Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Boca Chica is a very small town and is not a place for shopping for much more than the daily essentials. We are however very conveniently located to take advantage of nearby Santo Domingo for any serious shopping or specialist services. Our overall impression is that you can get pretty much any product or service that you may be used to back in North America or any European country although the choice might be slightly more limited and the price almost invariably carries a premium.
One of our more important tools for getting some of our administrative jobs done here is our ‘Larousse’ Spanish/English - English/Spanish dictionary. After many years of constant use the all essential spine sadly became separated from the main body. A repair in the form of rebinding was called for and, as signaled above, Santo Domingo was easily designated to provide the service.
Santo Domingo’s old colonial zone is a warren of all kinds of buildings containing a myriad of micro businesses as well as residences and offices. You can walk around and peer into many an open door and see exactly the kind of operation they have inside. It didn’t take us long to track down a bookbinder thanks to a recommendation from another mini company huddled in the colonial lair where they print our invoices. The company recommended was ‘Leo Antillas’ and can be found at Calle (Street) Mercedes #305… a mainish and straightish road running parallel to the more well known ‘El Conde’. Fran, the actual bookbinder, beckoned us in to what at first glance seemed to be just a small stationery store. He then beckoned us behind and then behind again and yet further back into the depths of the increasingly narrowing building. We finally seemed to be in Fran’s exclusive bookbinding operations room and we were so far away from natural daylight now that we took a nervous glance around wondering about the dangerous cocktail of piles of paper material and lack of escape route in the case of fire which we actually mentioned. Fran, presumably after so many trouble free years, nonchalantly answered “Oh, I would just have to break down some of the metal security bars covering the windows to get out”. As further discussion of the matter didn’t look as though it would lead anywhere more helpful, we thought it easier to pass immediately on to the subject in hand.
“Now, this Larousse dictionary… would it be possible to rebind it”? “Certainly” he said, pointing into the corner to another Larousse dictionary as if he was familiar with binding this precise book on a daily basis. “How long would it take and how much would it cost?” “At most about three days and RD$150 (about US$5)”, was the surprising answer. He certainly seemed sincere, it was definitely a bookbinding place and if we were prepared to risk our paranoia about our valuable dictionary being trapped in the inner sanctum of the colonial zone while fire rages around then we figured it would be worth trying his services out.
We delivered the book on Tuesday and we were told it would be ready Friday.
It certainly was ready and what a wonderful job the man had done. We were aghast at the splendor of his workmanship at the princely sum of $5 for a book that would cost well over a $100 to replace. Fran had made it look brand spanking new. To be honest the cover was now better than when first purchased. It had a classy glossy royal blue cover embossed with the name of the dictionary in imperial gold! As if that wasn’t enough, Mr. Fran had in addition cleaned up the entire area of the edges of the pages which over the years of those countless fingerings and thumbings had turned very close to black in places… brilliant!
At the risk of being accused of massive understatement it could be said that it’s not every day we have an uplifting experience of excellent craftsmanship in combination with decent pricing (like this), but here is the proof that it can still happen even in the DomRep.
Well done that man Fran!
Posted by Playa Vista @ 04:43 PM CST
Friday, September 9, 2005
The Playa Vista “company” car is in fact usually driven and maintained by our chief helper Carlos alias ‘Flaco’. However, from time to time we avail ourselves of the “ease” of use to go on the occasional Playa Vista mission to Santo Domingo. We even took the unprecedented step of briefing our men on the Sunday for an early start on the Monday morning, by arranging that Flaco would be here with the car promptly at 9 a.m. together with our main maintenance man and, for the occasion, appointed chauffeur Eduardo.
Sure enough… at a smidgin before 9 a.m. Flaco responded… but not by appearing with his car. He was calling from a car repair shop. He had encountered a small technical problem. At 10 a.m. Eduardo did appear, as it now turned out well in time for any eventual trip to the capital. At about 11 a.m. Flaco and the car appeared. “So we can go now can we, Flaco?” we asked. “Oh yes, no problem… only one little thing”, said Flaco in complete earnest, with the motor still running, “the car doesn’t start once it is turned off!” “What?” we dumbfoundedly responded. “Don’t worry,” he consoled us again. “Really it’s not a problem, you just keep it running and simply drive to a well equipped gas station to get a new battery for about RD$1500 (advice of his mechanic friend in neighboring Andres) and then you’ll be on your way!” “All right then,” we frustratedly responded believing we could soon make up the lost ground.
We all piled into the car, and as preparation is not the strong point in these parts of the world there was actually only just enough gas in the tank to get us up the hill to the nearest filling station. As we pulled up to the first vacant pump, inadvertently Eduardo turned off the engine for the fill up. OOPS! This now meant the car wouldn’t start again, and they of course did not sell batteries at this particular gas station. Nevertheless…life sure is full of surprises, isn’t it? Firstly… Eduardo, who is our only trusted all-round handy-man for a reason, of course knows something about cars too, and he found a pair of pliers and screwdriver that just happened to be lying under the passenger seat and started fiddling around in the engine area with the electrics. After many fiddlings and attempted ignition key turnings still nothing happened, even after the dismantling of the expensive stereo system and electricity-thirsty amplifier that Flaco had installed under the driver’s seat.
Thankfully Eduardo wouldn’t give up, and as we were just over the road from an old pal of his he conveniently borrowed a battery from him to test if this was really the problem. It wasn’t. The engine remained entirely lifeless even after connecting the fresh battery.
Fortunately Eduardo remained anything but lifeless for he continued probing and discovered that by attaching an extra wire between the battery and who knows what strange part of the car, surprise surprise, got the engine to spark into vibrant life! Just as Eduardo put the finishing touches to his handiwork the heavens opened, but of course we were now safely inside the car, electric problem fixed for far less than RD$1500 and now bound for Santo Domingo - ‘only’ 3 hours late - although accompanied by such a tremendous downpour that speed as well as visibility was severely impeded.
Relative to the prolonged and unplanned pit-stop start we noted that the day went fairly smoothly, except that being 3 hours behind schedule did mean we rather ran out of time for a couple of the tasks we had in mind. The result of the general delay was that we were still on our way back home at 7 p.m. with dark descending, and rapidly so as it does in the tropics. Within a few minutes we were almost unable to see the road… seemingly because of some other electrical problems… this time with the headlamps! We suggested that Eduardo get behind a vehicle with lights to ease our way, but before long he pulled over without a word, jumped out of the car and somehow switched on the regular lights from under the hood. Easy! “Funny,” said Eduardo sliding back into the now fully illuminated car “Flaco has spent so much on his stereo system but can’t afford a simple switch to turn on the headlamps… it just would be so much easier from inside the car!”
Well, back in Boca Chica and at Playa Vista the good news for Flaco was that his repair didn’t cost him anything… but, as sure as every rain cloud has a silver lining; every silver lining has a rain cloud. The next morning the good Flaco drove into Playa Vista to report that somebody had broken into his car during the night and, surprise surprise, stolen his expensive stereo system. Well… we imagine now it will probably take a very long time indeed before he ever gets around to putting that light switch on the inside!
Posted by Playa Vista @ 02:23 PM CST
Saturday, September 3, 2005
Horrific though the recent events have been due to Hurricane Katrina in some of the southern US states, we applaud the vibrant American spirit of always keeping the show rolling, and we welcome the imminent start of the new North American football league which seems to be all set to go… barring finding a temporary stadium for the New Orleans Saints so they can play their home games.
So as to maintain our tradition we will be showing this season’s games in the Playa Vista bar as usual via our satellite system and wall-to-wall screen. The opening clash is, as you might know, between ‘The Oakland Raiders’ and last season’s worthy champions ‘The New England Patriots’ on Thursday 8th September with the kick-off time being 9 pm. We will also be following two other traditions: Hot dogs will be available for the hungry patrons and the gamblers can be satiated with the football pool which costs a mere RD$50 per square to have the chance of sharing the pot and winning up to RD$5,000!
We wish all you football fans a good season!
Posted by Playa Vista @ 05:21 PM CST
