Estamos Volviendo a Estados Unidos

Estamos Bebiendo De Pinas

Today is our last day in the Dominican Republic.  When we came down here, we had big plans of traveling around and seeing the country, but we quickly got swept up by the relaxing atmosphere and spent the entire week relaxing at the resort.  I have to admit that, while I'm disappointed our whale watching and cultural experience plans fell through, this has been really nice.  I'm so keyed up in my daily life (even when we travel) and live by such a regimented schedule that it's been really nice to depart from that, if only briefly.  It certainly takes someone else forcing me to relax to actually make me happen, but it's necessary every once in a while.  Lately I've felt burned out, but now I feel totally refreshed and ready to take on the North Carolina Supreme Court on Tuesday.

Yesterday was Valentine's Day.  Kati and I spent it relaxing, eating Chinese food, and watching the Olympics.  It was wonderful.  Unfortunately, Spencer and Haley did not have as happy of a Valentine's Day.  At around 4:00 p.m. yesterday Spencer got violently ill and spent the rest of the evening stuck in his room under the weather.

Our flight leaves at 5:30 this evening, so we get until around 2:30 to relax at the resort.  Naturally, and in part due to a desire to not be sandy for the flight home, we're spending the day at the Eden pool with Juan.  The best part of the day, hands down, is that Juan has made us pineapple glasses to drink out of in honor of our last day.  That's it for now.  There's too much sun and fun to have before we go. Rest assured that we will be making a trip back down to the Dominican Republic in the future to truly explore the island, experience the culture, watch the whales, and find the perfect Panama hat.  Until then, hasta luego.

Arrr is Pirate for Party

At Pirate Night

I could get used to this kind of relaxation. My decisions each day are limited to the basics.  Should I relax on the beach or by the pool?  What kind of drink should I get next?  What kind of food am I in the mood for tonight?  I thought that by now I'd be going a little stir crazy but, to the contrary, I'm pretty content just sitting around drinking and catching up on some reading.

Monday, much like every day, was split in half.  In the morning, we relaxed on the beach underneath some thatched umbrellas so that Kati and my sunburns could recuperate in time for our impending massages on Wednesday.  Then, the afternoon was spent at the Eden pool where Juan, our favorite bar tender, has taken it upon himself to double every drink order that I place under the guise of giving me the typical American "BOGO" - buy one, get one.  Somehow, even though we stayed out of the sun the majority of the day, we managed to get even more burned.  One of the coolest things that we discovered on Monday was a swim-up sushi bar.  The sushi, while limited, was surprisingly good.  Plus, you really can't beat eating sushi while sitting on a bar stool, chest-deep in refreshingly cool water.

Tuesday was a bit more unique.  We followed the same general pattern - beach in the morning, Eden in the afternoon.  Unfortunately, Kati was in a lot of pain from her sunburn and spent the afternoon in the room, trying to catch up on sleep that her burns had deprived her of the night before.  But luckily, by the time dinner rolled around, she was feeling much better.  Dinner was fantastic, at Isla - the Dominican-style seafood restaurant - it as pirate night.  They went all out for it.  All of the waiters were dressed like pirates and they'd put up a pirate ship, cannons, and all sorts of other decorations.  We were greeted with rum-filled coconuts and a wonderful seafood buffet.  The highlights of the buffet were Caribbean lobsters and mahi mahi.  I forgot how good fresh seafood is down here.

After dinner, the pirate-themed entertainment began.  They had a 15-foot tall stilted pirate and a choreographed pirate fight.  In fairness, there was more flipping and acrobatics than fighting, but it was still incredibly entertaining.  The band that was slated to play had some issues.  They blew two fuses as they tried to kick off the party playing "Tequila."  Finally, after an extended hiatus, they resolved the technical issues and kicked off one hell of a dance party.  We all let loose and had a great time throwing back tequila and dancing the night away.  After the party ended, Kati and I went for a nice stroll on the beach at night before turning in for the evening.

Relaxing on the Beach

On Sunday, our first full day in Punta Cana, we went on a little bit of an excursion.  We heard rumor that, about a mile down the beach, there were places called "Coconut to Go" where we could buy cocunuts to drink out of.  It turns out that these coconut shops are on the beach of a new resort, the Royalton.  It just opened 90 days ago, but it was hopping and it's really cool.  The rooms on the first floor have swim-out porches!  I hate to champion a different resort than the one that we're staying at, but it was a great place.  Rather than bar stools, the bars are flanked by swings.  The main difference between the Royalton and the Hard Rock is the demographic of its guests.  The Hard Rock is a much older crowd that has come to relax in style and quiet (ironic seeing as Hard Rock has spent decades pitching itself as a young and hip company), while the Royalton is a much more party-oriented and hip scene.

On the way back, we were walking along the beach when a big wave crashed into the beach and pulled a speedboat from its beached position into the ocean.  It slipped within feet of my back.  At first, we thought that it was anchored to the beach, but quickly we realized that it wasn't.  Luckily, Spencer quickly thrust out his hand and caught it before it could drift off into the ocean.  The walk was great, but, seeing as it was our first day, none of us were quite prepared for the equatorial sun and everyone got horribly sunburned.

Here's another interesting fact about the Dominican, it's the home of the Panama hat.  Seriously, you would think that the Panama hat would have originated in Panama, but it didn't.  I'm keeping my eyes out for a great hat while we're down here.  No luck so far, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Exciting News

Completely unrelated to our present excursion, I have some very exciting news.  One of my blog posts has been picked up by an internationally-read travel website and cited as authority.  Unsurprisingly, it's one of my posts about Slovenia and Ljubljana.

Check it out: http://storify.com/visitljubljana/romantic-ljubljana

I'm one step closer to my dream of being a true travel writer!

"Welcome to Paradise..."

My Parents, Kati, Me, Haley, and Spencer
at a Swim-up Bar at the Hard Rock

There's no more fitting quote to kick off a stay in the Hard Rock at Punta Cana, Dominican Republic.  It seems strange (in a good way) to be on vacation again so soon after we got back from Europe, but I'm not going to complain about it.  (Though I might when I get back and have two days to prep for my NC Supreme Court argument!)

The trip down here left something to be desired.  In what seems to be a theme for our winter travel, the flight was pretty turbulent.  At one point, the plane spontaneously dropped about 2 feet and my mom let out a shriek that scared all of us.  Still, we made it down here in one piece and, after navigating the maze of border control winding through the thatched-roof buildings of the airport, we were on our way to the resort.

It was about a 30 minute drive from the airport to the resort.  I was struck by just how empty the country is.  Besides a smattering of "Se Vende" signs (for sale) and a few seemingly abandoned construction projects, there was nothing.  And then we got to the resort...

This place is huge!  They have somewhere north of 3,000 rooms and what seems like dozens of pools, fountains, restaurants, and ponds.  To put this in perspective, I've been running around the resort every morning and, if I just do a loop around the outside of the resort, it just about gives me my 5k for the day.

Now, this is not my vacation.  By that I mean that I didn't plan it and it diverges from the typical "Jackson Vacation" in that we're relaxing and hanging out at the resort instead of traveling constantly to take in the obscure and quirky cultural landmarks that happen to catch my fancy.  Now, that's not to say that this is not a great vacation (it is) and it's not to say that I'm not having a blast (I am).  It's only to say that those who have become accustomed to reading about our exploits should know that this week is slightly different.  It is also worth noting that this chapter in our travels marks the introduction of four new characters - my parents, my brother Spencer, and his girlfriend Haley.

Punta Cana, located on the most eastern peninsula on Hispanola is, simply put, a Caribbean paradise.  It's becoming super-saturated with resorts, but that doesn't really detract from the true draw of the area - the beach.  The area is world-renowned, and with good reason, for it's stunning white sand beaches and turquoise blue water.  Flanking the point are 36 km of pristine beaches.  One thing that has struck me being down here for a day now is the surf.  There are some serious waves.  It really makes me want to get out there and do some surfing.

My greatest disappointment from this trip (Yes, it's the beginning of the week and I can already tell you) is that my dreams of a glorious day trip have been quashed.  They have tons of tourist agencies down here that are more than willing to help you plan a trip...as long as it's one of their standard trips that are easily marketed to the masses.  With that said, the trip that I wanted to take happened to be one of the ones that they offered.

North of Punta Cana is another peninsula called Samana.  It is truly one of the most interesting locations in the Dominican.  There is a great waterfall (Salto de Limon) in the middle of the jungle that can only be reached by horseback.  It's 150 meters tall and falls into a crystalline pool perfect for swimming.  Samana is also north of a bay, most of which is a protected nature preserve, that is famous for one thing above all others: humpback whales.  Between January and March (yes, right now), Samana is one of the top five destinations in the world to see humpback whales.  They come to this bay once a year to breed and rear their calfs.  They say that during these winter months, visitors have a 95% chance of seeing the whales!  I've been looking forward to seeing both of these things for quite some time.  We had planned to take a day and check them out.  The canned trip that the agency offered was perfect, you catch a plane to Samana, visit the waterfall in the morning, and go whale watching in the afternoon.  The only problem was that the next time they were offering the trip was on February 17 - three days after we leave.  Even when we offered to fill an entire plane (9 people) if they would help us schedule a trip this week, the couldn't (or wouldn't) make it work.

One more interesting factoid about Samana, at the tip of the peninsula is Playa Rincon which is notable because it is the fist place that Christopher Colombus landed in the New World.  It's supposed to be absolutely breathtaking.  I apologize in advance for the lack of posts and pictures.  I'm pretty busy drinking, relaxing, and enjoying paradise.

Stranded in Bruxelles -The City of the Whited Sepulchre

The Grand Place

In Joseph Conrad's novella, Heart of Darkness, the main character Marlow, describes Brussels as "a city that always makes me think of a whited sepulchre."  By this, he alludes to Christ's characterization of the Pharisees as "whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness."  (Matthew 23:27.)  This is the third time that I've been to Brussels and, in my experience, this characterization is fairly accurate.  In fact, I've never successfully traveled through Brussels without having serious issues.

Until today our trip had been too perfect.  Something was bound to go wrong, and today it did.  Our flight home left Brussels at 12:10 p.m.  We drug ourselves out of bed early enough to catch the 8:36 a.m. train from Bruges.  After our New Year's Eve celebration, that was quite a feat and we were both still feeling pretty rough.

On the train from Brussels to the airport we found out that the woman at the ticket counter in Bruges gave us the wrong tickets.  The conductor pointed this out to us and scolded us, but took pity on our ignorance, seeming more frustrated with the lady from Bruges than with us.  He simply told us to make sure that we got the right ticket next time.  I thought that this would be the end of our troubles, but boy was I wrong.

We got to the airport around 9:50 a.m. - more than two hours before our flight - completely exhausted, only to find out that our flight had been inexplicably cancelled!  We stood in line for over an hour waiting to talk to the airline staff before someone finally explained the situation to us.  When the plane was coming in from Washington, there was a "bird strike."  That means that a bird got stuck in one of the plane's engines.  We were told that, when there is a bird strike, the plane is immediately grounded for 24 hours so that they can clean the engine and make sure it is working properly.  The problem for us, though, was that there were no other flights out of Brussels that would get us home today.  Instead, the airline booked all of the passengers rooms at the Airport Sheraton and comped all of our meals for the day.  The flight situation was so dire that they couldn't even find a way to get a surgeon back to Atlanta today so that he could perform a critical surgery in the morning.  Ironically, the last time that I was in Brussels it was because I was on a flight back to Milan that had been cancelled and I had to stay over in a crummy airport hotel.

If we were stuck in Bruges, that would be one thing, but being stuck in Brussels was not particularly exciting, especially because we were both about to keel over from exhaustion.  Still, we decided to make the best of the situation.  After dropping our stuff at the hotel, we hopped on a train back up to the center of Brussels to do a little sightseeing.

As most everything was closed, we just did a lot of walking around and exploring.  We started at the Grand Place - undoubtedly the part of the city that Marlow was referring to in Heart of Darkness.  The buildings there are stunning.  From there, we grabbed a few beers for later and walked down to the Manniken Pis, a statue of a little boy peeing that has become a symbol of Brussels and Belgium.  They typically dress him up in a wide variety of different costumes, depending on the time of year or the various holidays, but because it's New Year's Day, he was naked.

Our next stop was at the Delirium Cafe.  They are famous for two things.  First, and most significantly, it is the cafe with the largest number of beers - somewhere over 2,000.  Second, they are the makers of Delirium Tremens, which they claim has been voted the best beer in the world (trust me, it's nowhere close).  Still, the cafe was really cool.  It's set in a yellowed basement in a back alley with metal beer posters and trays all over the room.

My last goal for the day was to visit the European Union Parliament.  This proved to be extremely difficult.  We walked for miles, often in the wrong direction.  We followed signs that led us to the wrong places and got lost several times in the sprawl of Brussels.  After two hours of wandering around, we were about to give up and started walking to a structure that I thought was a train station.  Much to my surprise, it was the Parliament.  The building was really neat.  Even though we couldn't go inside, it was cool to be at the epicenter of so many important political decisions.

After finding the Parliament, we were both spent and went back to the hotel to take a nap, have dinner, and relax for the rest of the night (with several good beers, of course).  I'm crossing my fingers that our attempt to make it home tomorrow will be more successful than it was today.

In Bruges

Kati an Me at the Snow & Ice Sculpture Festival

Yesterday was New Year's Eve and it was a busy day for us in Bruges.  The city was packed with tourists; something that I definitely didn't expect when we booked the trip.

The first stop on our tour of Bruges was the Disney Snow & Ice Sculpture Festival.  It sounds really cheesy and kid-oriented, but it was awesome.  Seriously, the things that they did with ice was amazing.  There were castles, pirate ships, bars, and dozens of storybook scenes.  There was even an ice slide that you could take down from the ice castle.

After we got our fill of the freezing cold, we hustled over to Heilig-Bloedbasiliek (the Basilica of the Holy Blood).  It's so named because it houses a vial of Christ's blood, brought to Bruges in the 12th century during the crusades.  The basilica was stunning.  The entire chapel was painted and adorned with golden designs.  It was very reminiscent of the painted churches in Eastern Europe.

By the time we finished up at the basilica, we were both ready to relax and get some beer, so we headed down to the Brouwerij De Halve Maan, the only operating brewery still in Bruges.  They make four different beers: Brugse Zot (their flagship), and three beers sold under the Straffe Hendrik label, a tripel, a quadrupel, and a quintessentially Brugian brew called "Heritage."  The Straffe Hendrik beers were particularly great.

We spent most of our afternoon exploring the streets of Bruges and stopping in different shops, grabbing a few beers along the way.  After being turned away from climbing the Belfry, we decided to stop in to the nearby Salvador Dali museum.  Dali is one of my favorite painters and his exhibition did not disappoint.  Even though there weren't any of his most famous paintings on display, we got to see tons of his rarer pieces and get a glimpse into some of his even more bizarre and surreal works that would likely be considered too strange or too perverse for the general public.

Enjoying our Westvletern Conquest

Our last stop in the afternoon was Cambrinus, a well-known beer bar in the city.  They closed at 4:00 and we squeaked in at 3:50, on a mission to complete the hardest leg of my beer tasting adventure in Belgium.  The Westvletern Abbey, located in rural Flanders, about an hour south of Bruges, produces some of the most sought after beers in the world.  The monks there still do all of the production themselves.  You can only get their beer AT the abbey and they limit how much you can buy.  To begin with, you have to call a single phone line and hope that you get through.  If you do, you can make a reservation to stop by on limited days and pick up the beer.  When you make a reservation, you have to give them a license plate and you can only get two wooden cases of beer once every 60 days.  The beers are not supposed to be sold on the commercial market but are regarded by many as the best beers in the world.  The beers are sold in nondescript bottles that can only be distinguished by the color of their cap: green for the blonde; blue for the 8, and yellow for the 12.  We had gotten word that Cambrinus served the Westvletern brews (for a price) and we had to check it out.  We were in luck!  They had all three.  We tried the blonde and the 8, both of which were truly incredible.  I don't know if I would go so far as to say that they are undeniably the best beers in the world, but they were very enjoyable.  My only regret is that we decided against trying the 12 as well.

After a tiring few days, we decided to take a quick nap to rejuvenate ourselves for the New Year's Eve festivities.  Thank God that we did, because it was another long night.  After an enjoyable dinner, we wandered around the city, grabbed a few more chocolates, and enjoyed a couple of beers to kill time before midnight.

Around 11:30, we walked down to t' Zand.  The whole square was a giant party.  They were playing the top songs from 2013.  It was hilarious to see the Belgians lose their minds when "Wrecking Ball" came on.  At midnight they set off a very impressive fireworks display set to Abba's "Happy New Year."  It was a truly incredible ending to the perfect week in Europe.  We capped it off by enjoying a bottle of St. Martin's Rose Brut and turning in so that we could still manage to wake up early to begin our final journey home.