La Romana - Day One Conclusion...

We gathered up our room and towel cards and headed to our room. The resort was actually much larger than we anticipated. The bell boys tossed our luggage into a little trailer and we rode in the canopy-covered golf cart to our room. There were several buildings on the resort. I think 12 room-buildings and 4 restaurants. A spa, an ampitheater, the pool house where you traded in your towel cards for fluffy towels, and the huge pool.

We arrived at our room, which we discovered, much to our delight, was in the back of the resort overlooking the pool (and very far from T and NY's room). The bell boy carried our luggage up to our third-floor room, though the open air building. We entered the room and stepped out onto the balcony. I squealed in delight as I realized that the huge blue expanse beyond the pool and palm trees (palm trees!) was the Caribbean Sea.

We gawked in amazement for a few minutes, trying to grasp the reality of where we were, and suddenly remembered that we were still in jeans and sweatshirts. We scrambled back inside to change. We were putting on shorts! In March! And we were still WARM! R put on one of his new "Hawaiian" shirts, and I must say, he looked pretty sexy, normally being the jeans - t-shirt - work boot type. I knew right then it would be so hard to leave this beautiful, warm place, but quickly pushed that thought to the back of my mind. I had a whole week to enjoy it.

We settled in, unpacking our suitcases. I absolutely cannot live out of a suitcase. I feel too unsettled. I have to make where ever I am staying feel as much like home as I can. I don't want the constant sight of a suitcase packed with clothes to remind me that I don't really belong where I am.

As we finished unpacking, NY called from their room. He wanted to know where we were going to eat. We got out our handy-dandy little map of the resort and decided on the Mexican restaurant, conveniently located above the pool house and only a short walk from our room.

They met us at our building, and we all headed over to the restaurant. We saw a buffet sitting out. We were seated, and the waiter brought us a special little frou-frou drink and asked what else we wanted. I decided to stick to the Presidente. He took our orders and we proceded to stuff ourselves with the somewhat unidentifiable yet extremely scrumptious items from the buffet, almost forgetting we still had meals coming.

They must realize that that is exactly what all stupid tourists do, and delivered our reasonably sized meals to us. Delicious. Or as NY kept exclaiming, "This is phenominal!" The waiter, realizing that this was our first night (no doubt by our awe-struck faces - we were sitting by the SEA! - and frequent statements of "I can't believe we're finally HERE!") brought over four sombreros and took pictures of us looking all smiley and buzzed and silly.

We finished our meal, and decided to leave. It took me a bit to understand that, yes, we just get up and leave, no, we don't have to pay for anything, and no, we don't have to tip the waiter, it's ALL-INCLUSIVE.

Cool.

I felt like a little rich girl.

We trekked over to the middle of the resort, and found the "sports" bar. I guess it was a sports bar, they had a big pull-down screen showing a soccer game, and funny paintings of these monkey - alien crossbreeds playing various sports.

We sat down in the very air-conditioned bar (why are we inside when it is so warm outside) and ordered some more Presidente. We talked and laughed and drank. Eventually, I got tired and a tiny bit cranky, partly from the days travels and partly from NY becoming increasingly drunk and loud.

Finally I told R that I had had enough for the first night, I was ready to go back to the room. I told Him to stay out if He wanted to, secretly hoping He would come back to the room with me. He grudgingly obliged, and walked me back to our room.

Turns out He was a bit sleepy too as we were both out fairly quickly and dreaming of pina coladas by the pool...