A Weekend Without Television!

Friday afternoon the cable went out!  Probably not a big problem to get something like this fixed quickloy in the U.S. but appears to be so here. Saturday our property manager tried to get someone out to fix it, but it was a holiday....so no go.  So we've resigned ourselves to a weekend without t.v.  What to do?

Well, Saturday we usually go to the pulgaria.  Pulga is flea in Spanish....so a pulgaria is a flea market.  We do this most Saturday mornings so definitely wouldn't miss this one....since no t.v.  The Saturday market is more a social experience than a buying opportunity.  There is one large table and a lot of ex-pats gather there to chat over coffee and cinnamon buns.  We normally ride the motorcycle to the market, but it had rained that morning so Matt wanted to walk.  It's about a mile from our condo so no problem.

Later in the afternoon we hooked up with two other couples staying in our condo and decided to walk to LaBoca for lunch.  Bea, Bob, Cheryl and Jim had never been there before and it's definitely a "must do" while in the D.R.  It's only about 1 1/2 miles from our condo so we walked.  Had a great lunch and we were just about ready to leave when Robyn and Greg (some of our Canadian friends) showed up.  So seemed like an opportunity to have another cerveza and visit.

Bob taking his turn.

We finally got home about 4:00 and decided to go the grocery store with Bob and Bea.  If we got that out of the way then we could devote all of Sunday to a quiet beach day.  We lucked out and some folks with cars were leaving our condo, so we snagged a ride to Janet's.  After shopping we decided to split a cab.  Matt asked the driver "how much to go to Serenity del Sol?" and the driver said 200 pesos.  This is about $5 USD so a reasonable fare so we jumped in.  On the way to the condo the driver tried to stop about half way here;....saying we had said we were going to a condo complex much closer than Serenity del Sol.  He would charge us $350 pesos to go all the way to our condo.  We have heard this is a common scam with some cab drivers, but the first time we'd run into it  This wasn't acceptable so we told him to drop us off at the entrance to our little community and we would walk the rest of the way  So he only got his $200 pesos but we had to walk about 1/2 mile in the rain with our groceries...but it's the principle.

Later the rain let up and we went down to the pool.  Nine of the ten condos are currently occupied so we have a lot of company now....big change from the first two months we were here.  Jim was at the pool and he's a musician.  He rarely goes to the pool without his guitar...he just likes to strum and sing while lounging at the pool.  He has a beautiful, strong voice so always nice to listen to.  One of our newer tenants, an Irish guy named Mike, was also at the pool.  Turns out he's in a band and also has a great voice.  The rain started so we all moved under the covered veranda and Jim and Mike took turns passing around the guitar and singing.  Then Bea and Bob joined us and turns out Bob is no stranger to a guitar either so he took his rotation.  We sat under the veranda, drinking wine and beer, and listened to this for about two hours.  Was a very sweet evening listening to the rain all around us and all this great music.

Mike & Jim

Full Moon at "Our" beach

Sunday turned out a bit rainy but we did spend some time on the beach.  Matt was disappointed because he missed all coverage of the golf tourney this weekend....and Tiger has the lead.  But he followed on the internet. Got cleaned up early and went into Cabarete for happy hour.  We met a couple who had lived in Olathe, KS....small world. They had heard about another "Kansas couple" through mutual friends so were actually hoping to meet us.   After happy hour we hung out at the pool chatting and then noticed the incredible full moon.  Couldn't miss the opportunity for a beach walk with the moon like that, so about six of us headed out to the beach.  What a stunning view this was!

So....turns out that a weekend without t.v. isn't so bad after all.