Erin Miller

Dan and I spent spring break in the Dominican Republic (DR). We have a difficult time explaining to people what we did during our vacation, because in truth, we did very little. It might have been the first time I traveled anywhere and didn’t do a single “cultural” thing. No museums, no real time in the capital city. Pretty much we sat on a beach, reading, laughing, and drinking the occasional mojito. It was also the first time I donned the infamous resort bracelet. You show-up, check-in, and get your bracelet, which means you are allowed to use the fancy resort beach chairs and drink and eat everything you want – the type of set-up that leaves little motivation for exploring the indigenous culture. The trade-off being that you can find crazy good deals (as we did) and don’t ever have to worry about what you are going to do for dinner. Dan and I did walk around the town a fair bit, we even ate one lunch in town; but our plate of shrimp (which were good) cost us 30 (American) dollars, so we ate the rest of our meals at the hotel.

One afternoon Dan went on a one-tank dive while I got a massage on the beach (much better for my sinus infection.) It also gave me a chance to get into an interesting conversation with the Dominican working the towel check-out — “Your from New York City? New York City is my dream.” Gathering from the tremendous number of Dominicans in my neighborhood, it is apparently a very common dream. But standing under a cloudless sky, looking through the palm trees at the pristine beach, all I could do was shake my head and say, “New York City is cold. New York City is really cold.” He said, “It is my dream. I need to see it.” Feeling the warm, clean pavement of the pool deck under my bare feet, I simply could not understand his dream to go to the city. But then again, here I am sitting on my bed in New York City as I write this, listening to the rain, which has fallen for weeks and will continue to do so, so maybe I do understand. Dan and I also spent one day going on a snorkeling/boating/beaching adventure with a bunch of Italians. Dan has the pictures up on his blog. Most of our days, though, were spent doing virtually nothing. Our biggest stress was always how we were going to play beach volleyball, get a mojito and get seated in a beach chair in time to watch the sunset and then get showered and changed in time for our free dinner. Very stressful. I am a bit of a sun worshipper so the sunset was always an important part of my day, though admittedly these particular sunsets were usually weak. The volleyball game would end and we would grab our drinks and settle into our chairs, my eyes full of the glimmer of hope from the last rays of sun and Dan would say, “It’s going to go behind the clouds.” He was usually right.

one of the best sunsets

While it may sound like we didn’t do much, I did spend a week learning how to take a deep breath again. My sinus infection cleared and by the end of the week, I was able to sit comfortably in a chair and just chill. Before the trip, I was really stressed about midterms, leading trainings for new intramural leagues, and about my lease ending in 10 weeks and not having much of an idea about where I would be next or what I would be doing. I am generating similar stress for Dan because he cannot hardly make plans without knowing mine. My lease now ends in 8 weeks, and the situation has only gotten more stressful, but at least I spent a week sitting in beach chairs, which helped to give a little perspective maybe, or at least let my blood pressure come down a bit.

The area we went to, Bayahibe, was crawling with Italians, which was hilarious and awesome. Despite Italian being the language I first gained real proficiency in, every time I hear it now, I think, “man, that Spanish dialect is really hard to understand.” Playing beach volleyball helped me remember how to count in Italian, at least up to 25. When we went on the snorkeling trip we were greeted with “Ah, tutti Italiani” when we unloaded from the van. (Ah, everyone’s Italian). I tried to explain that we were actually from the U.S. So, while on the boat tour, the guide gave the explanations in Italian, and a kind older man sat behind me trying to translate into Spanish, which I (poorly) translated into English for Dan. I still get dizzy thinking about it. People from lots of different countries visited the region. I was most often greeted in French, rather than English, and while I cannot understand a word of French, I took it as a compliment. Dan and I walked into a shop in town and after characteristically being greeted in French and then explaining that I spoke Spanish, the shop owner explained in Italian to the other customers that my face didn’t look Spanish. Everyone in the store spent several fun minutes trying to explain Kleenexes (which I still needed) in a mixture of 4 languages before finally finding the Italian word, which I still remember, “fazzoletti.” It took me 3 months to learn the Spanish word for toilet paper and I don’t think I ever got the word for tissue, if there is such a thing. I could have maybe looked it up, but my Spanish dictionary is currently precariously holding up my bookshelf that split in half, so it didn’t come on the trip. Eventually the shop owner smiled and handed me some wet wipes.

On our last day I finally felt like maybe I had sat around enough and so when the call went out for “Aerobica! Aerobica!” I joined in. I thought I was doing pretty well, it didn’t seem like I had lost much form in doing lunges since I had last done them (When was that? College? High school?) But then I couldn’t walk right for 5 days.

Dan and I have been abroad together four times in the last three years. That is pretty sweet. Dan says I make a good travel buddy. Between the economy and the crazy moving that will take us somewhere in 8 weeks, we might have to cut back, but I hope not.

dressed for dinner