua-marine. this is due to the fact that the white sand underneath the water now makes the color shade of the water look different. it's a white sand, turquoise blue water beach now! amazing what $15 million can buy you.

the operation is of course fascinating to watch. a big tanker ship, which can be seen in the distance in the picture, sucks the sand out of a sand bank off of rio san juan and travels back to cabarete bay with it. here the tanker gets connected to a huge underwater pipe. on land, another pipe is connected to that. the sand comes gushing out of that. excavators then push the sand up into different places on the beach as well as into the water. they are probably adding a layer 3-4 feet of sand across the beach.

the operation is attracting quite a crowd of on-lookers:

they are doing the work on a 24 hour schedule. so it is fun to go out in the morning and see how far they have progressed down the beach. within the next day, they will be in front of the azzurro club, which is an area badly in need of more sand. it will be interesting to see how they handle the beach area in front of all the restaurants.

since they began pumping the sand, we have found some nice shells on the beach. of course those all came with the sand from the rio san juan sand bank. sometimes you run across some pieces of coral that were alive but stripped away as well - that is not to nice to see.

cabarete life catch-up

2006-10-09T14:10:00.000-04:00

blue fish is done! actually closings have been happening for about a month now. the last details on each apartment are finished up is in line with when the clients come. the landscaping in line with the mexican theme and has really added a lot to the appeal of the complex. i am digging the plants - lots of aloe plants, different palm trees, and desert-like plants.

our unit is looking good! here's a shot from the balcony:

so...what is new? well, the beach regeneration on cabarete beach has been underway for a while - but only them getting the pipes prepared. the plan is for cabarete beach to get a whole new layer of sand to help with erosion and to make it even nicer than it already is with white sand. supposedly they are getting the sand from a sand bank off of rio san juan. we're very curious about what the sand will be like and when the pumping of the sand on to the beach will actually happen.

here's a shot of the big pipe they keep putting in and out of the water:

we won't talk about the fact that most of this country has mostly unpaved roads, an electricity crisis, and very poorly educated people and that the money to pay for this project (like $15 million) could probably be better spent elsewhere. we'll just get ready to enjoy a white sand beach and know that this is the third world and decisions here do not always make sense.

for about 6 weeks now, we have had a big pipe either on the beach or submerged in the bay as part of this project. there are actually several pipes involved, but one of them seems to keep breaking. when that happens, they bring it on to the beach, weld it together, and then submerge it again. this pipe is about 400 yards long, so this is ain't no small pipe to be hauling around.

THE DUTCH are doing this job. those industrious civil engineering dutch! seriously it is a dutch company that has been contracted to do this. v is very proud of course - until we keep wondering what the heck is going on and why the pipe keeps coming back up on to the beach. v wonders how they are going to actually pump the sand on to the beach, using the methods they appear to have in place. it all does not seem to make sense to v, but that is puzzling since it is THE DUTCH who are doing it and they usually know what they are doing in these situations. i just admire the pipe and the boats in the bay and wonder if it will all be done before the high season. it's also fun to watch the kitesurfers try to contend with the pipe as they get in/out of the water. i expect someone's foot to be stuck under the pipe as it bobs up and down (even being that big) in the waves.

the weather here for the past 2 months has been incredible. it has hardly rained at all. this has been nice for sitting by the pool and going to the beach, but everything is very dried out. we could use a few days of some full-on rain. it is the rainy season now, so perhaps it will come soon.

last weekend, we were out at las terrenas - our favorite spot here in the DR. it is always great to go for a weekend out there. on saturday, there was a windsurfing & kitesurfing competition at el portillo beach that we went to. gorgeous day! gorgeous setting!

there was a birthday party being hosted by one of the beachfront homes within this community where the competition was held. this was quite possibly the coolest setting i have ever seen for a birthday party. we were practically part of the party, as we grabbed a spot under a palm tree nearby for some much-needed shade. this party blended into the whole party that was essentially taking place on the beach with the competition.

note to self: have a birthday party in a setting like this at least one time in life!

rainy day

2006-08-27T15:37:00.000-04:00

so it's sunday and raining. our kitesurfing lesson got foiled again. yesterday it was a lack of the right sized kites being available and then it rained. today it's just rain, rain, and more rain. we're not experiencing ernesto here, but this rain is all part of the unsettled weather around that hurricane.

what to do on a rainy day here? well, the day started off with picking up some fresh pastries from dick's and then enjoying them back at the apartment along with a read of the online papers. then we puttered around about a bit, still hoping the rain may clear and allow for our lesson. we both got up to date on the latest rockstar supernova posts...i'm addicted! (go storm! that's a different story.)

once we knew the lesson was called off, i decided i was in a cooking mood. so we went to sosua to get some supplies at playero - lots of vegetables for chicken soup and chicken cacciatore. here's v checking out the chicken stock we're making.

while cooking we were listening to some cuban music - a female singer named cesaria evora. her music makes me think back to the times in boston when listening to her or some other latin style music made me feel like living in a tropical country like the DR. i don't think i actually really had the DR in my head as my fantasy place. cuba seemed more exotic and alluring. but alas, the DR is a bit more practical. anyway, i told v to close her eyes and think back to some november day back in boston when this music was playing and we were bemoaning our 9-to-5 lifestyle and the long winter ahead.

being from boston originally, whenever it is stormy outside here, it's out of pure habit that i think it is going to be cold. then i open the door, the balmy, tropical air hits me and it still disorients me for a second. even today when i went to get the pastries, i saw it raining and put on jeans. i opened the door, felt the warmth, and wondered will i be too hot? nah, i just felt like wearing jeans. same like i felt like cooking on a rainy day. it just seems like the thing to do, even though we don't have to be holed up in the house. i mean we could go swimming and be perfectly happy too. maybe we'll go do that later...

a trip to the vivero

2006-08-26T12:47:00.000-04:00

we made a trip to a vivero today. a vivero is a garden center. this was our third vivero in a week, as we have been looking to put some plants in the new abode that we are in. this vivero was by far the nicest with the plants looking the healthiest. the prices weren't bad either. it's located directly across from the entrance to hideaway beach on the main road - for those who want to know where to go.

we bought a palm tree! while you can't ever have the experience of selecting your own christmas tree out in the wild here, this is what we got to do with a palm tree today! at this vivero, many of the bigger plants are growing in the ground, as opposed to within pots. so once you select your palm, they grab a shovel and start digging it out.

here's a shot of jose, digging up our palm tree:

once it came out the ground, it looked like this. cute, huh? now it's on the deck and looking good! hopefully it won't be in too much shock now living in a pot...

the price started at 450 pesos. we talked them down to 350 pesos. so less than $12. pretty good deal we think. though of course everything grows like mad here, so it probably costs them like $3 to grow and take care of it. a woman at sea horse ranch owns this vivero. i'd imagine it is mostly a hobby for her, as who knows how she keeps track of what gets sold and at what price. (she was not there and probably isn't there often. that is just my guess though, given her residential address.)

here's an interesting vivero story. at another vivero we were looking at plants in plastic pots. if you wanted to keep the plastic pot, it costs 200 pesos ($6.75). the plant itself costs 250 pesos. that's insane! goes to show how expensive some things are as compared to others here. i'd imagine they probably have to drive to puerto plata or santiago to get the plastic pots....thus, such a high premium on such a piece of nothing. this is when you miss home depot....how many plastic pots could i buy for $6.75 at home depot? 10? 20?

ok, on to a different topic, we are kitesurfing again! we took a refresher lesson last weekend and have another one this afternoon, if the wind picks up. v and i did a joint lesson and had a lot of fun with the body dragging. this is basically using the kite to pull you through the water without having the board on. we did this together with one holding onto the other who has the kite. at one point, the kite got a bit out of control for veronica. off she went flying about 5 feet above the water. i was not able to hold on to her for that ride unfortunately and sat somewhat stunned in the water at how high up she had flown and then how far away she had landed.

our instructor is ika from serbia. he wasn't sure if he'd be here for today's lesson because he was going to bulgaria for 2 months. hope he's still here because we both liked him. we'll report on how it all goes. we're getting up on the board today, if all goes well.

dog days of summer

2006-08-10T16:06:00.000-04:00

we're back! we never left actually, except for a 12 day vacation up to boston recently. i just got lazy with the blogging. i hope to resume again. we'll see how it goes.

it's august. the weather is hot and steamy. dips in the pool and swims in the ocean are in order a lot these days. we've also been trying to be a bit more active. we brought back some kadima, which is fun to play on the beach.

bettina and her husband, bob, arrive from new york city today. looking forward to hanging out with them here and showing them the unit they bought at blue fish. it'll be the first time that they see the complex, as they purchased it last summer before construction began. bob didn't make it down last time because he lost his passport ON THE WAY to the airport! so off the plane only came bettina. i am hoping we see him in tow today. surely the day must have been miserable, given all the beefed up security measures because of the foiled terrorist attempt on US-bound flights from the UK. clearly NOT the day that you wanted to be traveling. it should be interesting to hear though what they had to endure. i imagine we'll have to buy them some shampoo or other bottled toiletry things, if they had that in their hand luggage. what a MESS... :-(

on the blue fish note, it is nearing completion. yippee! just a few more weeks. landscaping should begin in about a week or so. that should dramatically change what the site looks like. here are some shots. clearly they've gone with a very colorful look - wonder how buyers will feel about such bold colors.

well, we'll be meeting bettina and bob at the eZe cafe tonight. always a great spot to hang out here. looking forward to being there!

zona colonial - santo domingo

2006-06-06T21:49:00.000-04:00

well, it has been a while since we blogged. we're still here! we just got back from a quick overnight trip to santo domingo. veronica needed to renew her passport at the dutch embassy. we hadn't been to the zona colonial since october, so we were both looking forward to being there again. it's fun to just walk around there, peak into the various homes, and eat in some good restaurants.

the picture of veronica above was taken at this great place that we stayed at - casa dona elvira. as is typical in many places within the zona colonial, this place had a lot of atmosphere. we both love the architecture in the zona colonial and especially that of this hotel. this was the 2006 lonely planet author's pick for a hotel in santo domingo and boy did they hit the mark on this!

many of the buildings in the zona colonial are getting bought up and renovated by foreigners. casa dona elvira was bought by a belgian/american couple 3 years ago and renovated by them. (they also have a house in perla marina in cabarete.) i think in like 5-10 years time, people will look back and kick themselves for not having bought one of these buildings. i mean where in the world can you buy a building that was built like 500 years ago, designed by a spanish colonist, that has walls that are like 3 feet wide, and with gorgeous inner courtyards where you can hang out and not get wet in the rain?

here are some more shots taken while we strolled through the streets yesterday. doors really show off the different architectural styles.

we also took a tip from my brother and visited the museo de las casas reales, which was a great museum with all sorts of maps, weapons, paintings, explanations of who conquered and ruled the island of hispaniola, and details on the types of items imported and exported from the island during the days of spanish rule.

all in all it was a great break from the beach and real estate life in cabarete!

blue fish condos - great progress!

2006-04-23T09:25:00.000-04:00

the blue fish condos are coming along nicely. the roofs are now fully over the third floor. we can see what the bedrooms will be like in our unit. it's cool - they are going to have high (cathedral) ceilings. i like the look, but it also makes the rooms feel bigger. i wish we had the same in the living room area.

it turns out that juan has decided to do the same thing with a unit in The Victorian condo complex as we requested for our unit. meaning on the top floor there in phase 2, they have combined (2) one bedrooms into a large 2 bedroom unit with an open living room/dining room/kitchen area and huge deck. curious to see how quickly that unit sells there. we are biased of course and think our unit at Blue Fish is the best one aside from the A-3 penthouse unit.

they've started to install the windows in building #3, so we now know what those will be like. while our preference would have been wood windows, they are white aluminium but actually quite nice and certainly very sturdy. in think in the end, it is indeed a better choice to go with aluminium because the salt in the air really just quickly trashes wood. we've also seen the kitchen cabinets that will be installed and like them as well. they are deciding whether to put a white wash on them, which we have not yet seen.

blue fish is going to have mexican accents, meaning it will have a mexican feel to it but will not be an outright mexican architectural design. you can start to see some of these accents in the interiors and on the exterior of the buildings. for instance, check out the terraces in this picture:

they have rounded edges and will have a solid wood beam railing across them. they are also experimenting with putting wooden beams on the ceilings of the terraces, though this is purely for aesthetic purposes and nothing functional as the ceiling is made of concrete.

the exterior colors are going to be colorful. juan and pablo are testing out different yellows and oranges. each time we go out to the blue fish condos, they have put up different colors and combinations for the exteriors and window frames in a small section on building #3. they are trying to go for a similar look to this hotel in mexico: http://www.starwoodhotels.com/luxury/search/hotel_detail.html?propertyID=1375

we are pushing for the colors to be as "earthy" as possible and not day-glo. i think it will turn out fine.

here are some more photos, showing the progress being made:

sweet cabarete dreams

2006-04-23T09:18:00.000-04:00

Woohooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

asian food

2006-04-18T12:20:00.000-04:00

last night we had to go to the airport to pick up some clients who had bought a home here. the closing was a month ago, but they could only get down here now. as we were heading through sosua anyway on our way to the airport, we decided to try out a restaurant, asiatico, that i had heard about. it is located in eddy's sports bar and is run by a chef, dori, whom we had met several months ago at taco tuesday. the menu has thai and japanese items.

the food was very good, and importantly, served appropriately spicy. i had red curry chicken, and v had a japanese noodle dish called yaki-soba. this food was definitely a few steps up from thai night at lax, which until now had been the only place where we had had thai. wonder if they are open for lunch? when we have shifts in sosua, i would grab lunch there.

i asked dori if it was hard to find the ingredients to make this kind of food here. he said no and that in fact many of the ingredients are actually even grown on the island - things like ginger, lemongrass. i was a bit amazed by this, but then again, this is a very fertile country. the DR certainly does not lack good farming conditions and plenty of water. the latter is certainly a difference i have noted here and from when i lived on another island - bermuda - for a summer. drinking water was like gold in bermuda where they do not have fresh water readily available in the forms of lakes, rivers, springs, etc. and must rely on rain caught off their rooftops.

anyway, back to asiatico. we were the only people eating there. i hope for longevity sake of this restaurant, this was only because either we were there early (6:30ish) or it was a monday night. as it is within eddy's sport's bar, the decor is nothing fancy. what is here? this place is about food not so much about atmosphere. if we wanna watch the football world cup this summer, i think eddy's would be the place. they even have some pool tables there - can't remember the last time i played pool.

there's another place in sosua, actually in la mulata, that serves thai food, which i would like to try sometime. la mulata is up in the hills. i think the restaurant is on the property of someone's home up there, and thus is in a location that you would never expect a restaurant. i don't think zoning here really exists or is enforced. this place sounds like a thai blue moon (i.e., the indian restaurant near jamao)....asian food is not very prevalent here, so you need to seek it out.

some post-easter humor

2006-04-17T17:08:00.000-04:00

every now and then we need some humor on the blog! i just thought this was so funny! thanks, fiona, for this!

semana santa

2006-04-16T08:52:00.000-04:00

these are pictures of cabarete beach yesterday afternoon. the beach was packed with dominicans - swimming, dancing, drinking, littering - all in celebration of holy week "semana santa". we walked out to kite beach in the afternoon to see some of the reggae music that was supposed to be on out there. well, it was definitely island time for them, as they were still setting up the stage and checking the sound system at 5pm. we had been under the impression that the music would have started by 2/3pm. so we hung out there for a while and then decided to head back.

sponsors were out in force on the beach. you have to remember that this a poor country so there are not that many companies that are large enough to warrant using sponsorship as a marketing tactic. the 2 industries here though that are regulars in sponsoring events are BEER and MOBILE COMMUNICATION. so... Presidente and Brahma compete with each other with big blow up beer bottles on the beach. Orange and Verizon duel with each other by sponsoring music events and have big banners on and around stages etc. here's a shot of some of Orange's marketing where they sponsored the music event at kite beach.

our condo complex has been taken over by dominicans for semana santa as well. as it is the end of the high season, many of the units are free and available for short term rentals, which is not normally the case in the complex that mainly attracts long-termers. the dominicans have taken over the pool, which threw a bit of a kink into our BBQ plans on friday night. along with sandy and rich, we had planned a BBQ for by the pool and had invited vlad sr, denise, their friends from canada, and herman. after spending a few minutes by the pool, we opted instead to move the BBQ on to our deck. we had a feast with everyone bringing a dish to share and something to put on the BBQ. it was a good time.

our car has been parked inside our complex since thursday, as the street is completely nuts - traffic jams, people partying, motos driving in perilous locations. we thought it was a better idea to protect our car by having it inside our complex - we could not park it in our usual spot at the hotel next door because they were throwing a huge party and needed all the parking for that. we are looking forward to cabarete clearing out at the end of today, so we can use our car and be free again!

it has basically been 3 days of constant car alarms going off, car stereos blasting, bass thumping from the brahma party next door, honking cars, and dominicans singing/cheering/screaming all day and night long. perhaps this is what it feels like to live in the middle of the french quarter in new orleans during mardi gras. you cannot escape it.

after today though, we are into the low season until june when the winds are at their best and bring the hardcore wind and kite surfers to town. it'll be a welcome calm.

victorian architecture

2006-04-14T09:37:00.000-04:00

this is a picture of a victorian style home in puerto plata. it is actually somewhat of a mish-mash of styles and not fully victorian, but it was the best image i could find (on flickr.com). the las terrazas condo complex in sosua is victorian style, as is the victorian beach front condos that juan is building in east cabarete. each time i go to the las terrazas complex, i wonder how and why victorian architecture came to be popular here in the DR? the DR was never ruled by england. the spanish discovered it (through christopher columbus of course) and fought with the french quite often over it. i think the english tried a bit to take it over but never got very far either. so how does it come to be that the victorian style architecture is often seen and used here?

i finally got around to researching this on the web, though i was only able to come up with one article on it. again, we have no bookstore here, so it's not as though i can find out more that way. anyway, it turns out that the dominicans used this style of architecture as means of asserting their sovereignty from spain. by using a style of architecture completely different from that of spain, the dominicans were rebelling against that former colonial power that had ruled them for so long.

it also turns out that the victorian bungalow as a home and architectural style was actually first used in india when great britain ruled that country. the "white man" needed a home that was suitable for a tropical climate, and so the victorian style bungalow was born.ironically the dominicans see the victorian style as a sign of sovereignty while the indians (of india) see it as a sign of imperialism.

unfortunately the article really does not say who exactly started the victorian style movement in the DR - in terms of a specific person. perhaps that is not so easy to pinpoint, but it would be interesting to know how that style actually became known to the dominicans. most likely it came from books or people who arrived by ship to this caribbean island.

puerto plata has many examples of victorian style buildings. most of them are fairly run down, but i do think there are some in decent condition. next time we go to puerto plata, i'll take some pictures of the architecture there and post them. i know that i always marvel at how nice the buildings could be there, if only they had been taken care of. sames goes for the buildings in santo domingo in the colonial zone, though that is typical spanish architecture.

i have to say that at first i did not like the victorian style. it seemed a bit "prudish", not very islandy, and totally out of place here. in the end, my observation of being totally out of place was correct and was intentional by the dominicans. i have actually come around to the style now and like it.

if you are interested in learning more about how the victorian bungalow came to be here, check out page 7 of this pdf document: http://www.indianfolklore.org/pdf/newsletter/ifl_01.pdf

making it happen!

2006-04-11T17:50:00.000-04:00

things move slowly here. when you think there are 5 steps to something, it turns out that there are 15. the answer to when something will happen often is "manana, manana, no problema". this can be frustrating when you need something done and in a timely manner. ok, ok, but you're living on an island, you say. well, true, but sometimes like with, um say, items involving real estate transactions, you need stuff to happen! you push and push people and wonder what motivates them because often it does not seem like money is the answer to that question.

every now and then we get surprised when someone actually pushes for something as hard as we would and also takes action. here's pablo, working hard to get a land survey resolved between 2 different surveyors.

check out this picture closely - he is holding 2 different cell phones together! in essence, he wanted to make sure that these 2 surveyors talked to each other and didn't want to just take their word that they would contact each other. we all got a good laugh out of this scene, including pablo, and noted how ridiculous it can be to get stuff done here!

pablo started posing for the picture, holding the phones in different ways etc. - that's just a good example of how in the end pablo always has such a great attitude about stuff and doesn't seem to let stuff stress him out. we've mellowed enough to island time to at least be recognizing the humor and be taking pictures. often here and in the real estate transaction process, you are dependent on others over which you have little to no control - lawyers, title companies, surveyors, sellers. so it is good to recognize when you need to push to make it happen or when you need to just roll with it and laugh!

who owns that land?

2006-04-10T09:28:00.000-04:00

sometimes this job requires some detective skills. we're trying very hard to figure out who owns a piece of land here that a client is interested in possibly buying. finding out the answer to that can sometimes be quick and easy but sometimes not. in this case of this piece of land, it is turning out to be a lengthy and tough process.

the first way to try to find out this info is to ask the neighbors if they know the owner. we did that about 10 days ago. we drove around and next to the lot. this brought a few people out of their homes to wonder what we were doing, as this is not a particularly gringo-filled area. we made contact with one of the neighbors. now this is when you gotta be able to speak spanish. (way to go, v!) he said that he did not know but would try to find out. the dominicans are very helpful, as usual.

a few days later we call him up and ask if he has figured it out yet. "nope, but i am going to be meeting with someone in a few days who works for the owner and could find it out then."

a few days went by, we called him again. "oh no, have not met with the guy yet."

ok, well, do you know of someone else who might know the owner and do you at least know the owner's name? "oh yeah, his name is such and such and there is this lawyer in town who would know how to reach him."

excellent, what is his number? "don't know but his office is here and here in cabarete."

ok, but at least now we had a name and a possible other lead to follow up with. we decided to call pablo, tell him the name, and see if he knew it. pablo - "oh yes, i knew his name but not how to get in contact with him." DOH! you knew his name? well, how can we get in contact with him? pablo - "well, we could look it up in the phone book." there is actually a phonebook here? @#$%^&*!! of course the phone book will only contain numbers for landlines and many people here just have cell phones,so this is only slightly promising.

as we do not have one of these phone books and we wanted to take the bulls by the horn, off we went immediately to the lawyer's office. it's saturday, so he is not in. :-( but hey, let's ask a hotel if they have a phone book. sure enough, they do.

now the funny thing about this phone book is that it covers like 3/4 of the entire country! it's about as thick as a boston yellow pages! it goes by town. so we look up the name in like 6 towns that would be likely candidates for someone who owns land in cabarete. we locate 6 people with the name who live in santiago - all women, mind you and the name was for a male. veronica starts calling each one. one person says "wrong number" and hangs up. another says "i know someone who owns a sweet shop with that name. you want sweets?" another does not answer.

we decide to call juan and ask if the name rings a bell with him. we should have done this first actually, as juan knows tons of people. well, juan says "oh, he is dead." dead? @#$%^*!! we start laughing - not out of disrespect, but it is just funny that we have been trying to locate someone who is no longer with us. then we remember that one of the neighbors had said this as well, so it actually made sense. anyway, juan says let me ask guido if he knows the heirs, and puts us on hold. juan comes back and confirms the first report. he says on monday (today), we can figure out lawyers who would know his heirs.

ok, so we gave it our best shot and now had to wait until today. i hope we figure it out today!

sushi, cooking, semana santa

2006-04-09T19:46:00.000-04:00

we went to ali's surf camp last night to try out the sushi. it was excellent! i have to say that it was a treat to have this. the only place i have had sushi here in the DR was at bobo's in santo domingo. sushi is only available at ali's on saturday nights. they have a guy who comes in to the restaurant to do this. i did not catch his name, but he sounded australian. clearly he knew what he was doing, as the sushi was very good.

speaking of food, if you like to cook and have not discovered http://www.epicurious.com, you need to! i love this site, especially since all of our cookbooks are in a box back in boston in a storage unit. those didn't make the cut for the move here. epicurious.com provides thousands of recipes from gourmet, bon appetit, and many other magaziness. one of the best features is that people can review the recipes and add their comments on how they liked it, how they would doctor it up, etc. i also like the recipe book feature, which allows you build up a recipe book of the recipes that you like on the site. just pop the laptop in the kitchen with you and you are ready to follow a recipe. i'm cooking a chicken cacciatore using an epicurious recipe right now!

i do still miss my "thrill of the grill" recipe book. and on that note, i miss the east coast grill back in cambridge too. next trip to boston will need to include a few oysters and margaritas there!

we spent some time out at the pool at our complex this weekend. we had not done that for a while. the temperature seems to be rising here now, so a dip in the pool is quite enjoyable.

the locals are gearing up for semana santa...look out! the country basically starts celebrating easter on thursday and does not stop until sunday. according to DR1, 3 million people will be on the move within the country for the holiday weekend. there's about 8.9 million people living in the entire country. that is a crazy percentage of people going somewhere other than their home to celebrate!

cabarete becomes completely packed with locals. there are several events planned for the weekend. there is going to be a 36 hour long electronica music party with 10 different DJs on cabarete beach. the music starts on friday at 12 noon and literally will not stop until sunday morning. i'm psyched to check that out.

at the windsurf hotel, brahma (a local beer company) is going to be throwing a 12 hour long party with bands etc. we won't need to go too far to hear that!

at the extreme hotel on saturday, it is an all day party with reggae bands. i'm looking forward to that too!

i'm just wondering how loud it is going to be in cabarete. i mean these people are loud to begin with, but this is their biggest celebration of the year. when they are happy, they are not afraid to show it in whatever form they feel like expressing it - plastic horn blowing, blasting of car stereos, cheering, screaming, honking, moto racing, etc.! it's all coming our way this week. oh yeah, and it is a religious holiday - go figure!

baseball in the DR

2006-04-06T08:44:00.000-04:00

for those people who follow baseball, you know that the dominican republic supplies the largest number of players to major league baseball after the US. as of july 2005, there were 101 dominican players in the major leagues - that's 1 out of every nine 9 major leaguer is from the DR. 10 out of 67 of the 2005 All Stars were from the DR - that's even more impressive and shows that the DR talent is quite high. this data comes from this site: http://www.dlc.org/ppi/ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=108&subsecID=900003&contentID=253421

many teams have training facilities here in the south of the country where they take on teenage boys and train, feed, and school these kids. only a tiny percentage of these players ever make it into the major leagues, though that number will likely increase as the training facilities get more and more established. at some point, i'd love to go and check out the red sox training facility.

the dominican players have mostly been big hitters like vlad guerrero, david ortiz, and sammy sosa, as well as star pitchers like pedro martinez and bartolo colon. well, apparently, shortstop appears to be a hot position now for dominican players. according to DR1, 10 of the 30 shortstops currently playing in the big leagues are from the DR. here are just a few of those names:

Miguel Tejada - Baltimore Orioles
Rafael Furcal - LA Dodgers
Jose Reyes - NY Mets
Juan Uribe - Chicago White Sox
Johnny Peralta - Cleveland Indians
Julio Lugo - Tampa Bay Devil Rays
Angel Berroa - Kansas City Royals
Cristian Guzman - Washington Nationals
Hanley Ramirez - Florida Marlins

hanley ramirez came out of the red sox minor league system and was traded to the marlins for stud pitcher, josh beckett. hopefully we don't regret that decision. beckett won his first game for the sox yesterday, so we're off to a good start there.

baseball is a huge sport here. the dominican republic has a winter ball league from october to january where many of the dominican players come back home and play in during their MLB offseason. there are 6 teams in that league, with the licey tigers and cibao eagles (aguilas) being i believe the 2 best. here's a link to the aguilas home page (which is in spanish of course) http://www.lasaguilas.com/2005/index.php

surprisingly, the area of the country that produces the most major leaguers (san pedro de marcoris) does not have a very good team. even stars like david ortiz play in this league - albeit for a few games only towards the end of that season as a primer to get in shape for MLB.

when the major leagues are in season, the games are televised on multiple channels - on any given night, there are up to 3 games on TV here. often the red sox are one of the games, which is a good thing! the fact that i can live in another country and actually see a good number of the sox games on regular cable TV is just remarkable to me. score another point for the DR as a place to live as an ex-pat (and sox fan).

dominicans do not really pledge allegiance to MLB teams. instead, they pledge allegiance to dominican players. so if a player they like is playing for the red sox, they follow the red sox. but if that player is traded to a different team, they then start following that team. you see lots of dominicans wearing baseball hats of various MLB teams. i think they switch hats once their favorite player moves to a different team. certainly a different way to follow baseball.

brad pitt in the DR looking for real estate

2006-04-05T16:18:00.000-04:00

one of the reasons we went out to the samana peninsula this past weekend also was to try run into brad pitt. i'm joking. but seriously, he was here scouting out real estate development locations. yes, real estate! this was his second time looking at real estate here - the first being when he was here with angelina jolie back in january when she was filming a movie in santo domingo with robert de niro. this is obviously excellent publicity and just goes to show that the DR is getting more and more discovered.

here's some press on his visit here:

Sat Apr 1, 11:41 AM ET
Brad Pitt visited the Dominican Republic this week to scout real estate development locations.
The actor took a helicopter to the Samana peninsula, on the island's north coast, and the eastern towns of Miches and Punta Cana to look into real estate projects with art dealer and promoter George Nader.
He was photographed Friday afternoon following a meeting with German architects Lars Kruckeberg and Wolfram Putz at a hotel in the capital's colonial district. The architects had previously refurbished Pitt and girlfriend Angelina Jolie's house in Los Angeles.
Jolie — who was in the Caribbean nation in January filming the movie "The Good Shepherd" with Robert De Niro — did not accompany Pitt, said her publicist, Holly Goline, who confirmed Pitt's trip.

Monday at the office

2006-04-04T07:26:00.000-04:00

Sometimes we look at each other and smile, knowing that we are soooo far away from our desk job, and we love it! Yesterday was a great example of that.

We were out in Las Terrenas, scoping out some beachfront lots for a client. On our previous trip out there, we met an eccentric American with a Harvard, Oxford and Sorbonne education, who lives on the top of a hill, in a round house with the most amazing 360 degree views of ocean, palm tree groves, and rolling lush tropical hills. A somewhat preppy guy, he walks around in a straw hat and strikes you as a modern day Thoreau, living in his own “woods” up on this hill when he is not traveling for the US state department as a translator. Together with some partners, this guy owns several large chunks of land. We had made an appointment with him yesterday to see some of the lots.

When we got to his house, he mentioned that two Danes were coming along with us to see the lots. They turned out to be two filmmakers, Frederick and Asgard, who were writing a script for a movie based in Haiti. Asgard’s father turns out to be a very well known Danish filmmaker, Jorgen Leth, whom we also met later in the day – another eccentric looking guy with wild hair and modern European glasses. Anyway, we set off with our American friend in a rented 4WD with his driver at the wheel and the Danes each on ATV quads, following us. Within 5 minutes, it started to rain. Now apparently it had rained there for the past week, so everything was very muddy - a big problem when you are driving up into the hills on steep dirt roads. Halfway towards the lot, the car got stuck in the side of the road in an attempt to get up a muddy steep hill. In the pouring rain, we tried to give the wheels some traction by pushing palm tree leaves and coconuts under the wheels, but that didn’t help.

Here’s what happened after this:

We left the car behind with the driver who was instructed to go and get help.
We all pile on the ATVs and resume trip into the hills towards lot.
We go a ways down the road and over a few more hills where it was decided to leave the ATVs for fear of them getting stuck in the mud as well.
By now, we have ruined our clothing as the red clayish mud was all over us.
We reach the lot on foot (still in the pouring rain) and walk around. WAY TOO FAR OUT for our clients, but interesting to see nonetheless.
The American and the Danes decide to see a bit more of the lot. S and I have had enough and start to trek back to the car in our flip flops – up and over the muddy terrain when at times, it starts to pour.
S and I reach the still-stuck-in-the-ditch car after a 40 minute walk, occasionally standing under huge fern leaves to shield ourselves from the rain. No one is to be found, of course.
We wait and forty minutes later the two Danes arrive, one walking and the other riding two ATVs.
Frederick had flipped his ATV going down a muddy hill and had badly dislocated his thumb. :-( He looked very green and like he was going to pass out!
The Danes take off on one ATV to the hospital (tiny clinic) and leave the other ATV behind with us.
We wait for the American who comes down the hill another 15 minutes later – soaked and very muddy (has fallen multiple times going up and down the hills).
We inform the American about the accident who is obviously quite alarmed and now completely distraught over how this day has gone. He is afterall trying to sell this lot. He's got a rental car stuck in the ditch, a Dane with a broken thumb, and 2 realtor women (us)completely soaked and covered in mud and not interested in lot. So obviously it was a pretty disastrous outing. In fact later, he was calling the lot, "the disaster lot."
We all continue walking down the hill, leaving both the car and ATV behind, which will be dealt with by the American's helper.
We come to the Dominican caretaker’s house at the bottom of the hill. Seeing us covered in mud, the caretaker and his wife quickly pull out a bucket of water and start scrubbing our feet and sandals with a hard brush. We are both embarrassed and amazed but also very grateful to be receiving this "dominican pedicure" at such an opportune time. (We give them some pesos for their kindness.)
We continue walking down the road and eventually catch a ride back to the American's house, getting completely ripped off with the fare but not caring as we are so tired.
We take the American out to a well-deserved lunch at the place where the Danes are staying so that we can check up on Frederick. This is when we meet Asgard’s famous film director father. Frederick’s thumb has been set and all is well – the Danes look very clean while we look like total disasters, especially the American. We have an amazing nicoise salad by the beach at Playa Bonita.
After then dropping off the American, we head back to our hotel room, where the shower is a welcome sight!
The end of a very adventurous day!

Here's a selection of pictures from this very exciting day looking for land in Las Terrenas.

Arriving at the lot:

Walking down to admire the view:

Admiring more of the view:

Where it all started to go awry:

Asgard negotiating one of the steep bits for a hurt Frederick:

Strategizing how to get down this bit in flip flops!

Dominican kindness!

dominican pest control

2006-04-01T12:10:00.000-04:00

good job, mr. gecko! that was a cockroach. yuck! i went for the slightly less graphic photo so as not to gross out our readers. it was cool to look up from my laptop and see this bright green lizard on the stark white tiles snag this disgusting creature. so now we know what the lizards are good for!

election induced spruce up

2006-03-31T17:45:00.000-04:00

first off, boy, have i been bad about blogging lately. it's been almost 2 weeks since the last entry. for those following the blog, you'll be happy to not have to look at those 2 blueberry cakes anymore.

so it turns out that when there are local elections coming up, things start to get spruced up in town. in may, there are elections for the sindico - which is basically like the local town governments, including the "mayor". the upcoming elections are apparently the reason why in various towns we have been seeing some civic improvements being made to things like roads, sidewalks, etc.

for instance, the cabarete sindico is putting a sidewalk in by the fruit stand guy. this will certainly help to make that area look a little less ramshackle and make you feel better about walking on that side of the street at night.

last weekend when we were in las terrenas, we saw workers cleaning up the gutters and scooping up trash along the main roads in town. i have never seen anyone ever picking up trash anywhere here, so that was enough to make me turn around and look back from the car to be sure i was seeing what i thought i was seeing.

today in puerto plata, there were lots of pot holes being filled and new areas of tar being laid down. this is good that they do this. i wish they would just pave it properly though, versus doing whatever they do that only lasts like 2 months and then the pot holes are back.

guess all this sprucing up will make the locals feel like re-electing the same set of people who have been governing for the past however many years. maybe not....

i should become more informed on how their political system works, beyond my (probably justified) thinking that the politicians here all just pocket money instead of using it for its proper purposes. i mean most people think this is how all policitians are, but i think it is especially true here in this third world country where there is no transparency or legal enforcement on such behaviors. anyway, i should at least look into how often the elections occur, the different parties, the roles, etc.

on another note, we went out to blue fish today. they are getting prepared to lay down the tiles and do up one of the bathrooms in one of the units of building #3. they are doing this as a means to see how they feel about the choices of tile, countertops, etc. exciting! they are also starting to prime the inside walls in building #3. a crew of very sweaty men were digging away the pool location again. we're getting there!

we went up to the penthouse unit there, which is still available. man, is that going to be a gorgeous condo! i think it's going to get sold soon now that you can really see what that unit will be like.

we went out to the riu all-inclusive resort beyond puerto plata today to have lunch with natalie and elwin, friends from holland. somehow at the riu mambo they do not require you to wear a bracelet to indicate that you are a guest. as a result, we were able to drive into the resort and then just go and have lunch with natalie and elwin. that is quite a complex - 3 resorts in one with several beaches, restaurants, pools, bars, etc. the food was surprisingly very good! natalie and elwin leave on sunday, so we wanted to see them one more time before they left. it was a nice afternoon with them.

before getting to the riu, we went to see a piece of beachfront land out in cofresi that we have listed for sale. it's quite a drive out to the riu, so we thought we'd also take advantage of being able to see this piece of land. it's got an offer on it already, but we thought we mind as well know what it is, in case the offer is not accepted.

so, it was a busy day, without even mentioning that in the morning we went to try to find the owners of a lot that could be of interest to a client. it's always tricky business to try to find owners without them then jacking up the price because you are coming to them. so, we are juggling multiple sources right now who may be able to put us in contact with owners in hopefully a more subtle manner. these are basically locals who live adjacent to the land.

oh, and one more thing, happy birthday, mom! hope you had a good day and received the gift i sent to you!

life's simple pleasures

2006-03-19T15:21:00.000-04:00

we can get the greatest pleasure out of such simple things here. yesterday veronica made a little blueberry muffin cake from a betty crocker mix. the mix is ridiculously priced here, so in the past we have eyed it but not actually bought it. yesterday at janet's, we couldn't help ourselves and splurged! here's a shot of the little delight, split for our enjoyment this morning. next up, maybe we could find some way to make bagels....

carless in cabarete

2006-03-18T10:53:00.000-04:00

here's a good example of how service is handled here in the DR. we take our car to this mechanic to have some work done on it. he is a british expat who lives in a very dominican section of sosua and operates his business out of his house. in terms of this neighborhood, we're talking dirt roads, chickens running around, many houses half built and many not painted so they look like ugly concrete structures. some other C21 people had recommended him, so we went with his services.

we drop off the car on thursday morning and are told that it will be done by friday afternoon. so, friday afternoon, we call and ask, "how is the car?"

response: "oh, i've been trying to call you. i ordered the wrong part, and i can only get the new part on monday. i took the old part out of the car and am not able to put it back in. so, your car won't be ready until end of the day on monday."

WHAT? you disassembled the part before you had the correct one? and now at 4:00pm on friday afternoon, you're telling us we won't have our car all weekend? also, we have a client on monday and need the car! we had to take the gua-gua home last night from sosua, which was a new experience. night time driving in a minivan without lights and packed to the gills. luckily we made no stops prior to just outside cabarete, so it was a bit of an express gua-gua. who knew they existed? v had lots of cashola on her to pay the mechanic, so it was tights hands around the bag. meanwhile v is receiving important phone calls from clients and having to shout above the bachata music. "i'm in a local bus, sorry for the noise."

all a pain in the ass.... so now we have to rent a car to be able to take the clients out on monday. hope they buy or else it's money down the drain. it's a couple that also wants to bring along another couple. so on top of it all, we need a fairly sizable rental car.

there is a C21 agent who does not own a car (amazing that you can have this job and not have a car but that's a different story). she rents a car off this guy who rents out his own car. i think that's quite smart of that guy, as he probably does not need his car all the time and can make some money that way. she looked into us renting his car. turns out that his car is rented out for the next week, so that is out as an option.

so, we are off now to the car rental place here in cabarete. we'll be sure to write about our experiences with the rental car agency, as i bet all will not go smoothly there.

Best of Cabarete

2006-03-16T15:06:00.000-04:00

i thought it would be good to put together a "best of..." list for us to remember after the fact but also for those readers who are looking to spend some time in cabarete and some other spots here in the DR.

best happy hour spot: eZe cafe! this is a place on cabarete beach, run by a friendly couple, serving great drinks and good nibbles. the music here is always excellent and the restaurant/bar itself is one of the better designed places in cabarete. some day we'll actually hang out in the hammocks on the beach in front of this place that are strung between palm trees. in the meantime, we'll just continue to enjoy their caiprinhas and barflys.

best breakfast: claro! the food here is always fantastic. sandy, our friend who runs it, always makes you feel welcome. while not on the beach, the garden like atmosphere here is very pleasant. if you're feeling like you want to be healthy, get the yoghurt, granola, and fruit salad. it is truly one of the best i have ever had. claro's is off the beaten path and is a spot where many local expats go to. it's located next to the casa blanca hotel and up from el magnifico on the east end of cabarete.

best lunch: eZe cafe! yes, they win in another category! have the blue birds salad or a burger. definitely have a smoothie. and if you need a jolt, their coffee is excellent as well.

best italian restaurant (pasta): toma la luna! they have great pastas and excellent antipasto! a bit on the higher end price wise for cabarete, this is a place to go to celebrate something or to impress the parents. this spot can be hard to find for those not in the know. located down a small street and next to the velero beach resort, this place is run by a sicilian chef and his dutch wife. they also own marabu, which possibly ties with toma la luna in this category.

best pizza: pomodoro! excellent thin crust pizza served right on the beach. they have a new pasta making machine and have now added pastas to their menu. their ravoli is pretty darn good as well! the wine by the glass isn't bad here either.

best german restaurant: bayershof! prior to coming here, i had not eaten much german. i do not think i could name a german restaurant in boston. well, the germans were one of the first expat groups to start settling here. as a result, there is a fair amount of german food, but this restaurant is the best. they serve excellent schnitzel - very much like the hunter style. their location at first, seems undesirable - down a dirt road a little past the turn off to el callejon. however, in the end, it is a nice break from the beach and especially the noisy road.

best steak: ali's surf camp! the churrasco steak is to die for! this steak is so tender. gotta love the baked potatoes and sour cream. it's a bit of a heart attack meal, but every once in a while, it is a nice treat. also like the palapa style interior - has that tropical island feeling. supposedly they have sushi here on saturday nights that is rumored to be quite good. perhaps one day we'll get our nerve up for that. i think you need to make reservations for the sushi night. ali's is tucked away in the pro-cab neighborhood of cabarete.

best mamajuana: ali's surf camp! this is the local after-dinner apertif made out of wine, rum, honey soaked in some special wood chips. lots of places give you a free shot of mamajuana after dinner. i think ali's is the best.

best chinese: restaurant china! i have to be honest and say that i know of only one chinese restaurant here. nonetheless, the food there is pretty good, when you consider that we are on an island in the caribbean that does not contain many chinese people. this place is right on the main road in the center of cabarete. it looks like it could be unsanitary, but is fine! go for the chicken chop suey. another bonus is that it is SUPER cheap!

best dominican restaurant: el tigre! i have written about this place several times before. this is where you go when you want a huge, tasty meal for less than $3.00. it's authentic as it is in the heart of cabarete's dominican neighborhood, el callejon. the woman who runs the place is very friendly and knows how to make a good meal. definitely have the arepita de yucca as an app and the pollo guisado for a main course. her mamajuana is pretty good too.

best bakery: dick's! of course! where else? excellent breads, croissants, and other pastries made fresh daily. (but could you please add muffins to your selection?) dick's is on the main road in cabarete near to the Orange shop and Friend's cafe. ignore all the flies and you'll be very happy here as you watch the world go by.

best sandwich: the kiter sandwich at Friend's cafe! this is a chicken sandwich with curry mayonnaise served on a toasted panini style bread. delicious! we only discovered this sandwich a few months ago, but boy does it rock. Friend's is next to Dick's.

best free internet connection: extreme hotel bar! there's actually a lot of good things about this place aside from the fact that you can plop down with your laptop, while directly facing the ocean and the daredevil kiters out on kite beach. this is a good place to go to for a cheap presidente and chips and salsa. hardly anyone here serves chips and salsa for some reason. theirs is nothing to write home about, but beggars cannot be choosers here on the island.

best bar: lax! while eZe is a more relaxed place, lax is the place where more goes on after dark. this place provides that beach bar atmosphere that you look for when on an island. on the weekends, the DJ spins some excellent music. they serve decent food and drinks (the pitchers are a good thing when made by the right bartender.) the PPP special is a good one - a pizza, pasta, and pitcher. definitely try the lax pizza - pineapple, banana, and curry. yum!

best sunset cocktail spot: on the waterfront restaurant! this is in sosua. the place is a bit rundown, but the view makes up for it. the sun sets across sosua bay with mt isabel de torres in the background. once it is dark, the lights of puerto plata come into sight. but hightail it out of sosua before the seedy hours really rev up!

best surf school: 321takeoff! i only took a few lessons there, but they were good. i think they were the original surf school down at encuentro. they'll give a good deal on board rentals to locals.

best tour operator: iguana mama! the oldest in cabarete. you'll pay a bit more to go with them, but the service is better. less people per tour, so you don't feel so much like cattle. this business recently changed hands, so hopefully it will remain the same. go on the damajagua cascading trip! exhilarating and strenuous! hope that junior is your tour guide. iguana mama is right on the main road in cabarete across from the scotia bank.

best beach (within a short drive): playa grande! located in rio san juan, about 45 minutes from cabarete, this is a white sand beach with turquoise blue waters. sometimes waves, and big ones at that. we've discovered that when it is not windy, it is best to sit on the western end of the beach, reachable via a dirt road. (playa caleton is a gem of a beach out there too.)

best beach (island-wide): playa bonita, las terrenas! this might win not only because of the gorgeous turquoise blue waters and white sand, but also because of the quaint hotels and restaurants along the sandy road here. be sure to have lunch at casa grande there.

best hotel (Cabarete): el magnifico! these are condos run as a hotel. this is where we stayed when we came on that fateful vacation here. the grounds here are beautifully designed with lots of plants. the condos are spacious (except for the studios) and have different styles, depending on the building in which they are in. if you stay for a week, you can choose the unit you want. go for the penthouse unit in bldg #5 or one of the others with ocean view.

best villa: seahorse ranch #83. holy cow, if only this could be our house! among its many defining features, the most compelling are its balinese style design and a living room that is completely open and without doors to the backyard and teak deck pool area. you can just freely walk in and out of the house. i love the use of the mexican terra cotta tiles and just the tones in general in here. all of this makes up for the fact that this home is not on the ocean (but within walking distance). ocean schmocean. i'd gladly take this place....for a mere $1.5 million though, mind you. you can rent it for some crazy rate like $2000/night. take a look at this villa: http://www.sea-horse-ranch.com/eng/rentals_view.php?id=72

best hotel (not in Cabarete): bahia las ballenas (las terranas)! this was the hotel that we stayed at with fiona when we were in las terrenas for the first time. great rooms with colorful designs. fun showers in bathrooms where you can see the stars, as there is no roof. the pool area is also nicely designed and a great place to hang when you feel too lazy to go to the beautiful playa bonita beach that is right in front of the hotel. i could have stayed here for years.

best bar (not in Cabarete): el mosquito bar (las terrenas)! i've written enough about this place before. just go there. you'll see.

la boca - cabarete

2006-03-13T17:16:00.000-04:00

this picture was taken out at la boca yesterday, which is at the far end of east cabarete where the yasica river meets the ocean. we wanted to go for a walk some place that we had not been for a while. la boca fit the bill.

whenever we are at la boca, i always have to think back to when we were trying to sell the land out there. we have a lot for sale there that encompasses 153 acres with portions of beachfront and riverfront, including the mouth area of the river on both sides. it was during the summer that we had had a client from the UK who was quite interested in developing a community with a marina on it, but that never materialized into much because he got scared off by the perception of us getting a lot hurricanes here.

we had both a fun and frustrating time trapsing around it, trying to determine exactly what it encompassed, as the info we had on it within the office was not that helpful. at one point, we even hired a local guy to take us up the river in some very basic boat so we could see the lot from that angle.

here is an aerial shot of this land:

there is a beach shack bar/restaurant at the mouth of the river. it's usually mostly locals there. the people running that place are squatters, by the way. when that land gets sold, they will need to vacate. i think they actually have consent from the owners now though to be there. it always seems like a fun idea to hang out there for a drink, but somehow it never seems to work out. i think it's because the few times we have gone out there for a pleasure trip, it is on a sunday. sunday is dominican day at the beach. nothing against them, but they do tend to be loud.

there was a lot activity on the river yesterday - kitesurfers, wakeboarders, and jet skis. i think kitesurfers like it there because it is almost like a lake with the water being so smooth. a UK couple in their early 30s runs the cabarete wakeboard center which is just up the river from there. i hear that they are doing pretty well with that business. this was the first time i saw jet skis there. i can't say i want to promote their use there - the noise from those things is so annoying.

this is another one of those areas where in a few years time will be completely different. right now, it's totally rustic with great views of the mountains to the south and east. one day i bet it will contain a marina or something that promotes boating.

retiring to the caribbean?

2006-03-12T11:16:00.000-04:00

for those interested in the boom in the caribbean real estate market, check out this article:

http://biz.yahoo.com/special/luxurytravel06_article3.html

it talks about the growing appetite of americans for second homes and how that demand has resulted in many luxury developments being built throughout the caribbean. it also talks about why people are seeking out these developments. they gotta throw stuff in there about hurricanes of course. wish they wouldn't generalize that so much, given that the north coast of the DR is not very prone to having severe hurricanes.

i do love the comment about the guy from boston about how he doesn't need all those things in the malls back in the states. watching movies on sheets strung between palm trees suits him fine. sometimes i feel the same way, but i have to admit i did enjoy my shopping day in boston. that's maybe the crux of the quandry right now.

here in the DR, we are definitely in the lower end of the market from a luxury point of view. so, sure you can get a condo in DR for $40K. however, it is not going to be your ideal of one with an ocean view and tiles/fixtures etc. that are up to american standards. v and i live that false perception every day with clients looking for just that and then being disappointed at what $40K buys you here. it is still very inexpensive here, but one has to realize how much this market and others within the caribbean has taken off. you can be in a condo on the ocean here for $110K. pretty sweet, people!

food - in the wild, in the supermarket

2006-03-12T10:20:00.000-04:00

i am sitting here on our deck this morning and i spotted this little pineapple growing directly across the walkway from us. i have never seen a pineapple growing in its natural setting, so i felt like it was worth capturing on the blog. i would imagine that wilson will put a "do not touch sign" and a bag over it (like the bananas) soon. happy that i spotted it before that happened.

speaking of bananas, before coming here, i had never seen bananas growing in their natural setting either. in the supermarket or at the fruit stand guy, the bananas are on their stock and hanging. if you want bananas, you have to take a knife and cut off what you want. generally speaking, the bananas last only about 1-2 days as they are so ripe.

when i was in boston, i should have gone to bread & circus (or whole foods as they call it now) just to get a chuckle out of the pristine presentation of food. here at our local supermarket in cabarete, janet's, it sure is not pristine. the vegetables have dirt on them - sometimes a lot of dirt. you have to pick through the bunch to actually find a tomato, say, that is not overripe. i had never seen an overripe onion at the supermarket in the states or a "soft" potato for that matter. well at janet's, i often experience that. sometimes i find it scary to pick through the onions because i expect a nasty spider or something to be in there. i stick to the top layer in the onion bunch.

we can get some "normalcy" by going to the playero supermarket in sosua where some items are packaged and the vegetables and fruit are not so ripe. there even still it ain't bread & circus. the meat counter is a do it yourself affair for some meats. it's a bit like a buffet where you pick out your chicken yourself and then have the guy behind the counter weigh it. i have to ignore the thought of how many people have touched the tongs or perhaps even the chicken itself because why should they bother with tongs? never mind the deli counter staff wearing gloves.

speaking of foods, v has made some banana pancakes. so i am off to enjoy those now!

blue fish condos are coming along

2006-03-11T08:41:00.000-04:00

they keep humming along with the construction of the blue fish condos. it's always fun to go over there and check out the progress. the picture above was taken yesterday. they are close to finishing the 3rd floor walls, so work should begin in the next few days probably on the ceiling of the 3rd floor. the guys in the foreground are digging the pool. poor guys! they have to dig through that coral stone again, mostly by hand.

here's a shot of building 1, looking inward from the ocean:

we are able to really see the shape of our unit now and if there any quirks due to us merging 2 units into one. presently there is a large column where the sliding glass doors to the deck will be. normally this column would be hidden within a wall, as it would be part of the division of the 2 units. we have asked if they could remove this column, as it obstructs the ocean view. the engineers are calculating if that will be possible. so we were up there yesterday, looking at this and talking to one of the engineers. we'll keep our fingers crossed that it can come out as it will result in a much better ocean view.

you can see the column in this picture behind the guy.

in this picture, you can get a sense of what it would be like to not have the column. that's me there, checking out the architectural drawing of our unit.

they are constructing 4 buildings right now. eventually there will be 7 in all, with 3 additional ones in the back (not oceanfront). they are further along with the 2 back buildings. that is mainly due to the fact that they were able to dig the foundation there much quicker. here is a picture of building #3. you can see that they are manually lifting buckets/concrete etc., using that pulley. there really are no machines here on the site - like no cranes, excavators, or backhoes, etc. jackhammers, yes. but certainly not enough.

later that afternoon....

2006-03-10T18:33:00.000-04:00

a few hours after capturing the much sought-after bananas, exposed and waiting to be taken by looters, i noticed that the bananas had been covered with a bag!

apparently wilson really was not kidding with his note to not touch the bananas. perhaps these bananas are made out of gold as they seem so precious to him that he now wants to hide them. wonder if he'll do the same with the other banana bunches within our complex? though i think the note actually drew one's attention over to the bananas and resulted in the opposite happening - people actually took more bananas! poor wilson.

back in the DR

2006-03-10T13:20:00.000-04:00

i'm back in the DR after a (cold) week in boston. i got a chance to see many of our friends, which was great. i met some of the kids who'd been born while we were away - eve, riley, and theo. they were all very cute. i drove down our street in the south end - the apartment is still there. i bought some clothes and books - 2 things that are tough to buy here. i ate some different foods i missed - sushi, bagels, lamb, etc. my stomach was not happy there though for some reason. you'd think going back to first world foods and hygiene would be fine - go figure...

during the trip, i had some profound and not so profound thoughts.

as i was flying over the DR on my way up to boston, i could not help but notice how little of the DR is actually developed. there's a large amount of coastline that is completely undeveloped and nowhere near any kind of town. when you look close along some areas of the coastline, you notice that there are not even any roads leading to the coast. amazing.

our flight approach into boston was over nantucket and then up cape cod bay and along the massachusetts coastline. as i looked out at the lights of the towns, it struck me how small of an area we have been living in. veronica and i basically spend most of our time in and between the 2 towns of cabarete and sosua. this is about a 7 mile by 1 mile span of area. i was trying to visualize that against the massachusetts coastline. it really brought home what a tiny place we have been living in for the past 9-12 months.

ok, now for some slightly stupid observations made while in boston.... the toilet seat is REALLY cold in the middle of the night when it's winter time! the tap water is also REALLY cold! here in the DR, we do not have such great fluctations in the temperature of the tap water. not only is it nice not to have your hands freeze when you clean them, but also when we have no hot water, you can still manage to take a shower.

while in boston, i missed not having one of those DR moments - like when something happens that you shake your head at or just get a chuckle out of. i was quickly given one of those moments upon return. check out this picture. it is of a banana bunch on one of the trees in our condo complex. looks like someone has been taking bananas that they shouldn't. the sign is from our maintenance guy. apparently, he thinks the bananas are his and wants to make sure the looting stops...

so, hey mom, good thing you didn't get caught trying to take any of these bananas, as you wanted to do! ;-) (by the way, the other banana bunch on a different tree is still there. this bunch is over by the laundry room.)

Christmas in March

2006-03-04T11:42:00.000-04:00

As we have learnt by now, in the DR, today means tomorrow, 10 am means 2pm and one week means two months. But we have gotton used to that, most of the time. We, ourselves still like to operate under the 9am means 9am rule, but know that if that date is made with a Dominican, or a local who's been here too long, then 9am probably does not mean 9am to them. That is fine – after all, it is Island Time.

BUT you can also take Island Time too far.
For the last week and a half we have been receiving Christmas presents and cards! Keep in mind these packages and cards were mailed in Holland, or the US or Ireland well in advance of December 25th 2005 - but we are receiving them only now. Which is fun - as I have gotton excited telephone calls from Juli, the secretary at the office, saying something like: " I'm so excited - you got another package today! Who is Elizabeth? - what do you think it is? - can I be there when you open it up!" And then laughter when inside the bubble wrap envelope appears a packet wrapped in Christmas paper and a note from my mother saying I am only allowed to open this at Christmas and not before! Thank you Mums, and everyone else who sent us gifts and cards and never received a Thank You - now you know why!

jumping off the willie T

2006-02-28T11:12:00.000-04:00

here are some shots of veronica and me jumping off the willie T in tortola. the pics are courtesy of charlie, whom we met on kuralu and had a great time with. i am practicing for the olympics and thus wanted my arms as tight as possible to my sides. ;-) actually this was my second jump where i was trying not to repeat slapping my arms on the water as i had done on the first jump. v was mostly looking to make sure she cleared the boat!

here's me:

here's v:

woohoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

maybe we should have moved to tortola!

2006-02-26T22:12:00.000-04:00

we had a great time in tortola! it was all about stunning beaches, sailing around to different islands, snorkeling in crystal blue waters, yummy rum drinks, gorgeous views from our hotels, bopping around the hilly roads, meeting some very nice people, and running into a cousin of mine!

starting with the beaches, our favorite was smuggler's cove! this was a small beach located quite close to the first hotel we stayed at. it's a bit of a bumpy ride on dirt road to get there, but it is very worth it when you see the water and the sand. there was this really great beach bar there that served fantastic fish tacos. the bartender's name was johnny. he was extremely friendly and even bought us a drink at the bomba shack (we'll talk about that spot in a bit) one night. we loved it so much at that beach that we went there 3 times. here's a shot at the beach bar and one looking out from there:

it was on sumggler's cove beach that i ran into my cousin, chip, and his wife mary. that was an amazing coincidence! i have only met him a few times, with the last time being about 2.5 years ago. so it was a bit of a stretch when i asked if he was indeed named chip. he hadn't recognized me, so he was quite taken aback by someone knowing his name. it was nice to catch up with mary and him. we also ended up going over to jost van dyke on the same ferry a few days later. (more on that island in a bit). here's a picture of us all at smuggler's cove:

stubbs had suggested that we contact her friend, robin, whom she knew from when she lived in tortola. robin runs a catamaran charter boat called kuralu. we went on a fantastic sailing trip on kuralu with robin, who is a wonderfully friendly guy. here he is:

we met some very friendly people on this boat, including a cool couple from NJ/NYC with a very gregarious 8 year old daughter and son. from soper's hole, we sailed out to benures bay at norman island and the indians for snorkeling, as well as to the "willie T", which is this huge party boat (barge actually) off of norman island. everyone was rocking out on the willie T and partaking in the ritual of jumping off the top of the barge into the water. veronica and i, of course, had to jump as well. not naked though, as many do, but were not doing that day. here's a shot of the "willie T" and us sailing:

here is a link to his web site. if you are ever in tortola, definitely go out for a day sail with him. you will have a great time! http://www.kuralu.com/

robin also invited us over to his house for a lamb dinner one night. that was a very enjoyable evening with robin and his friend christopher. we had to call stubbs after dinner to say "hi".

robin suggested that stubbs, neil, their kids, and we come back down to tortola next winter. he would close down the charter business for a week, and we could sail around the BVIs on kuralu! yeah baby, bring that on! that would be an amazing trip and of course is extremely generous of robin to offer. we will have to look forward to that.

i think one of our favorite spots was jost van dyke - an island within sight of tortola. jost van dyke is famous for this place called foxy's that a local named foxy no less owns. he is supposed to be a great musician, but we didn't get to see him when we wer on jost. what we loved there was white bay beach! man, i have seen some nice beaches in my life, but this is definitely in the top 3. white bay beach is a popular anchorage spot for the charter boats too. everyone drops anchor and swims or takes their dingy on to shore so they can go to the soggy dollar bar. a perfect name for the place. they serve up a great rum drink called the painkiller, which is an infamous drink throughout the BVIs. here's a shot from up high of white bay beach and one of veronica at the soggy dollar:

we took the ferry to virgin gorda, another island, and went to "the baths". this is an area where there are all these huge rocks and boulders strewn on the coast. there are many beautiful spots for swimming and snorkeling. the beach is stunning there. you have to walk along this trail to get to the beach spots - under, over, and around these huge rocks. it feels a bit prehistoric in some of the sections of the trail - a very unique experience.

i think our favorite restaurant was the jolly roger! it had a fun atmosphere, served pretty good food, and had good service. the service in general on the island was horrific. so when we found a friendly place like the jolly roger we wanted to go back. we ate there 3 times. some other good places were coco plums and that beach bar at smuggler's cove. i have to mention robin's food on kuralu too, as that was *very* good.

the bomba shack - this is literally a shack on the surfer beach at apple bay. it is made out of old pieces of wood, many of which looked like they may have just washed up on the shore. the floor is sand and not in a hokey way. this is really on the beach. this place is famous for its full moon party and the bomba shack tea. we missed the full moon by 2 days. that party must just be wild! maybe we can catch it when we return next year. here is a shot of the bomba shack:

we stayed at 2 different hotels. the first was sebastian's seaside villa. this place was very nice. our room was practically on top of the water here. after many months of living in a not so special apartment in the DR, we treated ourselves with this room. check out the view from the room:

the other place we stayed was the heritage inn. the defining feature of this place are the outstanding views. located high up on one of the many hills in tortola, this hotel overlooks a huge expanse of ocean, jost van dyke, and carrot and apple bays. check out this pic from our balcony:

there were a few big differences between tortola and the DR. tortola is much drier with cactuses even. the music is better in tortola - reggae, man! none of this bachata plink plink plink stuff. much of tortola is centered around sailing and boating. there's not much boating in the DR, which is a bummer. we both enjoyed being out on the water and walking around on the marina docks, checking out the boats. surpisingly though the architecture of the homes was pretty lame. i think we both expected to see many nicely designed and visually appealing villas. often times it looked similar to the DR with many ugly concrete homes. many of the homes had unfinished 2nd floors. perhaps they do this to save on taxes. nonetheless it does not make for a pretty site. i guess we had to realize that many of the people on tortola are probably not very well off. also, it is very complicated and expensive for non-residents to purchase property there. score one for the DR on that one!

all in all it was great time! we both loved tortola and want to go back to the BVIs! in fact, we'd love to go live there instead. kidding. sort of. ;-)

cabarete building boom

2006-02-12T11:58:00.000-04:00

there is a significant building boom happening here in cabarete. it was 2 years ago now back in boston when i had first stumbled on this market through research on the web. it looked to me like a market that could really take off. indeed it is!

check out what is happening here!

the west side of cabarete:

perla marina - of course we have the blue fish condos being constructed in here. phase 1 is 84% sold out - all sold at pre and construction prices, as this complex is still being built. in perla marina, you have many new homes being built as well.
vista del caribe - there are 2 condo developments that i know of being built out there - coral crest and coral heights. coral crest is being built by an acquaintance, daniel. a nice guy from italy who is also a kitesurfing instructor. more than half of the coral crest ones have been sold out prior to construction being complete. coral heights development is about to start (or may have already.) this is being built by an englishman that we know that lives in the same condo complex as us. i have seen many new homes being built in the vista del caribe neighbor too.
kite beach - ocean point condos are being built by our friend, gordon. there are 2 sections to this condo development - one right before the kite beach condos/hotel and one after the extreme hotel. there's only like 4 condos left here - all sold prior to construction being complete. he went for building 2 bedroom units on the lower levels and 4 bedroom penthouse units. can't wait to check out his penthouse when it is done.
just after kite beach - porta del mar condos. don't know too much about these other than they are going up fast.
there is a 25,000m2 lot next to bahia de arena that has been cleared. this is going to be a boutique hotel by the paradisius hotel group.
ocean dream - they continue to build more condos here. they are also constructing a huge amount of commercial space on the roadside of this complex. this is going up fast.
in back of the best kite center on the main road, they are constructing what looks to be commerical space as well.
pelican beach condos - these are in the second row from the beach. don't know how their sales are going. interesting to sell in the second row when the first row is an empty lot and will likely contain something at some point that blocks the view of the second row.

pro-cab:

there are at least 2 condo projects going on in there - bali hai condos and okaina. bali hai is of course being built by our friends, german and sara. these are very nice townhouses with lots of space and tastefully done and furnished.
okaina is a strange shaped condo building in this neighborhood. has a bit of a russian sounding name. don't know much about this small complex.

east side of cabarete:

el magnifico is building another condo building.
the new casino was recently finished and opened.
there are some condos being built across from the casino. can't remember the name of this.
2 new large homes (or maybe condos?) being built along the beachfront before you get to the texaco station
the victorian luxury beachfront condos - this is another complex being built by juan perdomo. construction of the foundation just started here. we have had several sales of units in there. there will be 63 units in all there, built in 3 phases.
ocean manor hotel - this hotel is right next door to the victorian site. they have been renovating it for several months now and it is looking good.
cabarete east - this is being developed by the people who run taco tuesday. very nice people from seattle who settled down here 2-3 years ago. they are developing 40 condos in 3 phases there. i believe that they also own a lot just on the other side of the unfinished hotel there and plan to build more condos on that side too.
a 26,000m2 oceanfront lot next to (and in front of) the costa liza hotel sold to a group of developers who plan to subdivide that lot into a gated community with smaller lots. that lot was one that we had focused heavily on trying to sell to various clients and acquaintances. we came very close, only to be just behind another agent in our office who sold it. anyway, the sale of that lot along with all the activity on this side has really sparked a huge amount of interest in east cabarete. i think in a year's time, east cabarete is going to be a whole new world.
la boca is starting to heat up. this is past the sea grape hotel and the sol bonito neighborhood. a large lot has been cleared out there for condos that are being built by a canadian group. those are called villas tropicale. they are completely overpriced, unless they plan to do the floors in gold. looks like they are marketing them out of canada. these people are definitely out on the edge in terms of their location in relation to where the expansion is happening. it'll be interesting to see who follows suit out there and when and if they can pull off their pricing.

i am sure i have not covered everything but this is what we have seen. every day something new starts up. it's a very exciting place to be right now, both professionally and personally.

cabarete parking ticket

2006-02-10T16:25:00.000-04:00

so, today veronica and i made the mistake of double parking in the center of cabarete. i was dashing off to quickly grab us a pastry, while veronica went 5 steps away from the car to exchange some money. when i return to the car, i see an official looking person dressed in green, telling veronica to provide her driver's license. now realize that the idea of the having to deal with the cops here is not a great one. the first thoughts are, how much money is this guy going to ask for on the spot to not write up a ticket? the next thought is, who the hell gets a parking ticket in cabarete? that's like arresting someone for jaywalking in boston! it just does not happen!

i look around at the various shopkeepers, including our money exchange guy, and everyone is looking nervous. not a good sign. the official continues to write out a ticket while veronica and i both now wait in the car. we exchange a quick few "now remember to say that we're just on vacation here...."

he hands us the ticket, says nothing, and leaves. phew! but what is the ticket gonna cost? veronica drives off while i look at it. it is in spanish of course, but i can make out the gist of it. it says we have a court date on feb 29, 2006. ok, dude, that day does not even exist. how will the dominican officials deal with that? should we show up on feb 28? or march 1? i'm thinking, it will get lost in the system and then we'll get arrested or something because of his error. the ticket also has no instructions on WHERE to go for the court date. at this point, we both decide that we'll just talk to Guido (Juan's brother, the lawyer), figuring that he'll know what to do and who to pay off if we need to settle it that way.

at the office, we actually find out from pablo that all we need to do is go to city hall and pay the ticket. everyone in the office has a different idea on what the fine will be, so we're still a bit anxious about how much they will charge a gringo.

after doing a few things in the office, we go around the corner to city hall. now this whole scene is worth getting on camera. the trouble is of course they do not want you to take pictures. using a camera would be too obvious. so what do i do? whip out the camera phone!

the court room was located off a dirt courtyard where there were a couple of old, non-working construction machines. running around in the courtyard were some chickens - gotta love that! we hand the ticket to some lady whose desktop computer background, i think, shows vlad guererro batting against the yankees. she can't read the ticket because the writing is too faint. after going outside into the light, she just starts walking over to the other side of the courtyard. we go into this small room with a tiny desk and some plastic chairs, for i guess, if there are many people paying a fine at once. when she went into another room , i quickly grabbed a few photos. here is the desk where she settled the fine and the courtyard area.

the fine in the end....130 pesos (about $4.00)! i think we both were expecting to have to pay a bit more and were quite relieved to have the whole experience behind us. though we certainly got a kick out of the experience.

island hopping

2006-02-09T13:50:00.000-04:00

when sick of one island, go to another! it's time for a vacation! we're going to tortola on tuesday for 8 days! we're both looking forward to getting off the DR and seeing something different. we've been here for 8+ months without leaving the island. cabarete is too small of a place to be for that long. we have of course gone to santo domingo, las terrenas (3x), las galeras, and santiago, but still, we have not left the DR!

tortola looks to be the land of white sand and turquoise blue water beaches. i love that! i have to say that for me, cabarete is lacking in that way. the beach is certainly nice, but it ain't turquoise blue nor is the sand white. cabarete has other appeal though. i am curious to see what tortola has to offer in terms of places to hang out. seems like a must to go to the bomba shack, which will be near the first hotel we are staying at. we'll have to stay away from the punch there though! speaking of that, i wonder if it will be a full moon when we are there. i'll have to check that out.

bring on the snorkeling! sounds like there is killer snorkeling too!

here's a view from the restaurant at one of the places where we will be staying in tortola...

wonder if we will have such a view from our room. hope so!

stubbs lived in tortola for a year or so (more?). she's going to fill us in on some tips of things to do, places to see, etc. we're planning to hop over to a few of the other islands there, like jost van dyke, etc. one thing we wanted to do was to charter a sailboat, but it seemed too rushed. we'll have to do that sometime with a bunch of friends, as i bet that is an amazing vacation.

we have loads of things to seal up before going away. trying not to stress too much about that. so much is out of your control in real estate. it can get to you when you are trying to plan things outside of that. gotta go back to work now!

a day in the life of a DR real estate agent

2006-02-05T17:29:00.000-04:00

we have been busy over the past few days with real estate work. we made a blue fish sale yesterday to a brother of one of my friends, who also bought at blue fish. we're all going to be styling there!

the other real estate related activity we have been doing is prepping for a client who is looking for large oceanfront land. they are coming back for a second look this week. we had to spend some time checking out some new possible lots for them, as well as revisiting original ones that we had in mind for them. that took us here and there, and even got us picking up trash on one of them. veronica may have touched something weird when cleaning up the lot, as later in the day she turned a bit purple from her shoulders up. it was either that, something she ate, or the return suddenly of some slightly humid weather here.

we both love the days that we go around to check out new listings. it's an exciting part of the job, except when it is to see some dump of a house or something. in this case, we were looking at oceanfront lots, so that took us out to some sweet spots. can't complain when work takes you on the sand and amongst the palm trees! have a glimpse into what we get to do and where - this was one of the lots:

after looking at some lots, we stopped at a new favorite spot for us - ke lo ke - which is a small beachfront restaurant/bar in front of the aqualina resort at kite beach. it sounds hawaiian, doesn't it? it actually is spanish for "what's up" but written phonetically. anyway, this is a great spot for smoothies. they're working on the menu and the kitchen there, so their food could be good at some point too. the shot at the top of this blog entry is of veronica on a work day at the ke lo ke - she's studying a plot plan for one of the oceanfront lots we'll be showing.

here's another shot looking out from ke lo ke on to kite beach. not bad for your lunch hour, huh?

along the journey to the lots, we came across this. perhaps this is dominican recycling....?

or how about taking the whole family out for the afternoon....?

never a dull moment when you're out and about here.

adios, mom!

2006-02-03T09:17:00.000-04:00

yesterday was my mom's last day in the DR. we enjoyed a nice breakfast out on the deck in the morning. once the bags were packed, we picked up a few things on the way to the airport - some coffee as souvenirs for her friends back home. (have i mentioned how good the coffee is here?) at the blah, blah, blah shop in cabarete, my mom bought us a nice tropical sarong/table cloth as a parting gift. i'm out on the deck now with it on the table - it's looking good! wish you were here to enjoy veronica's banana pancakes - dutch style - nice and thin.

you gotta get a shot at the airport when people leave. i mean you took a photo when they arrived. so here is mom at the airport on her departure day. she skipped the souvenirs there, though we did price out some cigars for one of her friends.

she'd prefer that i put this shot on though - this was her favorite night here, i think.

it was great having you here, mom! i miss you! see you again soon!

some typical cabarete scenes & signs

2006-02-01T22:22:00.000-04:00

anybody need any shoes?

this guy set up "shop" a few months ago just beyond where our fruit guy has his makeshift stand. the stock of shoes seems to grow quite regularly. when he first started out, he just had a few pair of shoes, hanging in the tree. now he's taken full advantage of the chain link fence behind him to display his wears. i wonder what that first day was like when this guy set up shop. did the fruit guy nod at him in approval for choosing such a potentially lucrative spot? or was the fruit guy annoyed with having another vendor quite close by and possibly expanding at some point on to his turf?

speaking of selling stuff, this lady below is pretty famous on the beach. she walks around all day on the beach in the hot sun, selling the fruit that she carries on her head. i wonder how many people have taken her picture...has to be in the thousands.... i got this shot with my phone. it looks a bit like a colorized old movie shot.

here is a shot of the sports bar/pool hall in cabarete where the local dominican men hang out, drink presidentes or cuba libres, watch the latest baseball game, play pool, and listen to loud bachata music. it's up on the second floor, above a small grocery store, and right on the main drag of cabarete. the guys always seem to be having a blast in there.

there are many signs around town that make me laugh. now i know i am being mean because they are usually funny because it is written in english by a non-english speaker. one i love is -- "please no parking is private". i mean you could grammatically compose this sentence in so many ways to bring forth the emphasize where you want it. "please, no! parking is private!" or "please no parking. is private." or "please. no parking. is private."

here is another one that i get amusement out of:

i guess this sign can be likened to my confusion over when to use pronouns in spanish. still, veronica and i always get a chuckle out this when we see it.

a perfect DR sunset

2006-01-31T21:06:00.000-04:00

this shot was taken last night from the grounds of the sosua by the sea hotel. only 10 minutes before this, we were in a different location where the sunset was nothing special. wow, how the sky changed!

lingering effects of a trip to the DR

2006-01-31T18:49:00.000-04:00

for those regularly following our blog, you may remember when sheila was visiting from boston that she and i did some KILLER boogie boarding. as sheila put it, the waves were so big that it was BONECRUSHING to go along with VERY FUN! there have been some lingering effects though for sheila from that activity. during a physical exam this week, her doctor informed her that she had SAND in her ears! now it's been a month, and i don't think that sheila is a member of the polar bear club or anything. meaning, she has not done any ocean swimming since here in the DR at the end of december. she claims not to shy away from the q-tip either. so that was indeed SOME BOOGIE BOARDING!

here's a shot of sheila's head from after our boogie boarding. it paints a good picture of how much we were rattled around in the surf and sand!

on the topic of playa grande and waves, we went back there with my mom a week ago or so. the waves were FEROCIOUS! if they were like ~5-6 feet the day we were there with sheila, i'd say they were 10-12 feet this time. i think we lucked out the day we went with sheila. they were at the very edge of what i think one could handle boogie boarding. though maybe sheila's doctor would say otherwise!

easy come, easy go

2006-01-29T22:35:00.000-04:00

well, today had some real ups and downs.

the ups - a nice breakfast at the extreme hotel, a great beach walk*, a pretty sunset to go along with a huge rainbow over cabarete bay, a client still seriously considering a hotel property, and a new phone** to play with.

the downs - well, in a matter of 1 second, i managed to get both my phone and camera immersed in a wave. :-( at the end of a beautiful beach walk with my mom, we had a bit of a disaster. a wave came a bit too close to us, my mom stumbled, and a shoe was lost. as i was preparing to retrieve the shoe, another wave came up, washed over my camera that i had stupidly placed on my flip flops in the sand and not far enough up the beach. somehow my phone then slipped out of my hand too, as i scrambled to try to save the camera. in this whole commotion, my sunglasses also came off, but i did recover those - only just though as they were barely sticking out from the sand. this was utter chaos and needless to say very upsetting.

veronica and i spent like 2 hours drying out the phone and camera. the camera miraculously looks like it may be OK. we'll see if the salt water corrodes it and it stops working sometime soon. as far as the nokia 6600 goes, that's caput. finito. done. :-( we even tried to take it apart to help with drying it out, but we didn't have the right tools. i don't think it would have helped anyway.

luckily i have another phone that was a toss-aside from rich. it's a windows mobile device from some 3rd tier manufacturer and at a somewhat beta stage. i started loading it up with contacts and customizing and then was having fun with it. the phone actually takes pretty good pictures (for a phone). with it, i managed to capture the rainbow that we saw on cabarete beach at sunset hour. here are some other shots from that hour.

facing into the sunset...

wait, soccer? aren't they supposed to be into baseball in this country?

at the end of the day, i have another phone, the camera is working, my mom has her other shoe, and my sunglasses weren't scratched somehow. a very different picture from those first few moments after that wave hit!

a thursday evening in cabarete

2006-01-27T16:14:00.000-04:00

this is marabu - a cool new restaurant in cabarete under a big canopy right on the beach. i wrote about this place in an earlier blog entry. it looks a bit like a spaceship here - i really dig this photo.

here's inside marabu....

we went there for a drink at about 7pm last night with my mom. we contemplated staying on for dinner, but we decided to stick with our plan to go to pomodoro as it was jazz night there.

over at pomodoro, the place was full inside and the beach was very windy, so we were guided to a table in the quaint alleyway where there are many outdoor eating establishments. our vantage point from this table was looking inwards into the restaurant and at the back of the musicians. the music was nothing special, but as usual in cabarete, something comes along that entertains or amuses you. this time it was a dominican with a guitar who wanted to both learn some new music from the jazz musicians and grab some dinero off us by playing some of his own local music. here are some photos from that part of the night....

the guy in green outside the restaurant (like us) is the dominican. after following and trying to play along to the jazz music, he turned his attention to us. the photo is out of focus but it captures the essence of his excitement for the merengue/bachata that we requested he play for us. i gave him 10 pesos for his efforts.

my mom has been getting her own comments from the blog entries while she has been here. they have been from her friend, diane. thanks, diane! my mom is enjoying hearing your thoughts on her time here! here i am showing my mom the blog and a comment from you.

palm trees, monkeys, beach walks

2006-01-25T21:27:00.000-04:00

the day started off with the coconut palm trees getting a trim. this guy in the photo was up in the palm tree at our condo complex, hacking off the palms and coconuts. they do this to ensure that people walking under the trees don't get walloped on the head by an old palm leave or any coconuts. that could really injure you! it was intriguing to witness how this guy was able to climb 30+ feet up and down the tree by just using a rope. he somehow wrapped it around his leg and the tree, which enabled him to slowly shimmy up and down the tree. again, note the machete. that tool is used for everything.

we needed to head into the sosua office today to do some work in prep for 3 clients over the next 3 days. we brought my mom along and dropped her off to walk around sosua a bit.

once done in the office, we next needed to see a new house listing. so off we went up into the hills of sosua. when it's a cool house, this is a fun thing to do! and cool, indeed, was this house. the living area and kitchen were partially outdoors on a kind of terrace like floor. in one direction, you had a sweeping view of the ocean off in the distance. the back side of the house borders the road that brings you to panorama village. so from that side, you see this movie set view of gorgeous, vibrantly green rolling hills with tons of palm trees.

the owner was swiss - a very nice guy. the only strange thing (there's always something) was that he had a monkey! yes, a monkey! it apparently acts like a watch dog for him. i can't imagine how a dominican intruder would react to seeing a monkey during a break-in! they're usually scared to death of dogs, but a monkey might just completely freak them out, especially if it screeched, which the owner said it would.

later in the day my mom and i went for another long walk along cabarete beach out to kite beach. this is good exercise for us both and also a great sight with all the kitesurfers that have been out over the past few days. here are some shots during our walk:

we just finished having a bbq out on the deck. tomorrow night we're planning to go to pomodoro where they play jazz on thursday nights.

cabarete after dark

2006-01-24T22:48:00.000-04:00

we just returned from a fantastic meal at "papi's" - aka, la casita de don alfredo. the restaurant is on the beach, though we sat upstairs in the restaurant, so that we could catch the action on the beach from all angles. this was our first evening actually eating on the beach with my mom. i think she enjoyed the food very much and the sights and sounds of the different restaurants/bars of cabarete beach.

the specialty of the house are these amazing shrimp in a garlic and cream sauce. yum! they serve the camarones (shrimp) in a big pan with the heads still on. it's really a wonderful taste treat. we had not been there since we went last year when on vacation here. we should go more often!

here is a shot of us at the table:

this was a great cap to a great day with spectacular weather. as i had worked a lot over the past 2 days on closing out 2 offers, i felt free to spend the day with my mom. we had a nice long walk on the beach at mid-day and then did some sunning on the sand in the afternoon. my mom is really starting to like cabarete very much - especially the beach and balmy weather.

veronica was not able to join us today on the beach because she had to go to puerto plata to list a house. too bad, because we missed her!

mom does the DR!

2006-01-22T19:28:00.000-04:00

we've been showing my mom the sights, sounds, and tastes of the DR. yesterday we took a trip out to playa grande with a picnic. the ride out there always provides a good view into life in the DR. the pay off for this often very bumpy ride is the gorgeous beach that awaits at playa grande. we enjoyed our picnic on the beach and got some sunshine but then raced to the car when a rain storm came up quickly. so it was short day on the beach itself.

last night we had a big cooking session. i enjoy cooking with my mom, as she shows me some new recipes. one thing we have craved here is soup. it's not something you regularly find here on menus. it makes sense, as who would want soup when they are sweltering? however, as it is "winter" now and thus no longer stiffingly hot here, soup is an appealing meal. so, we cooked up some lentil and chicken soups last night.

this morning we took my mom to dick's panaderia - the german bakery where you can hang out and see the world of cabarete walk/drive by. here's a shot of us -- you can see the shoeshine boys in back of us. they were slowly moving in on my mom....

on the walk home, we picked up a coconut for my mom. there are 2 types of coconuts - one best for eating the fruit and another specifically for drinking the juice. for 20 pesos, we bought one of the drinking coconuts from our regular fruit stand. this involves selecting a coconut from a wheel barrow. the old guy, who normally runs the stand, was not there. instead, we got his grandson or something who used his machete to cut the top off the coconut. he was less deft with the machete - give him a few years, as that is the tool of choice here for everything, so we know he'll get better at it. after chopping the top off, he inserted a straw into the small hole, and we were off with my mom holding her TRUE tropical drink. here's a shot of her, enjoying one of the tastes of island life:

the rest of the day we spent out on cabarete beach, lazing in a lounge chair and eating lunch at the EZE cafe. the weather has been somewhat unpredictable with rain storms coming up quite often. we have certainly had blue skies too, but i think we are all looking forward to days without sudden rain storms.

we're thinking of heading over to the new casino in town here one of these nights. that should be an interesting scene and worth a blog entry! my mom keeps asking where we can listen to merengue and see some dancing. the places we know of aren't necessarily going to be our cup of tea. so perhaps we should consult with juan or another dominican on where we should go for this...

showing mom around

2006-01-19T20:07:00.000-04:00

veronica took the gua-gua to the office this afternoon, which gave mom and me the car to use. we headed over to perla marina so that i could show her the blue fish complex. we walked all around the construction site, the coast in front of blue fish, and then over to maquey and naturas cabanas. it was fun to show her blue fish, as we have been excited about investing in it and seeing the progress of the complex.

next up we headed to sosua. i had recently noted a place called "on the waterfront" as a place to check out. it's down by the las terrazas complex and has a great view over a small beach and out towards puerto plata and the mountains behind there. we ordered a couple of banana mamas sin ron and enjoyed the view. here's my mom, enjoying her tropical drink.

veronica came to meet us, and the next thing we know it's about time for the sunset. we decided to stay for that and to get some appetizers. well, the sunset did not disappoint. here's a shot of it:

now we're just hanging out at home and watching some TV. if there had been a movie theater nearby, we'd have opted top do that. but alas, a movie theater is asking a bit too much of this third world country. here's a thought, we have not seen a movie (in a theater) since we have been here. wow!

welcome to the DR, mom!

2006-01-18T08:44:00.000-04:00

my mom arrived yesterday afternoon. she was so excited to see me that she exited the baggage claim area without her bags! well, we were a bit worried about how she'd get back in to get her bags. as she re-entered into the customs/baggage are, the security guys kind of looked at her, tried to call her back, and then gave up (too much effort required and not worth it, i guess). so now we're thinking, how is she going to exit again because i am holding her purse with ticket, passport, and customs form? well, she just popped her sunglasses on and walked on past everyone! she basically got past all the customs people TWO times without anyone asking for her forms or looking over her bags! way to go, mom! next time we need to bring in some electronics or something with huge duties, we'll hire you!

we made a quick stop at daniel, the german butcher, for some things for dinner. this is a real typical german butcher shop - lots of sausages, sauerkraut, and other types of meat on display. there were several customers in there - all speaking different languages, so it was good introduction into the varied cultures and nationalities that live here. i let my mom know that this is the place to buy meat and not at the grocery store where it can often look less than appealing. daniel has gotten to know us, as we're regular customers. if veronica had gone into the shop instead, we probably would have walked out with an extra treat - some hot dog of some sort, which we usually don't want but accept as he's being nice to us. we did not get any extra treats this time, but instead a "please say hello to your dutch friend! warm greetings to her!"

we then came back to the apartment, dropped the bags, and then headed over to the EZE cafe - one of our favorite spots here. it was a great day weatherwise and wind-wise so the windsurfers and kitesurfers were out in force, making for a great view from EZE. after a light snack and some fresh fruit juices, we came back to the apartment. as it was a long 2 days of travel for my mom, it was good to just hang out in the apartment last night. we threw some things on the BBQ and had a nice dinner out on the deck.

today is looking sunny and nice, so perhaps we will go for a long beach walk today. i'm out on our deck now. my mom is still sleeping. veronica is on the other deck (we have two), reading the newspaper etc. online. we have a client who has put in an offer on a great beach house, so we have to work through some of that today with the listing agent. when we leave here, i'd love to write a book on all the experiences we have had with buyers - qualified, unqualified, DREAMERS, as well as sellers and realty processes (or lack thereof here), etc. the stuff we have experienced is just unbelievable. i'm of course not serious about writing a book, but maybe i'd put it into the blog (and obviously keep names out of it.)

ok, time for some breakfast out here on the deck!

happenings

2006-01-16T20:34:00.000-04:00

we had dinner at el tigre tonight. the neighborhood was hopping. the reason being they are working on the road into el callejon. several dump trucks arrived with caliche and dumped it on the side of the road. apparently, it is up to the people living there to spread the caliche out. no construction workers provided, it's a do-it-yourself thing. they won't pave over this either. it will just get packed down really tightly over time by cars going over it. life in a 3rd world country for sure.....

my mom arrives tomorrow! it's quite a trip to get here.... charlottesville to cincinnati to newark (overnight there) and then on to puerto plata! i haven't seen her since may, so i am quite looking forward to seeing her! she's been following the blog and getting excited to see firsthand the things that we have been writing about and doing. it will be interesting to see what she thinks of it here.

we have had a busy past few days. over the weekend we had a C21 training session. we actually did learn quite a few things and found it to be helpful. we got a chance to put it into practice today with a client. we have gone out a few times as a team with clients - and today was one of those times. the clients were not ready to buy and were looking way beyond their price range, but it was a good experience for us to try out some new ways of working with clients. wish we knew then what we know now!

brad pitt and angelina jolie have been in the DR, filming a movie along with robert deniro and matt damon. the movie is "the good shepherd". now i am not much of a celebrity watcher, but i think we both have had our moments where we have thought, maybe we should have gone to santo domingo to possibly catch some of this filming. i mean brad pitt and angelina, come on, they would be quite something to see in person! when we were in santo domingo in the fall, they were preparing to film the movie version of "miami vice". it seems like the DR is becoming a popular place to film - particularly the colonial zone.

we went out to the lot today in perla marina to see if the guy we hired had finished out the work on clearing lot. of course he hadn't. we're about 3/4 of the way through the job. the overgrowth has been chopped down. now the stuff needs to be piled up into one area. of course we get a song and dance from the guy who helped us hire his friend to do the work. apparently, some sort of bug is biting the gardener dude and he can't finish the piling up of the overgrowth. WHATEVER! it is of course a tactic to get us to pay more money. the lot looks a lot better though at this point.

new things in cabarete

2006-01-15T22:25:00.000-04:00

there's a great new spot to eat and/or just have a drink on cabarete beach. it's called marabu and is located directly next to the laurel eastman kitesurfing school. it is quite simple in terms of design & architecture and is very cool. it's basically a platform/wooden deck underneath a large white canopy. elevated up from the beach, you have a fantastic view of the ocean and beach. if you are sitting in the back of the restaurant and look out towards the ocean, it feels like you are actually on the ocean, as if on a boat or something. you don't see the sand at all. a very cool effect!

they figured out how to deal well with the ever present cabarete winds by putting up glass on the side where the winds normally come. as it is under a canopy, the glass goes up just a few feet and stops. the openness of this space and use of glass allows for the best views possible.

we had a snack of various meats (salami, etc.) and cheese, which was tasty. the menu is italian with pastas, pizzas, and salads. i believe that one of the owner's of this place owns toma la luna - a very good italian restaurant in cabarete.

this is a great addition to the cabarete restaurant scene and certainly brings some style to the area. i'll post some photos of marabu when i am there next. in the meantime, here is some info on it: http://www.cabaretewinds.com/news/148/ARTICLE/1174/2006-01-10.html

as we were sitting there, we were thinking about how much development has happened within cabarete since we first came almost a year ago now on vacation. for instance, there's the expansion of cabarete eastwards, the opening of the casino, the opening of restaurants and places like marabu & extreme hotel, the condos being built at blue fish, oceanpoint, porta-del-mar, ocean dream phase II, pelican beach, a gym opening up, and kite schools opening up beyond nanny estates.

now it's the biggest well known secret on the north coast that sea horse ranch is going to develop a golf course. it is believed that they will begin work on this course starting in march near to lomas mironas. who knows when it really will happen - though i certainly do believe it will happen at some point in the near future. when it does happen, it will provide a big pop to this area. so bring it on!

early evening baseball

2006-01-12T19:17:00.000-04:00

after we left the C21 office this evening, we went to go check out a property in sosua in preparation for a client tomorrow. we noticed a youth baseball game happening across from the casa marina reef hotel. we both agreed that it would be fun to buy a beer at a local mini-mart and some chips, and take a seat in back of the plate to watch this. i'd seen a few gringos - an older couple - sitting there amongst the other onlookers who were mostly dominican men and boys, ranging in age from 5 on up. we were not the first ones with this idea. so we drove down the street, picked up 2 presidentes, came back and watched for a while.

the players were probably about 17 or so. one team was in red and the other in blue. the uniforms were a hodge podge - i'd say on each team 60% were wearing the same uniform. those without the uniform filled in with another team's uniform in the same color or something else. some wore cletes while others had just running shoes. one of the catchers actually had one of those cushy pads that can be worn around your calf to help take some pressure off your knees. he only had one pad though, who knows if he ever had the other one or where he even got his lone one from.

i was hoping maybe i would catch a budding david ortiz or alfonso soriano, but the level of play was not that great. nonetheless, it was a nice temperature and a great way to spend a half hour after work.

we, of course, got the initial stares from the boys and men in the stands. afterall, we were two women. it was only when we sat down that i remembered that they may start their typical cat calling, hissing, and general annoying behavior towards women. i thought it might even be brought up a level as this was a baseball game and very much a guy's place. lo and behold however, they quickly returned their attention to the baseball game. it was a pleasant surprise.

we both wondered aloud who paid for the uniforms, bats, balls, batting helmets, and the lights that came on when it turned 6pmish. another thing we pondered was who cut the grass. the field was actually in "little league" shape - nothing special by american standards but certainly not a sand pit, which i would have thought it to be.

as i sat there and watched, i could only help but think, if i were anyone of these kids, i would just want to play baseball all day. it's a great way to be out of the small space that they likely live and share with tons of family members. it's a possible route out of poverty for those who can make it. it's also just a really great way to spend your time on an early evening.

i didn't have the camera with us, so i couldn't capture the scene. oh well, perhaps we can get a pic another evening and post it later.

Jungle clearing

2006-01-11T14:36:00.000-04:00

In April '05 Susie and I bought a 1/4 acre lot in Perla Marina, one of the most popular oceanfront gated communities here. This area is so popular that lots rarely come on the open market, and if they do they get sold again very quickly. It happened that I was at the office when a sale of one of these lots fell through, I found out and made an offer on the spot. And it was accepted. Great!

Now we want to sell the lot, but as can be seen in the picture there is one problem. It is almost inpossible to actually see the lot without needing a machete and fearing for your life. The lot is so overgrown that you can't walk through it, and if you do brave the grasses and plants and try to work your way into the center of the lot, who knows what kind of creatures are lurking in the under- and overgrowth. It wouldn't surprize me if there were small snakes and huge spiders and all sorts of things crawling around in there. And if you do make it out again, it will certainly be with scrapes and scratches.

So as to not endanger peoples lives and make the viewing experience for perspective buyers a more pleasant one, we decided the lot needed a "chop job" - but how to go about arranging that?

Well, after some consulting with a fellow realtor it turned out to be very easy: Talk to the security guy at the gate and he probably knows 30 people who own a machete and would gladly do the job. And so it went yesterday. We talked to the guy at the gate, who happened to have the night watchman sitting next to him, and he owns a machete. So now, after showing him the lot, he and a friend will spend three days, braving the elements with machete in hand and chop away all that is legally allowed to be chopped (everything with a trunk smaller than a 4" diameter) on the plot. There will be a small fire made in the middle of the lot and all the material chopped with be burned. And I am told that after 3 days the lot will look presentable again. I am to meet Johnny at the gate again on Saturday evening, and if the plot is clean we will hand over the $40 that we negotiated as a price for doing this.

nearly recovered

2006-01-08T12:44:00.000-04:00

so, the feet are hurting less, the blisters are healing, and we are catching up on our sleep. my 2 days after the trip have been quite busy as i had to prepare for and then take a client out yesterday. he flew in from california specifically to see the blue fish and the victorian condos (another juan perdomo condo complex being built.) this client actually came through one of our craigslist's ads, so we were pretty psyched that the free advertising worked and helped to bring us a new client. he put in an offer on a blue fish unit. we shall know in the next day or two if it is accepted.

i wanted to capture some of my thoughts on our pico duarte trip.

first off, my favorite part of the hike was the 5km summit to the peak, starting at 4:45am. we did the bulk of this part of the hike in total darkness. thus, you could see the stars. they were out in full force and a great sight. obviously we were using flashlights to hike. prior to embarking on this summit hike, i had been a bit worried about the possibility of a twisted ankle. hiking in the dark just seemed like a prime way to roll an ankle. after getting used to the hiking though, i was fine. i also kept the blair witch project visions out of my head (i mean we are in the middle of the woods at night!) i never even saw that movie, i don't do too well with those types of things.

for all you people in cold weather right now, take note that it was 26 degrees farenheit when we woke up to do the summit. i felt like i was back in new england! the cold felt good!

our fellow trip mates were volunteers from the DREAM Project. they had all graduated from Cornell last summer and knew each other from there before deciding to volunteer here in the DR. they were easy going trip mates and always willing to help out.

the first night the mule guides prepared a really tasty local meal - chambre. this was a vegetarian dominican stew made up of all sorts of vegetables, rice, beans, cilantro, garlic, and hot sauce. it really stuck to your ribs, so you had to be careful not to eat too much or you felt like you'd blow up. they cooked this in a huge metal pot over a fire in the total darkness. throughout the trip, we had some meals that were quite elaborate for hiking meals. i guess the fact that the pack mules transport the food and pots enables you to eat non-traditional hiking food. for instance, we had pasta salad, freshly made hummus, spaghetti, salads, tuna fish, fruits, etc.

ok, now for some not so great elements of this trip.....

this trail up & down pico duarte has been made into a highway for YAHOOS! more than the bulk of the people hiking up could not even make it up main street in burlington, VT. these people were using their mules to transport themselves up & down this mountain. they were not hikers or anything close to it.

the footwear i saw was RIDICULOUS! here are some examples...

i saw a guy wearing CLETES! for the european readers of this blog, those would be FOOTBALL SHOES! he should have just gone for skates instead, because he must have been sliding down the rocks like mad!
our junior guide, and forgive me for being unkind, was nothing close to a guide, was wearing BALLET SHOES! i think she came along with rich in order to have a few days off from school (she was 13). she did do the dishes a few times, so that was helpful.
i saw a woman wearing BOXING SHOES. um, how thin would your soles be on those? holy cow! she DEFINITELY needed a mule and fast.

the descent was brutal! i was nearly in tears as i was in so much pain due to my toes jamming into the front of my boots. i have 4 purple toes, and i mean they are PURPLE - the two toes next to the pinkie toes and my two big toes. veronica's knee was really bothering her on the descent, so i had to take one for the team and let her ride the mule for most of the 14.4 miles down. advice to all who ever decide to do pico duarte - have a riding mule for each person in your party!!!! being in shape was not the issue here either. it was a matter of having REALLY good boots and hikers feet. i was fine in terms of muscle tiredness but not fine with the soreness of my toes. i rode the mule for the last 4km, which was a flat bit that veronica could walk.

along with all the mules comes a tremendous amount of mule DUNG! dung here, dung there, dung everywhere. it was all along the trail, all over the camp grounds, outside the (horrific) port-a-potties, by the cooking areas, etc. you could not escape it.

along with all the crap (literally), comes a boatload of TRASH along the trail. as dominicans are not accustomed to trash being picked up (and thus putting it in proper places like a trash bin), they just freely drop their trash wherever. the camp ground was like a garbage pit. forget pack in, pack out. they consider the land to be one big trash can. they don't pack in, pack out anywhere, so why would it occur to them to do it on a mountain? TRULY DISGUSTING!

as mentioned in previous blog entries, dominicans are very social and loud. they like to sing, dance, have a good time, and shout in excitement to one another. well, put 200 dominicans in a campground and you'll get a TREMENDOUS amount of noise. yes, there were probably 200 dominicans at the high camp. some hanging out for 5 days up there, doing who knows what because remember, these people are not hikers! we were lying in our sleeping bags in our tent in back of the main cabin at high camp, trying to get some shut eye before the early morning summit hike. it was as if we were in a lansdowne street bar before a red sox game! the noise was deafening! it was THE ANTI-HIKING/CAMPING EXPERIENCE!

in the end, we had to remember, yes, we are still in the DR, so of course this would have a DR slant to it. i think you just expect that when you are hiking, you would like to enjoy the peacefulness of the outdoors. not so when you are sharing a mountain with dominicans. i guess we need to save that experience for the white mountains.

we will for sure remember this trip for its many unique aspects.

We made it!

2006-01-06T16:32:00.000-04:00

Just a few pics and words to give an impression of the last three days - we are SO tired, we can barely talk!

The facts:
Day 1: 4.0 km (2.5 miles), 168m (555ft) elevation gain
Day 2: 14.1 km (8.8 miles), 1172m (3,845 ft) elevation gain
Day 3: 5.0 km (3.1 miles) to the top, 637m (2,090 ft) elevation gain, then 23.1km (14.5 miles), 1977m (6,486 ft) descent down to the base

TOTAL = 46.2 km OR 28.9 miles!

Mules arriving at base camp:

Hiking a flat bit:

Waiting for pack mules at high camp:

The kitchen at high camp:

Reaching the top of Pico Duarte:

Sun rise views over the Caribbean:

We are dead tired and have purple toes, sore knees and legs and feel like total zombies - so a more elaborate story will follow in a day or two.

going to the top of the caribbean!

2006-01-01T10:36:00.000-04:00

happy new year!

veronica and i have decided to start the new year off with a big adventure! we have signed up for a hiking trip that will take us to the top of the highest mountain in the caribbean - pico duarte! this is no small mountain - pico duarte is at 10,230 feet!

our buddy rich weber is leading the trip. he's the one who owns the trips, tours, treks, and travel company - http://www.4tdomrep.com . he has done this hike many times, and i am sure will be very informative and FUN, as he always is! he organized this particular hiking trip for some volunteers of the Dream Project, which is a non-profit here in the DR that helps to improve schooling of dominican children. the trip was open for other people to join, so we decided to go for it.

we leave on tuesday. it is a 3 day hike, covering 31 miles, with much, much elevation gain. we first travel to jarabacoa and then on to la cienaga as our launching point for the hike. at that point, we are nestled within the Cordilla Central mountain range. we then embark on a short hike, 2.5 miles, to our camp for the night. day 2 is a hefty day of climbing where we will hike for 11 miles and gain almost 4000 feet. day 3 we summit the peak and return to where we started. the summit will be the reward for the long day that encompasses 17.5 miles of hiking.

i think there is going to be about 8 or 9 of us in total, but we shall see. both veronica and i are looking forward to meeting the other hikers. along with all of us, there will be mules to carry the backpacks, as well as a few extra mules in case someone needs a break from the hiking etc.

so we are now busy checking the packing list and getting prepared by taking long walks down the beach. after being in flip flops for 7 months, i expected hiking boots to be a bit uncomfortable, so we are starting to wear them around (even in the heat here!) neither v or i are in great shape these days, so we're expecting to be quite sore during this all, but it should be worth it to look out from the peak and to say that we've been to the top of the caribbean!

check out rich's web site that outlines the trip -- http://www.4tdomrep.com/dreampicoduarte2006.html

we will be sure to blog away after the trek with pics and stories!

and we thought we traveled a lot....

2005-12-31T14:25:00.000-04:00

i found this cool web site where you can specify the countries that you have visited and have a world map generated that presents the info visually.

i did mine first. i have traveled to 26 countries...just 11% of the world! meanwhile i think of myself as having traveled a lot - apparently not!

now here is veronica's map - she's been to 34 countries. she's up at 15%.

this map could use a little tweaking - like you should be able to specify areas that you have been to within large countries. i.e., i did not make it to siberia but did go to moscow and st. petersburg and in between. i would definitely like to be able to specify which states i have been to within the US. a very cool tool though!

if you want to do this yourself, check out this site: create your own visited countries map

um, the taxi is broken down

2005-12-31T13:35:00.000-04:00

the boston gals left very early this morning. :-(

of course a very typical dominican thing had to happen to them on their last day here. the taxi driver that had been arranged to take them to the airport called at 5:58am to say that the taxi had broken down. he could be there by 7am. (YEAH RIGHT! I DON'T THINK SO!) it was actually the wife of the driver who called me. their pickup was to be at 6am.

veronica and i were a bit concerned about having to spring this news on the gals, as we knew that they had been very happy with the previous driver. they had used the same taxi guy on their way to cabarete from the santiago airport and had been pleased with his non-dominican driving skills (meaning he had skills) and his careful pace through the windy mountain road. his wife and baby had been along for the ride too, thus easing their fears of being driven off to some remote part of the island and not knowing what may happen then.

luckily at the hotel this morning, a guy was there whose father was a taxi driver. so a quick call to the dad, and the taxi showed up 1 minute later. before i think we all had time to grasp what had happened, they were in a new cab on an (undesired) adventure to the airport.

i touched base with sheila at 9:15am to make sure that had made it safely. they had - albeit with LOTS of diesel fumes in the taxi, a lot of passing of other cars, speeding up to each pothole, and conversing with other taxis along the way about the state of their passengers (perhaps worse off than the boston gals). sheila, good thing you wore your electric stimulation bracelet!

the gals are probably nearly touching down in NYC now and connecting on to boston from there. i think they have snow to greet them - a definite change from the continuation of the spectacular weather we had for all but one of their days here.

happy new years, ladies! hope the taxi ride was soon forgotten! perhaps you started planning for your party this evening! have fun!

beach, beach, and more beach

2005-12-30T15:37:00.000-04:00

yesterday we packed up the car with the gals, the cooler, our snorkel gear, and the boogie board and headed to two of our finest beaches here - playa caleton & playa grande.

first stop was for some swimming and snorkeling at playa caleton. here's a shot of sheila, jessie, and willowe enjoying the dominican sunshine at playa caleton.

with playa caleton filling up and the big waves of playa grande calling us, we headed down the road to the second beach stop. we decided to set up camp at the far western end of the beach, a new spot for us. here's what the view off to the right looked like from where we were sitting. PRETTY SWEET BEACH!

turned out that there was a private party being held on the beach nearby to where we sat. i think it most likely was the NY group that had purchased the playa grande golf course & land. while we did not manage to sneak any food or beverage from the party, we did get some other fringe benefits. namely, a local dominican band played nearby us for a while (that was maybe good and bad) and some kitesurf instructors were there giving some kiting demos and lessons to the members of the private party. this enabled the gals to see this sport live, as there have been virtually no winds in cabarete and thus no kiters on display.

the big event of the day though were THE WAVES! how big, you ask? well, here's a picture that provides some perspective on size:

jessie and i had been in the water for a bit before sheila joined us. we had already figured out that the waves were rather large and mostly were best dealt with by diving under or bobbing to the top of them. when sheila joined and saw her first wave, i gave her the advice to either dive under it or try to bob up it. sheila chose neither....and decided to body surf it instead. well, you should have seen the look on sheila's face when she arrived back up to the surface after riding that wave in! it was a "WOW, holy cow!" face and bring on some more even though i might be in pain!

next thing i know, sheila is up on the beach, grabbing the boogie board! go sheila! we proceeded to have a blast! sometimes it felt like you would just get dropped off the wave head first as it was breaking, which made for some exhilarating moments where all you could do was hold your breath and hope for the best!

here are some boogie boarding shots of sheila and me:

improper bostonian, take note

2005-12-28T12:16:00.000-04:00

last night we took the boston gals to blue moon - the very cool restaurant up in the mountains here. i think they really enjoyed themselves. we got there early and took loads of pictures throughout the night - starting with shots of the sunset. the gals were hoping to make it into the improper bostonian. if they don't make it there, they will at least have been published here.

v, s, and s hanging out pre-dinner:

sheila and willow relaxing after emptying their banana leaves (your plate at blue moon). they made friends with the 2 guys next to them - a couple of gay guys from NYC, staying at seahorse ranch villa #83 (NICE!) with the family of the guy on the right.

jessie recovering from the food extravaganza!

group shot after the meal was over & banana leaves cleared.

it was a big group at blue moon last night - 4 groups, totalling 22 of us for dinner.

300 pesos

2005-12-27T09:03:00.000-04:00

sheila, jessie, and willow arrived yesterday! after dropping their bags in their room, experiencing one power outage, sheila seeing one creepy crawlie in the bathroom, and then switching their hotel room (boring story), we headed for LAX for some food and fun.

here's a shot of us last night:

the gals were a bit confused by the local currency. when they used the ATM at the airport, they each took out 300 pesos. they thought they'd be styling with that much. well, that translates into $9.37 US Dollars. we all got a laugh out of this! so we made a stop at an ATM in cabarete and encouraged them to add another zero to the number this time!

we're off to meet them shortly for breakfast on the beach. looks like they may get a decent beach day too, as it is sunny right now. this evening we are heading to blue moon for dinner. should be a good day!

yikes, hold on!

2005-12-26T15:51:00.000-04:00

i am often asking v to slow down as we are passing someone on the road as it is often a crazy scene. as far as nutty scenes you see on motorbikes here, this is pretty tame. this little boy is awake actually. maybe he feels safer closing his eyes! they are easily going about 40mph! no helmet. no worries about the very high likelihood of hitting a gaping hole in the road in the form of a gigantic pothole!

since i have been here, i have seen 2 traffic accidents. can't believe i have not seen more.

the first occurred on my second day here. v and i took a trip out to rio san juan and cabrera. just as we got to rio san juan, we saw a woman hit by a motorcycle while crossing the street. this was directly in front of us. luckily the motorcycle was only moving about 15 miles per hour, but still she was hit by the motorcyle and toppled to the ground. we did not stop, as if you do, as the white people, you could very likely get tagged as having hit her. it feels terrible to just go on and not help, but such is life as a foreigner in a country where you are definitely not innocent before being proven guilty. this is true of both foreigners and dominicans.

(minor digression: i know that as an american, i take for granted the legal system that we have in the US. i often catch myself still assuming the types of rights i would have if something went wrong here, but then realize that is not the case here at all. say the roof of my apartment caves in because some stupid workman above does something he should not. normally you think, well, i would sue him, the company he works for, or the condo owner. well....WHO is he? he's some guy that makes $100/month. WHAT kind of money would he have to hand over to me? WHAT company? he's just some guy they found who says he knows how to rip out a kitchen. the owner of the condo lives in god knows what country and would never show up here for any kind of trial, if you ever even got to one.)

the second accident i have seen was a little boy about the same age as the one on this motorcyle in the picture. his dad was unsuccessful at maneuvering through the chaotic center of cabarete on his motorcycle, while holding the child at the front of the motorcyle. the child took a face plant into the pavement - no arms out at all. yikes!

i know that i have written several blog entries mentioning the horrendous driving habits and practices here, but it still always amazes me when i see a child like this in the photo, riding along on the front with no helmet and really nothing holding him on except his dad - who is using one of his arms to POINT AT THE CAMERA! hold on to the kid, man!

we know of two situations here where foreigners have run over dominicans who are STUPIDLY driving motorcycles at night with no headlights on the wrong side of the road. this sounds awful, but when that happens here, the first thing you do is head to the airport and get on a plane out of here. otherwise there is no way that it is not going to be your fault. you will be tossed in jail here and possibly not get out and/or have to pay EXORBITANT fees to support a family for life here. one of the guys we know that this happened to had to leave a bar business behind that he owned here. he just left everything. the other guy is actually a resident here and in very good standing in the community due to the businesses he owns here, so it ended up being OK for him, but costing him a lot of money.

i will continue to take photos like this where i can to document the appalling driving practices and habits here, as it will never cease to amaze me.

christmas eve day

2005-12-25T08:11:00.000-04:00

it being warm for xmas definitely makes for an odd experience. i think it is definitely tough to get into the xmas mode when you're at the beach and it's mid 80s out. this shot is of yesterday afternoon (christmas eve day) on the beach here in perla marina.

it is now christmas morning. we're off to sandi's restaurant for breakfast in town. we thought it would be nice to hang with sandi, and likely rich will be there too. after that we're planning a picnic on the beach here in perla marina. when in rome, do as the romans! doing something on the beach seemed to be the most appropriate thing to do on this day in the tropics. we've put together an antipasto platter. it's looking slightly cloudy but hopefully that will burn off.

bernard, an austrian guy we know here, lives with his family at Maquey which are some condos (built by C21) right by the beach at PM. i saw him yesterday afternoon on my way down to the beach. he said they would be BBQ'ing with a bunch of people at the Las Olas condos (right next to Maquey) and to come by while we were on the beach. so we'll drop in on that.

veronica just returned from walking isla on the beach, so we will be going shortly into cabarete.

merry christmas!

it's a cultural thing

2005-12-21T11:39:00.000-04:00

here's a shot of some dominican women hanging out at the gas station on a friday afternoon, drinking some presidentes. dominicans are very social and VERY LOUD! that has been one thing that we have really had to get used to here. it is very much a cultural thing - but they are always screaming out to each other and talking very loudly. they often congregrate in groups outside, so you cannot avoid the noise. this is probaby so because their houses are so small. it's more fun on the street or at the gas station for them where there is action!

other noise pollution here - and it really is noise pollution - includes the following:

dominicans play their music really loudly and often. music is an essential part of their culture. dancing is too for that matter. it is nice to see them enjoying themselves, but sometimes the music, especially one of the instruments (don't know which one) in their music, is really annoying. i know stubbs knows what sound i am talking about. when i am irritated, i imitate this instrument - it's like a "tink, tink, plink, plink" sound and it drives me NUTS!
there are small pick-up trucks loaded with fresh vegetables and fruit that drive around. they use these speakers or megaphones to announce their arrival and goods. the only word i can catch of this is "yucca", which is a root vegetable.
when there is a special singer/musician playing in one of the nearby towns, they will also announce this by driving around in a usually beat-up little pick-up truck with massive speakers that take up the entire back of the truck. they blast music and the announcement of this event. same goes for political parties that want to send out some message. one seriously wonders if the drivers have any hearing left after this activity. i always have to roll my window up when passing these pick-ups because i think i will go deaf otherwise.
many of the motorcyles here are loud. they are all mostly jerry rigged together, so forget mufflers or whatever else would reduce noise (and air pollution!). cabarete is basically a one road town, so there is this constant noise from the road - be it these motorcyles, cars, and/or the many trucks going by.
in the apartment complex we live in, all throughout the day, the maintenance guy, the gardener, the cleaning ladies, and the guys renovating some of the apartments, all yell out to one another to either find one another or ask a question. it goes like this, "wilson! (no response) WILSON! (no response) WILSON!" i wish i could give all of them PushToTalk functionality, but i don't think Orange ever ended up deploying it - certainly not in the DR. too bad, it would be a lovely thing to give them. of course it would cost them too much and they would never use it anyway since they love to just shout anyway......

a day on the island

2005-12-20T20:32:00.000-04:00

we went for a late afternoon walk with the dog today. during the walk, we took this picture just a little bit down from the blue fish site. this was the first time we could so clearly see the mountains off in the distance along the coastline on the right. it was a very nice time of day, so good to capture it on film.

nothing much exciting to report on today. we made a trip into the sosua office today to talk to juan and then spent the rest of the day working from the house. after BBQ'ing, veronica is now working on her final homework assignment for the sustainable design class she is taking online. she's over across the table now, crunching away on some design. the dog looks to finally be sacked out. i am really coming to like her, though she was a bit mischievous today. we kept finding her on the street, having jumped over the small coral stone wall that surrounds the property we are at. it wouldn't be good to have to report to her owners that she had disappeared, been chewed apart by some (other) guard dog, or run over by a car.

we're getting excited for sheila and the lortie girls to arrive. we chatted on IM with sheila tonight about what she should bring, things we should do, the weather forecast, etc. hard to believe it is already time for them to come!

tomorrow we head into cabarete for a shift in that office, as well as have to go back to our apartment while someone comes and fixes the water heater. it's murphy's law that we would be away for a few days, only to come back on monday and find veronica's closet flooded from a busted water heater. there go all those leather shoes she brought (and mostly never wears!)

well, not too exciting of a blog entry, i know, but not every day on the island is exciting. though i must say you usually do see or experience something new, strange, or insane here quite regularly. i guess if you spend most of the day in perla marina, it's to be expected.

blue fish ocean front condos

2005-12-19T21:22:00.000-04:00

this is a picture of the blue fish ocean front condos being constructed in the perla marina community of cabarete. back in june, we bought one of the units here - a pre-construction deal. the condos are being built by juan perdomo (the C21 broker) and partners. we actually took two 1 bedroom units and combined them into 1 large unit. this condo will be up on the third floor of the building (top floor) and will have a very large ocean facing terrace. we bought it as an investment but also fantasize about actually living in the condo, when we're feeling like we want to stay here. i think any time we see blue fish, we feel like staying!

there will be 68 condos at blue fish in 6 different buildings - of which only 2 buildings (#1 and #2) have ocean views. our unit is D3/E3 in the middle of the U shaped Building #1. by combining 2 units, we have ended up with a condo that will have a very big open living room/dining room and terrace facing directly towards the ocean, tucked in a bit, thus protecting us from the often present winds. (remember people come to cabarete for the wind to either windsurf or kitesurf, so the winds are always there!)

construction was supposed to start in august. they broke ground in september. they actually dig the foundation by hand, as opposed to using excavators! @#$%^&*$! under building #1, it is all coral stone, so it has been quite a back breaking affair for the workers. man, when you go out there in the blazing caribbean sun at midday and see these guys with shovels and axes, hacking away at this rock, you really feel for them. it's mostly haitians doing this super strenuous, menial work. they have these incredibly well defined bodies, and it is clear why. they work 7 days a week.

the construction site is also like a mini-camp for the workers. they have constructed these temporary structures where many of them live while working there. god knows from how far away they came to work on this and the pennies that they are getting for it. apparently, there are some industrious women who set up the "mess hall" on the site too and serve meals to the guys. this is a common practice on construction sites here - a good business for the women. here is the mess hall...

ok, back to the lovely ocean view..... so these condos are located 120 feet from the ocean. the coastline directly in front of blue fish is that petrified coral rock that i wrote about in one of my previous blog entries. the waves crash on these rocks and generate these huge sprays of water. it should make for some spectacular views from the terrace of our condo.

if you follow a path along the rocks for 2 minutes, you come to this great, secluded beach that is basically for the residents of Perla Marina - though all beaches in the DR are public. i already liked this beach, but i'm now coming to really love it, as we are spending a lot of time on it, walking the dog we are watching.

pablo, the C21 architect, is modeling blue fish after this hotel in mexico that he loves - el cayeres hotel resort. let's hope he pulls off his vision. veronica and i are often in his ear about a possible design change here and there, colors, materials, and of course the quality of the construction (veronica's area of expertise) to make sure it is up to snuff.

the blue fish condos are slated to be finished in May 2006 - so that means like July probably. it's fun to watch the construction of them. we go there quite often to see the progress. the walls are starting to go up really fast now that they have made it through the foundation. these makes it quite exciting. at this point, we are able to see the layout of our condo, albeit the first floor unit. we were able to go up to the 3rd floor of building #3 yesterday - they are farther along there. that gave us some perspective on what our view will be like.

here is an aerial shot of the site.

Susie's locks

2005-12-18T18:06:00.000-04:00

I just wanted to show a picture of Susie's hair. It is getting quite long. She misses her Newbury Street stylist, Cindy, and is afraid that if she starts experimenting with any of the locals, they will mess her hair up. So it grows and grows. It is so long now that she can almost put in a pony tail.

We have a couple of stylist options though. I use Ana, from Serbia. She fled there about 7 years ago with her husband, who does tattoos, and her sister, who helps her with the washing of clients hair. I think she does a decent job. But she has weird platinum colored, chopped off hair, and that might not really boost Susie's confidence, as far as short hair cutting is concerned.

Another option is Andreas, a German, in Sosua. People rave about him. So maybe one day she will give him a try. But till then her locks grow.

Just a little insight of one thing we miss about Boston