Mid Life Crisis?

O.K., I'm beginning to think that in Cabarete you spell "mid-life crisis" as "motocicleta".  Matt and I bought a small motor cycle!  (And for all of you who wondered about our sanity for packing up and moving to the DR for five months, I'm pretty sure this now convinces you we are totally nuts!)

Actually we wanted a motor scooter but this small motorcycle was less expensive.....and much more economical than hiring a cab or renting a car whenever we need to go somewhere  Our original plan was to ride the gaugaus (the little minivan buses that pass by every couple of minutes).  But to get to the road to pick up a gaugua is a long walk from our condo....which would be ok one our way to the store but not on our way back with sacks of groceries.  And definitely not ok at night!  The gaugau drivers seem to be very friendly and will go out of there way to wait for you.  We were walking Herm from the beach to the main road on Sunday and a driver caught site for us before we even got to the road, pulled the gaugau over and got out to ask us if we wanted a ride (at least I think he was asking us that....it was all in Spanish), so evidently OK to take un perro on the gaugua.  But man do they pack in the passengers.  We saw one yesterday that had every seat full, people crammed into the little aisles (remember this is just a little mini van) and the sliding side door open and a couple of guys standing on the side holding on to the top of the gaugau. 

So here we are...in our fifities....with our first motorcycle.

Ayer era lluvioso (yesterday was rainy) so we didn't step foot on the beach all day!  Everytime we headed that direction, it would start to rain again.  I did get Herm out for a nice walk and we walked to some of the nearer shops.  I priced a manicure ($150 DOP which I believe converts to about $4.50 USD).  I planned to take Hermann back to the condo (although the gals told me "perro ok") and get some money, but it started raining again before I could get back.  So no manicure!

Andre and Michaellyn (the couple who own a condo here but are unfortunately leaving tomorrow) took us on another shopping trip since we needed some Off bug spray (all this rain makes for some hungry mosquitos!).  And they introduced us to the Dutch butcher shop....all I can say is OMG!  We bought two pork chops which we will probably grill today, but also some bacon!  We cooked a few slices of it yestereday for a BLT and it was the best BLT I'd ever had.  Appears that pork and chicken are excellent here but I'm having trouble finding fresh seafood.  All the fish I see is frozen.  But beef...forget about it.  There are cows grazing everywhere...including very near our beach.....but this DR grass evidently makes for some tough meat.