So long Dominican Republic...

Well, we leave tomorrow morning, Kristen back to Portland and the fun of work and me to George Town (go Hoyas!), Grand Cayman for more diving. So this will be the last blog from the Dominican Republic. I think I have internet access of one sort or another at all the other places I will be so I should be able to continue to thrill you with my tales.

One quick update on fruit in various parts of the world. Kristen reminded me of this after I had the other blog all put together and, let’s face it, that one was long enough already. So all of you keeping score, here is the Dominican Republic fruit review:
Mango – good to go! I would still rate the Thailand mango as tops, but the stuff here is good…and the mango juice is muy bien as well.
Papaya – still a$$. I have now officially tried this crap 2 times and it has sucked both times. Papaya = yuck. As back-up, Kristen says its the worst thing she has ever put in her mouth. So that’s 2-0 that papaya sucks.
Pineapple – really fresh and not bad. Given more time, I might be able to get into it.
Cantaloupe – It was pretty good. To be honest, I thought it was chunks of mango so the tasting was on accident, but it still was refreshing and all that.
And finally, one that I have NEVER liked…mushy…yucky…yes, it’s the Banana. I tell you what, wrap that sucker in bacon and then give it a nice char all the way around like the Brazilian meat place did and I am a convert. That’s right, mom, I liked banana! Of course, bacon makes everything taste better so we have to give credit where credit is due, but banana in Punta Cana gets a thumbs up.

Well the casino last night had maybe 8 tables: 2 roulette, 3 or 4 blackjack and a couple 3 card poker. There were a few people playing roulette (also known as “give the casino your money fast”) but otherwise the place was D E A D.

We were greeted at the door by a woman and led to a game that involved 8 red marbles, a circular plate with holes the marbles could land in with numbers associated with them and a table that had different “prizes” depending on what number your eight marbles’ numbers added up to. For instance, if your marbles happened to luckily all land in holes marked 1, your total would be 8 and you would automatically win $10,000! The first thing I asked was “are there 8 holes with 1 next to them?” They claimed there were 12 or so, but I didn’t take the time to verify. We were both given free rolls of the marbles and depending on what they added up to we could win the $200 jackpot (assuming the total number of points we could accumulate was more than 100. I am telling you this game was confusing as heck and just chock full of rules that didn’t get explained until your hit the appropriate number). Anyway, Kristen “the wrist” Graham rolled a set that got us 4 MORE rolls. Long story short (too late, I know), we got our point total up to 75 of the 100 needed for the now $400 jackpot, but if we wanted to roll any more, we would need to pay $10 per roll. Guess what we did? That’s right: kept rolling!...nah just messing with you, we said “later days” to that game.

I played a little bit of blackjack, but I was the only one at the table. Added to that, the cards were older than some of the super old ones at my parent’s house and the dealer’s nickname had to have been “speedy” based off how fast he was dealing hands. I tried to slow him down by making my “hit me” sign take a while, but he was hitting my hand if it was less than 12 no matter what I did. Added to that was the fact the pit boss didn’t have anything else to do so was hovering around staring at my play and that didn’t seem all that friendly. Quite frankly they seemed like money vampires waiting for me to lose so they could celebrate together. So I went up a bit, lost it and then cashed out with exactly what I bought in for. Take THAT, money vampire!

Kristen and I bailed out on that muy pronto and ended up walking back to our hotel along the beach. Beautiful night to do it and the stars were shining and it was very nice.

Today we got up, ate, and went down the beach to a place they call tent city. It is basically a bunch of little shops all set up to sell you crap for more than you want to pay. We got some souvenirs there and that is where I learned Kristen is a mean bargainer. She would put Bill “priceline negotiator” Shatner to shame!! They would come out with extremely high prices, I would get them down to something I thought wasn’t too bad a rip off for us and then Kristen would pull out $10-15 less than what I was going to settle for and say “this is all I have”. Man, were they not happy. They actually pulled attitude like we were ripping THEM off. Whatever. We were looking at T-shirts and the guy said one shirt is $7. Well if you buy more than 1, you should get a discount, no? We were trying to get 4 shirts and whittle him down from his crazy $28 stance. Some random woman almost screwed the gig when she came up and said $7 was cheaper than what she was able to get yesterday. I asked her if she worked there since it seemed like she was trying to make the shops point for them (also as a “get away from us while we are negotiating, lady!”). Turns out she paid $10 at a different stall for a t-shirt (sucker). We ended up paying $20 for the 4. I am sure we overpaid even then.

We are resting up before getting ready for dinner. Then tomorrow we get picked up at the hotel at 6:15 for the 45 minute bumpy ride to the airport. Our plane leaves at 9 with Kristen living the high life in 1st class and me sitting in coach. I did check and she gets at least a continental breakfast while I am sure I will be offered an apple for $10. We split up in Miami where she will continue on back to Portland while I will head to the Cayman Islands (one of them, anyway).

More to come from the Caymans!!!