Leaving New York And The Stars At Night

I mostly like New York, and whenever I leave, even if it's only for a few days, I tend to at least have one maudlin moment, and usually it's at the transfer point to the air train. There's something about seeing the train lines in winter that's quintessentially New York to me, and seeing the snow covered, dark early morning station in Newark really does it, even if they are technically in New Jersey.

Of course, the one thing that I hate about returning to New York is losing the sky. Nearly anywhere else the stars are so much more beautiful at night. I love lying on the beach, or standing on a snowy terrace in Vermont, and really being able to see all that.

The Real Dominican Republic

Here’s all I can tell you about the real Dominican Republic: When it rains, it really rains. I’m told by several resort employed locals that the weather the last few days has been very unusual. I’m on the eastern tip of the island, and their has consistently been a strong wind coming in of the ocean. Every few hours this is accompanied by a 15 minute monsoon, usually a pretty sneaky monsoon. I think it knows that we want to be at the beach, and takes advantage of that desire. The upside is this forces the Europeans to retreat from the pool, thereby abdicating their stranglehold on the beach chairs. It must be some residual colonial spirit or something.

Other than that, I can’t tell you jack shit about the D.R. I’m pretty sure I’ve covered more ground than most visitors to Punta Cana though. For one thing, I’ve spent time at 4 of the 5 RIU resorts located in the complex. I may make it to the 5th tonight, but it’s a long walk, and I’m not sure Disco Pacha is going to be entertaining enough. I’m actually staying at the poshest resort, or the 2nd poshest, I don’t really know. I was originally at the Riu Taino, but after seeing the Riu Bambu, I decided to complain about the subpar accommodations. For some reason, that got me the serious upgrade to the Palace Punta Cana., which is really nice.

One of the amazing things about this place is that because it is all inclusive, I haven’t really spent any money, in fact I haven’t even touched any local money, except for briefly this afternoon when someone offered me a coin as change and I said she could keep it. For all I know, it was a Czeck crown.

The one time I have spent money is on a snorkeling trip to Catalina Island. It was a fun day, and I saw an eel, a squid (or an octopus) and a flat thing I don’t know the name of, in addition to the usual array of colorful Caribbean fish. Snorkeling has become about my all time favorite thing, and I’m going to sign up for the Y scuba class sometime soon. I may try to schedule one more snorkel trip tomorrow.

Other than the snorkeling trip, my trips outside the resort have been limited to running; and I’m going to post a couple of my routes on facebook right after this goes up. On my first longer run, I saved a baby turtle who looked like he was never going to make it into the water, the surf was kicking his ass. Miia, you would have been proud of me. I realize the turtle would have probably benefitted from the experience of getting to the water himself, but after a passing horse flipped him on his back, I knew my actions were right. My other run took me into a slightly poorer resort area, where the locals were pretty amused by my attempt to kill myself at the hottest part of the day.

And that folks is absolutely everything I have learned about the D.R. this week.
(that and the fact that a Coco Loco is so much better than an iced coffee in the morning)