In Hindsight – The Honeymoon

A view from one of the hotels we stayed at

As I’ve written about the wedding, it follows I should write about the honeymoon (no, not like that, you pervs).

For our honeymoon, we went to the Dominican Republic. And while our honeymoon did involve laying about on beautiful beaches with crystal-clear water and gorging ourselves silly, it also involved sketchy cab drivers, a 1 a.m. trip to the hospital and a helpful hooker.

Let’s start at the beginning.

Right after the wedding (seriously, right after the wedding), Bjorn and I were getting in the car, preparing to drive to the airport to depart for said honeymoon, when MILD EXPLETIVE! Bjorn slammed the trunk on his pinkie finger.

“Let’s go to the emergency room,” I said, eyeing his already-swollen pinkie.
“Oh no,” he said. “It will be fine. And we don’t want to miss our flight.”

I couldn’t argue with that logic. So we left.

But on the second night of our honeymoon, Bjorn said, “I can’t take the pain anymore, let’s go to the hospital.”

It was 1 a.m.

Fortunately, it was easy to catch a cab from our hotel to a 24-hour clinic. Unfortunately, it was nigh impossible to find a cab in the rather sketchy part of town where the clinic was after we got out at 2 a.m.

A little video of us in the clinic

We walked until we found an all-night pharmacy. To give you an idea about the area: The man at the pharmacy spoke to us from behind protective glass and wouldn’t let us into the store. However, he did agree to call a taxi for us.

No sooner had he said that when lo and behold—a taxi pulled up behind us. Wow, they sure have fast service around here, I thought as I slid into the taxi.

Hmm, not so well-kept this one, I thought, looking through rust holes in the floorboard so big I could clearly see the street below. I couldn’t place my finger on the odor in the car but it reminded me of vomit mixed with really floral carpet cleaner. And why was pharmacy guy yelling so much?

Turns out this was not the taxi the pharmacy guy had called, but one of the many “taxis” (read: people with cars hoping to make a buck off tourists) cruising around at night. We jumped out.

The lost fare made the taxi driver angry and he and pharmacy guy began shouting at each other, but after probably realizing the futility of getting any business from us, and with pharmacy guy safely behind the glass, taxi guy eventually drove off.

At a loss for words and a ride, Bjorn and I stood on the street corner for a while. Pharmacy guy appeared to take pity on our haplessness, and began yelling (he did that alot, I now realize) at a passing young couple. After that, he told us to follow them, saying they would lead us to a taxi stand.

As we followed the couple, I noticed the man outpacing the girl. Not a very nice boyfriend, I thought. Pretty soon, he had walked far ahead, turned a corner and was out of sight. Bjorn and I looked at each other uneasily out of the corner of our eyes. What was going on? Had they had a fight?

We decided to keep following the girl and she led us to a more commercial part of town. And by commercial, I mean it was full of bars, clubs, motels and women standing on street corners. Yes, it was that part of town. However, there were also more legitimate-looking taxis.

Before getting in, we wondered if we should offer our guide taxi fare so that she could get out of this part of town and go home. We profusely thanked her, but she just smiled, waved us off…and went to stand on a street corner.

Help really does come in all forms.

Jammie Karlman is the entertainment editor for the Chico Enterprise-Record. Contact her at buzz@chicoer.com. Follow her on Twitter @JammieKarlman