Things I Didn’t Miss

Before moving to the DR, I expected to miss and to not miss many aspects of American life. Having spent 6 weeks back in the States, I have come to realize that I definitely did not miss:

• Texas Summer Heat. Seriously, how did I ever live here? My lack of tolerance may be due to the fact that I have spent the past 16 months in the 75-120 degree range (minus a brief two and a half week spell of winter weather). Nonetheless, 90 something degrees at 9 am is not permissible, whether one has had a seasonal break or not.
• News. I almost forgot about the economic crisis of the decade, gas prices, and Obamacare. Being a rather opinionated person who historically is interested in current events and hot topics, this is somewhat surprising. I’m looking forward to enjoying the blissful ignorance of life on an island again.
• Traffic. I’ve never been the most patient driver (slash person) in the world, but one would think that living in a slow-paced culture would begin to develop that character trait. And it would seem that as a predominately pedestrian traveler I would be accustomed to longer travel times. Or maybe an increase in flying frequency with American would have taught me patience by now. No. Not true.
• Shopping. Now this is the surprise of the century. Honestly I did crave a few shopping sprees during the year, which was thankfully satiated by a few internet purchases. But I’ve hardly had any desire to shop this summer.
• Ironing. I’ve always hated ironing, but a professional wardrobe always required it. And while I’m not a fan of my uniform, I am a fan of only having to iron 4 khaki pants a week.

Things I Did Miss

On the other hand, there were a few things that I didn’t expect to miss:

• Bookstores. Besides loving to read, I’m quasi-obssessed with browsing bookstores and could sort of spend hours in them. Dominicans are kind of the exact opposite of that, meaning that they probably own a book. The good news, I guess, is that that one book is probably going to be the Bible.
• Sandwiches. Dominicans are not bakers. At all. Bread is always dry and flaky and I’m a little sketched out by their meat and cheese. Sandwiches at restaurants aren’t anything special and are almost always slathered with mayo and ketchup. Moral of the story is that I’m eating at Panera as often as possible right now and a bread machine is number one on my La Sirena list when I get back.
• Frozen Food. There’s not really a frozen section in Dominican mercados, and people don’t really use their freezers. I was accustomed to keeping frozen veggies and Lean Cuisine pizzas on hand for when I was too lazy or hungry to cook something that required more than one pan and 5 minutes. Grilled cheese sandwiches not only meet this requisite, but they make bad bread edible, so they ended up being the dinner of choice for most of the Spring.
• Cardigans. I somehow collected a million in my one year of working in the real world (to combat the aggressive office air conditioning), but as a persistent sweater (what an excellent pun!) living in a tropical climate, it was rarely cool enough for me to use one in the Dominican. Sad.

Advertisement