Travels with Matthew

I’m flying over the Atlantic now on my way home to Columbus via Atlanta. The sun is shining, and the atmosphere is hissing as we cut through it, echoing over the sound of my iPod. Punta Cana is silent behind me.

Gary and I took our only excursion today. It began with a low-key, guided trip to a cigar factory and chocolate museum (in which we had only about fifteen minutes to spend, though that was enough time to buy a bar of dark chocolate with salt—yum!).

The cigar and chocolates were followed by a quick tour of a Taino cave, bats included. The Taino are the now-extinct indigenous peoples of the Caribbean, and the cave is where some group of them once lived. Adjacent to the cave, and the real reason for the stop, was to have a rum tasting in the farmacia—yes, that’s what they call the place. Apparently, “farmacia” is an example of what my Spanish teacher called a “false cognate”—a word in another language that sound like an English word but that means something different. This farmacia seemed to exist only to sell rum in hand-painted bottles and perhaps a souvenir or two. We did get to see the artists working, and that was a minor treat. They would add your name or the date or whatever text you requested to your bottle if you bought rum; otherwise, they just painted a routine set of ten or fifteen designs, one to each bottle. We also got to sample eight different flavored rums. That was pretty much it.

I probably sound condescending but the tour actually was interesting, thought not necessarily in the way that the operators intended. And I did enjoy “getting off the reservation,” as Gary puts it, and seeing more real people, people not paid to smile at me and say, “¡Hola!”

After the cultural tour, we stopped at a beach-side market that was just too annoying. Every stall was filled with either tourist art or tee-shirts/scarves/other “souvenir” clothing. There were a few jewelry stalls, but otherwise, not much to get excited about buying. What made it so annoying, though, was the incessant harassment by the peddlers. It was a cacophony of “My friend…,” “Can I ask you something…,” “Now is my turn…,” “Come into my shop, please.” God forbid you express interest in anything; you’d never get away without having to buy it. One fellow caught Gary looking at his necklaces and just wouldn’t let up. Somewhat smartly, he offered both Gary and me cheap necklaces—a cord with a bit of bamboo on it—as a gift. My mind immediately jumped back to the woman in the Bangkok visitors’ kiosk whom Tony, Jan, and I consulted. “Nothing in this city is free,” she admonished. “If anyone offers you anything for free, back away.” I declined the necklace politely, but Gary ended up taking his. And buying another.

After about 10 minutes of the barking, we’d had enough and planted ourselves at a beach cantina for water, beer, and nachos. That’s how we spent the last hour outside of the resort. We were supposed to visit a mall, but it was getting late, and a couple of the women on the bus said that the mall, which they’d visited last year, wasn’t worth the trouble. I think one couple was disappointed, but we were behind schedule, and I had a plane to catch.

A quick dash to my room to change into winter clothes and a quick dash back to the shuttle, which the bellman kindly held for me, and my vacation had come to a close. The shuttle deposited me at the airport, and after much waiting in line to check in and more time in line waiting to get through customs, I found a seat in the noisy, crowded, but nonetheless charming terminal. That’s when I started noticing something that ultimately led me to the title of today’s post.

For four days, I had been hearing broken English and lots of Spanish. I had also practiced my Spanish as much as I could. In fact, I got ahead of myself sometimes. Several people laughed good-naturedly when, after I spoke to them in Spanish, they replied in kind only to find that I couldn’t follow what they were saying. I can put sentence together, but I have no ear for the language yet. Anyway, I had been trying to think in Spanish as well as speak it, so I had already somewhat destabilized the language center in my brain. In the airport terminal, the only seats I could find were in the midst of a large Russian tour group. Adding the Russian to the Spanish being spoken around me and to the highly accented English being broadcast non-stop over the PA system (rendered as the voice of Charlie Brown’s teacher by the poor speakers and hard surfaces in the cavernous area) caused me to lose all sense of language. Everything became just static, a din, and I half wondered if I’d be able to understand English again.

It was a bit startling when someone finally did pass by speaking English and I found that yes, I do have to work to get hold of what he’s saying. It was a curious phenomenon, and in some ways, a disconcerting one—to be a person without a language—but it was also a liberating one. It can be totally disorienting, but it is also a reminder that I’m a citizen of a world larger than the one where I spend most of my days. It reminds me that I can strip away all of the surface things that separate me from Dominicans and Russians and find that we’re not all that different. We all wear clothes that don’t fit right and that make us look a little bit funny. We all have accidents and break or legs or our arms. We all get old and need help boarding a plane. We all get tired of waiting in lines. We all get hungry. We all want to touch others and have them respond.

Losing language helps me get down to my humanity, and I think it’s one of the things I like most about travel to places where English is not the native language.

Yesterday was so enjoyable that I thought maybe I should repeat myself. And so I did. This morning, Gary again had a meeting, and so I was on my own until about noon. After getting cleaned up, I headed out for breakfast, but I decided to try a different buffet. It was basically the same as the buffet I had yesterday, though today’s restaurant was near the kiddie pool, and the average age of the diner was considerably lower. The group in front of me in line consisted of four adults and eleven kids under ten.

Bacon and sausage again with a roll and a chocolate muffin and a cup of darjeeling tea, and I was off for a walk on the beach. I went in the opposite direction. (I’ll call it east, though I really have no idea which direction I was walking.) About half way on, I thought, “Hmm. I’m clearly on the beach adjacent to a different resort. Perhaps I am not allowed to be here,” but I kept walking anyway. The beach was fairly crowded, so I was surprised when a woman picked me out and said hello. She was obviously an employee of the adjacent resort, but at first, I couldn’t figure out how she picked me out as a stranger. The I remembered the Hard Rock wristband that I’m required to wear on the resort. Crap.

It turned out, though, that she didn’t confront me after all. I think she was just letting me know that she was aware that I had wandered off my resort. I walked for another quarter hour and then turned back. Gary reassured me later that legally, the beaches are all public, so I hadn’t trespassed after all.

It was warmer today than yesterday, so I made a pit stop to the room to cool off a bit, then I went over to the resort’s main building to shop for souvenirs and meet Gary for lunch. Here is the pond near our building with an egret or crane in the distance.

Gary has been enamored of the Mexican restaurant—Los Gallos—in which we ate dinner on Wednesday, so we went back there for a very light lunch. A trip back to the same pool we visited yesterday rounded out the afternoon. Here are a few photos from the day (again, sorry about the quality).

Slathered in sunblock, I grabbed a quick shower then hung out with Gary for a little while on the balcony. Eventually, though, the craving for ice cream bested me, and I went over to the main resort building for two scoops of chocolate chip gelato.

Tonight was the main dinner for Gary’s company, so while I was gone he started getting ready for that. It was actually a really nice evening—not a lot of speechifying, pretty good food, and really nice chatting. I sat next to Ryan, another “+1” and the husband of one of Gary’s colleagues who I met yesterday. He coaches rowing in Virginia, so we talked about that a for much of the evening. I also met Cherie Marchio, whose name I know from Prentice Hall days and with whom I share contacts at Pearson. I didn’t get much time to talk with Cherie or her “+1,” Rachel (I hope I have that right), who was at Merrill (which became Macmillan, which became Prentice Hall) and knew some of the same people whom I know. We had a really fun table; I wish I could have spent more time talking with everyone, but it was just too loud to hear and be heard at either end of the table.

After dinner, we were supposed to go the the nightclub, but Gary is a bit under the weather, so I think we’re going to pass. Tomorrow, we have a shopping excursion and then I head back to cold Columbus. I’ll post-mortem tomorrow during my flight home.

Lazy morning today. Though I didn’t go into it in yesterday’s post, the latter three quarters of my traveling were as unpleasant as they always seem to be for me. On the Atlanta-to-Punta Cana leg of my flight, I found myself in the middle of…oh, let’s be kind…a rough-and-tumble family from North Dakota—twenty or twenty-five people heading to Punta Cana for a wedding. Many were too loud, too drunk, and too heavy for comfort. When the woman in the seat next to you for three hours is spilling over from her seat into yours, effectively wedging you up against the fuselage of the plane, you can be you’ll bet creaky and cranky when you finally disembark. And so I was. Having the class-clown—or rather, the family clown—sitting directly in front of you and cracking jokes for all his relatives five or six rows in front of and behind him didn’t help.

When I finally arrived at the resort and completed the “leisurely” check-in process, I took the tram to my room, only it never got to my room. I don’t know if the driver was unable to hear me say “Building 1” or was unable to understand “One. Uno.” Whatever the case, after circling the property—and it’s a big property—we ended up back at the lobby. I decided it looked like a pleasant evening for a walk. And so I did, arriving at my room three hours after we landed.

That’s really all just to say that I was tired last night, so I slept in this morning. I did, however, have a pretty great day after I finally made myself get out of bed. The beds, by the way, appear to be magical. They feel like fairly comfortable but otherwise ordinary beds, but when I got up, I was feeling absolutely no back pain. (I pulled my lower back last Saturday putting Christmas decorations in the attic. I’ve learned to appreciate the smell of Ben-Gay and the Icy Hot Patch.) The back pain is back but lessened. Still, no zip lines for me this trip.

I thought about ordering breakfast in, but then I thought, “You know, you’re only here for two and a half days. You should go out and stroll around a bit. Get breakfast out.” And so I went. As seems to be common in tropical locales like this, it was drizzly in the morning, so after a false start, I retrieved my umbrella and headed for breakfast. I ate at a buffet restaurant that looks out over the beach. Small pancakes. Bacon AND sausage. Pastries. Darjeeling tea. Sigh. Lovely.

By the time I was done with breakfast, the rain had stopped and the sky was clearing, so I decided to go for a walk on the beach. Many of my friends who live near beaches will confirm that this is one of my favorite things to do, especially at night, and especially when the breeze is blowing. I walked for about 40 minutes, got passed by a tour group on horseback along the way (waited while the tide wash the road apples out to sea), and just enjoyed looking at my footprints in the sand.

I met up with Gary a little after 11. We wandered a bit, then had some lunch. (I got a salad in today even though it’s “I can eat whatever I want” Thursday; I’m proud of that.) He had a few things he wanted to do, so we separated for a bit. I changed into my swimsuit and staked out a big, hammocky thing at a nearby pool so I could continue reading Animal Farm. (The resort has lots of pools; I picked the adults-only pool because it’s calmer and quieter. Mostly.) Call me crazy, but I love reading Orwell on vacation. He’s intellectual enough to activate my mind in an otherwise lazy setting, but he’s not so challenging that I have to work at what he’s saying. I’m running out of his novels, though, and am going to have to start reading his essays.

Gary joined me shortly after I arrived, and we ended up having a really nice conversation about the movie, The Life of Pi, books, and just stuff. I can’t remember most of it, but it was thoughtful and thought-provoking (though apparently not memorable!) and just pleasant. We returned to the room, whereupon, Gary took a nap and I worked on finishing my book. Gary does like to talk, so of course, there was lots of talking filling in the gaps of all these activities as well as after he woke up.

He had been talking since before we arrived about going to a Brazilian steak house that was located here, and we’d fixed tonight as the night to do that, so after he got cleaned up and I got changed, we headed over to what was actually a pretty good meal. If you’re not familiar with Brazilian steakhouses, the concept is that fellows walk around the restaurant with different kinds of meat on sabers. They stop at your table and offer you beef, chicken, pork, lamb, sausage, chicken hearts (apparently; we didn’t see those). If you want the meat they’re offering, the slice you off a portion as large or small as you want. This circus continues until you’ve had all the meat you can stomach. Different steakhouses embellish the process in different ways, but at this steakhouse, Ipanema, the waiter brings rice, French fries, red beans, vegetables, and a couple sauces to your table while you are free to visit the salad bar, which includes breads, shrimp, cheeses, and other appetizers along with desserts (and, if its not obvious, different salads). I had beef and pork. And so did Gary, though he also had lamb and sausage. We didn’t know that chicken was available until we were full.

At the end of the meal, we were treated (?) to a flaming dessert. It was a lot of show, and if you like that kind of thing, it was probably fairly tasty. The waiter first brought us chunks of pineapple on a plate. He returned with two porcelain gravy boats, one of which was filled with flaming Sambuco. All for show (and it really was pretty to see), he poured the flaming Sambuco in a ribbon of blue and orange flame back and forth from gravy boat to gravy boat. After a few passes, he poured it onto the pineapple. Eventually, of course, the Sambuco burned away, and we could eat the pineapple. I hear you out there. Yes, I did try it. I didn’t like it, but I tried it. Licorice and pineapple aren’t a great pairing in my palate.

You might think you get the joke in my title, but there’s more to it than the pineapple flambé that we had for dessert. Gary, like nature, abhors a vacuum, and though I’m an excellent listener, I’m not usually a talker. Gary was getting a little frustrated, though, that he was always doing the talking (even though he said he was happy to sit in silence and just enjoy the company, he really couldn’t bear silence at all) while I listened and nodded, so I felt like it was time that I step up and start a conversation for once. And so I brought up religion and faith and spirituality, which are often on my mind, though I rarely discuss them. I won’t go into the whole conversation—that’s too much for a blog post. The important thing, and the coincidence that inspired tonight’s title, is that, according to Gary, the kinds of spiritual questions with which I have been wrestling are brilliantly summarized—and in some ways addressed, I think, though not resolved—in The Life of Pi. For the second time today, that movie came up, and it seems like a portent or a sign that perhaps I may find some answers there—or at least new ways to approach my questions (which, really are the same spiritual and existential questions that everyone asks). He loved the movie and has declared it among the best five movies he’s ever seen, and now Gary is now desperate that I see the and tell him what I think. And so I will. Though I expect I’ll witness lost of flame and lovely show but ultimately will be left with only pineapple and licorice.

I never had any real desire to go to Hispañola, so how I ended up on a flight to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic probably takes some explanation.

When I worked for Prentice Hall in the mid-1990s, I met (and briefly dated) an inside salesman named Gary. Before we started going out, I would sometimes arrive at my desk and find candy on my keyboard. The first time it happened, I didn’t know where it had come from, but it didn’t take much longer for me to realize that Gary was stopping by my office in the evening after I’d left. I’d met Gary in an elevator on the way in one morning, and my intuition—my gaydar–whispered to me that he was a “fellow traveller,” to use an old euphemism.

Our dating history was brief, but Gary and I remained friends even after he left Prentice Hall to become an outside-sales rep for another company. We didn’t see each other very often but tried to get together at least a few times a year for the Gallery Hop or to see a show or movie.

Gary is an incredibly nice guy with a kid’s heart. He’s very easy to tease and embarrass, and each time he takes an interest in something—food, an online game, a book—he effuses an exuberance that can only be described as childlike. He doesn’t at all fit the stereotype of a salesman—brash, arrogant, cocky, pushy. Nonetheless, he is pretty successful at peddling books. I’ve been hearing from him for years about how he has made this or that sales goal and earned a trip to some exotic locale. Do you see where this is going?

A year or two ago, Gary was telling Mark and me about a trip to somewhere in Europe from which he’d just returned and mildly bemoaning that he always has to go on these trips alone. While he’s perfectly comfortable traveling by himself—Gary has never met a stranger—he felt it would be nice sometimes to share the experience with someone. Jokingly, Mark pimped me off. “Matthew hates the winter here; you should take him when you earn a winter trip.” Gary, as enthusiastically as always, agreed that was a great idea. I thought Gary was just being polite and that the proposal ended there. I was not correct.

Right before Christmas, Gary called me. “Hey. I was remembering a conversation you and Mark and I had. It’s totally okay if you’re not interested. I won a trip to the Dominican Republic from my company and wondered if you want to come.” His invitation threw men into a little bit of a tizzy. I had to make a decision within a few days, and I didn’t know what my workload was going to be like or if I could justify a trip after having just been in New York. Besides that, I take after my Mom and have a hard time letting other people do me favors. I spent the next day or two sort of trying to find a way out of going when Gary called looking for an answer. About the same time he called, it occurred to me that the conference—that’s really what the trip is—would include production staff and that I might make business contacts there and, if I were lucky, get a new client.

A high school teachers of mine presented my class with a dilemma once. I can’t remember exactly how he phrased it, but essentially, he asked, “For a dollar, would you go to bed with someone you didn’t like?” Our resounding “No,” was followed by his, “Well, would you do it for ten thousand dollars.” “Of course!” we replied only to be met with “Okay, we’ve established what you are; now we’re just haggling over the price.” I suppose in some way, we’ve established what I am but also my price. I’ll go on an all-expenses-paid vacation to a Caribbean island and feel indebted to my friend as long as I can justify the trip as a chance to build my business.

That’s sarcasm, really. I’m grateful to Gary for sharing his good fortune with me, and I hope some day I’ll be able to repay the favor. (It will bug me until I do!) Right now, I’m flying over little bits of land in the Atlantic. The ocean is the blue of the sky, but around the islands and islets, it’s the loveliest shade of turquoise.

As an aside, since my camera was stolen from my car in October, I have to rely on my iPhone camera. It’s not great, but I’ll try to get some decent pictures to add to the balance of my posts from Punta Cana.