Day 2 - Buffet table...here I come!

Our IPhone wake up call got us out of bed at 8am.  Feeling very parched & rough this morning after all those RON, pineapple juice & soda drinks from the night before.  Showered & slowly met up with the gang in Jodi's room to head down for brekkie.  Mr. "up at the crack of dawn" had already walked the beach & reserved beach chairs for us.

A wide smile grew across my face as we encountered many tables of food, glorious food down in the breakfast hall - pastries, fruit, cheese, fresh bread, cereal, fried pinapple? & mashed banana? Hmmm, ok.  Lineup for eggs & omelets, lineup to make toast on one of those conveyor belt doo-ma-flickies.  All the fruit drinks were powdered so passed on mimosas - for now.  Miles & miles of food but when you get down to selection, there wasn't much that really appealed to me - maybe it was just the hangover talking.  Oh well, just nibbled on a bit of everything - might try the waffles tmrw.

10am Attended the welcome meeting with our Transat Holidays rep - learned the ins & outs of the area & the resort & got some ideas on possible excursions for the upcoming week.

While everyone else headed to the beach, I hung back to look into moving our room to poolside.  With a huge language barrier impeding communication, I seemed to be repeatedly brushed off with a "come back later" - and that I did - and it paid off.  By 4pm we were just a few doors down from Jodi & Ken in room 4309!!  Made sure to steal a couple of Presidentes from the old room in the move to the new room.  But now back to the beach...

The boys & I had a blast frolicking in the ocean waves then Lindsay came to join in on the fun.  After drying off & soaking up some sun, we thought we'd try out the poolside BBQ for some burgers & weinies.  The burgers were swimming in a little pool of their own so everyone was sure to take the ones stacked on other drowning burgers.  Al was a fan of the BBQ chicken & I seemed to take to the weinies.  Inside there were another couple of tables of buffet food & a side table for salads.  With full tummies we spent the afternoon poolside.  With Ken fast asleep, the rest of us tested the cocktail slinging abilities of the Dorito, the barkeep while watching the poolside activities & dancing.  In a slight rum-induced haze, we enjoyed people watching:  jiggle butt girl, the 10 yr topless girl none of us approved of and the lonely stray black dog.  Security seemed apprehensive to approach the poor thing but it was eventually removed by a guest using his belt as a makeshift leash & collar.  The drinking continued & our empty plastic cup castle grew higher & higher until I just couldn't hold it anymore & had to break the seal - signalling the time to get ready for the evening.  Everyone thought it was pretty funny that I didn't think my bladder would make it to the room.

Fresh & clean, we all met up again in the courtyard where peddlers had set up to sell their wares, or someone's wares anyway.  It would've been nice to take some special Dominican made craft home - we were quite disappointed by the cheap, mass-produced paintings, jewellery & carvings that were nearly pushed on us by the persistent vendors.  They would be back every second day that week & we would be sure to avoid running into them.

Killed time before dinner in the lobby...drinking...again...served by who would become our favourite hostess Elizabeth.  Was a bit of an effort finding the Dominican restaurant - arriving 30 min early, we were thankful they let us in.  I was rather partial to the a la carte restaurants mostly because of the quality of the food & the presentation compared to the buffet.  You had a choice of one item from each of 4 courses. We all tried the mofongo appetizer - think I can remember what it was?  I just know it was fried & mashed.  Between the 6 of us we selected the guinea hen, lobster & coconut fish.  Somehow poor Ged got one of the fish bones painfully wedged in his gums so he headed back to the room to fight with it - that would be just the tip of the iceberg for Ged's week.  Jodi was gracious enough to help anyone who wasn't fond of their sweet of coconut, the sweet of pineapple was a little off too.

Next stop was our first taste of the resort's entertainment - back in the huge theatre where we "feasted" on weinies & sandwiches the previous night.  "Circus, circus" was tonight's theme which unfortunately was zapping our energy & enthusiasm.  With MUCH effort, we finally got a round of tequilas to get us back in the mood but even that was bad.  Before the show was over, we got up and left. Ged & Al got a shot of Cointreau at Lobby Bar (I) & a Drambuie at Lobby Bar (II).  Although the disco was opening in 5 min & we were standing right in front of the stairway to it, we passed & headed to Ged & Lindsay's room for some late night joke-telling til nearly midnight.

After a long day, we walked into our room to find - no A/C.  Welcome to the Barcelo =) *sigh*