LEX

in less than 24 hours...

jennie left for california on friday. that means camille and i, amateur dominicans that we are, have been left in puerto plata. alone. but hey, we've been here almost 5 months now, we've got this down pat. right?

so friday evening we decided to make a run to the grocery store and stopped at the movie rental store on the way back. we were literally about to turn into the neighborhood when the car died. completely. it would not move. now camille and i have become expert stick shift drivers, so we felt that maybe there was a temporary laps in driving ability. that's when we suddenly realized we were out of gas.

do not laugh. it is not as rediculous an oversight as you may think. it is often difficult for us to gage when we are out of gas, because the gage on the car is, like time in this country, mas o menos. actually, it's usually menos. so when it says empty, sometimes we really have a fourth of a tank. we knew we were getting low, and had thought of filling up earlier in the day, but those thoughts never took us to the gas station.

so here we are in the middle of the main road, midst the construction and the ever helpful honking horns and stares, despite the use of the hazard lights. we have no one to call, and even if we did, we don't have minutes on our cell phones, and no phone card. we had just about decided that our only option was for me to get out and push the car (up a slight incline, mind you) to the side of the road while camille steered. we would then walk, in the dark, to the gas station (which happens to be right next to the grocery store from which we had just come) to get a carton of gas and walk back to fill up the car. however, since this emergency break was on, the bit about pushing the car obviously did not work. thankfully there were some very kind moto drivers that apparently thought we looked helpless enough to have pity on us. they were smart enough to have us release the emergency break and pushed the car to the side of the road. one moto driver then took us to the gas station, found us an empty crisol carton, filled it with gas, took us back to the car and poured the gas into the tank. he even waited to make sure the car would start and move.

we decided the best plan from here would be to go back to the gas station and fill the tank as much as we could with the money we had. this gave the gas station attendents a second chance to have a good laugh at the crazy gringas. but that was fine, cause we were laughing, too.

now i promise, we're not really this incompetent to live in this country by ourselves. we really will be fine when jennie moves out in february. but i am thankful for the time she has been here to help us get acquainted. and for nice dominican moto drivers who look out for the american girls rather than trying to marry them.

posted by Alexia & Jeffrey @ 10:56 PM