I'm writing to you from the Hostelling International - New York location, after a fun day of travel, tennis, and now tiredness. The reason I'm writing and not sleeping is that I need my iPhone to be charged for another round of tennis fun tomorrow, so I'm downstairs charging it, while also making sure to cancel some now unneeded JetBlue flights. Here's the story of the last few days:
The rest of the trip in the Dominican Republic went mostly as Ryan and I thought it would. We did take the bus out to Puerto Plata to do some photoshoots for airbnb.com - which was really fun! Right up my alley as a photographer. I'm excited to upload my pictures from the three sites that we visited when I get back to Portland. Ryan and I stayed the night at a spot in Puerto Plata that was really quite nice - a villa in the hills, for free because we were photographing it. Here's a picture of the pool:
The next day, we moved on to another beach town and two more locations to photograph. In between, we had lunch at a corner store place, that I was really intrigued by as the sort of spot an action hero would go to lay low from authorities. The street outside was a hub of random events, like motorcycles and people poking their heads in for a second. The food was great, but I thought the most interesting part of the whole place was the bathroom, which was at the end of this crazy back corridor behind the wall. It was so interesting that I took a picture:
Yeah, it was one of the more interesting toilet locations I've ever seen.
We got a lot of great photos of the two places, and managed to get the bus back to Santiago right as it began to rain hard. Speaking of hard rain, earlier in the day, I got an email saying that the Timbers/DC United match I was so excited about was postponed to a different date, due the the impending Hurricane Irene in the DC area. That made me feel bummed, and I was trying to figure out alternate plans in case my flights were canceled as well. After talking it over with Ryan (and then Erin via Skype - by the way, I can't think of two better people to ask for travel advice, they were both really helpful), I decided to stick with my original plan and go to DC anyway, since the first available seat out of Santiago after that night would have been another five days (again, stupid Hurricane Irene, which created a huge backlog out of Santiago).
So, Elvis, Ryan, and I had a nice dinner before I left - but I am sure to be back soon, so it wasn't too sad. It is always great to see Ryan and meet new friends in the DR. I told him this in an email, but every time I visit with him, I feel like my horizons are broadened. Just such an interesting guy with so many things going on. Anyway, here's a picture with my friends at the Santiago airport, wishing me well on my flights:
Ryan, Jenny, Elvis, and Rosa.
It was a long and tiring night, that's for sure. The flight from Santiago to New York was fine, but I only got about an hour or so of sleep. Then, upon landing, I waited for about an hour in the Terminal 4 international customs area to get my passport stamped so I could come back into the US. That was really frustrating, as then I had to do a patented rush from T4 to T5 (I am almost positive that I hold the all time record for this, when I was coming back from St. Maarten on AYCJ year 1). I was greeted by a whole bunch of chaos. Huge amounts of people everywhere, the news that all flights leaving any airport in NYC would stop at 12 noon that day, and a wall screen full of the most amount of cancellations that I've ever seen:
Every flight listed in yellow is canceled. You can see why I was relieved and very blessed to have both my East Coast flights be on time that day.
Eventually, I made it through security, onto the flight up to Boston, landed in Boston, had enough time to get some food, then luckily caught the second to last departure into DCA on the day. That flight was not very fun, by the way. A whole lot of turbulence as we were coming down into the first reaches of Hurricane Irene.
In any case, I made it to DC intact, yet with NO clue as to what I would do for two days. Fortunately, Erin was up for having me hang out with her and her roommates - once I landed, I pretty much went immediately to see the movie "The Help" with them. Very nice ladies! I felt like I wasn't really up to my highest self though, since I was running on about 2 hours of sleep. Hopefully I didn't leave a bad impression.
Later, we all came back to the apartment the ladies have in Arlington and I helped fix things and move furniture. Maybe THAT'S why they wanted to hang out with me! ;-) But really, I did. And made "Hurricane Delight" cookies, which have to be the most unhealthy things ever invented, and hence, really delicious too. The Hurricane was really fun to watch outside. Once or twice, the lights flickered and we saw lightning. We also saw huge vats of rain coming down all over the place - like, as bad as the worst Portland rainstorms I've ever seen. The view from the top floor of the building, where the apartment is, was pretty awesome. I didn't take any pictures, because they would have all come out looking gray, dreary, and uninteresting, believe me.
The effects of Hurricane Irene were bad all evening, but I did manage to make it to my hostel in good time to get a lot of rest (wow, did I need it). By the way, I didn't think it was possible to love Hostelling International - DC any more after my first trip there in June. WRONG. This time, they gave me the suite (or whatever it is called), with just one roommate (a cool guy named Phillip from Germany), our own bathroom/shower, refrigerator, etc. And remember, all of that was $35 for two nights, using my buy one get one free coupon for my membership. Both nights were super pleasant, and it was fun to look out at the city from the top floor (though I made the mistake of trekking up the stairs with all of my stuff when I checked in).
When I woke up the next day (really, it was like noon - again, I was exhausted from the lack of sleep the night before), I texted Erin and we met up for brunch at Kramerbooks and Afterwords Cafe outside Dupont Circle. Apparently, it is pretty famous, and I can see why. Here is a picture of me with my crab omelet (so good, but I couldn't even finish it because there was so much)!
By the way, that is totally my favorite shirt right now. :-)
The meal was nice, then we went exploring around DC. First to the National Zoo, where the animals made us crack up. And, the humans watching the animals. Here's a picture I like of the pandas. We joked that they we SO CLOSE to escaping, but then just felt too tired and laid down:
Hehe. Aww, pandas.
The last thing we did was visit Erin's new university - American, where she starts her Masters Degree program in Public Policy this week! It is a very nice, small campus, and I appreciated the chance to check it out. I joked to Erin that we were getting too old to be on college campuses anymore!
After that, Erin drove me back to the hostel and dropped me off to print off my confirmation emails for the workaround to NYC. You see, I had my first ever flight cancellations, breaking a string of 167 straight lifetime flights. They were due to Hurricane Irene, but at least the distance I needed to go wasn't very far - just DC to NYC. If it had been cross country, I would have been out of luck. Another good reason I am glad that I went to DC instead of somewhere else, even with the Timbers game being postponed. So, I booked a Chinatown/Eastern bus from DC to NYC, because Amtrak, BoltBus, and MegaBus were all sold out for the times I needed to be in NYC for before the tennis at the US Open. I also managed to book a bed at the Hostelling International location in New York, which was great timing, since I had been trying to for quite some time and always getting a no availability message. I guess a few people weren't able to make it to NYC because of the storm, so I benefited. When I checked in today, the guy next to me was asking if there were any open beds and the lady at the counter said "we can put you on the wait list, but it is pretty big at this point."
Yeah, I feel lucky. The bus ride up was nice and uneventful, except for my legs being crammed, passing through Delaware (awake, so I could add it to my list of states I have been to!), and stretching out at a gas station.
That's all I have for tonight. My iPhone is showing a 85% charge and the tally on the total for the desktop access here at the hostel is now $7.52. I hope you got your money's worth with this blog post! I'm signing off and getting to bed. I will write a full US Open centric report in the future - possibly when I get to Chicago on Thursday or Friday? Anyway, know that watching Roger Federer win tonight was an absolute delight. So are you for reading this. Have a great day!
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