FINISHED FINALLY!!!!! and so ends the story...
Lets get it started!
So, I am finally getting around to completing the story of the nightmare trip (ok I am sorta using excessive verbiage here. The trip wasn’t a nightmare. Being stuck in a room with nothing to do but watch the rain for an excessive amount of time was a bit of a nightmare.). anyways… let me clear my throat….
830-9ish Wednesday September 15
So the story picks up after I leave the internet café on Wednesday night. It was raining pretty much then too so I just headed straight back for the room. I was just getting in when mom and dad decided that they didn’t feel like sitting in the room any more so they went up front. I was just coming in from the rain so I wasn’t that interested in going back out into it so I figured I would stick around the room and chill, maybe read for a bit. So I read a while and then got a shower. Not less than five minutes after I got out of the shower, the power in the whole complex went out. Not much I could really do so I just waited it out to see what would happen. The power was out for about 20 minutes or so.
Shortly after the power came back on mom and dad returned thinking that I would be bothered by the power outage. Not so much. I just finished my grooming and then read some and went to sleep.
430 am Thursday September 16
I was awoken by a really loud noise. Turns out the non-hurricane hurricane had arrived in punta cana. The wind was really blowing and it was just pouring down rain. What had happened was the wind was shaking our sliding glass door around and that was the noise that woke me up.
So me being the intrepid ever inquiring mind, I get up and take my camera out on the balcony to take some video of what is going on. It was pretty neat but then again really couldn’t see much b/c I didn’t have my contacts in and it was pitch black out. After about 5 minutes, sleepiness won out and I just went to bed again.
830am
waking back up to more wind and rain. This time it is light out so I put in the contacts and go out and watch for a little bit taking more photos and videos because this was pretty much my first experience in a hurricane (with the exception of the one that attacked my house the week before we left… the night I went to dana’s with kate) and I am just a dork like that. So I took a bunch of pictures and videos and then went back in to eat “breakfast” which consisted of the muffin I still had (that had been stepped on by accident) from our flight down. Pretty much after that we just sat around.
1030am-ish
the wind and the rain had let up pretty much by this time and the sky was getting light out. Woo hoo! Its over! So mom and I decide to do a little bit of damage assement so I take my camera and we go for a short little walk. Its not looking quite as nice around the compound as when we checked in. I think I going to have to lodge a complaint about the lack of facility maintanence… lol. Broken palms, mud everywhere. We went around the corner and looked and some of the little huts along the walk way had collapsed from the wind. And they were so cute too. We didn’t venture too far out and didn’t go too far. Good thing because the rain started getting heavier…
11am
and the hurricane has resumed. This time it is even worse than before. The winds are stronger and the rain is just pouring down. The sky was so dark. You can see it in the pictures how heavy the rain was coming down. The wind was blowing so hard the palm branches were almost parallel to the ground and some of the trees were bending around. If you sat out on the balcony you could always hear the sound of the branches cracking off in the wind. It was really sad how destroyed things were getting. The palms were so pretty and big.
1130am
so our phone starts ringing and it is the apple vacation boy (here to after called the apple boy) wanting to let us know that there was a little bit of a storm in the area (no, really???) and it would be over in a little bit and for now we should just stay in our room and not go anywhere (cuz I was totally planning to go down to the beach and all…) and they would let us know when it was ok to leave our rooms again (grounded!). then he asked if we had had anything to eat yet and we were like “nope” so he says he’ll make sure we get something to eat and hangs up. Ooooooooooook. Sure dude.
1215ish
banging on the door… knock knock. Who’s there? We open the door and there is this completely drenched Dominican boy standing there with a plastic bag and he says “I brought food for you” so we had him come in and he gave us these three Styrofoam containers. I was like “dad, this kid just came running through a hurricane to bring us food. We should give him some money.” So dad gave him like 5 bucks and off he ran into the hurricane again. Oddly enough, he only had 3 boxes in his bag and we didn’t seem him go to any other rooms… I don’t know about anyone else but I felt kinda guilty. Lunch it turned out was a ham sandwich with about a jar of mayo each, a banana (oh yummy) and a yogurt that I couldn’t eat due to consistency issues (about the same problem I had the time I tried to “drink” the Yoplait nouriche smoothie thing). Yay. It was pretty kind of them though to send that kid through the hurricane for us.
1pm
still raining
2pm
still windy and rainy
230pm
the wind had pretty much died down for the most part by this time and the rain was just a light drizzle. Mom was taking an extended nap and I was getting stir crazy so dad and I put on the jackets and ventured out. The damage was about 10x worse than when I went out with mom earlier. It seems like the second lashing was much stronger than the first. The pool was so nasty. Besides all the chairs that had blown into it, it was now a lovely shade of gray. A pipe must have broken or the filter must have stopped working or something. We walked down to the beach and it was a sad sight to see. The parts that weren’t flooded (which was very little) was covered with sea moss and trash that had washed up. The ocean wasn’t the gorgeous turquoise anymore. It was a really gloomy grayish color and there were white caps further out where it was a bit deeper than our beach. While we were walking around we heard a bunch of hollering and laughing and looked over to see 4 guys in nothin’ but swim trunks standing at the pit pitching horseshoes and drinking beer. I hollered over to them about knowing how to have a good time no matter what and they were like “yeah! We aren’t going to let this ruin our vacation!” it was pretty funny.
We decided to walk up to the front desk area which was a trip in itself. It had rained so much that the pathways were flooded and the water was up to your ankles. I wasn’t feeling very adventurous about seeing what I might step on or swimming around that might bite my toes (no more fish attacks please) so we had to walk along side the path with was really bad because it was a giant bog. Between the mud and all the downed branches and trees and stuff it was a longer walk than normal.
When we got up to the front desk I got my Miami herald for the day and there was a notice posted saying that the hurricane had left the punta cana vicinity around 2pm and further updates would follow as necessary. We also saw a notice saying that the only dining facility that would be available would be the main buffet starting at 6pm. Around in the area of the beauty salon, we saw a huge line of people and people coming out with the boxed food. They all had to get it themselves… ha ha!
I have to put a little side thought in here. The only shoes I had that I didn’t care about getting ruined were my 4 year old flip flops from walmart ($3 – great deal!) that had no tread left on them and were about an inch high soles. Well we were walking around on polished tile floors so I had to creep along so I didn’t fall and bust my ass at any point in time. The only thing I could really do was scoot my feet along slowly and try to keep my balance. So after walking around more we went back to the jail that was our room until dinner. And pretty much after this point nothing I owned was really dry.
6pm
raining cats and dogs again and getting dark fast. We suit up (jackets, me with my umbrella – im the smart one… I pack for ALL occasions regardless of how pessimistic it sounds to bring an umbrella on a vacation to the islands. Ive traveled enough to know by now.) and venture out. The same slow pace walking through the debris and mud. We get up front and god is it an interesting sight.
The waiter boys who are usually dressed in nice uniforms are running around in their street clothes and sandals. The floor is slippery as hell and everyone is scooting around with plates of food. And boy do I mean PLATES. It looks like a bunch of buzzards hording food like they are never going to eat again. This one guy went walking by with a plate of bread stacked 7in high. People were walking through with 2 and 3 plates each. It reminded me of the people in cinci who hear the word snow and stock pile months worth of bread milk and eggs. People are crazy when you alter their environment slightly. It would have made a hell of a psychology experiment.
It was a free for all mostly. You just seated yourself so we found a table and sat down. At that point it didn’t really matter much because nothing was dry. We were walking around in ankle deep water by the food buffets. The reason for that was the large hole in the roof near the back. Only about half of the buffets were operational because there was a hole in the roof over the back section of them and it was raining right in.
So lets talk about stupid. As I am getting some food off of one of the buffets (which I have to mention there was no real menu. It was more like, the just cooked the simple things because they had so many people to feed in one place) and this guy come walking up to the toasters. He looks at them and starts feeling them to see if they are hot and turned on or not. All I could think was too bad we eliminated survival of the fittest because this dude would have never made it. Smart guy. Hes standing in ankle deep water wanting to use and electric toaster. Bright…
We just took our time eating because we really had nothing else to do at all that evening. Our waiter friend Segundo came over to talk to us for awhile. He was saying that a lot of the workers were stuck here and those who weren’t at the resort couldn’t get there because the roads were washed out all over the country side. He also said that that the Dominicans haven’t seen rain like that since hurricane georges in 1998. he also just shrugged it off and was like “eh that’s island life. Nothing you can do about it.” Its amazing how the island attitude differs from the American and European one. Honestly, I totally dig the island attitude and way of life. Its more my pace – super slow and relaxed. I would just prosper down there permanently. All I want to do is sleep under a plam tree in the breeze. Ahhh.
So after dinner everyone in the entire complex was at the bar drinking because that was all anyone had to do. We went over and talked to apple boy about the storm (which he swears was not a hurricane nor did it come anywhere near us… LIAR) and whether we would get to leave tomorrow. Basically he told us that we needed to be ready to leave tomorrow morning then to call him at 830 am and he would say whether or not we were leaving. I was praying sooooooooooooo hard that we got to leave because I was getting stir crazy.
After that we took the long walk through the mud and water back to the room and I showered as best I could with the water pressure inconsistent and the power intermittent. And after that, listen to a bit of music and to bed.
700am Friday September 17
up and packing the last bit of stuff. Praying desperately that we would get to leave.
830am
and the hits just keep on coming. Apple boy was like nope sorry bout your luck. No one is leaving. The airport is closed and all flights are cancelled. You have to stay. And that is when I started throwing a hissy fit because I didn’t want to be trapped there any more. In most normal cases, I don’t think I would mind being trapped on a tropical island. I did however mind being trapped on a tropical island that had just been devastated by a hurricane. I have a slight problem with that. We had to pay for another nights stay at the hotel too. Also the fact that it was STILL raining heavily. I just went back to bed.
Anytime between 11am and 5pm
Mostly I laid around and read all day. And I also bitched about it a lot being trapped in the room and everything I had with me being either wet or damp. At one point, I bitched so much mom was about to kill me so dad put on his plastic dry cleaning bag (they were handing them out at dinner last night for people to use as ponchos. I had my umbrella) and we walked up to the front to see if they had any newspapers but they didn’t. they said they couldn’t get them in. the bar was incredibly crowded with people but I figured that if I started drinking, I would drink a whole lot and it would only make my attitude worse than it already was. We walked around a bit to kill time and assess damage. A lot of the lights at the stage had been blown down and shattered during the storm. The place was in bad shape. Even worse was the fact that it was still raining and by now there was so much water it was up to our knees when we walked down the paths.
6pm
suited up and went to dinner. Exactly the same as before. People behaving as if it were the end of the world. I was just happy because they had my fabulous mashed potatoes still. Doesn’t take a lot to make me happy. Our friend Segundo came by. He had a huge knot on his head and he tried to explain it to us in English as best he could. Apparently he slipped on the wet floor and busted his forehead on the edge of a table. It looked pretty painful to me. Some guy came walking up to us at dinner and told us not to pay for our extra night in the hotel because apple was trying to rip us off. He was alittle creepy if you ask me. I just ignored him but mom was buying into his speech a bit I think. After dinner we checked out Parcheesi and played a game of that because there wasn’t anything else we could do. The power and water were both still intermittent at best and the satellite television had been knocked out in the storm. Im thinking they had greater priorities than fixing the tv. When we were walking back down to the paths, I saw something that didn’t bode well. There was a frog floating belly up near the edge of the path. Its never a good thing WHEN A FROG DROWNS. Great. The paths were still so flooded and it was still raining. Water up to our knees and it was getting harder to walk through the mud. My shoes were permanently wet I think. We decided to take the other way back this time but we didn’t get far before I stepped on something and got a branch stuck in my flip flop. It was just as hard to walk in knee deep water as in the mud. As we were standing there deciding what to do, this boy comes driving toward us in an extended golf cart giving people a ride up to the buffet. He told us to wait there and he would come back for us so we just stood there. About 10 minutes later here he comes back around the corner and stops for us to get in. he drove us all the way back to our villa and dad gave him a few dollars for helping us out. It worked out well actually.
830pm.
Bed time. This is the earliest I can remember ever going to be on a Friday night. Maybe tomorrow will be a better day, as in we get to leave!
730am Saturday September 18
wake up. Brush teeth wash face. Bag already packed from yesterdays falsely anticipated excape from prison.
830 am
receive the best news ever. We get to go home!!!! Be at the front desk at 9am the bus comes to pick us up to take us to the airport. We frantically gather the last of our things and check to make sure nothing is being forgotten. Waiting down stairs for the carts to come get our luggage, we encounter the spoiled crazy new york lady from the room next door. She came out with all of her bags and was like “I am going to the airport and I am getting on a plane and I dare anyone to stop me.” And proceeded to give a spoiled person rant until I was ready to kill her.
No cart ever came to get us. Finally this mini flat bed garbage truck showed up and said they would take our luggage and some people. All of us in the villa who were ready to go put our luggage on there and mom road in the cab part with the driver. The crazy lady’s husband and this one black girl road in the back with the suitcases. Dad and I were like well we guess we are walking and just then 2 boys in ponchos on quad runners came driving up and were like “we can take you up front. Just sit on the back.” So someone got on the one and dad and I sad on the back of the other and right away I knew that it wasn’t going to work. The boy started going and got to the walk but couldn’t turn. It was too back heavy and the front wheels weren’t really on the ground that much. You had to figure as much wit me and dad on the back that it was going to be alittle back heavy. They boy tried a few times but no luck so we decided that would just walk. Right then our savior came again. The boy with the golf cart came driving down and picked us up. He was just driving along through all the water singing some song about jesus loving him and being his savior. It was cracking me up. Happy guy.
915ish
we got dropped off and waited. Our flight was supposed to be leaving at 1130 so we had to get going. Well the only problem was that there were no busses. Turns out that apple had decided to evacuate all of their customers no matter when they were supposed to leave so everyone who was on an apple vacation was leaving now. Just then a bus showed up and they put everyone who was going to Cleveland on it.
930am
no bus
10am
still no bus
1030am
me freaking out because they better not have lied to me about getting me out of there. I went and asked apple boy and he was like the busses are having a hard time getting through the roads but they will be there. And I was like our plane better not leave without us and he was like nope it wont. I didn’t feel much better listening to the guy who told me that it wasn’t really a hurricane either even though there were 130mph gusts of wind and 70mph sustained winds (Jeanne was a category 2 when it hit punta cana). I pretty much just paced around like a caged tiger waiting for the bus to show up.
1130am
woo hoo! A bus finally shows up. They tell us that only people going to Cincinnati should get on the bus but all kinds of people make a mad rush for it anyways trying to get on and get to the airport as if they are really going to be able to go anywhere. They apparently the apple people decided that Cleveland and Pittsburgh could get on as well so then the crunch got worse. Some big fat old lady who didn’t speak English pretty much shoved me out of the way to get on. Me mom dad and some of the friends from cinci we made were the last to get on the bus. We had to go super slow to the airport b/c the roads were flooded and there was a bunch of debris all over the roads too. It was such a sad sight to look at such a beautiful place the way it was after the hurricane. The fields just looked like rice paddies. Feet of water were just standing all over. A lot of the properties had wind damage and stuff. It was just so sad.
12 noon
we get to the airport and get to the line to check in. while we are waiting there is a couple standing in line in front of us telling about the experience they had. They were staying at the Secrets Excellence which is super secluded and a few miles away from the nearest hotel. Well turns out that they had the worst damage of all the places and because they were so secluded, no one could actually get to them. They had no power since Thursday morning because the back up generator got flooded. no water, they had to bathe in rain water. The hotel was just getting rid of the food before it spoiled so people were going crazy trying to get stuff. Apparently from listening to this woman talk it was one level below chaos. Luckily there was a marine there on leave who took charge of things. He called the marine base he was from and the marine base called the embassy in santo domingo. The embassy apparently wanted all Americans evacuated but they couldn’t do it themselves so they had the Dominican army take care of it. The lady said the marine built a helipad on the beach from palm branches and the army flew in helicopters to pick them up which coincidentally we happened to see flying over earlier. The were old huey helicopters and the lady said they told them if they couldn’t carry it in their hands easily it had to be left so they left all their luggage at the resort except for one plastic bag each and got on the chopper. She said they got fantastic photos from the chopper of all the damage and destruction. It was some pretty crazy stuff. I think from listening to people talk, we had the least affected resort of all and apparently even before the damage our service and stay were better. Interesting
1230pm
it took at least a half an hour to get to the check out counter and I was so pissed off when I saw their “security” checks. The way they check your bags for bombs is to have you put it on a table. They put on some rubber gloves and root through every damn thing you own – underwear and all. I was pissed beyond belief that they searched every bit of my possessions. I get pissed in our airports when they x-ray my bags and decide to open them up afterwards. So after I get the “security” check, I checked in and talk about primitive. The boarding passes are papers that they write your gate, flight and seat number in with a pen on. So I could pretty much have gone anywhere I wanted. Mom and dad were getting all moody so they rushed me along through the security stands where I managed to walk right through with my bags and everything and have no one notice me. Im not sure how anyone else felt, but I was feeling a little vulnerable to terrorists if I could walk past 2 security officers completely unnoticed with 2 bags that no one ever checked (because at the other security, they didn’t check carry ons). Right when we got near the gate I sat down and took off my nasty black flip flops which I had been wearing for days and I figured would never get dry again and put on my gym shoes. I tossed the flip flops in the trash can, made the sign of the cross and gave them their last rights (literally) as dad was yelling that I had to hurry up because we were going to miss the plane. So I went running out only to have them make us stand there for 5 mins and I was like “that’s nice, hurry up to wait” and mom yelled “shut up, just shut up. Don’t open your mouth again!” at me b/c she was totally pissed at me by this point in time because I was being a total brat.
1pm
we board the plane and get stuck sitting in the very freaking back row where we cant move our seats and get more leg room because people decided that they didn’t want to go with seat assignments and would go with wherever they wanted instead. So when we got stowed away, the cabin crew passed out cold cut subs and lays potato chips because they figured that people hadn’t eaten in a while (which was true in some cases). So we sit on the runway and sit there some more. Then I was going crazy just sitting on the damn plane. I couldn’t even see out the window b/c mom had that seat. Not that I would have seen anything other than the helicopters bringing people in (right next to the planes).
2pm
still sitting on the runway not moving. Some jackass from Baltimore apparently got on the wrong plane so they had to go on every plane looking for the person so no one could take off until they checked the passenger list and found the missing moron. This is amy incredibly not happy.
230pm
about damn time we take off. Since we are sitting in the back we get to talk to the cabin crew. They told us that they were in the middle of flying some college athletes to their destinations when they got called for this “rescue mission” and they really did call it a rescue mission. What happened was they just called down as many empty planes as they could find and started just putting people on them to get them out of the Dominican republic. One of the guys told us that after they dropped the last people off at Pittsburgh they had to fly back down to get another group. When they were dropping their athletes off, they went to a deli to get some food for the passengers which was really nice. I read most of the flight because the movie was hidalgo and I just saw it with Katie and abby. It was a nice 4 to 4.5 hour flight
7pm-ish
we arrive in Cincinnati but because they weren’t expecting us, our gate is occupied so we have to wait for that aircraft to leave. We just sit on the damn runway some more. Yay.
730pm
finally we get to the gate and get off. We breeze right through customs and immigration and they immigration officer wasn’t even going to stamp my passport until I made him because I was collecting the stamps in it. We redeposit our luggage so we can go through security again and as I was walking through (after they made me take my shoes off) I set the detector off and this lady comes over and says “ok honey, you are going to have to come with me. Have you ever done this before?” and im like “yeah a bunch” and she is like “how old are you?” and I told her 21 and she says “oh, I though you were 16” and that just pretty much pissed me off more. Once we got through and collected our luggage we went back to the long term parking lot to get the car. I have never been so happy to be back in the nati.
8pm
short stop at wendys for some mmm mmm good all American junk food.
830pm
reach the blessedness of our home. HOME SWEET HOME! I call Stacey and she informs me of the evening plans for her birthday festivities and that is where the other blog picks back up.
Hope you enjoyed laughing at all the misfortune!
So, I am finally getting around to completing the story of the nightmare trip (ok I am sorta using excessive verbiage here. The trip wasn’t a nightmare. Being stuck in a room with nothing to do but watch the rain for an excessive amount of time was a bit of a nightmare.). anyways… let me clear my throat….
830-9ish Wednesday September 15
So the story picks up after I leave the internet café on Wednesday night. It was raining pretty much then too so I just headed straight back for the room. I was just getting in when mom and dad decided that they didn’t feel like sitting in the room any more so they went up front. I was just coming in from the rain so I wasn’t that interested in going back out into it so I figured I would stick around the room and chill, maybe read for a bit. So I read a while and then got a shower. Not less than five minutes after I got out of the shower, the power in the whole complex went out. Not much I could really do so I just waited it out to see what would happen. The power was out for about 20 minutes or so.
Shortly after the power came back on mom and dad returned thinking that I would be bothered by the power outage. Not so much. I just finished my grooming and then read some and went to sleep.
430 am Thursday September 16
I was awoken by a really loud noise. Turns out the non-hurricane hurricane had arrived in punta cana. The wind was really blowing and it was just pouring down rain. What had happened was the wind was shaking our sliding glass door around and that was the noise that woke me up.
So me being the intrepid ever inquiring mind, I get up and take my camera out on the balcony to take some video of what is going on. It was pretty neat but then again really couldn’t see much b/c I didn’t have my contacts in and it was pitch black out. After about 5 minutes, sleepiness won out and I just went to bed again.
830am
waking back up to more wind and rain. This time it is light out so I put in the contacts and go out and watch for a little bit taking more photos and videos because this was pretty much my first experience in a hurricane (with the exception of the one that attacked my house the week before we left… the night I went to dana’s with kate) and I am just a dork like that. So I took a bunch of pictures and videos and then went back in to eat “breakfast” which consisted of the muffin I still had (that had been stepped on by accident) from our flight down. Pretty much after that we just sat around.
1030am-ish
the wind and the rain had let up pretty much by this time and the sky was getting light out. Woo hoo! Its over! So mom and I decide to do a little bit of damage assement so I take my camera and we go for a short little walk. Its not looking quite as nice around the compound as when we checked in. I think I going to have to lodge a complaint about the lack of facility maintanence… lol. Broken palms, mud everywhere. We went around the corner and looked and some of the little huts along the walk way had collapsed from the wind. And they were so cute too. We didn’t venture too far out and didn’t go too far. Good thing because the rain started getting heavier…
11am
and the hurricane has resumed. This time it is even worse than before. The winds are stronger and the rain is just pouring down. The sky was so dark. You can see it in the pictures how heavy the rain was coming down. The wind was blowing so hard the palm branches were almost parallel to the ground and some of the trees were bending around. If you sat out on the balcony you could always hear the sound of the branches cracking off in the wind. It was really sad how destroyed things were getting. The palms were so pretty and big.
1130am
so our phone starts ringing and it is the apple vacation boy (here to after called the apple boy) wanting to let us know that there was a little bit of a storm in the area (no, really???) and it would be over in a little bit and for now we should just stay in our room and not go anywhere (cuz I was totally planning to go down to the beach and all…) and they would let us know when it was ok to leave our rooms again (grounded!). then he asked if we had had anything to eat yet and we were like “nope” so he says he’ll make sure we get something to eat and hangs up. Ooooooooooook. Sure dude.
1215ish
banging on the door… knock knock. Who’s there? We open the door and there is this completely drenched Dominican boy standing there with a plastic bag and he says “I brought food for you” so we had him come in and he gave us these three Styrofoam containers. I was like “dad, this kid just came running through a hurricane to bring us food. We should give him some money.” So dad gave him like 5 bucks and off he ran into the hurricane again. Oddly enough, he only had 3 boxes in his bag and we didn’t seem him go to any other rooms… I don’t know about anyone else but I felt kinda guilty. Lunch it turned out was a ham sandwich with about a jar of mayo each, a banana (oh yummy) and a yogurt that I couldn’t eat due to consistency issues (about the same problem I had the time I tried to “drink” the Yoplait nouriche smoothie thing). Yay. It was pretty kind of them though to send that kid through the hurricane for us.
1pm
still raining
2pm
still windy and rainy
230pm
the wind had pretty much died down for the most part by this time and the rain was just a light drizzle. Mom was taking an extended nap and I was getting stir crazy so dad and I put on the jackets and ventured out. The damage was about 10x worse than when I went out with mom earlier. It seems like the second lashing was much stronger than the first. The pool was so nasty. Besides all the chairs that had blown into it, it was now a lovely shade of gray. A pipe must have broken or the filter must have stopped working or something. We walked down to the beach and it was a sad sight to see. The parts that weren’t flooded (which was very little) was covered with sea moss and trash that had washed up. The ocean wasn’t the gorgeous turquoise anymore. It was a really gloomy grayish color and there were white caps further out where it was a bit deeper than our beach. While we were walking around we heard a bunch of hollering and laughing and looked over to see 4 guys in nothin’ but swim trunks standing at the pit pitching horseshoes and drinking beer. I hollered over to them about knowing how to have a good time no matter what and they were like “yeah! We aren’t going to let this ruin our vacation!” it was pretty funny.
We decided to walk up to the front desk area which was a trip in itself. It had rained so much that the pathways were flooded and the water was up to your ankles. I wasn’t feeling very adventurous about seeing what I might step on or swimming around that might bite my toes (no more fish attacks please) so we had to walk along side the path with was really bad because it was a giant bog. Between the mud and all the downed branches and trees and stuff it was a longer walk than normal.
When we got up to the front desk I got my Miami herald for the day and there was a notice posted saying that the hurricane had left the punta cana vicinity around 2pm and further updates would follow as necessary. We also saw a notice saying that the only dining facility that would be available would be the main buffet starting at 6pm. Around in the area of the beauty salon, we saw a huge line of people and people coming out with the boxed food. They all had to get it themselves… ha ha!
I have to put a little side thought in here. The only shoes I had that I didn’t care about getting ruined were my 4 year old flip flops from walmart ($3 – great deal!) that had no tread left on them and were about an inch high soles. Well we were walking around on polished tile floors so I had to creep along so I didn’t fall and bust my ass at any point in time. The only thing I could really do was scoot my feet along slowly and try to keep my balance. So after walking around more we went back to the jail that was our room until dinner. And pretty much after this point nothing I owned was really dry.
6pm
raining cats and dogs again and getting dark fast. We suit up (jackets, me with my umbrella – im the smart one… I pack for ALL occasions regardless of how pessimistic it sounds to bring an umbrella on a vacation to the islands. Ive traveled enough to know by now.) and venture out. The same slow pace walking through the debris and mud. We get up front and god is it an interesting sight.
The waiter boys who are usually dressed in nice uniforms are running around in their street clothes and sandals. The floor is slippery as hell and everyone is scooting around with plates of food. And boy do I mean PLATES. It looks like a bunch of buzzards hording food like they are never going to eat again. This one guy went walking by with a plate of bread stacked 7in high. People were walking through with 2 and 3 plates each. It reminded me of the people in cinci who hear the word snow and stock pile months worth of bread milk and eggs. People are crazy when you alter their environment slightly. It would have made a hell of a psychology experiment.
It was a free for all mostly. You just seated yourself so we found a table and sat down. At that point it didn’t really matter much because nothing was dry. We were walking around in ankle deep water by the food buffets. The reason for that was the large hole in the roof near the back. Only about half of the buffets were operational because there was a hole in the roof over the back section of them and it was raining right in.
So lets talk about stupid. As I am getting some food off of one of the buffets (which I have to mention there was no real menu. It was more like, the just cooked the simple things because they had so many people to feed in one place) and this guy come walking up to the toasters. He looks at them and starts feeling them to see if they are hot and turned on or not. All I could think was too bad we eliminated survival of the fittest because this dude would have never made it. Smart guy. Hes standing in ankle deep water wanting to use and electric toaster. Bright…
We just took our time eating because we really had nothing else to do at all that evening. Our waiter friend Segundo came over to talk to us for awhile. He was saying that a lot of the workers were stuck here and those who weren’t at the resort couldn’t get there because the roads were washed out all over the country side. He also said that that the Dominicans haven’t seen rain like that since hurricane georges in 1998. he also just shrugged it off and was like “eh that’s island life. Nothing you can do about it.” Its amazing how the island attitude differs from the American and European one. Honestly, I totally dig the island attitude and way of life. Its more my pace – super slow and relaxed. I would just prosper down there permanently. All I want to do is sleep under a plam tree in the breeze. Ahhh.
So after dinner everyone in the entire complex was at the bar drinking because that was all anyone had to do. We went over and talked to apple boy about the storm (which he swears was not a hurricane nor did it come anywhere near us… LIAR) and whether we would get to leave tomorrow. Basically he told us that we needed to be ready to leave tomorrow morning then to call him at 830 am and he would say whether or not we were leaving. I was praying sooooooooooooo hard that we got to leave because I was getting stir crazy.
After that we took the long walk through the mud and water back to the room and I showered as best I could with the water pressure inconsistent and the power intermittent. And after that, listen to a bit of music and to bed.
700am Friday September 17
up and packing the last bit of stuff. Praying desperately that we would get to leave.
830am
and the hits just keep on coming. Apple boy was like nope sorry bout your luck. No one is leaving. The airport is closed and all flights are cancelled. You have to stay. And that is when I started throwing a hissy fit because I didn’t want to be trapped there any more. In most normal cases, I don’t think I would mind being trapped on a tropical island. I did however mind being trapped on a tropical island that had just been devastated by a hurricane. I have a slight problem with that. We had to pay for another nights stay at the hotel too. Also the fact that it was STILL raining heavily. I just went back to bed.
Anytime between 11am and 5pm
Mostly I laid around and read all day. And I also bitched about it a lot being trapped in the room and everything I had with me being either wet or damp. At one point, I bitched so much mom was about to kill me so dad put on his plastic dry cleaning bag (they were handing them out at dinner last night for people to use as ponchos. I had my umbrella) and we walked up to the front to see if they had any newspapers but they didn’t. they said they couldn’t get them in. the bar was incredibly crowded with people but I figured that if I started drinking, I would drink a whole lot and it would only make my attitude worse than it already was. We walked around a bit to kill time and assess damage. A lot of the lights at the stage had been blown down and shattered during the storm. The place was in bad shape. Even worse was the fact that it was still raining and by now there was so much water it was up to our knees when we walked down the paths.
6pm
suited up and went to dinner. Exactly the same as before. People behaving as if it were the end of the world. I was just happy because they had my fabulous mashed potatoes still. Doesn’t take a lot to make me happy. Our friend Segundo came by. He had a huge knot on his head and he tried to explain it to us in English as best he could. Apparently he slipped on the wet floor and busted his forehead on the edge of a table. It looked pretty painful to me. Some guy came walking up to us at dinner and told us not to pay for our extra night in the hotel because apple was trying to rip us off. He was alittle creepy if you ask me. I just ignored him but mom was buying into his speech a bit I think. After dinner we checked out Parcheesi and played a game of that because there wasn’t anything else we could do. The power and water were both still intermittent at best and the satellite television had been knocked out in the storm. Im thinking they had greater priorities than fixing the tv. When we were walking back down to the paths, I saw something that didn’t bode well. There was a frog floating belly up near the edge of the path. Its never a good thing WHEN A FROG DROWNS. Great. The paths were still so flooded and it was still raining. Water up to our knees and it was getting harder to walk through the mud. My shoes were permanently wet I think. We decided to take the other way back this time but we didn’t get far before I stepped on something and got a branch stuck in my flip flop. It was just as hard to walk in knee deep water as in the mud. As we were standing there deciding what to do, this boy comes driving toward us in an extended golf cart giving people a ride up to the buffet. He told us to wait there and he would come back for us so we just stood there. About 10 minutes later here he comes back around the corner and stops for us to get in. he drove us all the way back to our villa and dad gave him a few dollars for helping us out. It worked out well actually.
830pm.
Bed time. This is the earliest I can remember ever going to be on a Friday night. Maybe tomorrow will be a better day, as in we get to leave!
730am Saturday September 18
wake up. Brush teeth wash face. Bag already packed from yesterdays falsely anticipated excape from prison.
830 am
receive the best news ever. We get to go home!!!! Be at the front desk at 9am the bus comes to pick us up to take us to the airport. We frantically gather the last of our things and check to make sure nothing is being forgotten. Waiting down stairs for the carts to come get our luggage, we encounter the spoiled crazy new york lady from the room next door. She came out with all of her bags and was like “I am going to the airport and I am getting on a plane and I dare anyone to stop me.” And proceeded to give a spoiled person rant until I was ready to kill her.
No cart ever came to get us. Finally this mini flat bed garbage truck showed up and said they would take our luggage and some people. All of us in the villa who were ready to go put our luggage on there and mom road in the cab part with the driver. The crazy lady’s husband and this one black girl road in the back with the suitcases. Dad and I were like well we guess we are walking and just then 2 boys in ponchos on quad runners came driving up and were like “we can take you up front. Just sit on the back.” So someone got on the one and dad and I sad on the back of the other and right away I knew that it wasn’t going to work. The boy started going and got to the walk but couldn’t turn. It was too back heavy and the front wheels weren’t really on the ground that much. You had to figure as much wit me and dad on the back that it was going to be alittle back heavy. They boy tried a few times but no luck so we decided that would just walk. Right then our savior came again. The boy with the golf cart came driving down and picked us up. He was just driving along through all the water singing some song about jesus loving him and being his savior. It was cracking me up. Happy guy.
915ish
we got dropped off and waited. Our flight was supposed to be leaving at 1130 so we had to get going. Well the only problem was that there were no busses. Turns out that apple had decided to evacuate all of their customers no matter when they were supposed to leave so everyone who was on an apple vacation was leaving now. Just then a bus showed up and they put everyone who was going to Cleveland on it.
930am
no bus
10am
still no bus
1030am
me freaking out because they better not have lied to me about getting me out of there. I went and asked apple boy and he was like the busses are having a hard time getting through the roads but they will be there. And I was like our plane better not leave without us and he was like nope it wont. I didn’t feel much better listening to the guy who told me that it wasn’t really a hurricane either even though there were 130mph gusts of wind and 70mph sustained winds (Jeanne was a category 2 when it hit punta cana). I pretty much just paced around like a caged tiger waiting for the bus to show up.
1130am
woo hoo! A bus finally shows up. They tell us that only people going to Cincinnati should get on the bus but all kinds of people make a mad rush for it anyways trying to get on and get to the airport as if they are really going to be able to go anywhere. They apparently the apple people decided that Cleveland and Pittsburgh could get on as well so then the crunch got worse. Some big fat old lady who didn’t speak English pretty much shoved me out of the way to get on. Me mom dad and some of the friends from cinci we made were the last to get on the bus. We had to go super slow to the airport b/c the roads were flooded and there was a bunch of debris all over the roads too. It was such a sad sight to look at such a beautiful place the way it was after the hurricane. The fields just looked like rice paddies. Feet of water were just standing all over. A lot of the properties had wind damage and stuff. It was just so sad.
12 noon
we get to the airport and get to the line to check in. while we are waiting there is a couple standing in line in front of us telling about the experience they had. They were staying at the Secrets Excellence which is super secluded and a few miles away from the nearest hotel. Well turns out that they had the worst damage of all the places and because they were so secluded, no one could actually get to them. They had no power since Thursday morning because the back up generator got flooded. no water, they had to bathe in rain water. The hotel was just getting rid of the food before it spoiled so people were going crazy trying to get stuff. Apparently from listening to this woman talk it was one level below chaos. Luckily there was a marine there on leave who took charge of things. He called the marine base he was from and the marine base called the embassy in santo domingo. The embassy apparently wanted all Americans evacuated but they couldn’t do it themselves so they had the Dominican army take care of it. The lady said the marine built a helipad on the beach from palm branches and the army flew in helicopters to pick them up which coincidentally we happened to see flying over earlier. The were old huey helicopters and the lady said they told them if they couldn’t carry it in their hands easily it had to be left so they left all their luggage at the resort except for one plastic bag each and got on the chopper. She said they got fantastic photos from the chopper of all the damage and destruction. It was some pretty crazy stuff. I think from listening to people talk, we had the least affected resort of all and apparently even before the damage our service and stay were better. Interesting
1230pm
it took at least a half an hour to get to the check out counter and I was so pissed off when I saw their “security” checks. The way they check your bags for bombs is to have you put it on a table. They put on some rubber gloves and root through every damn thing you own – underwear and all. I was pissed beyond belief that they searched every bit of my possessions. I get pissed in our airports when they x-ray my bags and decide to open them up afterwards. So after I get the “security” check, I checked in and talk about primitive. The boarding passes are papers that they write your gate, flight and seat number in with a pen on. So I could pretty much have gone anywhere I wanted. Mom and dad were getting all moody so they rushed me along through the security stands where I managed to walk right through with my bags and everything and have no one notice me. Im not sure how anyone else felt, but I was feeling a little vulnerable to terrorists if I could walk past 2 security officers completely unnoticed with 2 bags that no one ever checked (because at the other security, they didn’t check carry ons). Right when we got near the gate I sat down and took off my nasty black flip flops which I had been wearing for days and I figured would never get dry again and put on my gym shoes. I tossed the flip flops in the trash can, made the sign of the cross and gave them their last rights (literally) as dad was yelling that I had to hurry up because we were going to miss the plane. So I went running out only to have them make us stand there for 5 mins and I was like “that’s nice, hurry up to wait” and mom yelled “shut up, just shut up. Don’t open your mouth again!” at me b/c she was totally pissed at me by this point in time because I was being a total brat.
1pm
we board the plane and get stuck sitting in the very freaking back row where we cant move our seats and get more leg room because people decided that they didn’t want to go with seat assignments and would go with wherever they wanted instead. So when we got stowed away, the cabin crew passed out cold cut subs and lays potato chips because they figured that people hadn’t eaten in a while (which was true in some cases). So we sit on the runway and sit there some more. Then I was going crazy just sitting on the damn plane. I couldn’t even see out the window b/c mom had that seat. Not that I would have seen anything other than the helicopters bringing people in (right next to the planes).
2pm
still sitting on the runway not moving. Some jackass from Baltimore apparently got on the wrong plane so they had to go on every plane looking for the person so no one could take off until they checked the passenger list and found the missing moron. This is amy incredibly not happy.
230pm
about damn time we take off. Since we are sitting in the back we get to talk to the cabin crew. They told us that they were in the middle of flying some college athletes to their destinations when they got called for this “rescue mission” and they really did call it a rescue mission. What happened was they just called down as many empty planes as they could find and started just putting people on them to get them out of the Dominican republic. One of the guys told us that after they dropped the last people off at Pittsburgh they had to fly back down to get another group. When they were dropping their athletes off, they went to a deli to get some food for the passengers which was really nice. I read most of the flight because the movie was hidalgo and I just saw it with Katie and abby. It was a nice 4 to 4.5 hour flight
7pm-ish
we arrive in Cincinnati but because they weren’t expecting us, our gate is occupied so we have to wait for that aircraft to leave. We just sit on the damn runway some more. Yay.
730pm
finally we get to the gate and get off. We breeze right through customs and immigration and they immigration officer wasn’t even going to stamp my passport until I made him because I was collecting the stamps in it. We redeposit our luggage so we can go through security again and as I was walking through (after they made me take my shoes off) I set the detector off and this lady comes over and says “ok honey, you are going to have to come with me. Have you ever done this before?” and im like “yeah a bunch” and she is like “how old are you?” and I told her 21 and she says “oh, I though you were 16” and that just pretty much pissed me off more. Once we got through and collected our luggage we went back to the long term parking lot to get the car. I have never been so happy to be back in the nati.
8pm
short stop at wendys for some mmm mmm good all American junk food.
830pm
reach the blessedness of our home. HOME SWEET HOME! I call Stacey and she informs me of the evening plans for her birthday festivities and that is where the other blog picks back up.
Hope you enjoyed laughing at all the misfortune!
posted by Amy @ 11:50 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home