Lay me on the ground Fly me in the sky

So I have promised to tell about my vacation, and I will. We get up at 5-ish and leave for the plane to Punta Cana, the Dominican republic(It's basically a third-world country in the Caribbean with lots of inclosed resorts that only has tourists coming in the flight--no one from there coming back from a vacation in New York). In the taxi to the plane station, I marvel at how the sky--night blue--turns so fast to robin's egg then rose then lemon and finally settling on a light gray. We board the plane, my brothers and i in one row, the rest of my family scattered about (i.e. dad, cousins, aunt and uncle) in other seats. I chew my gum furiously as we take off and land. Then we're there and ohmybuddha we're actually WALKING DOWN STEPS FROM THE PLANE TO THE RUNWAY BELOW! 

Never done that before, we've always gone through some tunnel to a building or something. So then we walk into a thatch covered open air building with these enormous fans. So large that if you look up at them the sign says BIG ASS FANS and has a donkey's butt on it. ^_^

Seriously! So then we get in this line and the first thing they do, they have these women dressed up in "traditional" garb (yeah, right.) and they smile and take a picture with each of us. Too touristy already. Then we pay a fee for coming in, and later we pay a fee for leaving. That's just ridiculous! They should be paying us! But we get past that and finally board the bus that will take us to our all-inclusive touristy hotel where we will stay locked in for a week. (Not my choice, believe me.) It's called the Majestic Colonial, don't go to it if you are not touristy, like the real world, and/or are vegetariano(pronounced vay-hee-tal-iano). But I'm going to make the best of this vacation. Get some sun, go swimming at the beach, have fun, right? I'm even going to get my father to teach me how to windsurf! But unfortunately for me, we get there and though they advertise 6 DIFFERENT restaurants, they are all cooked in the same kitchen by the same "chefs". and none of the menus really have any vegetarian options, which for me is a nightmare, being a veggie myself. but my family and I go to the buffet as often as we can, for my father (top-notch best cook I've ever tasted and I'm a pretty big foodie here) can speak fairly good spanish and has taught the cooks there a little bit about cooking and they have the most options. Their food is bad, at best. The only reason I'm eating it is because there isn't anything better. And I can't windsurf because it turns out there is too much wind, which is not good for learners. We can't even go far out on the beach because the crazy dominican boat drivers and the inexperienced water skiers would chop our heads off. But don't get me wrong, not everything is bad here. We're all-inclusive as I said before, so everything (or almost everything) is free free free! We have not one, but two mini-bars stocked with dominican soda, beer(which none of us drink)and bottled water, the only kind safe to drink here. Our bed is four-poster and enough for all four of us to sleep in it, though only two of us do. They are the two biggest rooms ever, not counting the bathroom which could be the size of my room, and believe me, my room is fairly large. Then the beach is very nice, despite the water restriction. WE can go snorkeling there and the fish nibble at your fingers even without bread. I get a tan just sitting under our palapa(which kinda looks like a fake tree with dried out palm leaves to shelter our beach seats). And the pool is just great, being around 80-something degrees without even being heated. I have my family, and great books ( read The English Patient, by Michel Ondaatje, The Constant Princess by Philippa Gregory, who also wrote The Other Boleyn Girl which I read last spring break, and Bound, a book about a chinese cinderalla type thing with a girl and her half-sister's bound feet)and heck, I'm in the Caribbean! 

But oh, do I miss home and do I miss the taste of our food. We start to make a list of all the things we'll eat once we get home, we're that desperate. This goes on for a week, and then we get on the bus where we pass numerous shantytowns and where my father had spotted a man with a gun patrolling outside a building on our way here. Every resort we stop at to pick up more travelers looks the same as ours. We get to the station where there are still no palatable vegetarian options for lunch, except the difference is that now everything is super expensive. We wait and wait and wait some more for our plane to come, and I am almost sure I saw Russell Crowe waiting as well but I only recognized him once I got home and opened the 'paper, which had a picture of him in the arts section. So we get on the plane and come home, having wasted an entire beautiful day waiting to get on a plane and then waiting for the plane to take off and then having the plane take off and not getting the window seat even though my brother's promised it to me but are feeling jerky from the waiting and then finally getting the window seat halfway through the flight only to have to wait to open the curtain because my grandfather and other brother don't want the light, and (yes I do know this is a very long run on sentence thankyouverymuch) finally opening the window to see us land, get out, and ohmygosh it's 7 'o clock already! Wow. I hate the waiting most of all. So that was my trip's overview. But though I couldn't blog while I was there, I wrote material in my notebook, and insight on the parts of the trip, good and bad, will come streaming in as soon as I feel like it, 'cause this is my blog and I can decide when to post or not, so there! Hehhhhhhhhh *deep breath*

Okay, I'm letting go now...

Lola

Title Quote: Collective Soul, Shine 

All photos are mine, thankyouverymuch