Date: 12/28/2004 (more added later on)
Dominican Republic

Dear Friends,

The first thing you may notice here is the date I am writing this email. Yes I am currently in another country on my “vacation”. And yes I am spending this time writing a letter of stories compiled over the first 35 hours or so of our trip, for your entertainment. Well let’s start from the very beginning shall we.…

Day 1: December 26th

4:00am- Ehhh…Ehhh…Ehhh…the alarm screams. We hop out of bed full of angst, excited for our first trip abroad together. I double check the list of things to do, and everything seems set…I have the itinerary, the water is shut off, the cpu is unplugged and all of our luggage has been packed away the night before. After a quick debate on whether or not to pack a carry-on with all of the essentials in it we head to the airport with more than enough time. It feels good to get out of the door early.

5:30AM- After following the maze around what is thought to be the largest parking lot I have ever been through we finally arrive at our spot. We had to hurry to catch the bus as it was waiting for passengers. We began our jog with all of our luggage in hand as the bus slowly pulled away. So we waited….and waited….and waited until just before I froze to death another bus arrived.

6:25am: Well isn’t that ironic. Ahhh we are here so early there will be no rushing this morning. I am so proud of us, what a great job we did. Well look, that American Airlines representative, she’s ready for us to check our baggage. “May I help you?”
“Yes maam, we’re flying to New York…JFK,” I reply.
Some time passes and I was curious why she gave me such a quizzical look. I mean it says right here…DCA to JFK.
She looks up from her computer, “No you’re not,” she replies.
“Well actually maam we are.”
She pauses again, “We don’t fly to New York from here…you’re at the wrong airport sir.”

So turns out DCA is the acronym for Reagan National Airport not Dulles which happens to be IAD.

Panic sets in. This can’t be happening. I grab the itinerary from her hands…we can make it. Dulles Airport to Reagan National…ETA- 35 mins. Flight leaves 8:10am.

Unable to catch a bus back to our car and knowing that it would take to long…we run to a cab. The cabby nicely brought us to our car for a fair $20! We throw our bags in the car and follow the exit signs through the lot at approximately 96mph. So much for not rushing.

7:00am- Here we are at the (correct) airport, all we need now is a nice parking space. Oh to bad, the economy lot is full we’ll have to park in daily for $15 per freakin’ day!!! (15x7= $$105) Trip just got a little more expensive. Oh well no time to bitch now…we have a flight to catch.

7:50am- Oh yea…guess where we are right now. That’s right sitting at the gate…Are we good or what, two airports and still on time. We even have good seats, we’re in the tenth row.

8:00am- On the plane now…oh by the way, turns out the plane only has 10 rows.

9:15am- After a hellish ride on the smallest plane I have ever been on we arrive at JFK.

10:45am- Boarding on our flight to the DR. A huge plane with plenty of room, won’t this be nice. The flight is packed…so packed that they overbooked and asked for 6 people to give up their seats for a voucher. I had the window and Trish had the middle seat. People kept boarding and kept boarding, we sized up each one as they made their way back towards us.

11:15am- Finally the plane was set to go and the only empty seat on the whole plane was next to Trish. Lucky gal…how’d she manage to get the only empty seat in whole plane…uh oh…wait….what’s this. Someone has just wobbled in through the first class curtains. Oh dear god…he’s huge. Oh no he’s getting closer. Coming down the isle was a man (I think), about 6’3’’ 300 pounds with really short legs. As he made his way towards us, his bag, draped over wide shoulders and a large protruding gut, was slapping each poor isle seated passenger as he passed. His hair was matted to his head with what looked to be white Crisco cooking grease. His oversized glasses sat upon a single large vein on the tip of nose and sweat poor down his face as if emerging from a swimming pool. His mouth was wide open and he was obviously out of breath from the long walk down the isle. He towered over Trish and me, as we sat in disbelief. He glances to double check the seat number and falls, quite literally, into his seat. The beast couldn’t even put his arm rest down and still fit. Oh and of course the smell…while I’m sure you can imagine I’ll try to help you out. At one time or another each of you have flossed your teeth, right? When flossing your teeth you have also probably done what is natural, which is after getting that big piece of gross decaying food out of in between your back molars, you undoubtedly lifted it to your nose and took a big whiff. You remember that smell? Now imagine that combined with the smell of the debris left from cleaning the junk out of under your toenails and you’ve got it.
My head is resting against the window; this has got to be Candid Camera. This kind of thing just doesn’t happen. Everyone on the plane felt sorry for us. Trish being a good sport was able to rest her book on his love handles during flight. She did well…he was a mouth breather and when the food came…you guessed it…he was left handed…and lucky Trish was on his left side.

4:00pm- We land in Paradise. The landing was smooth and the ride was bearable. After all of this we still made it. The intercom comes on in the plane “Hey folks, we’re just waiting for them to clear us a spot and then I’ll turn off the seatbelt sign.”

5:00pm <--- The spot has been cleared and we slither off of the miserable plane and make our way to baggage claim. You know this time I’m not even going to get into all of the details and try to build the tension because you all already know what happens next. We sat there watching two pieces of luggage that obviously weren’t ours circle round and round the carousel…hoping almost in denial that they would somehow magically change into our luggage or at least my golf clubs. No such luck. We head to the shuttle with jeans, a sweatshirt, a lap top and jack squat.

7:00pm- “Kessler Please”, I say to the nice woman behind the desk who spoke only one word of English. Surprised? Nah…they didn’t have our reservation, they overbooked. I won’t get into it but it took a while to work things out, especially because my espanol vocabulary is somewhat limited. “Hola, donde es mi f***in’ roomo?” wasn’t working.

10:00pm: Let the vacation begin. Bring on the virgin daiquiris, rumless cokes, and some of the worst food I have ever put in my mouth.

December 27, 2004---------

Happy Birthday to me…the sun is shining. Sure it’s a little awkward in a sweatshirt and jeans reclined on a rented beach chair but who cares.

December 28, 2004---------

Raining, Raining, Raining. Ehh who cares, I just want to brush my teeth and refuse to pay 500 pesos or $15 for a damn toothbrush.

December 29, 2004---------

By now I have a full beard and feel like I am on Survivor- Shit Hole Island. Our vacation is about half over now. I’m sure the plants here needed the rain though and the village people are happy because it’s as close as they’ll ever get to having running water.

3:00pm that day our luggage arrives. A night of basking in our toiletry kits follow.

December 30, 2004----------

It’s raining, isn’t “paradise’ grand. I get ripped off buying fake Cuban cigars in the morning. Trish tells a story about how we looked at a house that was nice but over looked a trailer park. She went on about how “those people” act and such. Wouldn’t you know it the nice fellow at the dinner table who she’s telling the story to lives in a trailer park. Ironic huh. Well at least I got a nice massage. Or maybe I should call it rape. I was violated, but I was fine with it. Her butch frame and gold teeth didn’t bother me a bit. I just thought it was strange that she would want to stick her fingers in my a**hole and play with my balls. Crazy Dominicans…


December 31, 2004-----------

Rain. Golf in the rain. The “Golf Course” or maybe as you or I would call it…the “Farm” was in terrible shape. Despite the chickens, cows, bulls, poor disgusting children playing a form of ghetto baseball, a bamboo stick holding a torn up shirt as the flag, swamps making a perfect breeding ground for deadly swarms of yellowish mosquitoes, stupid ass Caribbean music blearing from 1978 Toyota Celica, the green cut 3 months ago to a tight 3 inches, the poor 6 year old with a disease following me around trying to sell me a straw, the $80 I spent to play it, and the rainy weather, it was nice.

January 1st, 2005-------------

Rainy and cold. Let’s go home. Before we do though I think I’ll buy an internet card for $15 and pull up the weather at home. This is bound to cheer me up, it has to be worse in Virginia. Hmmmm it seems that it has been 70 Degrees in Winchester...how about that!

We fly into Dulles Airport. Yea that’s the airport that we went to first just as this debacle was beginning. And yes we’re parked at Reagan National, so we have to take a bus ride to the metro and then the metro to the airport while carrying all of our luggage.

11:50pm- We arrive at the car. Turn the key….nothing…turn the key again…nothing. Battery’s dead.

12:50am- After the jump start from the guy who hates his job we headed to the gate. Well the car dying caused us to have to pay for another day, which normally wouldn’t be a big deal except as you may remember the economy lot was full and we had to park in the $15 per day lot.

3:00am- After the rumblestrips on the side of the highway, which happened to be the greatest technology ever invented, saved my life several times we arrived safely at home. Goodnight.



January 2nd, 2005------------

Kind of funny isn’t it. My new Ping Driver broke on the flight. Its ok I’ll just send it back.



January 3rd, 2005------------

Back to work…man did I need that relaxing vacation.