Speed Trials

We left the resort in Punta Cana at 6:30pm on Saturday, and only landed in Ottawa at 3:15am on Sunday. By the time we got home at about 4:15am, we were exhausted. We were also disappointed that the window was open, and that Enzo was still out.

He didn’t come home till about 8:30am on Sunday. By mid afternoon, both my boys were dead tired:

The house was so quiet all day. Much sleeping occurred.

As for me, I only had one thing on my mind.

Seriously, since Friday I was reciting to Angelo in great detail exactly what I was going to put in my Green Smoothie when I got home.

This is what happens when you go a week eating crap food and too much of it.

The plane touched down in Ottawa at 3:25am this morning, marking the end of our week long vacation in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic.

I was a bridesmaid in my girlfriend’s destination wedding – at an all-inclusive resort, which, as I mentioned, is not my ideal vacation setting. A lot of the concerns I raised in my last post turned out to be accurate, especially regarding the clothes and the food.

The vacation definitely started off on the wrong foot. We arrived in the D.R. at around 11:30am on Saturday, and we realized that out of the whole group of 18 people, Angelo and I were the only ones who hadn’t upgraded to the Royal Service package. That meant that they had their own exclusive lobby and front desk, better amenities and services, segregated pools and beach areas, and different restaurants. So the group was shuttled away to the Royal Service area while Angelo and I stayed at the main lobby. Due to a check-in SNAFU, our room wasn’t ready on time and finally at 5pm, Angelo demanded they give us a room immediately. They ended up giving us an identical room in another area of the resort.

Though the experience was stressful, it turned out to be a blessing, because the new room was MUCH closer to the Royal Service area than our original room would have been. The next couple of days were spent in the “commoners” area, and trying to sneak into the Royal Service area of the beach. (we had bracelets that differentiated between the Royals and the Mortals, so Ange and I made sure to keep them turned in whenever staff walked by…)

The weather wasn’t terrific in those first few days (so humid and overcast), and coupled with the segregation from our group, Ange and I felt pretty low about the whole trip. I don’t think I took a single picture in the first three days of the trip. I struggled with the vibe of the resort – I was disgusted by the over-indulgence and excess of everything. Too much booze, too much food, too much opulence and catering to a North American mentality that is (in my opinion) flawed. And I couldn’t relax. There were so many people everywhere you went, throngs of drunken yahoos yelling across the bar, beaches filled with resort goers for miles and miles and miles.

This was the antithesis to Zipolite, and it didn’t agree with me. I found myself eating and drinking out of boredom, and couldn’t relax. I wrote in my journal on the second day of rain:

“Today there is rain. Angelo and I took refuge in our hotel room, and have slept most of the day in our excessively big bed. The peace and quiet is much needed. This place is so oppressive. Even sitting here out on the balcony of my hotel room, the soothing sounds of falling rain is interrupted by screaming drunken patrons, roaring maintenance vehicles and squeaking trolleys. Though the resort was carefully manufactured for it, there is no tranquility here. Though the lawns are immaculately manicured, this place is ugly, obscene. The thin veneer of a packaged Paradise does not hide the coarseness of this place. It offends the senses.”

Um, yeah, I wasn’t happy.

But then as the weather turned, and we experienced some sunny days, and fell into a routine, Ange and I changed our lousy attitudes and the whole situation brightened up.

We enjoyed spending the morning on our balcony, watching the sun rise and drinking coffee before heading down for breakfast. Ange made great use of the resort’s gym, and went almost every day. I joined him a total of TWO times for some weight training and physio, which is too bad. I should have made more of an effort.

By the Wednesday, staff were on to us, and told us we had been kicked out of the Royal Service area a couple of times. I had been talking to the bride about the situation, and I told her that I should have bought a Royal Service package, just so we could all be together. As we were talking, I made the decision to upgrade. I found Angelo and just went straight to the front desk and did it, and never looked back. Sure it was an additional expense, but it didn’t matter, because it meant that we had not only some nice amenities for the remainder of the trip, but we were allowed to lounge in the Royal Service Pool and Beach, without feeling like impostors. It took away a huge stress for me.

Thursday was the wedding, which will be a post all onto itself, but suffice it to say that it was really nice, and except for a few glitches, the whole thing went well and the bride and groom seemed so happy! And the parents – I tell you, you couldn’t have had any prouder parents!!

One thing that was really amazing was the beach. It was so beautiful, and the sound of the waves always calms me down.

I love walking along the beach, my feet sinking in the soft sand, waves washing up on the shore. Ahh… So nice. Swimming in the ocean is always way fun, and I was happy to be back on a beach.

In the last few days of our vacation, we met a couple from New Jersey who were SO MUCH FUN! I had been a bit disappointed that we hadn’t met more people, but we made up for it in the last two days. The Jersey’s were so fun, and we just hung out by the pool and laughed the whole time!

Angelo and I also had a GREAT time together. I love traveling with him. It doesn’t matter where we are or what we do, we always end up having so much fun together.

Those are the memories of the trip that will stay with me: having fun with my amazing man and with friends old and new.

Okay, so I’m not going to be a stick in the mud and come down hard on the whole all-inclusive resort phenomenon. We all know that I prefer traveling without an itinerary, without reservations, and without a bracelet that shows what hotel I’m staying at. But that isn’t to say that I’m not going to enjoy my week in the D.R.. I just have to realize that this vacation will be DIFFERENT from last year’s vacation, is all. Here are some of the differences I’ve noticed so far (and we haven’t even left yet!):

1. Eating patterns. When I left for Zipolite, I was a disordered eater. The fact that I went there, took off my watch and didn’t look at a clock for 8 days, I think pretty much single-handedly broke me of my disordered eating. I just ate when I wanted, and I didn’t stress about food. Not once.

Now, I’ve come a long way, baby, so the food issue won’t be such a big deal, but the resort DOES have dedicated times for eating, which means I will have to pay more attention to the clock, and eat when I’m “supposed” to. We’ll also be eating in a large cafeteria…

2. Local foods. Another thing that made Zipolite so great was that we ate almost all of our meals right on the beach. Vendors would come by with the catch of the day, and we had lots of tamales, fish tacos, and fruit that was indigenous of that very village.

I was reading up on D.R. local cuisine, and I was getting pretty stoked on the mangú, the bean ice cream, and all kinds of other things. But a friend reminded me that at the resort, most likely I’ll be served “American” food, which is kind of a bummer. We’ll see, though.

3. Packing. When we went to Zipolite, our biggest item in our pack was our hammock. I packed a couple of bathing suits, a couple of items of clothing, and a sarong.

That’s it. I wore the same pair of flip flops, the same tank top, and the same two bathing suits (if at all) all week. It never even crossed my mind to pack a pair of earrings or a necklace. Not when I knew we’d be hitchhiking or taking the collectivo from place to place.

Packing for the resort, however, and knowing what the rest of the bridal party is planning on wearing, I know I can’t stick with that carefree, vagabond way of packing. I’m going to have to suck it up, coordinate things into “outfits” and bring jewelry. And really, there’s no point in packing light: we’ll be picked up by bus from the airport and will stay in the same room the whole week.

4. Hygiene. So, yeah, we didn’t shower once in the whole ten days we were in Zipolite. So what? My hair was so salty from the ocean water that by the end of the trip I couldn’t even put my fingers through it. I had sand in places I never knew sand could go.

But at the resort in the D.R., I have a feeling that things are going to be different. We’ll be expected to bathe regularly (maybe even daily). Mostly because we’ll be surrounded by people (people we actually know) and I don’t think they’ll appreciate the sweetly salty smell that comes from days and days of lounging on the beach.

5. Accommodations. So, in Zipolite, we didn’t spend a whole lot on rooms, and in all, we stayed at three different hotels. The rooms each had their own charm, for sure, like this one that had bamboo walls:

Our room at the all-inclusive resort I think will be a pretty big deal. It’s going to be a luxurious affair, with a huge bed and a nice, private, bathroom.

But the biggest difference between this year’s and last year’s, the thing that’s going to set this vacation apart from all the others, the one big thing that has me so excited to get on that plane tomorrow morning, is that I will be celebrating a great friend’s wedding. I am so excited to be one of Shayla’s bridesmaids, to be there for her on such a happy day. It’s going to be a great vacation, but also, it’s going to be a great celebration of all kinds of things that make us feel good: Lovers, Family, and Friends.

Let the week begin!!

As you can imagine, it was a huge undertaking. I diligently tackled hard to read books like Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury (which, I’m pretty sure, melted a part of my brain).

But after the initial rush of excitement, I let the list fall by the wayside, and to date, I have only read 12 of the 100 books on the Board’s List. But through the years, the list itself has stuck with me. I think about it a lot, and whenever I’m between books, I pull it up and look it over. It’s like it haunts me. And while I know that there are so many exciting authors and books out there to discover, and that I should not be confined to such a haughty list, I STILL feel tethered to it, and I long to have read the majority of the titles on it.

And this list sure sure does has its problems: It’s extremely Euro-centric. It’s very male-dominated. It’s also not contemporary in the least. The “newest” book was written in 1983. That means that, according to the Modern Library, there was no novel of worth written in the last 17 years of the 20th Century. I find that hard to believe. Basically, it caters to a reader who is NOT like myself.

But on the other hand, this list has opened my eyes to some really amazing books. I never would have read The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene, and it is one of the most beautifully written books I’ve read to date.

The House of Mirth I read when I was still in high school, and it was nothing like I thought it would be. It left a mark on me, for sure.

And Slaughterhouse Five is still, to this day, one of my all-time favourite books. Ditto Catch-22 (what can I say, books that show the absolute ridiculousness of war win me over easily).

So, here I am, between books, having just finished a very forgettable (though not entirely bad) piece of contemporary Can Lit, and I’m pulled once more to The List. I want to be wowed by a book, and I guess I assume that any book on a top 100 list of the Century is bound to have some wow factor to it… So, there’s a paperback copy of Women in Love sitting on a shelf in the other room that I picked up at a second hand store a few months ago, and tonight might be the night I get into ‘er, in the hopes of crossing another title of The List…

But no matter how many heralded, acclaimed, short-listed books pass through my hands, my all-time favourite will ALWAYS be The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough.

It is the kind of story that makes you want to cry out loud, and hits a nerve that is so visceral, your eyes can’t gobble up the words quickly enough to feed them to your mind. I have read it 8 times, and have worn through 2 copies of this book. If you haven’t read it yet, I implore you to give it a shot. From the opening scene of a five-year-old Meggie to the closing paragraph where Justine finally provides the reader with SOME relief, it is a story that will suck you in and that you’ll always remember.

Angelo and I spent most of our Friday night putting together my polo bike. At practice last week, I used Angelo’s bike, and while I REALLY liked it (the brakes are super responsive), I knew that I wouldn’t be able to rely on it forever. At some point I was going to have to suck it up and build my own polo bike.

We decided to use the old Yoko. I’ve had her for almost 20 years now. She was my first “real” bike. She was the first bike I owned that wasn’t pink, had more than three gears, and was adult sized. So while she has sentimental value and served me well over the years, she has definitely seen better days, and her parts have severely rusted and fallen into disrepair.

The first thing we did was rid her of all of her extraneous bits. This was definitely the fun part. We peeled away the kickstand and lock holder, we removed the gear shifter and the seat, and finally we pulled off the front brakes, handlebar and stem.

All in all, here are the bits we removed:

So much of it was rusted or calcified. Not only is Yoko old and worn, she’s also been sitting unused for the past three years. The poor thing had cobwebs in her spokes, and a thick covering of dust.

Ange pulled out his stock of handlebars to replace Yoko’s:

But I didn’t really like any of those ones. Yoko’s handlebars were the right height…
They are just too wide.

No problem, right? We’ll just shorten them… Ange tried to use his little tool to cut through the handlebars, but they just weren’t having any of it.

Time to bring out the power tools:

The dremel made short work of the bars. Lots of sparks flying in the kitchen…

Oh well, I’m just glad the boy wore protective eyeware.

Smoothing the edges (what a perfectionist!)

Once the handlebars were done, it was time to work on the rear brake. The best thing I liked about Angelo’s polo bike was his hair-trigger brake. I could brake with one finger, and the brake pads really gripped the wheel. I felt super safe (well, as safe as you can get while playing polo) because of those brakes.

So Ange got to work on my Shimano brakes. They were frustrating. He didn’t like the system that came with the Yoko.

So he went to his extensive stash of bike stuff, pulled out what he needed (including new pads that are super grippy).

Angelo HATES working on brakes. It’s his least favourite bike part.

Finally it was time for the finishing touches: truing the back wheel, adding a new seat, capping the handlebar ends, pumping the tires, oiling the chain, and giving her a thorough wash.

Next ladies practice is tomorrow morning at 11am! Can’t wait to take her out for a test ride!