Holiday time in Austria

Howdy folks!

Yes I am still alive. I know it's been ages... That is why I am posting a video here about my recent holiday in the Steiermark, Austria. The video is linked through my Facebook account.

I will TRY to come back here more often, no promises can be made though...

Thanks for checking! Have a nice day y'all!

More about our vacation

Friday June 19th…
… continued…

BUT first: some updates on the day before the 19th. Seeing I left some information out of my journal in the last post I wrote and uploaded about our holiday. And it’s not nice to leave out some (important ???) bits of information. So I will first fill you in about the Thursday. This all happened before the Mama Juana blackout Joyce and I experienced that day.

On Thursday morning, George went to the gym. We walked with him and then walked on towards the beach. While George was busy sweating in the gym, we made a long stroll on the shore near our hotel (and many other hotels). After a while, we returned and went back to the hotel. Mainly because the weather was not looking nice at all anymore.

So we went back to the gym where we picked up George. It slowly started to rain, so we headed to the eating hall for our breakfast first. Then, all hell brake loose and it really rained hard! Which kept things very cozy during breakfast, seeing almost no one went through the hard rain to have their breakfast that morning. They all took it easy, waiting for the rain to pass on. It was still raining when we returned to our room after we had finished our breakfast.

We waited for a small cart to take us to our room. And even though we were under one of George’s towels, we were still soaking wet when we entered our room. George went to take a shower and Joyce and I read a bit. Then, when it was finally a bit dryer again. Joyce and I went to the reception where we would meet up with our Neckermann dude. We wanted to buy an extra card to send, and write it there so we could all hand them in for sending to our families and friends. We had to wait for 20 minutes before it was finally our turn.

When we came back to our room, we decided we would first take a walk to the nearby shopping mall and see what all the fuss was about. It was an easy walk, about 15 minutes, tops, and the mall did look nice. Only the prices were the same as ours, and it was really a tourist made mall and not for the locals (unless they were very rich). We did get some shirts and caps at the Punta Cana Hard Rock Cafe before heading back to our hotel.

*note* this is NOT my picture

When we came back, it was around 11:15 am. We changed clothes and headed towards the biggest pool. And then, well, that’s when Joyce and I got drunk and all… I did write a bit about my drunken behavior already and Joyce’s next blog about our vacation will undoubtedly have her side of the story in it. So now, you are all up to date on what happened on Thursday the 18th, which I forgot to mention in my previous post… And now I can finally move on with my journal by telling you all what happened after the 18th as well (though I guess I won’t manage it all in one post).

Friday continues then:

After George and Joyce came back from their breakfast, George changed clothes and headed for the gym. Joyce lay herself down on bed and slept again for a while. Then when George came back, we decided we would go to the beach. While George was arranging some towels, Joyce went to the bar to check there if they had maybe found her glasses. Unfortunately for Joyce, only George got lucky and had 3 nice blue towels…

George went directly into the ocean, while Joyce and I took it easy on our beach chairs. Joyce got persuaded to play along a game of darts, but it wasn’t a really fair game, so after a while (near the end) she just went back to her seat. We ate a bit at the beach bar and enjoyed a nice non-alcoholic drink there as well. George had arranged for a small catamaran so we could all go sailing for one hour. But, seeing I am not that much into sailing, I did not want to participate. So when George took a lot of effort to stow away our bags in a safe place, which was not working, I happily offered to “baby sit” our stuff. So they went sailing, I would stay back on a nice chair in the shades with the stuff and my book.

I made these pictures and then went on reading my book. It was a really warm (or should I write: hot) day. So when my sailing stars came back, we headed towards the Jacuzzi's together. There we spend an hour with some drinks (only George had alcoholic ones) and then we went back to our room. Around 5:45 pm I awoke George. Seeing he and Joyce both were sleeping and I was getting hungry… So when George tried to wake Joyce, she was all grumpy and so she did not join us for dinner.

That meant that I was on my own with George. We heard a LOT of noise and were wondering what was going on. It seemed that there was a biker convention at our hotel. They brought many cool bikes! And made a lot of noise when entering the parking lot.

We first went to Pikalo, of course, before heading on towards the diner. In the distance we could still hear more bikers approaching our hotel. The waiters looked a bit puzzled because it was only George and me for the evening. After dinner, we went for a small walk. More and more cool motorbikes were arriving every hour…

Then we headed back to our room, where Joyce was still snoring in a very nice position (made a picture as proof, but did not upload it to my photobucket account, sorry, hihi). George took the laptop and added all the pictures and video’s we made so far on the hard drive. You never know what might happen to the memory stick. This way, we had a back-up. And it was easier to watch the video’s and pictures on a larger screen. I took out my PSP and played my Shrek game. I had already played it on my Wii and that’s why I bought it for the PSP as well. It’s a really cool and fun game to play.

After a while I really got tired, I guess also from the lack of decent sleep the previous night, and put away my PSP. I closed my eyes, after a toilet brake, and quickly dozed off. Until…

Saturday, June 20th 2009

…I woke up after a loud bang of thunder! Around 1 am it was really raining hard, accompanied with loud thunder and bright lightning.

*note* this is NOT my picture!
Please click on it to follow the link to the owners site *thanks*

I went out of bed, heading towards the window and I just enjoyed the view for a while. The thunder and rain on the room’s roof made such a noise it would not be possible for me to fall asleep anyway. After half an hour or so, the weather cleared a bit and I went back to bed, able to sleep again. Until around 6 am, when the whole thing started again… Within minutes, the water covered all the steps outside our room. When the weather cleared out, once again, I could sleep a bit, until it was around 7:30 and time to really get up and get ready for breakfast. I woke both George and Joyce and we got dressed (for success… © Roxette) for breakfast.

After that, we decided to hang out at the second pool today, the one with the bar above the pool. While George and I held on to some seats (there weren’t that many with 3 in a row), Joyce went back to the room for some towels and the hotel towel cards. When she came back, she and I headed to the other pool to get the hotel towels and also make a reservation for the Caribe a-la-carte restaurant. Our dinner reservation was made for 18:30. After all that was done, we went back to the room to get into our bathing suits and all. Seeing we had not changed after breakfast, we wanted to make a reservation on some chairs (haha) and dinner first. When Joyce and I were done, George went to change and grab his stuff.

Later on, we found out why those chairs hadn’t been taken yet. And it would be the last time we took them as well. The palm tree that was next to it had a parasite plant in it, which “rained” icky seeds all day long. So that’s one of the reasons why we lingered in the pool so much. Playing with the ball, enjoying the sun and an occasional (non-) alcoholic drink as well.

Then we went to enjoy lunch and after that, we enjoyed ourselves some more at the pool. Around 3 pm we headed back to the room, we had enough of those seeds and also wanted to enjoy a nice shower before going to dinner. And a nice siesta was not that bad either *winks*.

Around 6 pm we headed towards out dining place. Since we were a bit early, we first checked out some more of the motor cycles that had arrived during the day.

And then, it was time to go and enjoy our dinner. We enjoyed it even more because Joyce was not wearing a bra and the air conditioning did a good job *winks and smiles*.

I did my best to order my meal in Spanish, using the menu of course, which made our waitress smile. She did appreciate my effort, though I guess it must have sounded horrible to her!
After a while, 2 men came in and played a nice tune. Since we had forgotten to bring any dollars, we could not even give them a tip. Nor could we tip our waitress…

Because we really had enjoyed our meal, we went back to the room and brought along $ 5,- so we could tip the people that were so kind and nice, our waitresses and waiter. The waitress we had given the 5 dollars to was really, genuinely happy with it and thanked us a lot.

Then we went back to the room where we changed, ready for bedtime. Some of us read a bit, some played with the PSP or GameBoy and some listened to our iPods. All scenarios are possible. And then, after a while, we went to sleep.

That’s all for now folks!

But remember that I’ll be back with more updates about my vacation and more as soon as possible!

Vacation Journal – the next part

Wednesday, June 17th 2009

Today, our alarm went off way too early! At 5:40 am we were up and getting ready for our tour. It was a bit gray outside, but the weather here can change within 5 minutes so we did not think anything bad off it. We already had our bag ready, seeing we prepped it last night so we could sleep just a bit longer this morning. Around 6:30 the driver arrived and we were the first in. 10 minutes later, the second Dutch couple was picked up. We chatted along the way and all seemed to be going quite comfy and OK. Shortly thereafter, another (older) couple got in. Then we had to wait a while for Wimpy. But he, unfortunately, had some bad news. His captain had called him, informing him the weather was too bad to be going out on the boat. It would be of no use to us, seeing the water was too wild and the clouds and rain would spoil the rest. So we set another date, next Friday, and were all taken back to our hotels.
There, breakfast had just started so we headed towards the hall immediately. It really was bad weather seeing before we were in, the rain hit us hard! It was almost dark outside and the rain fell down like it had a bet on being the fastest rain ever! We were really glad we were inside at this time!

After breakfast, we went back to our room and cleaned up our stuff. Around 9, Laurent of Neckermann would be at our hotel. We decided to take a small, free, selling tour he was offering to a small cigar factory. It was owned by a German family. So we booked our trip there, so we could still see something this day, and keep dry seeing it was inside. We made our appointment and were being picked up around 11 the same day. Seeing the weather really was not nice, and we had some time to kill before heading out (again), we decided to go to the bar between the reception and the second pool. We had bought some postcards with Laurent, which we decided to write there while enjoying a (non alcoholic) drink.

Here you can see George writing a postcard! Yes his first in many, many years! If you click on the picture, you can see that he uses a very “female colored” pen *smile*. Steph was the proud receiver of the card, by the way.

When it was a bit dryer again, we went to the room to put some stuff away and get ready for our trip to the cigar factory.

We were picked up in time and the drive there took about 25 minutes. It was a small “factory” which was quite cozy and also very interesting.

You can see one of the workers with a large cigar. Smoking while working, some people would be very jealous here (seeing it is not allowed here anymore).

At the end of the informative talk only Joyce and I bought a small prezzie for some people at home. A souvenir one would call it *winks*. Then we were taken back with the small van.

After we came back from our little cigar tour, we went to “Pikalo” for some slices of pizza and chicken nuggets with fries. But it started to rain, again, so we hurried back to our room. There we put away the souvenirs and stuff we had ready for the tour.
Then we took the USB card reader and went to the internet center. It was a lot more expensive than our internet is and it is slower as well… But we already knew that beforehand and that’s why we decided to go online once a week. We’d check our mail, update my Photobucket, send some mails to friends with the link to the pictures. And George would also check nu.nl since he’s addicted to that site. George and I both took a PC each for one hour. Joyce and I would share. George was busy arguing with the website where he would be able to check his mail online. But since he’d never used it before, he did not know how to work it. So he got aggravated… When I was ready, I let Joyce use the PC and helped George out. Luckily I succeeded *winks*.

After the hour was up, we went back to the room to bring away the memory cards and all and took a PSP and books and went back to the bar where we wrote our vacation cards earlier that day. But the two irritating “gay guys” from the plane were there. And due to all the rain, it was very stuffy there. So we went to the bar above the pool and there we played our games and read our books while enjoying a nice drink. Because of all those drinks, Joyce had to go to the loo. But it was very difficult to open the lock and she got her finger stuck… So she came back with a thick and bloody finger. I urged her to ask a cup of ice and keep her finger cool. It would not make it all go away but it would help against the swelling and bleeding. So she did what I “told” her to and it did help a bit. But not enough so we went to the room for a bandage and we also took along the GameBoy for George.
We stuck around till a quarter past five and then went back to the room to get ready for dinner. Around six we were back at “Pikolo” We enjoyed another drink and then headed for the diner. But Joyce and I first wanted a toilet brake before dinner. But two toilets were really dirty and the third (and last) one had no toilet paper. So we decided to have dinner first and then head for another toilet after that.

We had another lovely meal and then visited the loo and headed on towards the beach.
I wanted to make some more lovely sun set pictures, but unfortunately I was a bit too late.

But we did have a nice walk, which is very good after a very good meal. And I took some very nice pictures after all, which could have been more, if George was not getting cranky for me stopping to make pictures every five steps or so I made…

After about an hour we headed back to our room. George ran to the toilet and Joyce and I smeared ourselves with “DEET”. Then I started to write about this day in the journal Joyce and I have been keeping so far. George and Joyce played with the PSP’s and after a while, we closed our eyes.

Thursday June 18th 2009

This day started out really well but ended kinda blurry and nauseated… But let’s start at the very beginning (a very good place to start, according to Julie Andrews in “The Sound of Music” movie *1965*).

Not everything is 100% clear in my memory and we really could not write a decent journal entry about it because it “happened” to both Joyce and myself. But I will so my best to be as accurate as I can. Here I go:
We got up and dressed and went to breakfast, as we usually do. After breakfast, we got into our bikini’s and grabbed our books and all and went to the first swimming pool. We had a lot of fun playing with our ball and enjoying the sun. We ate at “Pikalo”. And then Joyce and I met up with some Americans and enjoyed a few drinks with them. Seeing it was our friend Sabine’s birthday, we had promised her to toast a drink (or two) on her. So we did. After a few beers we had some Mama Juana shots. I will provide you with some extra Mama Juana information (in addition to the Wikipedia link that is in the previous sentence) before going on…

Mama Juana information

Mama Juana is the indigenous drink of the Dominican Republic. It is a brew of twigs and bark and herbs, with rum and red wine and honey. Some love it, some hate it! Some claim that it is an aphrodisiac for men, but also that it cures all of what ails you, purifying organs and acting as a medicinal supplement. As a medicinal supplement and as an item that you will be ingesting, bear in mind any allergies and go slowly the first time trying Mama Juana. There have been strong —and dangerous— reactions.
There are suggestions for how to make a recipe of Mama Juana, but no hard and fast rule.
Start by soaking the roots and twigs for 3 days to 2 weeks in rum or red wine or a combination of both. At the end of that period, throw out the liquid. Then refill with equal amounts of rum and red wine and honey. You may choose to leave out the red wine, but then it makes it a really strong drink if the only liquid is straight rum. The wine, with a lower alcohol level, lends flavor while watering it down a bit. Top it up with the same ingredients in the same general proportions.
The measurements are very loose and the recipe is forgiving.
It may take a couple of batches for you to decide how you like it best. You can pour it off once steeped to your taste and get the next batch going. The longer you leave it to steep, the stronger the flavor will be.
Opinions are mixed on whether you should leave the roots to dry out again. If you like the wine or like it sweet, you can leave it sitting in the wine or honey water to infuse. You would then have to throw out that soaking liquid if left for an excessive amount of time. You can drink it straight or with fruit juice or as you would use rum in a cocktail.

You can consume and refill the same bottle for 10 years. After that period, the bark and roots will have lost its potency.

So Joyce and I did not really know what Mama Juana was and we did find out today! Even though I must add that the drink they offer you at the hotels are really made quickly and, compared to the "real" Mama Juana, are lousy reproductions of the original. But there are many recipes and many people make it different ways. But one thing in all recipes is the same: wine – rum – honey. But the hotels use cheap (watered) wine and much rum and no honey (too expensive). So we already had some drinks and also drank some shots of this stuff. We had a lot of fun. The Americans called the bartender Brad Pitt. But I offered he should be called Obama! He had the same color and every time you asked for a drink, he could do it. So: YES he can! That made everyone laugh and got us another round of drinks.

While we were enjoying drinks, we were photographed by the hotel photographer. *we later tried to get hold of these pictures, but they were extremely expensive, so we did not buy any*.
Then there was a water polo game around 3 pm which turned into a Dominican versus American game. We were cheering for the Americans while getting another drink (and another and another…). At one moment I felt myself getting sick and sicker and I knew it was too late. I tried to get out of the pool, put on my slippers (gosh what a job!) and at the time I finally reached my chair, I vomited… I know it isn’t something I am proud of, but I just could not stop it anymore. I know that George then came up to me and he wanted to take me to our room. I wanted to find Joyce because I could not find her before and I was afraid I lost her. Silly me. George had to drag me along, or so he told me, because I only wanted to go back to find her. I can’t really remember. The only thing I know was that I woke up, I guess about 4 hours later, and felt nauseated. So I threw up, again and again, also not something I am proud of either. But I looked around and I saw Joyce laying beside me, George was not around (he was eating dinner) and I went to bed again. I felt so tired…

We were supposed to go with Wimpy on his tour the next day…

Friday June 19th 2009

…but that morning we let Wimpy know that it was not possible to go along. I did not go to breakfast, Joyce and George did, but I just kept in bed. I was still tired because, though I did sleep in between the going back and forth to the toilet. It was all too much. Too much alcohol running through my system. And believe me, I did not drink any alcohol for a whole week after this fiasco!

When George and Joyce came back from breakfast, Joyce was angry. She had lost her glasses and she could not find them anywhere. When she was awake around 6 am she had even gone to the front pool to search for it. And while she was there, she told Wimpy’s driver we would not be able to join. Though I did send a text message in time, Wimpy had not informed his driver yet… So it was all arranged. Except for the glasses… Joyce and George did bring me some breakfast, but it did not taste good and only made my stomach twist and turn again.

You know, I will post this blog now and will write more as soon as possible again. I hope you don’t mind. But if I keep on writing, I will never be able to put this post online… So I will send this and please keep checking for journal updates :)

TTFN Cyn xxx

How things are going & more vacation update

Hello everyone, here is yet another update of our vacation time at Punta Cana, Dominic Republic. Last time I wrote here, I left you after our third day, the Monday. So now I’ll continue, starting Tuesday the 16th of June. That seems quite logical, doesn’t it?

*note to readers: I started this blog on Sunday July 12th and am finishing and posting it on Monday July 13th*

While I am typing, Joyce is playing my new PS3 game “Overlord II”. Here is the official site.

I played it for a while last night and it’s really a good and funny game. I bought it last Thursday at the Media Markt in Arnhem. They had special offers on videogames and accessories. Buy 2 and get the second (cheapest) for half price. Well, that sounded good for us. Seeing we have a PS3, a PS2 (I bought it second hand and am quite happy with it), PSP, Wii and since the same Thursday, we also have a DS lite. We got it for George’s birthday already, seeing he kept complaining about the bad screen of the GameBoy Advance. So we saw the DS lite, and it could play advance games as well. We bought it and ever since he’s been busy playing. Yesterday he bought himself a R4 chip and I’ve been busy getting some games on it for him to play. That should keep him quite busy… Unfortunately, that’ll also mean that stuff he intended to do may get done a bit later due to the distraction of his DS.

But, back to the vacation on-line diary I am writing here to share with you all.

Tuesday, June 16th 2009

This was yet another easy, relaxed day for us. We got up early and George went to the gym. Joyce and I took our books and sat in front of our room while reading. While we were reading, the phone went. It was Wimpy, informing us that the next day, we would be going on our “Caribbean Tour”. We would have to get up quite early, seeing we’d be picked up around 6:20…
When George came back he took a shower and then we grabbed our swimming pool bags and headed for breakfast. It was a bit busier, due to us being a bit later, and we had to wait a short while before we were seated.
After breakfast we went to the big pool, grabbed 3 chairs and went into the water. The bartender was the same as on Monday and he recognized us immediately. We threw around with the ball, the bartender even played along as it was not busy at his bar…yet.

George played with the GameBoy, Joyce and I read and around midday, we went to “Pikolo” for a slice of pizza and some fries. George had a big breakfast so he skipped this “lunch”.

After a while, we decided to get back to the Jacuzzi’s. We went through the bigger bar and then past the second pool. I had made some pictures earlier that morning, so I am using them to give you an idea. And if you have already seen the pictures, you now know what you were looking at before *winks*.

Walking through the bar, coming out at the second pool

And when we arrived at the Jacuzzi’s, we read some and relaxed in the shade.

After a while we went back to the room. The sun was kinda failing a bit and we wanted to take a shower, and George was taking a nap and playing with the PSP. While he was playing/napping, Joyce was working on our written diary, the one we now use to write these online ones…

Joyce busy writing

Grey clouds

When we dressed for dinner, around 18:00, we went to Pikalo. There we enjoyed a drink while we watched the clouds grow grey and darker. So when the Kolibri diner opened, we rushed in before the rain might start to fall down on us.

Seeing I don’t like a whole lot of different kinds of food (though I am trying some new things when I feel like it), I was really happy there was a pasta chef at the lunch and dinner times! He was always happy to see me as well and when I asked for a picture, I could even join him behind his stove!

Enjoying our meal and with one of our regular waiters

Joyce tried some sort of small crab thingie this evening, which looked rather wicked and (to me) uneatable. But it did give me some nice picture moments *winks*.

Since my shoulders caught a bit too much of the sun, we brought some cub cumber along after dinner to cover it up for a while. Of course, there was a picture taken... And another one...

That was our Tuesday! More coming up soon!
Am getting to bed now, need to get up early again tomorrow to work from 8 till 17.

TTFN xxx Cyn