Isla de Encanta - Day Six. Sweet sweet eff-all.

"could totally handle a Bill Murray-esque Groundhog day, under the circumstances." - Facebook Status Update - 02/02/11

I feel like I've done my math wrong somewhere, because this post will bring us to day six and there is still two more days.  Maybe the first day when I caught the flight into Puerto Plata doesn't count.  ~shrug~

Wednesday was beach day, all the way.  I had hopped onto a computer just after breakfast because I was expecting to hear if my friend Karen, who lives in Santo Domingo with her hubby and child, was heading up to Puerto Plata that day.  I jumped on the Facebook to try and send messages of love and hugs to my kids via their stepmom, since I had been having a bitch of a time trying to reach them by phone.  Sunday night I kept getting their voicemail, Monday night I couldn't get through to the front desk of the hotel, and Tuesday night I had gotten through to the desk but kept getting a "Spanish spanish spanish, all circuits are busy" message.  So I went the techno route via the hotel interwebs.

It was while on the Facebook that I got word from my friend Mike that his brother and my other friend Sean had gotten the call for the double-lung transplant that he's been listed for.  I went 'Oh shit' at first because I was on Sean's 'to-call' list in case of the pager going off, but our other friend Dan was ready and available to take him down to TGH.  The odd part though was that the previous night when Sean had got the call, the girls and I had been discussing him at dinner.  Spooky, no?  Sadly none of the harvested organs were viable, but this does mean that the real call is that much closer.

So Kiki told me she wouldn't be able to make it up until Thursday so we decided that Wednesday would be an awesome 'Lay-on-the-beach-and-do-fuck-all' day.  And that is what we did.

It.  Was.  Grand.

Okay so at one point we did wander up to a flea market one or two kilometers up the beach.  Once again, I could not handle the uber-aggressive vendors.  THERE IS NO BROWSING.  You cannot express even a modicum of interest in something because then the vendors are ON YOU LIKE FLIES ON SHIT.  Seriously.  One of the vendors who sold under the name "Mr. 100 % Off" (yes, and dude, I'm TOTALLY going to hold you to that) gave each of us free anklets. We were going to buy some fancy wraps, but the day or so previously, Kay and Min had bought paintings from this guy, and upon browsing the other vendors and seeing the same painting and being offered it for five dollars less than what they had bargained down too, we decided to take business elsewhere, as the guy was a con.

But yeah, the over-enthusiastic vendors really made me miss shitty North American customer service.

We created a fun little game of "Horrifying Beach Bingo" which consisted of spotting the following beach Don't's:

• Leather Tan
• Giant floppy hats
• Mankini/Speedo (These are never a good idea. NEVER A GOOD IDEA.  I don't care WHO the hell you are.  Just Don't.  Don't Do It.)  Fortunately we never saw any honest-to-God Borat-inspired mankinis' but Speedos' abounded.
• Thongs (male OR female)
• Sweaterback
• Manboobs
• Blacksocks with sandals
• Gold Chains

I was determined to locate some kind of Perfect Storm of all of these factors, but thankfully it never happened.

Feeling profoundly lame after Sallying out the previous night I was determined that my game face would be ON for that night.  We went to the poolside bar to listen to the entertainment but I found it lacking in excitement.  The band played all the hits from 1986-1994, but I'm pretty sure the singer was making it up as she went along.  Let me put it this way:  Lady In Red was a horrible preachy song back then, and it still is now.

During the intermission they had a 'sexy dance' competition for the men to participate in.  Oddly, something like 7 out of 8 guys who participated were from Quebec, yet they weren't all there together as I suspected (the 8th guy was from Manchester).  To reiterate my second day post:  "It's January.  Canada is Cold.  We don't want to be there."

While poolside we made the acquaintance of a 40-something Revenue Canada worker from Quebec City, and his friend who had arrived the previous night.  Friendly and somewhat charming, we chatted with them for a while before we decided to head to the disco.

I love the DJ.  Here's something about me.  I am a DJ's worst nightmare, because I generally request songs that are A) unknown or B) not really appropriate for the occasion (I've gotten better on the second one though.  Even on my birthday I couldn't get a song played for me.   But when I requested a fairly well-known song (La Roux's Bulletproof) I noticed that this DJ was pretty much just YouTubing videos for the playlist so I took the chance and requested a song that's been absolutely, turn-it-up-to-30, kicking-my-ass lately, Best Est 2019 by Times Neu Roman.

I heard the opening bits, and I tell you, I LOST MY SHIT.  This would never happen in Canada.  I made Kaylee and Mindy stay to dance, because dammit, I was going to effin' DANCE MY EVERLOVING ASS OFF to that shit.  Oh.  Hells.  Yes.  I may have made a spectacle of myself.