WWR Day 3: La Romana

It's day 3 and we wake up at about 8ish after a perfect night, I mean sleep in the huge king size bed. It was well deserve and we slept like babies. We take showers, get ready, and gathered our belongings. Then we head out to look for the rest of the crew and leave the cabana around 10ish. We head to center city to pick up my grandmother to take her with us to La Romana. We decided to go to La Romana on Monday because Steven and I had to check in to the resort on Tuesday and Punta Cana it's way closer from there than from Santo Domingo.

So we arrive at my mother's friends house, Etnay- the best cooking woman I know, and she has breakfast and lunch ready for us. She's the best. Always spoiling us. We seriously never eat out when we're in DR because either she or my grandma cooks for us and what better way than to eat a native meal than for it to be homemade :) just saying. Any time we eat out is in the early morning that we like to buy yaniqueques (sort of like empanadas with eggs/ham and cheese) or at night when we buy pateles, frituras, or chimichuris ( banging!!!!! You can also eat this in NYC almost as good as the native ones).

So we eat and pack the cars for our one hour drive. We also try to contact the car rental place to find out where we need to drop off our SUV. Which by the way they never got back to us and we got screwed at the end. Never ever again!!!! anyways.

So we start our drive to La Romana and it was all like I remembered it from 3 years ago. We make it there in no time. By 3pm to be exact. Then take somethings out of the car we eat again and we head to the beach. There we eat some more lol fried fresh fish and fried yucca and lambi (kunshell mixed in this amazingly flavored sauce). We buy some CDs from some kids and we get some hand made bracelets for all of us and some to bring as souvenirs. We stayed there having a great time until about 9-10ish pm. Then we go around town visiting old friends we made through my mother when we were there in 2008. They are so much fun. At around 11 we were chilling with my mom's fiancé's brother and we had a few drinks. Then Steven, myself, Aida, my other cousin Josefina, Steven's brother Miguel, and my under age sister Paola decide we want to go clubbing on a Monday night. My mom's fiancé agrees to take us to the hottest spots at the time. I love this about DR, you can go out dancing, drinking, whatever you want any day of the week regardless of how you are dressed. We were all wearing really comfortable clothes. You know shorts and a t-shirt and cute sandals or a summer dress or Caprice. And the guys had the usual, shorts and a t-shirt/beater. We leave my mom with her friends and my son and we head out to the first spot which I don't really remember the name. They didn't card my sister so we were good. But the atmosphere was not popping so we left to the next spot. There they did card my sister and she couldn't get in so we didn't go in either. Then we head to the car to get our IDs and I remember that I had my passport with me and my US driver license :D. I give my sister my passport and let her go in with everyone while Steven and I stay out to make sure she gets in. After a little while everything seems cool so Steven and I head inside where we meet with the rest of the crew. And this ladies and gentlemen, is the beginning of one of the most amazing night of this vacation. This club was called La Hookah. I will never forget it.

As we are walking our way through the club heads are turning, people are wispering, and all eyes were on us! Whether they were talking about how crazy we are for walking in like "that" meaning without being all dressed up or if they are talking about how we look like we are clearly not from DR, or how handsome and pretty we are we could care less. We were there to have a good time and no one was going to ruin it for us. NO ONE!!!! :)

We started it off with a bottle of Grey Goose and a bottle of Cranberry juice. Steven's favorite alcoholic beverage and a hookah. The music was awesome so we danced all night. I can honestly say that I cannot remember the last time I danced like that. I must of been in high school lol. It was a crazy night. After we finished the bottle we got another one. Big Big Mistake! We did finish it but by the end of the night half of the crew was vomiting their insides out lol.

Around 3ish am we leave the club and head over to the hotel. We get 2 rooms, one for Steven and I and the other one for my 2 cousins, sister and brother in law. My sister and one cousin end up throwing up. They called housekeeping and they brought them a mop and a bucket so they can clean it up. I thought that was hilarious lol. I took advantage and charged our cells and both of my cameras. Steven was knocked out as soon as he hit the bed. I didn't hear a beep sound out of him until the next morning.

Again, I'm still unable to post pictures but take my word. This night was absolutely amazing. Words can never describe so use your imagination until I'm able to post those pictures. Hopefully that'll be real soon. :)

Thanks for stopping by! I'll be more consistent with the rest of the days to follow :)

xoxo

Accommodations in DR

As you know I was born and partially raised over in DR so we have family in every town. We never really worry about accommodations when we travel over there. There's always a place we can stay at. And if worse comes to worse then we just stay at a hotel or better yet a cabana.

Cabanas in DR are very popular and I must say Steven's favorite. He loves when we stay in them because we have our own privacy, huge bed, jacuzzi, and stripper pole ;) lol.

Most of the time we stay at my mom's BFF place or even my grandmothers house but we don't like to make someone sleep out on the couch or uncomfortable to give us their bed so that's why we also decide to go to the cabanas. A lot of the time we take our son with us but there are other times we leave him with the family for some bonding time since they hardly see him anyways. And he doesn't mind at all. There's always kids to play with and to have a good time with. Plus he gets spoil for being my son because I'm the favorite of them all :) lol jk. But they do love me tons since I was raised with them and I'm my late father oldest daughter that they barely see.

So yeah. Cabanas are really drive-in motels that you can rent for a few hours or overnight. They serve many purposes. In our case we use them to spend the night since we usually don't check in before midnight and they are very very cheap. The most we've paid for one night is $30 USD. And that was a "luxury" cabana with a king size bed, jacuzzi, parking garage, tv, radio, wifi, air conditioner, etc. They have them all going down this main street where each one is decorated in a different theme. Or in the outskirts of the cities, in the highways and so on. Other might use them for sexual encounters, if you know what I mean. But they are really clean. At least the ones we go to are. We've never had a problem with any of the ones we've stayed at and I think we will continue to use them until we run into some issues or at least until my mothers house gets built.

We usually leave our belongings (luggages, large amount of money, and legal papers) at my mom friend's house and we just take the basics with us. Some towels, toothbrush and toothpaste, clothes, night gowns, and so on and so forth.

On this particular trip, the first night Steven and I along with our son stayed at Etnay's house while everyone else stayed at a cabana. The second night half of us stayed at the cabana and the other half at Etnay's. The third night we were in La Romana and we all stayed at an actual hotel except for my mom and her fiancé. They stood at his parents house with my grandmother (we took her with us to all our adventures until the day after the wedding). And on the fourth night some of us checked in to Dreams Resort where the wedding took place and the others stood in La Romana because they were scheduled to check in next day. La Romana is about 1.5 hours away from Punta Cana depending on traffic.

I wanted to make sure you were aware of everything we do/did in DR. And since I wasn't really specifying where we were staying at before we arrived at Dreams I figured I would write about the famous cabanas. If you ever go to DR and are in the city or out of the resort with people that you know like natives or even if you decide to backpack through DR, which I kind of not recommend unless again you are traveling with the natives then in that case I would encourage you to visit a cabana. You might love it just as much as we do. I don't think you'll regret it. Instead you'll get a kick out if it lol. Trust me!

p.s.
I'll be sure to update this with pictures once I transfer all of my pictures from my desktop to my laptop. I apologize again. My desktop is still acting funny and I have no internet connection there. I'm sure you don't just want to read and read and read. If you're anything like me you'll be more interested in the pictures :)

Hasta Luego :)

xoxo

WWR Day 2: Los Tres Ojos

On our second day in DR we decided to go to Los Tres Ojos. Is a cave called "the three eyes" because it has three openings within the cave and the only way to get from one side to another is by water. If I remember correctly this cave was found like that and has not being touched to fix things. They probably added the stairs etc to have the natives and tourist take a tour of the cave but over the years certain things have evolved. Meaning things like rocks that have taken the shapes of very easily to recognize objects, people, and animals. I remember being very young probably 5 or 6 years old and taking a few tours of the cave with family members. I was always super scared that I would fall into the water and drown because the water is very very deep. So when we traveled to DR back in 2008 I wanted to take my husband and son but unfortunately we didn't get a chance so I made it a priority this time around and they loved it! It's something very fun and unique to go see as you'll notice in the pictures and I would totally recommend it to anyone going to the Dominican Republic if you are into this sort of things of course :). The Aquarium and El Malecon (which is a must see at night) are around the area so you can make this a one day event.

 My Grammy

 I love this! I thought it was so cool. They use that as a method of transportaion and an honorable job

 Long long long staicase. It must of had hundreds of steps

 Looking down and in the cave

 Looking up

 Looking inside the cave, it was super dark in there.

 How beatiful is this??? It looks fake doesn't it?

This is quick sand

 LOVE!

 My mom and her bff children

 Again pitch black. All that behind us is water and parts of the cave rocky walls

 Um uh... what was he doing lol

 I don't know if you can see it but this is said to be shaped like and Indian's face. The pointy thing sticking out in the middle represents his nose

 This one is said to be shaped like a dolphin, can you see it?

 and this one as a woman

 My fat hoggie :)

  Looking down to the cave from the outside above

The Trio! lol

By the time we left from here it was almost or a bit after 5pm (we arrived around 1-2pm) so after a hike back up those stone steps we sat and had a few drinks, bought a few souvenirs and then headed home to eat and hide from the heat.

After we arrived home we were making plans to either go dancing at night or head to Santiago, about 3 hours away, to visit more family and then head back to the city the next day in the evening to drive to the Romana the following day. But as we were deciding on what to do my brother and sister started arguing, for the million time since we landed, and my mom suffered a nervous breakdown that caused her to be admitted to the hospital. We don't really know what happened but that about summed up our night activities we were planning. We ended up staying in, everyone was in their own part of the house and doing their own thing except for my cousin Aida and sister Paola who ended up going out dancing anyways and not coming home until 4am. Steven and I wanted to go too but decided to stay after all the commotions. Plus we had a long day ahead of us the following day.

Now I'm thinking that I should of talked about accommodations before this post since that's one of Steven's favorite part of the night lol. I guess I'll talk about it tomorrow before starting day 3.

Sweet Dreams!

xoxo

Darn Computer!

I have to apologize. My PC was acting up today and was not letting me upload any pictures to blogger therefore I wasn't able to post day 2 of the WWR. I will work on it tomorrow after work. As if we haven't waited long enough for this recap. :-(

xoxo

WWR Day 1: Arrival/Bacholorette Party part II

It all started June 17th as we getting doing some last minute packing before driving down to Newark, NJ for our flight to Santo Domingo, DR. There were 12 of us flying down on the 18th at 7:20am. We were all so excited and sleep deprived. We arrive at the airport on time but they told us that we needed to check in fast because the flight was boarding. We're like "What?! is not even 6am yet?" but whatever, it was better for us because we didn't have to wait in line to check in our luggage and let me just say that there were lots and lots of luggage.

As we are passing through security we had a few issues. One was that my friend's husband got checked in with the wrong name so when security was verifying his ticket with his passport the names didn't match and he had to go back to get re-checked in.

While he was getting checked in my mother got stopped by security because she had bags of store bought sand in her carry on and they thought it was drugs lol. Finally after 15-20 minutes I came around and told them that I had bought it at Michaels for my destination wedding. It was a god thing I had my dress as my carry on and I had other wedding related items on hand that they were able to take our word that we really were going to DR for a wedding. 

We pass security and walked to our departure gate. My friend's husband was also good to go.

About 4 hours later we were about to land so I became paparazzi and started shooting away. Obviously the pictures posted are only few of many stored in my PC. =)

Mi Bella Quisqueya!

And we landed sound and safe :)

Part of the crew. (brother, his fiance, my nice, my mom, and my 2 sisters)

My cousin and brother in law

My fiance at that time with his Game Over shirt I bought him :)

My mom and her fiance who was already in DR waiting for us

After arriving at our destination and eating lunch we chilled and relax for awhile and then we headed to my grandmother's house about 15 minutes from where we were.

There we started drinking Cervezas Presidente (Dominican Beer) and just catching up. I had told my cousins in DR that I wanted the family to come over to my grandmother's house so that I can see them all because I wasn't going to have enough time in the city to go visit everyone. Little did I know that they had something up their sleeve planned for me. LOL. Too funny.

I was at one of my aunts house for hours feeling tipsy then they call me down to my grandma and when I walk in they have her house decorated with penis balloons and a huge penis cake, which by the way was D.E.L.I.C.I.O.U.S., and a tasty punch with penis straws. I couldn't stop laughing seeing my aunts and, cousins, and even grandmother having such a great time. They even brought in a stripper lol. OMG! I was not expecting that, at all.

Sadly I couldn't stay to watch the show of the stripper because FI was a bit drunk and did not find it amusing that they got me a stripper so my aunt felt bad and told me that she was sorry and that she thinks I should go outside with my man because she doesn't want us to fight, which we did anyways because seriously?! it wasn't even a big deal. I was marrying him and he was right outside the house with the guys. I wasn't going to sleep with anyone! I felt really bad for my aunt and family, all their hard work and money they spend planning this and I couldn't even enjoy it :**(

Here are a few pictures I took and some that my cousins took when I was outside.

Unbelievable, my own bachelorette party and I had to miss it. O well, maybe next time lol jk

Stay tune for day 2, a day in los 3 Ojos and lots of emotions in the air :)



xoxo