Santo Do-Mango

I like to consider myself an very environmentally friendly person. I recycle, I always attempt to pick up any trash that I happen to find strewn about. When diving I always gather up any fishing line I find wrapped around coral, or plastic on the reef. So it comes as a big surprise to me, that I was very nearly arrested and locked up abroad...for littering.

It happened in 2009 when I was living in the Dominican Republic. Some friends of mine and I decided to make the 4 hour drive to the capital city Santo Domingo to do some shopping. Taking along our Dominican friend Claudio for protection and his native knowledge of the country, we loaded up on snacks, beers, tunes, and headed out on our adventure.

The first leg of our journey passed uneventfully, we ate our snacks and drank our beers as we cruised across the countryside. Now I'm not sure about the entire country, but from what I experienced, the DR doesn't have any real trash collection system to speak of. Trash is piled up and burned sporadically, or just dumped here or there along the road. Being the Green Eco Friendly person I am, I collected the bottles and bags of chips to throw away when we got back to a gas station, or restaurant or something. Meanwhile, my friends shook their heads at my naiveté and continued to whip their empties out the window. 

When we reached Santo Domingo we did our shopping and were cruising around when we noticed a guy selling mangoes on the side of the road. Claudio pulled up and asked the guy how much they cost. 100 pesos for 10.  That's about $3 for 10 enormous, fresh, juicy, mangoes. We bought all he had and made him go get more.

So the backseat full of mangoes, and us tearing happily away at the bright orange flesh, juice dripping down our cheeks we proceeded to head home. Having earlier found something that resembled a trashcan, I had thrown away my bag of garbage. And after asking Claudio what I should do with my mango peel, he responded, "throw it out the damn window already!"

Seeing as how it was a mango peel and easily biodegradable, I lowered my window and dropped a piece of mango peel onto the street below.

That was about 30 seconds before 2 Dominican motorcycle police pulled up beside us and began banging on my window.

Claudio cursed and lowered the window only to leave me face to face with two irate dominicans screaming at me in rapid spanish. 

My spanish officially having fled in my terror, Claudio took over trying to talk to the police. 
 Here is a translated breakdown on their conversation:

Claudio: I'M SORRY! I'M SORRY!..what did she do?

Police: THIS GIRL IS THROWING GARBAGE ALL OVER THE STREET! WE CAN TAKE HER TO JAIL FOR THAT!

Claudio: I'm sorry! She's Canadian...she doesn't know any better!

Me: but i'm Ameri-

Claudio (to me, in english): SHUT UP!

Police: she wouldn't do that in her own country! what makes you think it's ok for her to do it here?!

Claudio: I'm very sorry, it won't happen again! She knows now.

Police: she is going to have to pay a fine!

Claudio ( to me)  : give me 1000 pesos! hurry! 
(to the police) Here you go... see, no problem. *smiles*

Police: *taking the money and pocketing it while glaring at me* Ok. go away now. 

Claudio wasted no time in getting us the hell out of there. About a mile down the road my friend Julia (who spent the whole morning whipping waterbottles onto the street) turned around and in hysterical laughter sputters out, "you just got publicly flogged for littering a mango peel!!!!!!" 

I failed to see the humor. 

As we left the city, we passed the penitentiary. Laughing, Claudio turned to me and asked, "you sure you no wanna go to to the jail?"

Looking at all the razor wire and armed guards, I'd never been so sure of anything in my life.

Rhythm of the night

While I was going to culinary school in Chicago I had the unique opportunity to visit Paris, France. What started as an offhand comment about sunglasses soon turned into a very expensive "learning opportunity". It started when Farra and I were in the library at school, she mentioned that her designer sunglasses were broken and she needed to get a new pair. When I suggested that she go downtown and get some new ones, she looked at me like I'd proposed the preposterous. "My love…you cannot get these sunglasses just ANYWHERE, they are from Paris!"
Now Farra is a short little Filipino firecracker of a woman. Her English is that of someone whom I imagine spent a great deal of time watching American infomercials and QVC as a child, interspersed with exclamations like, "But wait! There's MORE!" and other overly enthusiastic comments about everyday items, "Try this Biscotti, it's EXTRAORDINARY! Hurry this offer won't last long!" Farra could usually be found wearing some sort of high end fashion, at least higher end than whatever I could dig out of the bargain bin at Rag-o-rama, so if she says these sunglasses can only be found in Paris…I'll take her word for it.
"Well then, we'll just have to fly to Paris and get some more," I told her. Turning to our friend Noelle sitting behind us, "Hey Farra and I are going to Paris to buy sunglasses…wanna get in on this?" I joked.
But the joke was on me; Farra went home and talked to a travel agent and came to school the next day with a quote. "My love, I found us a trip to Paris over spring break for the great price of $900, WHAT A DEAL!"
Now to me, a deal is getting a dented can of corn at the grocery store for half off, or haggling down the price of some pots and pans at a yard sale to somewhere under a dollar….$900 was not a deal to me. To my broke and starving 19 year old self, $900 was a fortune….but being an American I have a credit card and an incredibly impulsive personality, so I was actually considering it.
Word spread quickly that we were going to France, and we soon had several people interested in going with us. One morning as I was headed to class I was stopped by one of my instructors, apparently she had spoken to the President of Le Cordon Bleu-Paris and had gotten the ok for us to sit in on some classes. It was the opening I needed. I suddenly had a legitimate reason to go to Paris, and I could use my recently won scholarship money to do so. I called Farra and let her know I was in, we were going to Paris.
Reservations were made, bags were packed, and a few weeks later we were in Paris. Now I wish it had been the learning experience I'd hoped it would be…however I spent most of my trip drinking wine, and eating bread and wandering around Paris without any particular destination in mind. I also fought with the other girls fairly frequently as we could never agree on what we wanted to do or where we wanted to eat. But one thing we did agree on is that we wanted to party, and Farra wanted to go clubbing.
Being the mastermind of our trip to Paris, Farra was put in charge of finding us a club to go to. She told us of this very posh club she had heard about and off we went. On the way we stopped at a bar for a few pre club cocktails. Getting our 19 year old drink on, we proceeded to act ridiculous. Linking straws together we attempted to make an elaborate SUPER STRAW, the drunker we got, the more outrageous our behavior.

Feeling adequately liquored up we decided to head to this "Posh Club" Farra had been talking about nonstop for the past week.
After procuring directions we made our way to the nightclub, or Discotheque as they are referred to in Europe. My first inclination that something was amiss was when we arrived at the club and there was no line. We could hear music blasting from within and were met by a bouncer at the door. He told us it would cost 20 Euros to enter….
Eff that. With the current exchange rate €20 was around $35 USD. No freaking way. So as we decided to split, he stopped us. "10 Euro and free drink!"
That should have been my second clue; no "posh club" I've ever heard of haggles the cover charge…but we decided to go for it.
We followed the thumping music down a hallway to where the club opened up into a lounge area.
It was DESERTED.
Well not completely, there was what appeared to be a homeless person, and apparently a transvestite grooving on the dance floor. Other than that, we were the only patrons.
We burst out laughing.
"Well it is a Wednesday…." Farra stated as we took in the emptiness.
We laughed harder, and then proceeded to get our free drinks. I ordered a rhum coke and was given a tumbler full of cheap spiced rum with the smallest splash of coke inside. It was terrible.

 Below is a picture of the empty club.

Soon enough the homeless man took notice of the 5 American girls huddled in a booth and began to accost us. Grinding on our table and beckoning us towards the dance floor he proceeded to spend the next 45 min chasing us around the bar. If one of us got up to go to the bathroom, there he was. We soon adopted the buddy system and after that proved futile we abandoned the club entirely.
We pounced on Farra, who defended her choice of venue emphatically. "We should have gone on a weekend! It would be much better on a weekend!"
We decided to head back to the bar we were originally at, and after a couple rounds of drinks we were informed that some gentlemen across the bar would like to offer us some drinks. We accepted whole heartedly.
Soon after that we were told that our presence was required at the bar, where we were to do shots. Again, we acquiesced.
Liquors were poured and shots were downed, one after the other. Rainbow shots, taste of hell, and soon absinthe.
"AMERICAN GIRLS DANCE ON THE BAR!"
And we did.
Drinks in hand we danced on the bar, like a less sexy version of coyote ugly.

And on it continued.
Somewhere around 3 we were informed that the bar was closing…but the American girls could stay.
They kicked out the other patrons, with the exception of the men who had bought us drinks, and locked the doors. We didn't find anything wrong with this situation….at least not immediately.
The party was in full swing and the drinks were flowing. We were on spring break in Paris!
I'd slowed down considerably after they'd locked us in and about an hour later conscious thought began to reform. What the hell were we doing?
It was about this time we got our bar tab from the bartender.
€400!
Ashen faced, I handed the tab to my friends. Eyes bugged out as we whispered to each other at our inability to pay such a high bill….
One my my friends, who shall remain nameless, solved this problem. She grabbed one of the guys and proceeded to make out with him. Another girl followed suit. Soon they were pulling wads of cash out of their pockets and were paying for our bill. The bartender unlocked the door and we were free.
Out into the streets of Paris we stumbled, followed by a group of French men. As my friends untangled themselves from these men, we attempted to flee back to our hotel. Clearly they had other things in mind.
"No, we go back to hotel!"
"American girls come home with us!"
"NOOO go away"
Begging, the men followed after us as we stumbled towards to hotel.
In desperation we began to insult them, batting them away like stray dogs trying to follow us home.
Finally, they gave up and we were free.
Into the hostel we tumbled. The clocks reading somewhere around 5 am.
Our flight home was at 11 am
Alarms were set, and we passed out for our nap.
I have never had a worse flight anywhere than the flight home from Paris. Groggy, hungover, reeking of booze and cigarette smoke.
But I have also never had as much fun at a bar as I did that night.
Yes, I realize that our behavior was stupid and dangerous…but that's part of what made it so much fun. These are the shoulda coulda woulda experiences people are always telling me to seize. It was my one and only college spring break, but it will remain embedded in my mind forever….what I can remember of it at least.

Lessons in Parallel Parking, with Reggie the Homeless Vendor

Before I begin I'd like to apologize to my mother, who also reads this blog. I realize that the events that are about to follow are the results of my deliberate disobedience. Sorry.

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It astounds me how many extremely stupid and dangerous situations I've put myself in, and yet escaped unscathed. Looking back on them I shake my head, and have to laugh at my level of ignorance and disregard for my own safety. I like to treat each of these as life lessons in the school of hard knocks; I mean there's nothing like a little blind terror to hammer the point home.

One of these such occasions occurred in the Fall of 2005. I was in my junior year of High School and had just received my driver's license, I had my own car, and life was pretty good. For the most part, I was a very responsible young woman. I Worked 2 part time jobs, got good grades, I didn't do drugs or party…..I was pretty lame. There are of course a few exceptions, most of which have their own stories which will be told in due time. But the big one, the one that I look back on in such amazement, was the night I learned to parallel park.

I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with St Louis, but it is home to 2 of the greatest things in the world, The first is CITY MUSEUM. Easily my favorite place on earth; an ex shoe factory turned playground. From basement to rooftop this building has been transformed into a fantastical world of caverns and forests, ball pits and tunnels, slides, ferris wheels, circuses, aquariums, and more. This ever expanding, always changing fantasy land is made of recycled materials, and is open till the wee hours of the morning so red faces children and adults alike can run and jump and sweat and fall and laugh the night away.

My second favorite place in St Louis is Mauritzio's Pizza. There isn't much reason for this restaurant to be my favorite; in fact the average person would walk in, take a look around and deem it, to be quite frank, a shit hole. But despite the dark and dingy interior, the pizza is just the way I like it, a good New York style pie in a city that for some reason prefers their pizza served on crackers. It's down the street from city museum, and it's open all the time.

At the time of this particular adventure I'd been to both City Museum and Mauritzio's pizza exactly once; having never driven to either, but having been completely blown away by both. I craved the adventure of city museum, the wonders to be marveled at, the fun to be had, and being the foodie I am I yearned for a hot slice of a good pizza. Now realizing that there was no way in hell my parents would allow me to drive to St. Louis city on a Friday night, my best friend and I concocted a plan….

I realize now that there was a good reason my parents would not want me driving to St Louis City on a Friday night, the city is a hodgepodge of one way streets alternating between numbers and names, the traffic is unpredictable, the locals…unsavory. To those of you that don't know, St Louis is to this day one of the most dangerous cities in America, and in 2005 was deemed by MSNBC, THE MOST DANGEROUS CITY IN AMERICA! I'm not lying, look it up. So it's not really all that hard to understand why they wouldn't want an inexperienced 17 year old driver gallivanting around. But I was 17 and I was master of my universe and I knew everything about everything, and my best friend and I wanted to go to St Louis so goddamnit we were going to St Louis.

It started with the age old switcheroo; I told my parents I was spending the night at her house, she told hers that she'd be at mine. Classic. Foolproof. We then decided that we'd use her car, since mine was a 1992 Plymouth Acclaim and hers was slightly less god awful. It was also decided that since I am fearless I'd be the driver and she would be my copilot. Such plans we had. We then took off around dark to experience the wonders of St Louis City.

I see now that this plan was doomed from the start; in 2005 neither of us had GPS, or google powered smart phones, all we had was a vague sense of direction and a lingering recollection of the last time we'd been to the city. Neither of us could remember the cross streets of our intended destinations and had no idea how to navigate the endless one way streets. We spent hours going the wrong way down the wrong streets trying to get to City Museum, which we could see thanks to the huge school bus perched on the top of the building. Finally we arrived, paid for parking in the secure lot, and proceeded to spend the next few hours having fun.

When hunger pains finally started to make themselves known, we abandoned the relative safety of city museum for food. Bypassing the closer food options that surrounded City Museum, and the pizza restaurant that is actually INSIDE, we took off for "that one pizza restaurant we went to that one time".

Now it is very easy to get to Mauritzio's from CM on foot, you just go down and over a few blocks and you are there. It is much harder to get there by car, especially when you don't know the cross streets, the name of the restaurant, or which road is one way or two way. Also it helps to know how to parallel park, since you know…almost ALL of the parking in STL is parallel.

But since we aren't STUPID we weren't about to walk around the city at night by ourselves. We'd just figure it out as we went along.

Hours wasted driving the wrong way around the city- Take 2!

Officially lost, but in the general area of the restaurant, we decided to park and commence the rest of the adventure on foot. The problem being I had never parallel parked a car before. I'd seen it done a few times but I'd never attempted it and I'd certainly never attempted to do it in my best friend's car. But seeing how no problem is insurmountable I gave it my best. Over. And over. And over. I was beginning to draw a crowd. Namely an older bedraggled looking African American fellow. After my 15^th or maybe 16^th attempt to get this car into the space he approached my window.

I rolled it down just a crack.

He stuck his whole face in the crack of my window and proceeded to tell me I was doing it all wrong. Followed by how to do it right.

"Now back it up there sweetheart! Yeah, that's right. Now yous needs to get this ting in front of the space….so bring it forwards a bit. Uh huh now bring your wheel allll the way to the left….NO MORE! Ok yeah just like that. Now back it up juss a bit, and start turning your wheel back around. more more HARD RIGHT! Ok. Good. Now forward. Straighten it out there sugar. Ok. Back just a bit. You got this shit!"

A flawless parallel park job.

Hesitant to get out of the car, but desperate to get where we were going I rolled the window down a bit more and asked him, "Hey, we're trying to find a pizza place around here…you happen to know where one might be?"

He scratched is scruff in consideration for a moment then responded, "Muh muh muh- MAURITZIOS!!!!!"

I looked at my friend and we burst out into shouts of glee, "YES! That's the place! Where is it?"

"it ain't far" he replied, "I can take ya there if ya want. My name is Reggie, I'm a homeless vendor for the city of St Louis." He told me as he shoved a laminated permit badge in through the window, followed by his whole hand for me to shake.

I shook his hand and gave him back his badge. Then with a look at my friend climbed out of the car.

"Don't forget to lock the door there honey," he reminded me as we shut the doors, "Now follow me".

AND WE DID.

Down the block, and into an alley we followed this homeless vendor, at two in the morning we followed him into the dark heart of St Louis. This is the point where I realized how incredibly stupid I was. This is also the point where I realized I was likely going to get mugged, or worse. The panic began to well inside of me. I looked to my friend, she seemed unconcerned. I know now she was terrified, but she hid it well.

Through a dark alley Reggie led us, then up another block and there we were. Mauritzios Pizza. Brightly lit, crowded, Mauritzios Pizza. I breathed a sigh of relief.

"Ok ladiesss, now as I was sayin, I am a homeless vendor. I am homeless not helpless, now I'm selling these here magazines and if you could find it in your hearts to help me out as I helped you out tonight, I'd be greatly appreciatin that."

And there I go nodding along, so happy to be alive that I just whip out my wallet, full of money, and give him $5.

Out of nowhere appears some other "homeless vendor" right next to me. He gets right in my face and asks, "Can I has some money too?!"

Terrified and ready to be done with this whole mess I shove a couple dollars at him, thank Reggie and bolt into the restaurant.

Where my friend and I proceed to break down.

Hands shaking, in panicked voices, we freak out. And then marvel that we are still alive, with most of our money, at the restaurant and not in some gutter somewhere. We order a pizza, scarf it down, and haul ass back to the car. The whole ride home laughing at our stupidity, and marveling at our luck. We decide that since we are the luckiest girls in the world we should buy some scratch off Lotto Tickets; my friend buys them and proceeds to win $2, we are the luckiest girls in the world. Except now it is 4 am, and we have nowhere to go since both our parents believe we are at each other's house. So we head to an older friend's apartment, and after waking him up and telling him all about our near death experience, pass out on the couch. Happy to be alive.

 

To this day I am an excellent parallel parker, and I guess I have Reggie to thank for that. And for you know…not raping me.