It Will Cost you $20 to Enter My Country, Please

So, a few weeks ago Cory and I spent a week in the Dominican Republic and had a fanfreakintastic time.

Our trip started out with a Dominican hello. You walk straight onto the tarmac, and you pass dozens of workers, but they are all sitting there doing nothing. So funny. They charge you twenty AMERICAN dollars to enter their country ($10/person). Such a scam, but did we just pay thousands of dollars to get there to say no? I don't know why we don't charge people to get into American airports. I mean we pay for them to have medical care. Anyways. Our room was much better than anticipated...I was so anxious that our room would be a dump. It was wonderful! As a part of our package we got a 'free' couples massage and time in their private jacuzzi. We spent a lot of our time eating out almost every night, reading on the beach, and spending time together. Cory said life was good when he had his glass bottled coke, was reading Harry Potter, and was sitting on our balcony. We drank a ton of mixed drinks, sans alcohol, and felt spoiled spoiled spoiled.

 We went on an excursion horse back riding and snorkeling. Well, my horse was more of a starved pony. It was so sad. We met a fun couple on their honeymoon from South Carolina, saw a nice load of trash on the beach, and I dropped our lenses cap and caused a horse traffic jam to get it again.  Even with the sketchy parts, we love going on excursions and had a fabulous time on this particular overpriced getaway.

We had a great time snorkeling...but it was an experience! Cory said I had to make my duck billed picture the biggest (okay fiiine, he calls it "The Skeletor"). So, I'm kind of in the bottom percentile of swimmers. Cory was diving under water like some seal, while every so often I'm gagging on salt water because I leaned my head back too far and got some in my breathing tube. My favorite part was having all the fish come straight up to you for bread and nipping on your fingers.

My favorite part of this day was parasailing! I wish we had a picture of the gorgeous view we got. We got a great deal on parasailing because we bided our time and low balled them so much that they said we were ridiculous, left, and then came back a while later and said we had to tell everyone who asked that we paid more. It was wonderful.

On our last full day we rented a car and drove into a nearby town. I loved it. They had markets all over the place with fruit, vegetables, and meat. Ugh. The meat market was one of the nastiest things I have ever seen. Piles and piles of raw meat with flies swarming everywhere. There was muck on the ground and workers were using these huge meat cleavers (that were probably covered in disease) to cut off the meat. We were crossing our fingers that that meat was not being served at our resort! Maybe that explains my little 24 hour bug on Monday... We took some fun pictures and experienced the CRAZY CRAZY drivers there. I swear... their driving fatalities must be out of control. There were babies squashed between two adults on tiny little scooters jetting in and out of traffic, scooters carrying tvs and other huge things, vans with dozens of people in them, etc. People were insane. I liked it more than Cory because I wasn't driving. Me under possibly fatal pressure is not a pretty picture. 

The last morning, we did a little photoshoot on the beach. Cory looks like such a model in some of the pictures. Some of you know that whenever I do impersonations, it always ends up sounding like a Mexican with a lisp, who might have a minor disability. Well, my pictures were like my impersonation, but in human form. During the week, we kept seeing girls do photoshoots on the beach with what looked like their mom. They'd be crawling up the beach with this fierce sex kitten face while their mom is like yeah, work it girl. Cory thought it would be funny if I tried that. Negatory. We saw lots of old, saggy, leathery, topless women, some younger more attractive thong butt women (we're happily married so Cory just looked away, while I'm like for real! they have no dimples???), and a variety of men in very very sexy speedos. We took some pictures, but we'll spare you.

It was a wonderful trip!! As an added bonus, we just got a ticket in the mail for the red light Cory ran on the way home from the airport. I've been telling him for months... "Cory, it is illegal to not stop before you turn right at a red!" He's always like bla bla bla it's fine. Boo yah Cory. Laney is the man. So, although I am not a huge fan of making a $75 budget for the ticket, I'm perfectly okay with making a budget called, "Cory will never ever turn right before stopping and Laney is super awesome. The. End." I'm confident this $75 will be an investment. *Disclaimer: Cory really is an awesome driver. He even drives like a grandmother with both hands at 10 and 2 on the wheel. He just had a red light vice.