The year started with beaver tails and maple taffy and general merriment at Winterlude in Ottawa, and then we headed off to resort in the Dominican, on the south side of the Samana peninsula, across from Punta Cana. There were tiki umbrellas and breakfast by the beach, which most of the time we had all to ourselves. Some days we even got some chairs on the beach, although most days they were “reserved” by people who got up at 7 am and put their towels on them with clips, which you definitely were not supposed to do but everybody did :-(. The resort had some great pools. and some leaning palm trees and some great specialty restaurants (which cost extra of course). And we did a fun horse ride on a trail through the forest to a waterfall.
We also went on a whale-watching tour, and while we only saw flashes of whales we got to sit up on top just a few of us, which was nice because people were apparently being violently ill down below 🙂 And we did a zip line through the jungle, which Becky did with her usual panache. We also took a bus tour out to a beach with some tree forts that you could rent apparently. No sooner were we back in Toronto but it was time to head off to Perugia in Italy for the journalism festival that we’ve been going to for a couple of years now. Never get tired of the view from the Brufani Palace hotel in the old city, and the amazing venues for the conference, some of which are buildings that date back to the 11th century (the Sala dei Priori was built before Gutenberg invented the printing press). We also joined a few friends on a cab ride to Assisi, where we toured the basilica again and hiked the amazingly tilted hills of that old town.
