Well All, Here Goes. I meant to do this earlier, but I have been so busy just settling back home and getting ready for the US reception that we are having on the 22nd. So Let me finally, start my report!
First off as all of you know Louie and I were originally going to Santo Domingo for vacation (his family is from Santiago but most of them now live in the capital), then we decided to get married there and "elope". Well we told the family, so that never worked, so we had a wedding/reception planned for 30+ people attending with 13 people flying over there from the US to attend and the rest already residing there.
So here we are Thusday, February 13th, 2003 at 6:00am sitting at his mothers house in Gaithersburg, Maryland, USA waiting for his aunt and abuela to get there and for the shuttle to come pick us up. The flight leaves DCA (DC Regan National Airport) at 9:40 am, so we need to be there by 7:40 am.
We all are sitting around and the shuttle is supposed to be there by 6:45 am. By 7:05 am I am calling the shuttle service to find out where he is. It ends up that he is sitting in the wrong driveway at another house on the street waiting for us. He finally comes down to our house when he sees us. Now, here we go. It is 20 Degrees outside with over a foot of snow and he is sitting in there car, not trying to get out to help the 6 people with 18 Bags put their bags in the car. Louie finally talks him into getting out and helping, as reluctant as he was, he did help. We then start the journey to the airport. First off he was litening to this french radio (Volume Full Blast) none of us understand french, and it was so loud it was giving us a headache. No matter how much we asked him to turn it down he never did. I do not think he understood english. So we are stuck in bumper to bumper traffic for a little over an hour, listening to a loud french talk radio, with a guy that never takes his foot off the brakes, I think I got whiplash from being jerked so much.
We finally get to the airport and after RELUCTANTLY giving the driver a tip we headed to check in. We got checked in rather easily although his aunt Mayra checked one of her bags in under my name because she brought 3 and instead of bringing one on, she checked it in under mine, so my wedding dress garment bag had to be checked in under my soon to be mother in laws name.
Well we check in, get on the way and board our plane that goes to NY (JFK) where from there we catch a connecting flight to Santo Domingo. We get to NY without a hitch and get off the plane to wait for Danielle (Louies 15 Year Old Niece) who lives in NY and is meeting us there to fly out on our flight with us to the Dominican Republic. We take a seat in the airport at Fridays and just relax. So after a brief brunch we get to heading towards our gate. We all get on the plane and poor Danielle is so far away from us it is unbelievable, so we had to negotiate with other travellers and get her in a seat closer to the rest of us. It succeeded. Well halfway down the runway we stopped. There was an announcement made that "the plane had mechanical difficulties and to please wait patiently while the crews worked on it". Meanwhile I start napping. 2 Hours later (our flight was supposed to leave at 1pm and did not leave until 3:15pm) we take off to the Dominican Republic. I was so happy, I had never been out of the country before and I was so excited because I had my fresh passport and I was going to get my first stamp. I slept most of the way, besides during the movie, because I was exhausted, not getting any sleep the past few nights.
We finally arrive. We get our Tourist Cards, We exchange a feww hundred US Dollars for Pesos and We get our luggage. All of the locks had been broken off
, I was very upset. We get through customs and a guy holds out his hand, my fiance gives him a US dollar and the man says "we let you through without opening your bags" so my fiance gives him a $10 US Dollar. I did not understand why we gave him that much money, nor did I care if they opened my bags, nonetheless I just wanted to get out of there as fast as possible. We get to Thrify the Car Rental Counter and get our "mid-size car", the put a $1000 US Dollar deposit down for a $230 weekly rental, in the US it is the price of the rental plus $100 so we were like YOU ARE GOING TO TAKE A GRAND FROM US??? I was like, fine, do it, worse comes to worse I dispute the charge and they don't get anything if they try to rip us off.
So finally we get out of there and his dad is meeting us there to pick up his mom, abuela and tia. We get loaded up in or rental and give the guys $300 Pesos, he called me a cheap gringo. I did a calculation, that is like $12 US Dollars, I thought that was more than fine, but oh well. I did not care, it was like 70 Degrees and all I saw was Palm Trees, I was in heaven.
We head to the capital. First we stop at a gas station, I got my first Coca Cola. It was only $12 Pesos, that is equal to 50 cents.... I pay $1.29 USD here for a coke at a gas station, I was loving this place. Louie was driving like a bat out of hell and I was in the middle of cussing him out when I realized everyone else was driving like that as well! Go Figure!
So we had to go to his cousins house... all I wanted to do was to check into our hotel, but that is not acceptable with his family. So here it is almost 9pm and we are going to his families house for dinner. First off, they had a man that opened there gate for them, then the house was a mansion, but I was not impressed with the food, after eating dinner (chicken with cashews) I decided something was wrong, I came to the DR for Habichuelas and Rice not this crap.
We finally leave and get to our hotel, Hotel Metur in the capital 2 blocks from the Malecon. It is a very small german run hotel that I found on the internet. We got there and I fell in love. We met Matthias Geissler (Hotel Owner and Wedding Planner) introduced ourselves and got Louie and I settled into our room and Danielle and Tiffany (my sister) settled into their room. I took a shower, after realizing we had not hot water, but I did not care I felt so sticky. We all met in our hotel room because it had the coldest AC (a small window unit) and decided we needed to get something REAL to eat. So us 4 set out for our first night adventure in the Dominican Republic.....
To Be Continued....
First off as all of you know Louie and I were originally going to Santo Domingo for vacation (his family is from Santiago but most of them now live in the capital), then we decided to get married there and "elope". Well we told the family, so that never worked, so we had a wedding/reception planned for 30+ people attending with 13 people flying over there from the US to attend and the rest already residing there.
So here we are Thusday, February 13th, 2003 at 6:00am sitting at his mothers house in Gaithersburg, Maryland, USA waiting for his aunt and abuela to get there and for the shuttle to come pick us up. The flight leaves DCA (DC Regan National Airport) at 9:40 am, so we need to be there by 7:40 am.
We all are sitting around and the shuttle is supposed to be there by 6:45 am. By 7:05 am I am calling the shuttle service to find out where he is. It ends up that he is sitting in the wrong driveway at another house on the street waiting for us. He finally comes down to our house when he sees us. Now, here we go. It is 20 Degrees outside with over a foot of snow and he is sitting in there car, not trying to get out to help the 6 people with 18 Bags put their bags in the car. Louie finally talks him into getting out and helping, as reluctant as he was, he did help. We then start the journey to the airport. First off he was litening to this french radio (Volume Full Blast) none of us understand french, and it was so loud it was giving us a headache. No matter how much we asked him to turn it down he never did. I do not think he understood english. So we are stuck in bumper to bumper traffic for a little over an hour, listening to a loud french talk radio, with a guy that never takes his foot off the brakes, I think I got whiplash from being jerked so much.
We finally get to the airport and after RELUCTANTLY giving the driver a tip we headed to check in. We got checked in rather easily although his aunt Mayra checked one of her bags in under my name because she brought 3 and instead of bringing one on, she checked it in under mine, so my wedding dress garment bag had to be checked in under my soon to be mother in laws name.
Well we check in, get on the way and board our plane that goes to NY (JFK) where from there we catch a connecting flight to Santo Domingo. We get to NY without a hitch and get off the plane to wait for Danielle (Louies 15 Year Old Niece) who lives in NY and is meeting us there to fly out on our flight with us to the Dominican Republic. We take a seat in the airport at Fridays and just relax. So after a brief brunch we get to heading towards our gate. We all get on the plane and poor Danielle is so far away from us it is unbelievable, so we had to negotiate with other travellers and get her in a seat closer to the rest of us. It succeeded. Well halfway down the runway we stopped. There was an announcement made that "the plane had mechanical difficulties and to please wait patiently while the crews worked on it". Meanwhile I start napping. 2 Hours later (our flight was supposed to leave at 1pm and did not leave until 3:15pm) we take off to the Dominican Republic. I was so happy, I had never been out of the country before and I was so excited because I had my fresh passport and I was going to get my first stamp. I slept most of the way, besides during the movie, because I was exhausted, not getting any sleep the past few nights.
We finally arrive. We get our Tourist Cards, We exchange a feww hundred US Dollars for Pesos and We get our luggage. All of the locks had been broken off
, I was very upset. We get through customs and a guy holds out his hand, my fiance gives him a US dollar and the man says "we let you through without opening your bags" so my fiance gives him a $10 US Dollar. I did not understand why we gave him that much money, nor did I care if they opened my bags, nonetheless I just wanted to get out of there as fast as possible. We get to Thrify the Car Rental Counter and get our "mid-size car", the put a $1000 US Dollar deposit down for a $230 weekly rental, in the US it is the price of the rental plus $100 so we were like YOU ARE GOING TO TAKE A GRAND FROM US??? I was like, fine, do it, worse comes to worse I dispute the charge and they don't get anything if they try to rip us off.So finally we get out of there and his dad is meeting us there to pick up his mom, abuela and tia. We get loaded up in or rental and give the guys $300 Pesos, he called me a cheap gringo. I did a calculation, that is like $12 US Dollars, I thought that was more than fine, but oh well. I did not care, it was like 70 Degrees and all I saw was Palm Trees, I was in heaven.
We head to the capital. First we stop at a gas station, I got my first Coca Cola. It was only $12 Pesos, that is equal to 50 cents.... I pay $1.29 USD here for a coke at a gas station, I was loving this place. Louie was driving like a bat out of hell and I was in the middle of cussing him out when I realized everyone else was driving like that as well! Go Figure!
So we had to go to his cousins house... all I wanted to do was to check into our hotel, but that is not acceptable with his family. So here it is almost 9pm and we are going to his families house for dinner. First off, they had a man that opened there gate for them, then the house was a mansion, but I was not impressed with the food, after eating dinner (chicken with cashews) I decided something was wrong, I came to the DR for Habichuelas and Rice not this crap.
We finally leave and get to our hotel, Hotel Metur in the capital 2 blocks from the Malecon. It is a very small german run hotel that I found on the internet. We got there and I fell in love. We met Matthias Geissler (Hotel Owner and Wedding Planner) introduced ourselves and got Louie and I settled into our room and Danielle and Tiffany (my sister) settled into their room. I took a shower, after realizing we had not hot water, but I did not care I felt so sticky. We all met in our hotel room because it had the coldest AC (a small window unit) and decided we needed to get something REAL to eat. So us 4 set out for our first night adventure in the Dominican Republic.....
To Be Continued....