Our last week here

Date:  3-15-16

Three more days until we leave

Location:  Our little studio apartment in Las Galeras

Outside: Raining and raining 

Hubby is: working on a photography project

Surprises: 

• Having a vegetable truck deliver to our gate twice a week
• Discovering one restaurant in town that actually puts bacon on burgers and pizza
• Enjoying empanadas any time of day
• Finding Snickers with almonds in the supermarket!
• Hearing tourists speaking English - quite rare

Made me laugh:  Remembering a WiFi password at a restaurant from three years ago

Blessings: Having internet at home that is quite reliable

Disappointments: 

• That the beaches were mostly not walkable this time.
• That I didn’t get a great tan.

Lessons:  Remembering that I really do not do well with heat and humidity

Reading:

• “Wild” - by Cheryl Strayed (paperback)
• “Start to Write” - by Christine Niles (computer)
• “Grace Rules” - by me, VERY rough draft (Kindle)

Watching tonight:  probably another CIA action suspense movie - unless it’s my turn to pick  

Several “last time” happenings:

• Last time to Playa Rincon 
• Last time to buy vegetables at our gate
• Last time to purchase laundry soap, T.P., eggs…
• Last time to wrestle with sheets on our little drying rack
• Last time to tutor "my girls" at the salon
• Last time to walk to the far end of town to use the ATM
• Last time to defrost this fridge

Looking forward to:  

• Air conditioning on travel day - so we can stand to wear jeans again
• So many things back in Michigan!!! 
• Seeing our kids and grandkids!!!  
• Cooler temperature!
• Comfort and convenience
• Our truck. I love my truck!
• Our own stuff (recliner, kitchen utensils, sheets and towels)
• Walmart & Meijer
• Waffles and sausages, real skim milk, meat choices, cheesecake, apple fritters, and 53 other things on the mental list we have compiled
• Salt that flows freely

Things I’ll miss:

• Small sweet bananas 
• Huge yummy avocados
• Empanadas
• Coconut gelato
• Platanitos*
• Flan from Boulangerie Marseillaise
• The people at La Plaza Marseillaise
• Conversing in Spanish
• Hearing French spoken every day
• Roosters crowing
• Dominican faces - friendly, helpful, beautiful faces

Things I’ll be glad to miss:

• The heat and humidity
• Mosquito bites
• Teeny, tiny ants that congregate around any dropped morsel of food
• Dogs - the aggressive ones and the loud shrill yappy ones
• Cats that sneak around your chair at restaurants
• Loud, loud music - the same songs EVERY night

...

* Platanitos = delightful snack chips made from platanos (cooking bananas); slightly salty and yummy