23-26 de Enero
Friday was another rainy day and we were still tired from the trip to Santo Domingo so we took naps and laid around for most of the day.. solid. We decided to go see the movie Twilight with Bri, Charlotte and Randi and went to go meet them for a movie at 4:30. However, the theater was “broken” until 5:00 until they would start playing movies again (some random told us this.. no one was even working in the theater) so we just hung out around the mall and ate dinner there before the movie. Ha and some guy in the food court gave Rosie a napkin saying “Hello. I think all of you are beautiful and I want any of your phone numbers. I would be very happy with any of you for the rest of my life” haha. Ridiculous but we had a good laugh. We finally made it to the movie and although I judged vampire romance novels at first, I’ve gotten sucked in a loved the movie. That night we planned to go out to this bar that people had gone to earlier in the week and said it was really fun a lot of people. However (standard theme), when we got there we realized that it was a gay bar. Soo after going all the way across town we headed back to El Fogon as usual. Steeve, JB, and Dimitri came again for awhile and we went home pretty earlier.
Saturday we had people at our house to watch the view of Jenny’s Quince (15th birthday ceremony thing). I had seen pictures and already been surprised at how formal their dresses and tuxes were but seeing the tape of it was like watching a wedding/prom/dance scene from Step Up. It was literally as fancy and formal as a wedding with a reception after and then Jenny’s friends surprised her and had choreographed a dance to a lot of popular songs.. mama said they had been working on it for a long time and it was actually really good. Even though it was hard to understand most of it it was so cool to see how important it is and just how different it is than our culture. Also, they played Kenny G through the majority of the video and I just had to laugh because I’ve never heard Kenny G so much in my entire life as I have in the last three weeks.. literally people will blast it from their houses in the middle of the day. Love it. I read the second Twilight book (addicted) for about 4 hours until we got ready to go to this party with Steeve and his friends. He told us it was formal so we wore nice dresses so we were dressed up but when we got to the first place to “pick up some of their friends”, they told us to come up with them but it was like the actual graduation party with the close family. So Rosie and I met the two people the party was for and their families at this very small gathering.. I felt extremely out of place but everyone was nice to us. Ha and they started plaing Nsync at this family party and Rosie and I just cracked up at how ridiculous everything was. We were only there for a little while though until we went to go wait at another apartment for some friends, then went to Steeve and JB’s apartment because we were still waiting and finally made it to the party at about 1:30. I haven’t stayed up later than 2 this entire trip so I was already pretty tired but woke up right when we got there.. the party was so extreme. They had taken all of the furniture out of this entire house and had a DJ, fog machine, black light, strobe light (I’m glad I barely drank anything before because the lights almost made me sick), and a bar outside. I felt ridiculously cool like in a movie. We met quite a few people and danced with some guys (we were the only Americans there so, yet again, a little out of place but it was still fun) who were nice but it was hard to talk to anyone above all the extreme techno music. Rosie and I were exhausted so we left at 3:30 and everyone asked if we were sick because we were leaving so early haha. Oh well, I guess we’ll have to adjust to that. When I got home I just wanted to email my parents to tell them I was going to Santo Domingo the next day (and usually I check my email before I go to bed when people are asleep) and as usual I had already set the alarm and figured the sensor was just downstairs (because I’ve never had a problem before) but when I stepped out of my room I set the alarm off at 3:30 in the morning and it was ridiculously loud. I ran downstairs and shut it off really quick but mama still came down to see what was wrong and I felt really stupid but she was very nice about it and hopefully I just won’t make that mistake ever again.
Sunday morning I woke up early and packed because the night before at 10:00 I had decided to go to Santo Domingo for a baseball game. Baseball is like the national sport and this was one of the final games of the season so we wanted to go even though it was the Santo Domingo team (Licey) and not the Santiago team (Alguilas).We took the bus their and put our stuff in the Hostel that Trena had been staying at all weekend. The lady who owned it was from Tennessee I think and was so nice and a little goofy but the place was cool. Ultimate cousin style with tons of beds packed into small rooms. She sold art though and had it all over the hostel so it was really cool to look at and got me started thinking about what kind of painting I want to buy. The hostel was in the Zona Colonial of Santo Domingo, so right by Christopher Columbus’ house and all of the fortress/church things that are in the capital (we’re going there for an excursion so I’m not exactly sure all what we saw but will find out in a few weeks). We had decently cheap pizza at this outdoor restaurant and it was a really nice part of the city so that was lovely. After that we went right to the game, which cost 50 pesos, aka about $1.50. We couldn’t believe how cheap it was which was awesome. At first almost no one was at the game but about five minutes before it started the entire stadium was packed with people wearing royal blue (Licey’s colors) and everyone and their madre had flags and/or horns and whistles. The flags were fun, the guy right next to us who blew the horn every five seconds was not so fun. All part of the experience I guess. The game was nuts, the fans were so pumped and it was really fun to watch them even though there weren’t many hits. They also sold pizza right out of a pizza box, some guy would just keep grabbing pizzas and selling slices to people. Just different.
About halfway through the game someone fell off of the wall in the outfield onto the field and was just laying there unconscious and the security guards ran over and picked this guy up by the back of his shirt and his legs and just ran him off the field.. it was really disturbing and just weird to see (especially because I thought the security guard had shot the guy.. I don’t believe he was dead but he was for sure not moving so it was scary). Five seconds late the game was back to normal though so I’m not sure if that’s a regular occurrence. Ha another eventful thing was that one of the Licey players had picked Angelica out of the crowd and was pointing at her and waving so she waved back and he told someone to come up to her and get her phone number. So they called her down and she typed in a number and like our whole section of the crowd was watching this famous player get our friend’s number. She has a serious boyfriend though and thought it was a little creepy and degrading to get picked out of a crowd so she gave him a wrong number and we think he figured it out about half an hour later when him and like 3 of his teammates were just glaring at her for a really long time. I was fascinated that this was going on in the middle of the game and just laughed because it was a huge slap in the face to this famous guy. Nice. Bri and I had a little boy situation of our own.. there was a boy that was probably four years old sitting three rows in front of us and he kept looking at us and smiling and then hiding and then smiling again.. so adorable. Then his dad lifted him up the three rows and he gave Bri a single kernel of popcorn and then came back five minutes later and gave her a heart shaped sucker and gave me a cough drop. Ha, true love. I literally am in love with the kids down here and want to bring one back with me. During the 7th inning it kind of started to sprinkle and some people were deciding to leave but Bri and I decided to stay a little bit to sit it out.. poor choice. It literally started pouring and the two of us along with the rest of the stadium had to push through to get out of the stadium. It was so chaotic and ridiculous and there were babies just screaming everywhere. The entire crowd tried to push into this very small hallway to try to get out of the rain so it was literally like sardines. Joe got his wallet stolen out of his pocket because it was just so crazy which sucked but we helped him pay for stuff and he just had to cancel his card. We went back to the Zona Colonial to find dinner. Even though it was a pretty touristy area we found a cheap sandwich place so that was good. We just hung out for the rest of the night in this park that was right by what I think was an old church but I’m still unsure.. it was still really awesome though. Some people dressed up for carnival (this really big cultural festival that lasts for the month of February and people dress up in ridiculously bright colored outfits and masks and stuff.. a little scary but I’m way excited for the real holiday) came right by us with drums and people dressed up and dancing.. some of the little kids cried because they were so scared and even though it was only a couple of them it got us all pumped for it to start. We also found out that Licey won because people kept driving through the streets honking and screaming and waving their flags so that was fun to see. We got some phenomenal ice cream and just hung out until a lot of homeless people started coming up to us, just one after the other. It’s so sad to just sit and watch and one man came and asked for money and said he had aids and looked like he was in really bad shape, and we said we’d buy him a sandwich or some food and at first was almost turning down the food even though he said he was starving, but we weren’t about to give an addict money for drugs so we bought him a milkshake and I’m sure he appreciated it but it’s just really hard to watch and try to help without making things worse. People just kept coming up to us so we just had to leave because although we wanted to there’s just no way to help everyone so we went back to the hostel and just hung out until we went to bed.
Breakfast was included with the room so we ate at the hostel and looked at all her paintings and then just walked around Santo Domingo for a few hours (Joe and Angelica didn’t know we were staying over night and didn’t want to pay for the hostel so they went to the bus station at midnight to sleep there and take the 6 am bus back to Santiago.. ridiculous but I guess it’s all an adventure) and Sally went to go see her friends so just Bri, Charlotte, Randi, and I spent the day there. I’m really excited to go back and learn about all of the history (krissttaaa historryyyy) because there are so many historic and interesting places there. We took the bus back and were home by 4:00. A much smoother trip than last time and very well planned so there’s hope for us and I’m glad we got to see a game before the end of the season. There are smaller leagues after this so we’ll probably go to more games in Santiago but we really wanted to get the feeling of a huge game. Very worth the trip. When I got back I went and did “homework” with Rosie, Ronnie, and Racky at El Fogon, aka just hung out but I haven’t spent much time with those guys (they both know Spanish and are cousins and are really cool and nice) so that was fun. More people came over to the house tonight to watch the video of Jenny again and I did some more homework and tried to get mentally prepared to go back to school at 8 am after the four day weekend. (It’s our last holiday for awhile so I’ll actually have to have my four days of class a week.. still ridiculous and I love it). Les amo mucho!
Monday, January 26, 2009
Friday, January 23, 2009
19-22 Enero
Not much happened Monday, I had my first Dominican-Haitians Relations class, the prof seems really interesting and passionate and I think it’s going to be a great class. Tuesday morning I had class at 8 and then came home to pack and watch the inauguration. All of the channels were being translated into Spanish so I tried to understand; it was pretty hard but still cool to see. Mama was so excited and there were parties everywhere, they’re so excited for Obama to be president. After our clase de baile Rosie, Trena, and I took the bus to Santo Domingo. Our teacher from Luther, Tejada, and their trip’s guide picked us up from the bus station and bought us dinner before we went to the houses because we had to get up so early for the excursion the next day. Rosie’s good friend Kayla and Trena’s roommate Heather were on the trip, so they stayed with them and ended up staying with the director. A sophomore who I had never met was living there and she was really nice and I got to hear all about their trip. The house had like an indoor patio that was like 1/3 of the house that I thought was interesting. There was running water but not for the shower head so they heat up water on the stove then mix it with cold water and you use a bucket and dump it over your head to shower. We went to bed at like 10:00 because we had to get up at six the next day.
Wednesday was a day that made me really glad to have ISA and realize how lucky I am in Santiago. Even just being in the streets of Santo Domingo we realized how much nicer Santiago is, just like how it’s so much cleaner and safer and just more welcoming it is. We left our house at seven and had to pick up some other girls on the way to school, everyone lived really far apart so they said it usually takes like at least a half an hour for anyone to get anywhere. We took a guagua (bus) to Higuey, a town in the eastern part of the country where there was a huge basilica/church thing called the Salvaleon de Higueythat people travel from all over to see, especially on the 21st of January (the day we went) because it’s a national holiday, the Virgin of La Altagracia Day. It was ridiculous how many people were there; tens of thousands of people come from all over to try to get their prayers answered on this day. Their director said people sleep there like four days before the holiday to show their devotion and so the Virgin Mary will answer their prayers. People bring sick kids and other people with problems and it was a huge thing. There was a line that I’m sure took hours and hours to get inside, so we stayed outside. It was interesting that so many people went, but also really hard because there were so many poor people and so much garbage and people sleeping on garbage. We took some pictures and left because of the huge crowd.
Next we drove about two hours to go to the Altos de Chavon. Trena, Rosie, and I had already been there on our trip to La Romana (it’s the big stone architecture place from our first trip) but we knew the girls would like it. However, when we got there the teachers didn’t have enough cash to pay for the tickets and they said they wouldn’t take a credit card and told Tejada that she had to go to the ATM and get money. Fifteen minutes later she came back to tell them that the ATM didn’t work. They argued about how we were students and not tourists and they still wouldn’t let us in so we left (keep in mind everyone had been waiting and ready to go to the beach since 7:00 this morning and it was now about 3:30) we drove back towards Santo Domingo for about an hour and finally got to the playa at 4:30. It was fun to swim in the ocean and take pictures with the girls and we met these two middle aged guys who were drunk in the ocean but talked to us for quite awhile. It’s really fun to talk to random people but they kept speaking in English so we had to keep reminding them to speak in Spanish. We left the beach at about 6 and they dropped us off at the bus station at 7:30 and we took the bus home and made it by 10. I don’t think I’ve ever spent that much time on a bus in one day in my entire life, but it was really fun to hang out with Luther people and see familiar people. We felt bad though because they said that most of their excursions have been like that where things just kind of fall through and that their families were nice but a lot of their houses were dirty and it was too dangerous for them to go a lot of places so they were all pretty ready to go home. It was sad because we’ve had such a good experience so far and even our disaster adventure to Sosua last weekend seemed better than some of their stuff and we planned it as we went in the pouring rain. It made us really grateful for our families and house and the chance to go to PUCMM and live in Santiago.
Today I had class at 8 again (it’s still terrible getting up at 7, especially after being exhausted from the day before) and then for my community service class we got to go see the final place we can chose to work at. It’s called Hogar Emiliano Tardif (sp? No se) and it used to be a drug lord’s house but then when he got caught someone bought it and turned it into an orphanage/kids center for kids from dysfunctional homes. It was a huge building and had a huge yard and I hadn’t walked two steps into the lawn when a little girl, probably 8 years old, came up and held my hand. (In Spanish) she asked me what my name was, and I asked her name (in Spanish) and after she said me llamo Adriana she goes “my.. name.. is.. Adriana.” I asked her if she knew English and she said just a little bit and we talked a little more (it’s hard to understand kids in Spanish because they don’t understand that it’s hard for us to understand them when they talk fast) and she sat in my lap when the director talked about the program. The kids were so adorable and you could just see their faces light up when we talked about playing sports and doing homework and stuff with them. Next the kids (they were all between about 5 and 10) took two or three “big kids” to give us a tour of the place. There was a huge swimming pool and big grassy areas to play and they had goats (the goat had just had a baby so yelled whenever we passed it but the baby was so cute) and ducks all just running around the yard. The house was massive, basically a mansion, where the basement was a big classroom, they put up big long tables for the kids to eat, and our girl went to in depth on the rest to have time to show us around upstairs but I think she said that’s where people sleep. I’m trying to work here for my community service, the kids seemed so willing to work hard at activities and school and learning but just have had a bad home life. I think we find out next week, and I’m just so excited to start.
This afternoon we had our dance class, and now we’ve started to practice in pairs rather than in big lines. We have four boys in our class and it’s too funny to watch them try to dance and to dance with them.. I’m not good at dancing but can remember the steps so I usually end up leading, oops. I need some hot Dominicans to show me how its really done, hopefully this weekend (we’re still waiting..) I spent the afternoon in the library (mostly talking to people and not reading my novela.. four day weekend I can get a lot done? Espero que si.) We came home and Rosie and I decided to make guacamole for our family. Mama cut us up the avocados and before we knew it she had peeled three of them (which is the equivalent of at least seven normal avocados.. so damn big) so we had to triple the recipe online because no one makes guacamole in bulk. It was really fun to make except we got a little carried away with the limes.. it was really good but had a very strong lime flavor. Mama, Jenny, and Stephanie tried it and you could see on their faces they weren’t ready for the lime but they ended up eating a lot of it and they wouldn’t have choked down that much if it was that bad so we were glad. We had Cola Real, aka Coca Cola, and ate that for dinner which was fun.
We went out to El Fagon with the kids and Amy’s friends from last year Steeve and JB came with some of their friends so it was really fun to meet and talk to new people, especially because we all kind of knew a little bit about each other. (Gracias Amy!) Except that Amy told everyone she’s from Chicago because no one knows where Iowa is.. so after they asked where we were from they were like “Minnesota and iowa, that’s pretty far from Chicago where you go to school..” haha oh well. They were going to a party afterwards but I had gotten up at 7 and Rosie was a little sick so we came home and went to bed (and because we have a four day weekend so we don’t want to have too much presidente in the first day). I’m excited for the weekend and to hang out with the familia more.
Not much happened Monday, I had my first Dominican-Haitians Relations class, the prof seems really interesting and passionate and I think it’s going to be a great class. Tuesday morning I had class at 8 and then came home to pack and watch the inauguration. All of the channels were being translated into Spanish so I tried to understand; it was pretty hard but still cool to see. Mama was so excited and there were parties everywhere, they’re so excited for Obama to be president. After our clase de baile Rosie, Trena, and I took the bus to Santo Domingo. Our teacher from Luther, Tejada, and their trip’s guide picked us up from the bus station and bought us dinner before we went to the houses because we had to get up so early for the excursion the next day. Rosie’s good friend Kayla and Trena’s roommate Heather were on the trip, so they stayed with them and ended up staying with the director. A sophomore who I had never met was living there and she was really nice and I got to hear all about their trip. The house had like an indoor patio that was like 1/3 of the house that I thought was interesting. There was running water but not for the shower head so they heat up water on the stove then mix it with cold water and you use a bucket and dump it over your head to shower. We went to bed at like 10:00 because we had to get up at six the next day.
Wednesday was a day that made me really glad to have ISA and realize how lucky I am in Santiago. Even just being in the streets of Santo Domingo we realized how much nicer Santiago is, just like how it’s so much cleaner and safer and just more welcoming it is. We left our house at seven and had to pick up some other girls on the way to school, everyone lived really far apart so they said it usually takes like at least a half an hour for anyone to get anywhere. We took a guagua (bus) to Higuey, a town in the eastern part of the country where there was a huge basilica/church thing called the Salvaleon de Higueythat people travel from all over to see, especially on the 21st of January (the day we went) because it’s a national holiday, the Virgin of La Altagracia Day. It was ridiculous how many people were there; tens of thousands of people come from all over to try to get their prayers answered on this day. Their director said people sleep there like four days before the holiday to show their devotion and so the Virgin Mary will answer their prayers. People bring sick kids and other people with problems and it was a huge thing. There was a line that I’m sure took hours and hours to get inside, so we stayed outside. It was interesting that so many people went, but also really hard because there were so many poor people and so much garbage and people sleeping on garbage. We took some pictures and left because of the huge crowd.
Next we drove about two hours to go to the Altos de Chavon. Trena, Rosie, and I had already been there on our trip to La Romana (it’s the big stone architecture place from our first trip) but we knew the girls would like it. However, when we got there the teachers didn’t have enough cash to pay for the tickets and they said they wouldn’t take a credit card and told Tejada that she had to go to the ATM and get money. Fifteen minutes later she came back to tell them that the ATM didn’t work. They argued about how we were students and not tourists and they still wouldn’t let us in so we left (keep in mind everyone had been waiting and ready to go to the beach since 7:00 this morning and it was now about 3:30) we drove back towards Santo Domingo for about an hour and finally got to the playa at 4:30. It was fun to swim in the ocean and take pictures with the girls and we met these two middle aged guys who were drunk in the ocean but talked to us for quite awhile. It’s really fun to talk to random people but they kept speaking in English so we had to keep reminding them to speak in Spanish. We left the beach at about 6 and they dropped us off at the bus station at 7:30 and we took the bus home and made it by 10. I don’t think I’ve ever spent that much time on a bus in one day in my entire life, but it was really fun to hang out with Luther people and see familiar people. We felt bad though because they said that most of their excursions have been like that where things just kind of fall through and that their families were nice but a lot of their houses were dirty and it was too dangerous for them to go a lot of places so they were all pretty ready to go home. It was sad because we’ve had such a good experience so far and even our disaster adventure to Sosua last weekend seemed better than some of their stuff and we planned it as we went in the pouring rain. It made us really grateful for our families and house and the chance to go to PUCMM and live in Santiago.
Today I had class at 8 again (it’s still terrible getting up at 7, especially after being exhausted from the day before) and then for my community service class we got to go see the final place we can chose to work at. It’s called Hogar Emiliano Tardif (sp? No se) and it used to be a drug lord’s house but then when he got caught someone bought it and turned it into an orphanage/kids center for kids from dysfunctional homes. It was a huge building and had a huge yard and I hadn’t walked two steps into the lawn when a little girl, probably 8 years old, came up and held my hand. (In Spanish) she asked me what my name was, and I asked her name (in Spanish) and after she said me llamo Adriana she goes “my.. name.. is.. Adriana.” I asked her if she knew English and she said just a little bit and we talked a little more (it’s hard to understand kids in Spanish because they don’t understand that it’s hard for us to understand them when they talk fast) and she sat in my lap when the director talked about the program. The kids were so adorable and you could just see their faces light up when we talked about playing sports and doing homework and stuff with them. Next the kids (they were all between about 5 and 10) took two or three “big kids” to give us a tour of the place. There was a huge swimming pool and big grassy areas to play and they had goats (the goat had just had a baby so yelled whenever we passed it but the baby was so cute) and ducks all just running around the yard. The house was massive, basically a mansion, where the basement was a big classroom, they put up big long tables for the kids to eat, and our girl went to in depth on the rest to have time to show us around upstairs but I think she said that’s where people sleep. I’m trying to work here for my community service, the kids seemed so willing to work hard at activities and school and learning but just have had a bad home life. I think we find out next week, and I’m just so excited to start.
This afternoon we had our dance class, and now we’ve started to practice in pairs rather than in big lines. We have four boys in our class and it’s too funny to watch them try to dance and to dance with them.. I’m not good at dancing but can remember the steps so I usually end up leading, oops. I need some hot Dominicans to show me how its really done, hopefully this weekend (we’re still waiting..) I spent the afternoon in the library (mostly talking to people and not reading my novela.. four day weekend I can get a lot done? Espero que si.) We came home and Rosie and I decided to make guacamole for our family. Mama cut us up the avocados and before we knew it she had peeled three of them (which is the equivalent of at least seven normal avocados.. so damn big) so we had to triple the recipe online because no one makes guacamole in bulk. It was really fun to make except we got a little carried away with the limes.. it was really good but had a very strong lime flavor. Mama, Jenny, and Stephanie tried it and you could see on their faces they weren’t ready for the lime but they ended up eating a lot of it and they wouldn’t have choked down that much if it was that bad so we were glad. We had Cola Real, aka Coca Cola, and ate that for dinner which was fun.
We went out to El Fagon with the kids and Amy’s friends from last year Steeve and JB came with some of their friends so it was really fun to meet and talk to new people, especially because we all kind of knew a little bit about each other. (Gracias Amy!) Except that Amy told everyone she’s from Chicago because no one knows where Iowa is.. so after they asked where we were from they were like “Minnesota and iowa, that’s pretty far from Chicago where you go to school..” haha oh well. They were going to a party afterwards but I had gotten up at 7 and Rosie was a little sick so we came home and went to bed (and because we have a four day weekend so we don’t want to have too much presidente in the first day). I’m excited for the weekend and to hang out with the familia more.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
15-18 de Enero
Lo siento for the long break between posts, the last few days have been absolutely ridiculous. Thursday was good, I had a lot of class but it was all interesting and knowing that Thursday night starts the weekend helps a ton. When I was walking home from school some little girls stopped me and gave me like a mini bouquet of flowers and I was like “I’m sorry I don’t have any money!” (people here like to give you stuff and then you just have to pay for it because they try to trick you) but they were just like “no we got this just for you! It’s free, just for you!” haha so cute. We went out to El Fogon (the bar by campus we went to last Thursday) with everyone. Rosie (as usual ha) found some boys and brought them over to sit with us. The guy next to me was named Dary and we talked to them for awhile, they didn’t speak any English so it was really good practice to have real conversations. He was 19 and shorter than me but had cute dimples and was really nice. He texted me later that night saying how much he liked me (and texting back in Spanish is much harder than English, I’ll need to practice) and called me angel the next day.. sorrrry Dary but we’re just going to be friends. But it’s good to get to know people from here so we can know where to go and to just meet as many new people as we can.
Friday I had to meet with my community service prof to go tour the schools we can choose from to volunteer in this semester. It just started misting when I was walking there so I didn’t bother to get an umbrella or a jacket.. poor choice. It started pouring after I had walked about two blocks but I would have been late if I went back because I had to take the long way so I wouldn’t fall in the mud. I walked just about 20 minutes in pouring rain and was completely soaked by the time I got there. Classy. But it was worth it to see the kids.. they were so cute and so excited to see us (the first school we went to was pre-school through seventh grade and the other one is little kids too but didn’t have class on Friday mornings) and I literally can’t wait to start. We’re going to visit one other school this week and then I think we start next week so that should be sweet.
Even though it was raining, everyone told us that it only rains more inland and that it wouldn’t be raining by the coast soo we decided to make the trip to Sosua and spend the night as planned. Overall, the trip was a very good learning experience and I feel that things can only improve from this point. It was one of those trips that everything that can go wrong, goes wrong. After finally getting to the bus station with all of our stuff soaking wet, we found out that there weren’t any more spots on the bus and would have had to wait three more hours for the next one. Luckily, (not sure actually how lucky it was) there was a taxi driver who said he would take us all there right then. His taxi was a minivan, but there were eight of us plus the driver so three people sat in the back and four sat across the two bucket seats in the middle. I was a lucky person to sit on the bucket seats soo by the time we finally got there an hour and a half later my body was asleep from the waste down. We were going to go to Puerto Plata but ended up going to Sosua, but we didn’t realize until we had to pay that he made us pay more. It really ended up only being about $10 per person but the bus ride home cost us $4 so that was kind of lame. All of the hotels we tried to reserve ahead of time so we just decided to go and find one when we got there. We actually managed to find a place right away that was really cheap and close to the beach. It was like an apartment and had one room with two twin beds pushed together (we didn’t find that out until Bri slept in the crack of the two beds) and another room with two sets of bunk beds. It had the creepiest decorations but had a porch with a good view of the ocean and a big table so that was cool.
Even though it was raining we decided to go to the beach to look for somewhere to eat. Naturally, it started to rain as we were walking and almost no places were open because of the rain. We think we were in the wrong part of Sosua because everyone talks about how amazing it is but the side of the beach our hotel was on was kinda sketchy and random so who knows. So starving and in the rain we walked all the way over to the other side of the beach to some big resort looking places. Again, almost nothing was open but we finally found a restaurant. I got lasagna and a rum and coke (ordering your own cocktails is still awesome) along with everyone else because our trip was going so poorly ha. We all felt better after we ate and started to make the twenty minute trek back to our hotel. Naturally, it started literally pouring so hard that we were completely soaked in about a minute. This was actually one of the most fun parts of the weekend though, we ran along the beach in the water (which was so hot compared to the rain) and just ran around and danced in the rain. We bought a big bottle of rum and all of the people who were in the few shops that were open laughed at us for being stupid tourists at the beach in the middle of a hurricane. We had cocktails on our porch which was actually really fun because now we’re all really comfortable with each other. All of the girls decided to wear like fancy, short, going out dresses so we got all dressed up and went out to find a place to dance. There were no bars on our side of the beach and the only way to get anywhere else is on a motoconcho = motorcycle taxi. So we all got on the back of these motorcycles in our dresses and all kind of thought we were going to die the whole time but it was actually pretty fun minus the death part. We got to a nice discoteca on the other side, but after about 30 seconds of being in the bar we realized that just about every single guy was over fifty, fat, ugly, and old and every girl was a prostitute. It was terrible to watch these old guys slap these beautiful girls’ asses and they would just start dancing with them and stuff. We asked a motoconcho drive how much they charge and he said 1,000 pesos which is a little more than $90. We decided to try to find another bar so that we could dance (and not feel like prostitutes.. wearing short going out dresses was a poor theme choice) but the next bar we went to was the same thing, only with a few transvestites thrown in there too. It was all just too much so we took the motoconchos back to our side and after getting overcharged by these guys too we were back in our hotel before 11:00. We hung out for a little while longer but just gave up on the day and went to bed. I slept on one of the bottom bunks with Rosie, twin beds just aren’t meant for two people.
Saturday morning we woke up at 7 after being so uncomfortable all night (well the three people in the two twin beds pushed together and Rosie and I). We got all our stuff ready and went and had breakfast at a little outdoor restaurant right outside of our hotel: the first thing that actually worked out smoothly for us the entire trip. We had a great bfast of ham, bacon, eggs, toast, and avocado for about $3 so that was awesome. We went to the beach because the clouds were breaking up and we knew that after last night that the sun would have to shine for us. It finally did come out and we had a relaxing day at the beach. The sand wasn’t as white as La Romana (and we were semi-biased from the mess of the night before) but it was still a very beautiful beach and we got to swim in the ocean and there were bigger waves here so that was exciting. We got lunch late in the afternoon and most of us just had a hamburger and fries that were awesome. We also got too expensive brownies but they were fantastic. The restaurant was ridiculously slow with everything even though we were the only ones in there so it took forever and we didn’t have time to go back to the beach after but we were all exhausted anyway so it was good to have a slow lunch.
We got on the bus to go back which was a really nice coach bus but was freezing so it was impossible to sleep. I sat by a girl part of the way there who was really nice and my Spanish wasn’t too bad. Rosie sat next to a guy who worked for the drug control organization and he showed her his huge gun. Bleh. But we finally made it home safe (Rosie and Angelica got pretty bad burns from the motoconchos but those were our only injuries).
When we got back we were still determined to go out and dance and Mike had some friends that were going to show us all a good place. It ended up just being one friend and he was no more than 5’2 and looked about 12 but he was nice. It was a pretty cool bar with a nice dance floor but the only people there were couples so again we all sat there awkwardly but it was fun to watch people dance. I danced with Mike’s friend (and I even wore heels because we took a taxi there.. I was more than a head taller than him, it looked ridiculous) and one of his friends who came but we didn’t do much besides movie in a circle. I danced with Joe which was actually one of the most fun parts because neither of us know what we’re doing but he would spin me and we probably looked ridiculous but had a good time. Rosie and I were pretty tired from the night before so we decided to just go home. Little did we know that Rosie had some visitors.. there were for real two lizards in her room. They were probably like six inches long each and bright bright green and the exact same color as her curtains and bedding. She came up to get me after she saw one because she was freaking out and we saw its tail from in her back pack and we decided to check the room to make sure there weren’t any more. When she shook the curtains another one flew out and up to the ceiling. Naturally we screamed and had to wake up mama and papa. By that time we couldn’t find either of them so I think they thought we were a little crazy but they were definitely there. Papa looked everywhere in her room and said that it had probably crawled out through the window (that she didn’t know was open in the first place and probably how it came in because of the rain the day before). We were still a little creeped and looked through her stuff even after they left but finally decided to go to bed. (I looked in my room when I got back and kept waking up paranoid a few times but neither of us got eaten in our sleep).
We woke up this morning and had frosted flakes for breakfast and then went back to bed until lunch. We went over to Victor’s mom’s house (our grandma) for lunch. She lives like two houses down right across the street. We had some really good soup with meat and rice and plantains and avocados. Grandma really likes to garden and her entire backyard is filled with tons and tons of orchid plants. All of them are orchids of different kinds (mom I’ll have to bring you there.. it was amazing) and she had even more up on the roof (along with two doves and a cockatoo!). We had dulce de leche which is a creamy really sweet desert that was kind of like a pudding/frosting combo that was really good. (I tried to make it for my 7th grade geography class, this was much much better). After hanging out there with the fam for awhile we came back to do homework and stuff. We hadn’t been back five minutes when Rosie came running out because the lizard was back in her room. (At least mama and papa didn’t think we were crazy. It did mean though that Rosie slept with a lizard in her room… blehhhh!) Papa got the broom and moved it outside but Rosie, Jenny, Stephanie and I screamed the whole time, it was hilarious. Right after that Jenny saw another one that crawled down into the basement which came back up and was on the stairs like fifteen minutes later. Paige, you would have literally died though this entire experience. They’re harmless lizards but still I keep looking around to see if there are more. We’re keeping our windows shut from now on. Today we’ve just been hanging out and doing homework and we have class again tomorrow afternoon. It’s going to be a short week because we’re going to meet Profesora Tejada (a professor from Luther who Rosie, Trena and I had this last semester who is from Santiago and has a J-term trip here this month with people we know from school) on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning (Wednesday is a holiday so we are only missing class on Thursday) to go travel with them. It’ll be really fun to see people we know from school and to get to go to places we probably wouldn’t have on our own. Sorry about how long this post was, so much happened this weekend and although it was a semi-mess I’ll remember it forever. Hopefully we can get rid of the lizards soon. Les extrano mucho!
Lo siento for the long break between posts, the last few days have been absolutely ridiculous. Thursday was good, I had a lot of class but it was all interesting and knowing that Thursday night starts the weekend helps a ton. When I was walking home from school some little girls stopped me and gave me like a mini bouquet of flowers and I was like “I’m sorry I don’t have any money!” (people here like to give you stuff and then you just have to pay for it because they try to trick you) but they were just like “no we got this just for you! It’s free, just for you!” haha so cute. We went out to El Fogon (the bar by campus we went to last Thursday) with everyone. Rosie (as usual ha) found some boys and brought them over to sit with us. The guy next to me was named Dary and we talked to them for awhile, they didn’t speak any English so it was really good practice to have real conversations. He was 19 and shorter than me but had cute dimples and was really nice. He texted me later that night saying how much he liked me (and texting back in Spanish is much harder than English, I’ll need to practice) and called me angel the next day.. sorrrry Dary but we’re just going to be friends. But it’s good to get to know people from here so we can know where to go and to just meet as many new people as we can.
Friday I had to meet with my community service prof to go tour the schools we can choose from to volunteer in this semester. It just started misting when I was walking there so I didn’t bother to get an umbrella or a jacket.. poor choice. It started pouring after I had walked about two blocks but I would have been late if I went back because I had to take the long way so I wouldn’t fall in the mud. I walked just about 20 minutes in pouring rain and was completely soaked by the time I got there. Classy. But it was worth it to see the kids.. they were so cute and so excited to see us (the first school we went to was pre-school through seventh grade and the other one is little kids too but didn’t have class on Friday mornings) and I literally can’t wait to start. We’re going to visit one other school this week and then I think we start next week so that should be sweet.
Even though it was raining, everyone told us that it only rains more inland and that it wouldn’t be raining by the coast soo we decided to make the trip to Sosua and spend the night as planned. Overall, the trip was a very good learning experience and I feel that things can only improve from this point. It was one of those trips that everything that can go wrong, goes wrong. After finally getting to the bus station with all of our stuff soaking wet, we found out that there weren’t any more spots on the bus and would have had to wait three more hours for the next one. Luckily, (not sure actually how lucky it was) there was a taxi driver who said he would take us all there right then. His taxi was a minivan, but there were eight of us plus the driver so three people sat in the back and four sat across the two bucket seats in the middle. I was a lucky person to sit on the bucket seats soo by the time we finally got there an hour and a half later my body was asleep from the waste down. We were going to go to Puerto Plata but ended up going to Sosua, but we didn’t realize until we had to pay that he made us pay more. It really ended up only being about $10 per person but the bus ride home cost us $4 so that was kind of lame. All of the hotels we tried to reserve ahead of time so we just decided to go and find one when we got there. We actually managed to find a place right away that was really cheap and close to the beach. It was like an apartment and had one room with two twin beds pushed together (we didn’t find that out until Bri slept in the crack of the two beds) and another room with two sets of bunk beds. It had the creepiest decorations but had a porch with a good view of the ocean and a big table so that was cool.
Even though it was raining we decided to go to the beach to look for somewhere to eat. Naturally, it started to rain as we were walking and almost no places were open because of the rain. We think we were in the wrong part of Sosua because everyone talks about how amazing it is but the side of the beach our hotel was on was kinda sketchy and random so who knows. So starving and in the rain we walked all the way over to the other side of the beach to some big resort looking places. Again, almost nothing was open but we finally found a restaurant. I got lasagna and a rum and coke (ordering your own cocktails is still awesome) along with everyone else because our trip was going so poorly ha. We all felt better after we ate and started to make the twenty minute trek back to our hotel. Naturally, it started literally pouring so hard that we were completely soaked in about a minute. This was actually one of the most fun parts of the weekend though, we ran along the beach in the water (which was so hot compared to the rain) and just ran around and danced in the rain. We bought a big bottle of rum and all of the people who were in the few shops that were open laughed at us for being stupid tourists at the beach in the middle of a hurricane. We had cocktails on our porch which was actually really fun because now we’re all really comfortable with each other. All of the girls decided to wear like fancy, short, going out dresses so we got all dressed up and went out to find a place to dance. There were no bars on our side of the beach and the only way to get anywhere else is on a motoconcho = motorcycle taxi. So we all got on the back of these motorcycles in our dresses and all kind of thought we were going to die the whole time but it was actually pretty fun minus the death part. We got to a nice discoteca on the other side, but after about 30 seconds of being in the bar we realized that just about every single guy was over fifty, fat, ugly, and old and every girl was a prostitute. It was terrible to watch these old guys slap these beautiful girls’ asses and they would just start dancing with them and stuff. We asked a motoconcho drive how much they charge and he said 1,000 pesos which is a little more than $90. We decided to try to find another bar so that we could dance (and not feel like prostitutes.. wearing short going out dresses was a poor theme choice) but the next bar we went to was the same thing, only with a few transvestites thrown in there too. It was all just too much so we took the motoconchos back to our side and after getting overcharged by these guys too we were back in our hotel before 11:00. We hung out for a little while longer but just gave up on the day and went to bed. I slept on one of the bottom bunks with Rosie, twin beds just aren’t meant for two people.
Saturday morning we woke up at 7 after being so uncomfortable all night (well the three people in the two twin beds pushed together and Rosie and I). We got all our stuff ready and went and had breakfast at a little outdoor restaurant right outside of our hotel: the first thing that actually worked out smoothly for us the entire trip. We had a great bfast of ham, bacon, eggs, toast, and avocado for about $3 so that was awesome. We went to the beach because the clouds were breaking up and we knew that after last night that the sun would have to shine for us. It finally did come out and we had a relaxing day at the beach. The sand wasn’t as white as La Romana (and we were semi-biased from the mess of the night before) but it was still a very beautiful beach and we got to swim in the ocean and there were bigger waves here so that was exciting. We got lunch late in the afternoon and most of us just had a hamburger and fries that were awesome. We also got too expensive brownies but they were fantastic. The restaurant was ridiculously slow with everything even though we were the only ones in there so it took forever and we didn’t have time to go back to the beach after but we were all exhausted anyway so it was good to have a slow lunch.
We got on the bus to go back which was a really nice coach bus but was freezing so it was impossible to sleep. I sat by a girl part of the way there who was really nice and my Spanish wasn’t too bad. Rosie sat next to a guy who worked for the drug control organization and he showed her his huge gun. Bleh. But we finally made it home safe (Rosie and Angelica got pretty bad burns from the motoconchos but those were our only injuries).
When we got back we were still determined to go out and dance and Mike had some friends that were going to show us all a good place. It ended up just being one friend and he was no more than 5’2 and looked about 12 but he was nice. It was a pretty cool bar with a nice dance floor but the only people there were couples so again we all sat there awkwardly but it was fun to watch people dance. I danced with Mike’s friend (and I even wore heels because we took a taxi there.. I was more than a head taller than him, it looked ridiculous) and one of his friends who came but we didn’t do much besides movie in a circle. I danced with Joe which was actually one of the most fun parts because neither of us know what we’re doing but he would spin me and we probably looked ridiculous but had a good time. Rosie and I were pretty tired from the night before so we decided to just go home. Little did we know that Rosie had some visitors.. there were for real two lizards in her room. They were probably like six inches long each and bright bright green and the exact same color as her curtains and bedding. She came up to get me after she saw one because she was freaking out and we saw its tail from in her back pack and we decided to check the room to make sure there weren’t any more. When she shook the curtains another one flew out and up to the ceiling. Naturally we screamed and had to wake up mama and papa. By that time we couldn’t find either of them so I think they thought we were a little crazy but they were definitely there. Papa looked everywhere in her room and said that it had probably crawled out through the window (that she didn’t know was open in the first place and probably how it came in because of the rain the day before). We were still a little creeped and looked through her stuff even after they left but finally decided to go to bed. (I looked in my room when I got back and kept waking up paranoid a few times but neither of us got eaten in our sleep).
We woke up this morning and had frosted flakes for breakfast and then went back to bed until lunch. We went over to Victor’s mom’s house (our grandma) for lunch. She lives like two houses down right across the street. We had some really good soup with meat and rice and plantains and avocados. Grandma really likes to garden and her entire backyard is filled with tons and tons of orchid plants. All of them are orchids of different kinds (mom I’ll have to bring you there.. it was amazing) and she had even more up on the roof (along with two doves and a cockatoo!). We had dulce de leche which is a creamy really sweet desert that was kind of like a pudding/frosting combo that was really good. (I tried to make it for my 7th grade geography class, this was much much better). After hanging out there with the fam for awhile we came back to do homework and stuff. We hadn’t been back five minutes when Rosie came running out because the lizard was back in her room. (At least mama and papa didn’t think we were crazy. It did mean though that Rosie slept with a lizard in her room… blehhhh!) Papa got the broom and moved it outside but Rosie, Jenny, Stephanie and I screamed the whole time, it was hilarious. Right after that Jenny saw another one that crawled down into the basement which came back up and was on the stairs like fifteen minutes later. Paige, you would have literally died though this entire experience. They’re harmless lizards but still I keep looking around to see if there are more. We’re keeping our windows shut from now on. Today we’ve just been hanging out and doing homework and we have class again tomorrow afternoon. It’s going to be a short week because we’re going to meet Profesora Tejada (a professor from Luther who Rosie, Trena and I had this last semester who is from Santiago and has a J-term trip here this month with people we know from school) on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning (Wednesday is a holiday so we are only missing class on Thursday) to go travel with them. It’ll be really fun to see people we know from school and to get to go to places we probably wouldn’t have on our own. Sorry about how long this post was, so much happened this weekend and although it was a semi-mess I’ll remember it forever. Hopefully we can get rid of the lizards soon. Les extrano mucho!
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
13 Enero
Today was a really smooth, relaxing day. I had my history of the Caribbean class this morning at 8 (vom, but not too bad) which was actually really cool and I’m really excited for. I can understand almost everything the prof says, and he’s really excited about history and how it has an impact on everyone (kristaaa historyyy!). He seems really enthusiastic about teaching and about the material so I’m pumped. After class I met with Trena to try to figure out what classes we wanted to take and after being rejected from tacking the movie class because it conflicted with another class, I decided to change to the community service class that you take two hours of class for a week then do four hours of service in a school or other place. We’re going too look at all of the different options on Friday so hopefully I can be in a school and play with kids. For lunch we had rice and beans and these things that tasted like pancakes but were like fried and really good. We also had pork-chops kind of that were baked with pineapple, awesome. After lunch I had my first dance class.. so much fun! We learned the basics of Meringue and the hour went by really fast, I’m really excited to keep taking that class because it’s just really fun and will be something different than I’ve ever done. (poet and I didn’t even realize it). Rosie and I walked/ran after class then relaxed afterwards. She had class later but I was done for the day so I watched law and order with mama and an episode of wife swap about a pirate family and an extreme neat freak family. We had a good time. We talked with mama about politics in the US and in Latin America and about Cuba for a really long time after dinner, I just love talking about real things with her. Getting up at 7 is not what I’m into so I passed out around 11 even though I don’t have anything to do tomorrow.
14 Enero
Another very relaxing, calm day. Trena, Rosie and I went to the Supermercado to buy books for our lit class. We had a tough time finding them and we asked a guy for help and ended up talking to him for awhile about how we were studying here and stuff. He called over his friend and told us that they wanted to take us out dancing sometime and wrote down their numbers and stuff and gave them to us. It’s too funny how easy it is for people to come up to you just because you’re American.
For lunch we had standard rice and beans but also had eggplant that was hot and mixed with cheese and like a casserole kind of.. it looked similar to vomit but tasted awesome. I’m so excited to be trying so many things and that I like so many different things. We’re going to have mama teach us how to cook some things so we don’t go through withdrawal when we get home.
I was trying to read my first novela for our lit class on the roof but fell asleep for almost an hour (so much for being rested after almost 10 hours of sleep) but it feels so good to just fall asleep and not set an alarm and not worry about anything.
I cleaned my room and skyped my parents in the afternoon and read about 20 pages of my novela (we have a month to read it but I want to get a start before I have homework from other classes.. and I probably missed about 2/3 of what I thought I understood so I’m going to wait to discuss with Rosie and Trena so I don’t get too far with a completely incorrect plot). We had mashed potatoes and eggplant for dinner, even the mashed potatoes seemed to taste so much better here. Awesome. Rosie wants to go out tonight but I have four classes tomorrow.. lame but I’m really excited to go out tomorrow night. Three day weekends are something I could definitely get used to. Time for bed because I have class at 8 and can’t come home until after 6, bleh, but then it’s the weekend so I’m sure I’ll have more to write about! XOXO.
Today was a really smooth, relaxing day. I had my history of the Caribbean class this morning at 8 (vom, but not too bad) which was actually really cool and I’m really excited for. I can understand almost everything the prof says, and he’s really excited about history and how it has an impact on everyone (kristaaa historyyy!). He seems really enthusiastic about teaching and about the material so I’m pumped. After class I met with Trena to try to figure out what classes we wanted to take and after being rejected from tacking the movie class because it conflicted with another class, I decided to change to the community service class that you take two hours of class for a week then do four hours of service in a school or other place. We’re going too look at all of the different options on Friday so hopefully I can be in a school and play with kids. For lunch we had rice and beans and these things that tasted like pancakes but were like fried and really good. We also had pork-chops kind of that were baked with pineapple, awesome. After lunch I had my first dance class.. so much fun! We learned the basics of Meringue and the hour went by really fast, I’m really excited to keep taking that class because it’s just really fun and will be something different than I’ve ever done. (poet and I didn’t even realize it). Rosie and I walked/ran after class then relaxed afterwards. She had class later but I was done for the day so I watched law and order with mama and an episode of wife swap about a pirate family and an extreme neat freak family. We had a good time. We talked with mama about politics in the US and in Latin America and about Cuba for a really long time after dinner, I just love talking about real things with her. Getting up at 7 is not what I’m into so I passed out around 11 even though I don’t have anything to do tomorrow.
14 Enero
Another very relaxing, calm day. Trena, Rosie and I went to the Supermercado to buy books for our lit class. We had a tough time finding them and we asked a guy for help and ended up talking to him for awhile about how we were studying here and stuff. He called over his friend and told us that they wanted to take us out dancing sometime and wrote down their numbers and stuff and gave them to us. It’s too funny how easy it is for people to come up to you just because you’re American.
For lunch we had standard rice and beans but also had eggplant that was hot and mixed with cheese and like a casserole kind of.. it looked similar to vomit but tasted awesome. I’m so excited to be trying so many things and that I like so many different things. We’re going to have mama teach us how to cook some things so we don’t go through withdrawal when we get home.
I was trying to read my first novela for our lit class on the roof but fell asleep for almost an hour (so much for being rested after almost 10 hours of sleep) but it feels so good to just fall asleep and not set an alarm and not worry about anything.
I cleaned my room and skyped my parents in the afternoon and read about 20 pages of my novela (we have a month to read it but I want to get a start before I have homework from other classes.. and I probably missed about 2/3 of what I thought I understood so I’m going to wait to discuss with Rosie and Trena so I don’t get too far with a completely incorrect plot). We had mashed potatoes and eggplant for dinner, even the mashed potatoes seemed to taste so much better here. Awesome. Rosie wants to go out tonight but I have four classes tomorrow.. lame but I’m really excited to go out tomorrow night. Three day weekends are something I could definitely get used to. Time for bed because I have class at 8 and can’t come home until after 6, bleh, but then it’s the weekend so I’m sure I’ll have more to write about! XOXO.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Today was the first day of classes, a little disorganized but I suppose it was dece. My first class was supposed to be at 10 so I got up extra early to look pretty for my classmates but by the time I walked to school I was completely full of sweat so that backfired.. but when I got there I found out that my teacher was out of town so I just had to walk right back. Because I was already so hot and gross I decided to walk, so went back to the University to run/walk for like 45 minutes which was really good even though it was hot. People still cat call you when you’re running and dripping with sweat, it’s incredible.
For lunch we had spaghetti, which has a way different sauce than our spaghetti but was one of the best things I’ve ever had in my life. We also had juice made from star fruit.. so many ridiculous juices made fresh, I can’t even handle it. I read and napped on the deck after lunch until my afternoon class at 4. I got there about 15 minutes to find it because it was in a building I didn’t know, but it ended up taking about 45 minutes to find our class so we were half an hour late. It was really frustrating to walk around and have people tell us all the wrong directions (we weren’t that bad at Spanish, they were bad directions) but finally found someone who called someone to find the right building and once we got there (a building where we asked directions before and people led us out of) we talked to one more guy who led us to an unlabeled classroom. Mess. It’s definitely a little disorganized, we’ve noticed that with things being late and people kind of disregarding times, but I think its more just something that I need to accept and not worry about because I always get antsy when things get off schedule but I think the people are much more relaxed because they aren’t so schedule focused so hopefully I can mix the two to be organized but not antsy, we’ll see. Ramble, sorry, but our teacher seemed nice and I’m excited to read all the stuff (it’s a literature class). I was supposed to have one more class from 7-9 but that got cancelled too so I only have two real classes and my dance class until next week. I’m puuumped for dance tomorrow, hopefully I can perfect the skills I learned this weekend.
After dinner (Rosie and I finished off the spaghetti.. can’t get enough) Rosie and I hung out with mama for a really long time and it was really fun to feel like we were having a real conversation rather than practicing Spanish and getting to know you questions and answers. She told us all about baseball (baseball is huge down here, people go to baseball school, there are giant parties when the teams win, Sammy Sosa is awesome, etc), about how she learned how to cook and how she loves to cook, and she told us how her and papa met (in a class to learn English, it was not love at first sight she said, haha). And she just talked about how happy she was for marrying papa and how she loves her family and her life and is so grateful for everything. It was really cool to hang out with her because she’s just such an interesting, kind, and overall awesome person. Then Rosie, mama, and I watched the movie Seven (about the seven deadly sins con brad pitt? Not for sure if it’s actually called seven but something like that) that was in Spanish but had no written subtitles, I had a little trouble but Rosie had already seen it so she helped me through. I have class at 8 tomorrow so it’s time for bed, but I hear there’s a blizzard at home so be safe, and I’ll be tanning but thinking of all of you. LOVE LOVE
For lunch we had spaghetti, which has a way different sauce than our spaghetti but was one of the best things I’ve ever had in my life. We also had juice made from star fruit.. so many ridiculous juices made fresh, I can’t even handle it. I read and napped on the deck after lunch until my afternoon class at 4. I got there about 15 minutes to find it because it was in a building I didn’t know, but it ended up taking about 45 minutes to find our class so we were half an hour late. It was really frustrating to walk around and have people tell us all the wrong directions (we weren’t that bad at Spanish, they were bad directions) but finally found someone who called someone to find the right building and once we got there (a building where we asked directions before and people led us out of) we talked to one more guy who led us to an unlabeled classroom. Mess. It’s definitely a little disorganized, we’ve noticed that with things being late and people kind of disregarding times, but I think its more just something that I need to accept and not worry about because I always get antsy when things get off schedule but I think the people are much more relaxed because they aren’t so schedule focused so hopefully I can mix the two to be organized but not antsy, we’ll see. Ramble, sorry, but our teacher seemed nice and I’m excited to read all the stuff (it’s a literature class). I was supposed to have one more class from 7-9 but that got cancelled too so I only have two real classes and my dance class until next week. I’m puuumped for dance tomorrow, hopefully I can perfect the skills I learned this weekend.
After dinner (Rosie and I finished off the spaghetti.. can’t get enough) Rosie and I hung out with mama for a really long time and it was really fun to feel like we were having a real conversation rather than practicing Spanish and getting to know you questions and answers. She told us all about baseball (baseball is huge down here, people go to baseball school, there are giant parties when the teams win, Sammy Sosa is awesome, etc), about how she learned how to cook and how she loves to cook, and she told us how her and papa met (in a class to learn English, it was not love at first sight she said, haha). And she just talked about how happy she was for marrying papa and how she loves her family and her life and is so grateful for everything. It was really cool to hang out with her because she’s just such an interesting, kind, and overall awesome person. Then Rosie, mama, and I watched the movie Seven (about the seven deadly sins con brad pitt? Not for sure if it’s actually called seven but something like that) that was in Spanish but had no written subtitles, I had a little trouble but Rosie had already seen it so she helped me through. I have class at 8 tomorrow so it’s time for bed, but I hear there’s a blizzard at home so be safe, and I’ll be tanning but thinking of all of you. LOVE LOVE
Sunday, January 11, 2009
10 y 11 de Enero
Oh. My. God. I now know why I came here and no where else in the world. This weekend was absolutely fantastic and unreal. We left yesterday at 7am (Rosie and I took our first taxi, it cost about $3.. everything is just so much cheaper down here) and stopped in Santo Domingo, the capital, to pick up a photographer who was going to be filming us for some ISA promotion (he could have at least came when I was a little less white for filming on the beach? But what can you do). Santo Domingo looked really cool, Christopher Columbus’ first house is there (when he didn’t really discover America like he thought he did he actually discovered hispanola.. now the island of the DR and Haiti) and there is a lot of historical stuff there but we’re going there another weekend so didn’t stop to look at anything but just ate Pizza Hut in a mall. We drove right along the coast all the way to la Cueva de Las Maravillas. It’s a giiiant cave that is really famous in the Caribbean. It was way cool to see all the stalagmites and stalactites and the bats and everything (plus learning all the words in Spanish). We saw a few bats, a little scary, but not as scary as the very end of the tour when we saw a real live tarantula… wowww Paige you would have been weeping because it was right by the elevator we had to go up and was terrifying but really cool. There are also a lot of indigenous paintings in the cave (which is why we couldn’t take pictures) that were really cool and you could tell that they were really old because the cave had grown overtop of some of them, and it takes 100 years for the rocks to grow one centimeter. Extreme. Ha and Mauricio (one of the leaders of ISA who was chaperoning our trip) said some of them looked like pokemon. It was true.
After the cave we went to the Altos de Chavon, a really famous historical/artistic neighborhood kind of thing in La Romana. To get there you have to drive past all of these giant estates (Shakira and Enrique Iglesias have a house here) and then get to the actual thing which was a neighborhood basically made of all rock with super fancy houses and things. There were tons of gorgeous flowers everywhere, and there were a lot of archways and gates and gardens and patios and tons of super cool architecture. My favorite part was the giant stadium that was made all out of stones and up on a hill behind the giant stadium was a bunch of columns and gardens. So cool. I did a little ballet on the stage and I think the ISA film guy got it on tape.. oops. Then we got to the edge of the neighborhood that looks over this extremely gorgeous valley and river with amazingly green trees. There was also a golf course that was on one ridge of the valley (if you sliced it there’s no chance of getting that ball back ever) which was really cool too see. There were little shops and a chapel in a little square that we hung out it for awhile too, all made of the same stone. Really cool place and one of the most visited spots in the Caribbean.
Next we went to our hotel which was a little hotel that was across the street from the ocean and all of the sailing ships and docks and everything. It was our first chance to swim after sweating profusely for a week so the group went to the beach and swam in the ocean. It was the clearest and warmest water I’ve ever seen in my life. The sun was setting right as we got there (sammm sunset! I took pics for you, don’t worry) which was absolutely gorgeous. The sand is pure white and the water is so clear and is absolutely unbelievable. It was the first time Joe had ever seen or been in an ocean so he was super excited. It stays shallow pretty deep so we swam around for awhile, but it wasn’t safe to be swimming after dark so we had to go back to our hotel for dinner. (ps, French camera man was for sure wearing a speedo, got a little awkward but what can you do with 60 year old Europeans). I had spaghetti that tasted mostly like play-do for dinner, but I was starving so it wasn’t too bad. I sat near the French video guy at dinner and found out how awesome he was.. he makes and directs films mostly in France but has lived in Haiti and the Dominican Republic and has filmed jo-jo, a crazy dolphin who makes sexual advances on humans, for like fifteen years. He’s also been hired to do pieces for National Geographic and it was awesome to hear about all the stuff he’s done all over the world. I’m way excited to must meet a lot of sweet people on this trip because it’s only been a week and already I feel way more worldly.
After dinner we went to a discoteca… YES. We aren’t supposed to drink on ISA excursions, but Mauricio came with us and said we could have two beers (we had three, shh don’t tell). It was all black with neon words and pictures all over the walls and ceiling and a black light and disco ball and a stage for people to dance on. We got there at like 9, which is early for people going out, but by like 9:30 there were people there and dancing.. some were so good and it’s so fun to watch. After a little while of us watching, some guys who knew we were Americans came and asked us to dance and taught us how. It’s called bachata (not sure if that spelling is right?) and is so much fun. The first dance was terrible but the guy came back later and asked me to dance again and told me to stop looking at his feet and to just watch his face and follow him. I didn’t do too bad, and for awhile it was just the two of us on the stage at the beginning of the song and I was terrified of looking ridiculous but actually picked it up pretty quick. I’m super excited to go out now because its so much more interesting and fun than going out at home, I’m teaching you all to dance so we can dominate the bars. We had to get up at 7:30 the next day so we didn’t stay much later than 11 but Rosie and I stayed up until like 12:30 talking about plantains and other important life issues. We’re getting along really well and with everyone else in the group too, loove me some good unified group activities and bonding.
This morning we ate breakfast then began our excursion to la Isla Saona. We all got on a boat that was like a big motor boat—and thinking that we had to be on that semi-uncomfortable boat for more than an hour we got a little nervous—but then we realized that it was just the little boat that took us to this giant party sailboat with motors and a big deck and these trampoline-like things to lay out on and you could feel the water underneath. So cool. The crew was really fun and played music and we all practiced our dancing all the way there. There was one guy dressed in a dress and a gray wig and was a little creepy but funny (it was his job, he said he wasn’t really a transvestite.. we weren’t convinced but whatevs he/she was fun). I already am a terrible dancer and just learned last night, but the boat moving with the waves made it even harder but it was still really fun dancing and watching and laying out and just looking at the ridiculously blue ocean. The company that we went on the excursion with gives each boat a photographer to take pictures of everyone so that you can buy them at the end.. i don’t plan on buying any but the guy was pretty cool. He was Italian (and quite nice looking) and Rosie talked to him a lot and taught him words in English (included boobs which he got confused about and pronounced beebs, ha).
Mas o menos an hour and a half later (anything dealing with time is so laid back here, I never know what time it is) we got to la Isla Saono.. literally the most amazing place I’ve ever been in my life. We got to swim last night, but the sun wasn’t really out and the beach was pretty narrow, but here the skies were completely blue with only a few puffy clouds and the water was an unreal shade of turquoise. The entire day felt fake. There were so many palm trees and plants in the brightest green I’ve ever seen along with literally such smooth white sand it was like a movie. Throughout the day we swam in the ocean, laid out, drew pics in the sand, took pictures, and just tried to take everything in. The pictures don’t even do it justice. I got a massage for less than $10 that was amazing.. never in my life have I been so relaxed (don’t worry mom.. we start school tomorrow). I really can’t even describe how good it was. Towards the end we swam out wayy far to our boat (similar distance to swimming across the lake at the cabin) and I drank probs 30 gallons of ocean water, ultimate chicken noodle soup, but good cardio.
We took a big motor boat back but on the way stopped in la Piscina Natural, a part of the ocean that’s pretty close to shore but has a bunch of starfish. I TOUCHED ONE AND HELD ONE! It was so so cool. A boat of druuunk Europeans in speedos showed up next to us which was hilarious (free drinks are included on the trip but we weren’t allowed to have any.. it was too good to even want to drink but these people took full advantage of the cocktails). Such small swimsuits, but what can you do. When we got back we were all exhausted and starting to realize we all got a little sunburnt (I didn’t do too bad though, woo but got a pretty dece tan) and rode the bus back to Santiago. Mis padres were so excited that we liked it so much.. we didn’t even know what to say besides “que increible, y que bella, y me gusta muchooo”. We’ll work on that. Ma made a dessert that was creamy and almost the texture of smooth oatmeal but tasted like a mix between peanut butter and apple jacks. As usual I forgot what it’s called five second after she told me, but I really like trying all the new things she makes. I have class at 10 tomorrow, a little nervous but excited to be a real person. I’m exhausted from the day but will write about my classes and anything I forgot tomorrow. Sorry about the long post, but wayy too much to write about that I can't forget because it was just too good, you'll see from the pictures! LES AMO.
Oh. My. God. I now know why I came here and no where else in the world. This weekend was absolutely fantastic and unreal. We left yesterday at 7am (Rosie and I took our first taxi, it cost about $3.. everything is just so much cheaper down here) and stopped in Santo Domingo, the capital, to pick up a photographer who was going to be filming us for some ISA promotion (he could have at least came when I was a little less white for filming on the beach? But what can you do). Santo Domingo looked really cool, Christopher Columbus’ first house is there (when he didn’t really discover America like he thought he did he actually discovered hispanola.. now the island of the DR and Haiti) and there is a lot of historical stuff there but we’re going there another weekend so didn’t stop to look at anything but just ate Pizza Hut in a mall. We drove right along the coast all the way to la Cueva de Las Maravillas. It’s a giiiant cave that is really famous in the Caribbean. It was way cool to see all the stalagmites and stalactites and the bats and everything (plus learning all the words in Spanish). We saw a few bats, a little scary, but not as scary as the very end of the tour when we saw a real live tarantula… wowww Paige you would have been weeping because it was right by the elevator we had to go up and was terrifying but really cool. There are also a lot of indigenous paintings in the cave (which is why we couldn’t take pictures) that were really cool and you could tell that they were really old because the cave had grown overtop of some of them, and it takes 100 years for the rocks to grow one centimeter. Extreme. Ha and Mauricio (one of the leaders of ISA who was chaperoning our trip) said some of them looked like pokemon. It was true.
After the cave we went to the Altos de Chavon, a really famous historical/artistic neighborhood kind of thing in La Romana. To get there you have to drive past all of these giant estates (Shakira and Enrique Iglesias have a house here) and then get to the actual thing which was a neighborhood basically made of all rock with super fancy houses and things. There were tons of gorgeous flowers everywhere, and there were a lot of archways and gates and gardens and patios and tons of super cool architecture. My favorite part was the giant stadium that was made all out of stones and up on a hill behind the giant stadium was a bunch of columns and gardens. So cool. I did a little ballet on the stage and I think the ISA film guy got it on tape.. oops. Then we got to the edge of the neighborhood that looks over this extremely gorgeous valley and river with amazingly green trees. There was also a golf course that was on one ridge of the valley (if you sliced it there’s no chance of getting that ball back ever) which was really cool too see. There were little shops and a chapel in a little square that we hung out it for awhile too, all made of the same stone. Really cool place and one of the most visited spots in the Caribbean.
Next we went to our hotel which was a little hotel that was across the street from the ocean and all of the sailing ships and docks and everything. It was our first chance to swim after sweating profusely for a week so the group went to the beach and swam in the ocean. It was the clearest and warmest water I’ve ever seen in my life. The sun was setting right as we got there (sammm sunset! I took pics for you, don’t worry) which was absolutely gorgeous. The sand is pure white and the water is so clear and is absolutely unbelievable. It was the first time Joe had ever seen or been in an ocean so he was super excited. It stays shallow pretty deep so we swam around for awhile, but it wasn’t safe to be swimming after dark so we had to go back to our hotel for dinner. (ps, French camera man was for sure wearing a speedo, got a little awkward but what can you do with 60 year old Europeans). I had spaghetti that tasted mostly like play-do for dinner, but I was starving so it wasn’t too bad. I sat near the French video guy at dinner and found out how awesome he was.. he makes and directs films mostly in France but has lived in Haiti and the Dominican Republic and has filmed jo-jo, a crazy dolphin who makes sexual advances on humans, for like fifteen years. He’s also been hired to do pieces for National Geographic and it was awesome to hear about all the stuff he’s done all over the world. I’m way excited to must meet a lot of sweet people on this trip because it’s only been a week and already I feel way more worldly.
After dinner we went to a discoteca… YES. We aren’t supposed to drink on ISA excursions, but Mauricio came with us and said we could have two beers (we had three, shh don’t tell). It was all black with neon words and pictures all over the walls and ceiling and a black light and disco ball and a stage for people to dance on. We got there at like 9, which is early for people going out, but by like 9:30 there were people there and dancing.. some were so good and it’s so fun to watch. After a little while of us watching, some guys who knew we were Americans came and asked us to dance and taught us how. It’s called bachata (not sure if that spelling is right?) and is so much fun. The first dance was terrible but the guy came back later and asked me to dance again and told me to stop looking at his feet and to just watch his face and follow him. I didn’t do too bad, and for awhile it was just the two of us on the stage at the beginning of the song and I was terrified of looking ridiculous but actually picked it up pretty quick. I’m super excited to go out now because its so much more interesting and fun than going out at home, I’m teaching you all to dance so we can dominate the bars. We had to get up at 7:30 the next day so we didn’t stay much later than 11 but Rosie and I stayed up until like 12:30 talking about plantains and other important life issues. We’re getting along really well and with everyone else in the group too, loove me some good unified group activities and bonding.
This morning we ate breakfast then began our excursion to la Isla Saona. We all got on a boat that was like a big motor boat—and thinking that we had to be on that semi-uncomfortable boat for more than an hour we got a little nervous—but then we realized that it was just the little boat that took us to this giant party sailboat with motors and a big deck and these trampoline-like things to lay out on and you could feel the water underneath. So cool. The crew was really fun and played music and we all practiced our dancing all the way there. There was one guy dressed in a dress and a gray wig and was a little creepy but funny (it was his job, he said he wasn’t really a transvestite.. we weren’t convinced but whatevs he/she was fun). I already am a terrible dancer and just learned last night, but the boat moving with the waves made it even harder but it was still really fun dancing and watching and laying out and just looking at the ridiculously blue ocean. The company that we went on the excursion with gives each boat a photographer to take pictures of everyone so that you can buy them at the end.. i don’t plan on buying any but the guy was pretty cool. He was Italian (and quite nice looking) and Rosie talked to him a lot and taught him words in English (included boobs which he got confused about and pronounced beebs, ha).
Mas o menos an hour and a half later (anything dealing with time is so laid back here, I never know what time it is) we got to la Isla Saono.. literally the most amazing place I’ve ever been in my life. We got to swim last night, but the sun wasn’t really out and the beach was pretty narrow, but here the skies were completely blue with only a few puffy clouds and the water was an unreal shade of turquoise. The entire day felt fake. There were so many palm trees and plants in the brightest green I’ve ever seen along with literally such smooth white sand it was like a movie. Throughout the day we swam in the ocean, laid out, drew pics in the sand, took pictures, and just tried to take everything in. The pictures don’t even do it justice. I got a massage for less than $10 that was amazing.. never in my life have I been so relaxed (don’t worry mom.. we start school tomorrow). I really can’t even describe how good it was. Towards the end we swam out wayy far to our boat (similar distance to swimming across the lake at the cabin) and I drank probs 30 gallons of ocean water, ultimate chicken noodle soup, but good cardio.
We took a big motor boat back but on the way stopped in la Piscina Natural, a part of the ocean that’s pretty close to shore but has a bunch of starfish. I TOUCHED ONE AND HELD ONE! It was so so cool. A boat of druuunk Europeans in speedos showed up next to us which was hilarious (free drinks are included on the trip but we weren’t allowed to have any.. it was too good to even want to drink but these people took full advantage of the cocktails). Such small swimsuits, but what can you do. When we got back we were all exhausted and starting to realize we all got a little sunburnt (I didn’t do too bad though, woo but got a pretty dece tan) and rode the bus back to Santiago. Mis padres were so excited that we liked it so much.. we didn’t even know what to say besides “que increible, y que bella, y me gusta muchooo”. We’ll work on that. Ma made a dessert that was creamy and almost the texture of smooth oatmeal but tasted like a mix between peanut butter and apple jacks. As usual I forgot what it’s called five second after she told me, but I really like trying all the new things she makes. I have class at 10 tomorrow, a little nervous but excited to be a real person. I’m exhausted from the day but will write about my classes and anything I forgot tomorrow. Sorry about the long post, but wayy too much to write about that I can't forget because it was just too good, you'll see from the pictures! LES AMO.
Friday, January 9, 2009
(Last night)
Tonight was so much fun. We went to a bar that was close to the University, so in walking distance, and it’s the first time Rosie and I have walked anywhere for real so it was pretty exciting. Joe, a guy from our group, lives on our way to school/only about two blocks from our house so we walked with him to the bar to meet almost everyone from our group. The bar was really cool, it was all open (aka just like a roof, you don’t go inside to the bar) and had a dj—who played a lot of American music so we knew probably more than half of the songs—but it was really fun to listen to the Spanish music too because it has hoppin beats. (and yes, it was yet another place where we were definitely Americans, but that seems like it will happen everywhere so we just had a good time anyway) Me gusta presidente mucho, we have to get up tomorrow to meet the group so I only had three but it was way fun to hang out with everyone on a non-academic basis. (and I think we figured out that the beers were about $2ish each.. which is much better than the $10 beers in Europe last year at this time). The people in our group seem really cool and up for doing a lot of stuff and going out a lot and trying new things and dancing even though we’re the whitest people in the bar. There’s one girl, Marta, from Guadalajara, Mexico who can actually dance and we all look ridiculous but the music is so much more fun than club scoes or other stuff at home (oh the roscoes, probs will be a major let down after this trip but esta bien). We went between 8:30 and 9 and most people go out much later so it was pretty slow at first but as we were leaving it was starting to pick up and people were starting to dance more. I’m suuper excited for our dance class just so I can pretend to know what im doing a little bit because I just look suuper white and out of place, and a lot of people from my group are taking the class so we can all learn together. Time to go to bed so I can wake up for our tour, les amo!
(y hoy!)
Today we had fruit loops (cereal de fruta) and fruit for breakfast before we went to the ISA office for our tour. Los estudiantes de apollo (students from the university that volunteer to teach exchange students about the school and the city) took us out in small groups to learn how to use the public transportation. There are taxis, guaguas (Dominican word for bus), and conchos (which are kind of like taxis but have specific roads that they always drive on, so more like a bus but in a small car). We took a concho into the city and quickly found out how popular they are.. they drive six people besides the driver (so seven total people in a small car.. driver, two in front, four in back) which is crazy tight when its so hot but it only costs 13 pesos, aka about 15 cents. We went to two different bus stations and our guide Pamela showed us how to use the buses to travel to other cities on the weekend. We took another concho to the calle del sol, a busy street with lots of shops and vendors. We went into La Sirena which is essentially a wal-mart and has everything. Next we went to the Secretaria de Estado de Cultura, basically a museum that brings in different exhibits to reflect Dominican and Santiago culture. It was right next to this really beautiful garden, we didn’t want to feel like tourists with our guide so we’re going to go back to look around and take pictures. It was really fun and interesting to go to the more downtown section of Santiago, there’s definitely a lot of poverty but it’s still really cool to see everything. We took a concho back to the ISA office then walked home for lunch. Mama made tostones and rice with tuna, so good.
After lunch Rosie took a nap and I went and met up with some people from our group to go to the supermercado. We took a concho (even though my group almost got lost, luckily we saw the other kids because the city takes a huge loop and I still wasn’t sure where we were going but it worked out) there and people bought various things, I mostly just went for the experience and bought more lotion in case I burn at the playa tomorrow. (don’t worry ma, my sunblock is packed). OHHH and you’re never going to believe what they have a ton of at the supermercado.. CLOSE UP TOOTHPASTE!!!!!1!!1ONE!!! I’ve never seen more than four tubes at once and only at Rochester target and there were at least 20 tubes of it.. so if the three tubes I brought runs out I can still brush my teeth as much as I want. (People judged me when I got so excited.. but they’ll learn about my cinnamon/toothbrushing addiction soon enough). We took the conchos back to school and Joe, the boy I walked there with, went to buy a phone so I was just going to walk back by myself. I assumed I’d be fine finding my way since I’d walked it a few times.. semi-wrong about that one. I wandered around for probably 20 minutes until I finally figured out that I didn’t walk far enough on one of the streets. It’s hard enough being lost when everything looks the same, but trying to walk fast when you’re sweating profusely and the same people yelling “gringa gringa!” (means white, blond girl) and hissing and whistling and yelling and honking at me because I was taking literal laps in the neighbor hood, made me a little nervous. But, no worries, I made it home alright and now I’ll be able to make it every time.
After I got back and cooled off, Rosie and I watched the discovery channel con madre y padre (about the apocalypse.. I could actually understand quite a bit of it) and then madre, Rosie, and I watched Hanging Up (or something like that) with meg ryan and lisa kudrow which was dubbed over in Spanish but also had Spanish subtitles so I actually did really well understanding it. We’re going to try to watch more tv (never have I said that in my life..) because it’s actually really good practice to try to understand people when they talk fast and try to learn vocab.
I just got done doing yoga on the roof while the sun was setting.. soo gorgeous and relaxing. I still can’t believe that I’m actually here and doing all of this. Tomorrow we leave for La Romana at 7:00 am (blehh) and we’re stopping in Santo Domingo for lunch then getting there in the early afternoon. Padre told us today that the water is super clear and clean and gorgeous.. literally can’t wait. We get back late Sunday night so I’ll write more then or on Monday after classes. I hope the weather isn’t too cold, I’ll take lots of pictures of the beach for you :).
Tonight was so much fun. We went to a bar that was close to the University, so in walking distance, and it’s the first time Rosie and I have walked anywhere for real so it was pretty exciting. Joe, a guy from our group, lives on our way to school/only about two blocks from our house so we walked with him to the bar to meet almost everyone from our group. The bar was really cool, it was all open (aka just like a roof, you don’t go inside to the bar) and had a dj—who played a lot of American music so we knew probably more than half of the songs—but it was really fun to listen to the Spanish music too because it has hoppin beats. (and yes, it was yet another place where we were definitely Americans, but that seems like it will happen everywhere so we just had a good time anyway) Me gusta presidente mucho, we have to get up tomorrow to meet the group so I only had three but it was way fun to hang out with everyone on a non-academic basis. (and I think we figured out that the beers were about $2ish each.. which is much better than the $10 beers in Europe last year at this time). The people in our group seem really cool and up for doing a lot of stuff and going out a lot and trying new things and dancing even though we’re the whitest people in the bar. There’s one girl, Marta, from Guadalajara, Mexico who can actually dance and we all look ridiculous but the music is so much more fun than club scoes or other stuff at home (oh the roscoes, probs will be a major let down after this trip but esta bien). We went between 8:30 and 9 and most people go out much later so it was pretty slow at first but as we were leaving it was starting to pick up and people were starting to dance more. I’m suuper excited for our dance class just so I can pretend to know what im doing a little bit because I just look suuper white and out of place, and a lot of people from my group are taking the class so we can all learn together. Time to go to bed so I can wake up for our tour, les amo!
(y hoy!)
Today we had fruit loops (cereal de fruta) and fruit for breakfast before we went to the ISA office for our tour. Los estudiantes de apollo (students from the university that volunteer to teach exchange students about the school and the city) took us out in small groups to learn how to use the public transportation. There are taxis, guaguas (Dominican word for bus), and conchos (which are kind of like taxis but have specific roads that they always drive on, so more like a bus but in a small car). We took a concho into the city and quickly found out how popular they are.. they drive six people besides the driver (so seven total people in a small car.. driver, two in front, four in back) which is crazy tight when its so hot but it only costs 13 pesos, aka about 15 cents. We went to two different bus stations and our guide Pamela showed us how to use the buses to travel to other cities on the weekend. We took another concho to the calle del sol, a busy street with lots of shops and vendors. We went into La Sirena which is essentially a wal-mart and has everything. Next we went to the Secretaria de Estado de Cultura, basically a museum that brings in different exhibits to reflect Dominican and Santiago culture. It was right next to this really beautiful garden, we didn’t want to feel like tourists with our guide so we’re going to go back to look around and take pictures. It was really fun and interesting to go to the more downtown section of Santiago, there’s definitely a lot of poverty but it’s still really cool to see everything. We took a concho back to the ISA office then walked home for lunch. Mama made tostones and rice with tuna, so good.
After lunch Rosie took a nap and I went and met up with some people from our group to go to the supermercado. We took a concho (even though my group almost got lost, luckily we saw the other kids because the city takes a huge loop and I still wasn’t sure where we were going but it worked out) there and people bought various things, I mostly just went for the experience and bought more lotion in case I burn at the playa tomorrow. (don’t worry ma, my sunblock is packed). OHHH and you’re never going to believe what they have a ton of at the supermercado.. CLOSE UP TOOTHPASTE!!!!!1!!1ONE!!! I’ve never seen more than four tubes at once and only at Rochester target and there were at least 20 tubes of it.. so if the three tubes I brought runs out I can still brush my teeth as much as I want. (People judged me when I got so excited.. but they’ll learn about my cinnamon/toothbrushing addiction soon enough). We took the conchos back to school and Joe, the boy I walked there with, went to buy a phone so I was just going to walk back by myself. I assumed I’d be fine finding my way since I’d walked it a few times.. semi-wrong about that one. I wandered around for probably 20 minutes until I finally figured out that I didn’t walk far enough on one of the streets. It’s hard enough being lost when everything looks the same, but trying to walk fast when you’re sweating profusely and the same people yelling “gringa gringa!” (means white, blond girl) and hissing and whistling and yelling and honking at me because I was taking literal laps in the neighbor hood, made me a little nervous. But, no worries, I made it home alright and now I’ll be able to make it every time.
After I got back and cooled off, Rosie and I watched the discovery channel con madre y padre (about the apocalypse.. I could actually understand quite a bit of it) and then madre, Rosie, and I watched Hanging Up (or something like that) with meg ryan and lisa kudrow which was dubbed over in Spanish but also had Spanish subtitles so I actually did really well understanding it. We’re going to try to watch more tv (never have I said that in my life..) because it’s actually really good practice to try to understand people when they talk fast and try to learn vocab.
I just got done doing yoga on the roof while the sun was setting.. soo gorgeous and relaxing. I still can’t believe that I’m actually here and doing all of this. Tomorrow we leave for La Romana at 7:00 am (blehh) and we’re stopping in Santo Domingo for lunch then getting there in the early afternoon. Padre told us today that the water is super clear and clean and gorgeous.. literally can’t wait. We get back late Sunday night so I’ll write more then or on Monday after classes. I hope the weather isn’t too cold, I’ll take lots of pictures of the beach for you :).
Thursday, January 8, 2009
This morning we had a city tour (that we thought was a bus tour, more like a small van.. felt like literally fifteen people in a minivan who don’t know each other very well.. pretty hilarious with the driving down here, pero esta bien). We didn’t really get a tour of the city, but we went to the the Concurso de Arte Eduardo Leon Jimenes, a really nice museum of Santiago and Dominican History along with a modern art exhibit that was craazy weird but really cool. A lot of the topics were really intense, like little girls who think they should be women (it was photographs of naked girls with like yarn and material pieces of fabric that looked like women’s bodies, way weird and disturbing but gets the point across) or like a huge circular plate on the floor that was like ten feet wide with different small plates, cups, bowls, jars, etc filled with different kinds and colors of hair, some was dreadlocks or braids or in knots or in perfect circles.. it was really creepy to look at and I think it represented all the different types of people in the Dominican but wasn’t really sure. Also one exhibit was long ropes hanging from a high ceiling with cloth around them then about hip height there were all of these different colors of hands (looked like real hands, weren’t) just hanging there to represent diversity as well.. super extreme but really cool to see the different themes.
Then we got to go to the monument (the one I can see from my roof) and go up inside it. There is green grass and trees and statues all around the base of the monument and when you go inside, each floor you go up tells a different part of Santiago’s history. The top has such an incredible view, you can see the entire city with the mountains in the background.. absolutely phenomenal. The colors of all the buildings are so vibrant and even though the city is packed really tight there are still trees and other patches of green all around. When we were leaving, a Dominican girl took a picture of me and a few other girls in our group on her cell phone (kudos Krista, way to be suuper pale and American. Oh well. Later in the day a guy driving past us yelled that he loved us soo I guess we’ll just have to get used to it).
We came back home for lunch and had white rice with white beans (the beans are in a sauce that’s super good, with chunks of some kind of a gourd similar to a pumpkin), batatas (we’re still confused about what’s made from platanos and what time of ripeness they have.. so confusing but I’m sure I’ll figs it out soon.. anyways, they tasted like potatoes that are a little bit sweeter, it was good whatever it was ha), salad, avocados, and chicken in some kind of sauce that was really good too. Oh and I forgot to say (dad, this is for you) that when they make rice, the rice that gets stuck to the bottom of the pan and gets more crispy is called con con and after they put the real rice in a bowl they scrape the con con out and put it in a separate bowl because it’s the best part.
After lunch we went back to the university to choose our classes. Semi-mess, I had to pick quite a few new classes and my schedule is pretty random. Mondays I have class from 10-12, 4-6, and 7-8. Tuesdays I have history from 8-9 and dance from 2-3 and I’m done. Wednesdays, I literally only have class from 7-9 and that’s it. Tursdays I have 8-11, 2-3, and 5-6. Suuper random but I can stay at school and do my homework/read/a lot of people walk on campus so maybe do that a little, lose weight mom-style. And vomitar, two classes at 8 (I tried never to do that again but nothing else worked in my schedule) but I can always siesta later in the day. They aren’t offering the teaching English as a second language, which is really disappointing, but I’m taking two culture classes, a history class, a literature class, and Caribbean dance which should be ballin even though I’m so white. And no classes on Fridays wooo! If I didn’t have to think really really hard every time someone was talking to me, it would be just like a literal vacation but don’t worry, I’m learning way more than I ever have in any Spanish class sooo yes.
Ha so last night Rosie and I found out about the toilet system here.. Her toilet would not flush (la problema no fue que ella hizo caca.. we looked up a lot of bathroom words last night too to try to fix the problem) because no one told us until that day that you can’t flush the toilet paper. We had to look up the words for plunger and hole bunch of other ones, and mama laughed at us a little but now we know before we flood our bathrooms with caca. It’s all a learning experience.
Tonight we’re going out for the first tiiime hooray! We’re meeting everyone from our group and going to a bar that isn’t too far from our house. It’s our first time walking anywhere other than in the backyard so hopefully we can make it without getting lost. I’m excited to try el Presidente, it’s a beer that is really popular here (and has 6.5% alcohol.. can’t hurt can it?). But I’m really excited to be in a real setting rather than just orientation or a minivan looking at the city. I’m going to do a little yoga and read now until dinner, or maybe watch a little Zoey 101 with mis hermanas because they really like that show. They had to go back to school today for the first time after their break and were not excited about it, but they go from 8 am to 1 pm and then they’re done. We got to see Stephanie (they actually call her estephanie which Rosie and I really like) in her school uniform, so cute. Last night I gave my padres our Christmas card of Paige and I in the pumpkin patch.. they thought we were twins.
Tomorrow we have another tour of the city and then a free afternoon so that should be fun. Also, today one of our ISA guys told us that he volunteers in a center with kids that have cancer and said that we could go with him any time we want, so I’m for sure going to try to do that a lot, especially on my free days. Escribire mas manana! Les extrano a todas.
Then we got to go to the monument (the one I can see from my roof) and go up inside it. There is green grass and trees and statues all around the base of the monument and when you go inside, each floor you go up tells a different part of Santiago’s history. The top has such an incredible view, you can see the entire city with the mountains in the background.. absolutely phenomenal. The colors of all the buildings are so vibrant and even though the city is packed really tight there are still trees and other patches of green all around. When we were leaving, a Dominican girl took a picture of me and a few other girls in our group on her cell phone (kudos Krista, way to be suuper pale and American. Oh well. Later in the day a guy driving past us yelled that he loved us soo I guess we’ll just have to get used to it).
We came back home for lunch and had white rice with white beans (the beans are in a sauce that’s super good, with chunks of some kind of a gourd similar to a pumpkin), batatas (we’re still confused about what’s made from platanos and what time of ripeness they have.. so confusing but I’m sure I’ll figs it out soon.. anyways, they tasted like potatoes that are a little bit sweeter, it was good whatever it was ha), salad, avocados, and chicken in some kind of sauce that was really good too. Oh and I forgot to say (dad, this is for you) that when they make rice, the rice that gets stuck to the bottom of the pan and gets more crispy is called con con and after they put the real rice in a bowl they scrape the con con out and put it in a separate bowl because it’s the best part.
After lunch we went back to the university to choose our classes. Semi-mess, I had to pick quite a few new classes and my schedule is pretty random. Mondays I have class from 10-12, 4-6, and 7-8. Tuesdays I have history from 8-9 and dance from 2-3 and I’m done. Wednesdays, I literally only have class from 7-9 and that’s it. Tursdays I have 8-11, 2-3, and 5-6. Suuper random but I can stay at school and do my homework/read/a lot of people walk on campus so maybe do that a little, lose weight mom-style. And vomitar, two classes at 8 (I tried never to do that again but nothing else worked in my schedule) but I can always siesta later in the day. They aren’t offering the teaching English as a second language, which is really disappointing, but I’m taking two culture classes, a history class, a literature class, and Caribbean dance which should be ballin even though I’m so white. And no classes on Fridays wooo! If I didn’t have to think really really hard every time someone was talking to me, it would be just like a literal vacation but don’t worry, I’m learning way more than I ever have in any Spanish class sooo yes.
Ha so last night Rosie and I found out about the toilet system here.. Her toilet would not flush (la problema no fue que ella hizo caca.. we looked up a lot of bathroom words last night too to try to fix the problem) because no one told us until that day that you can’t flush the toilet paper. We had to look up the words for plunger and hole bunch of other ones, and mama laughed at us a little but now we know before we flood our bathrooms with caca. It’s all a learning experience.
Tonight we’re going out for the first tiiime hooray! We’re meeting everyone from our group and going to a bar that isn’t too far from our house. It’s our first time walking anywhere other than in the backyard so hopefully we can make it without getting lost. I’m excited to try el Presidente, it’s a beer that is really popular here (and has 6.5% alcohol.. can’t hurt can it?). But I’m really excited to be in a real setting rather than just orientation or a minivan looking at the city. I’m going to do a little yoga and read now until dinner, or maybe watch a little Zoey 101 with mis hermanas because they really like that show. They had to go back to school today for the first time after their break and were not excited about it, but they go from 8 am to 1 pm and then they’re done. We got to see Stephanie (they actually call her estephanie which Rosie and I really like) in her school uniform, so cute. Last night I gave my padres our Christmas card of Paige and I in the pumpkin patch.. they thought we were twins.
Tomorrow we have another tour of the city and then a free afternoon so that should be fun. Also, today one of our ISA guys told us that he volunteers in a center with kids that have cancer and said that we could go with him any time we want, so I’m for sure going to try to do that a lot, especially on my free days. Escribire mas manana! Les extrano a todas.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
7 Enero
This morning we had the same breakfast as yesterday, fresh pineapple and strawberries and toast with jelly. Today we got to go to the university (PUCMM.. Pontificia Universidad Catolica Madre y Maestra is the name of my school) to learn about what school would be like. The campus is gorgeous, it has green grass all around and a lot of plants and trees. We had to take a placement test today along with an oral interview with one of the teachers, hopefully that went ok. I got to talk to more of the ISA people in my group and its fun to hear where they’re from and get to know kids, it’ll be especially fun when we get to spend more time than just orientation together this weekend when we go to La Romana. We came back to our house for lunch (on the drive home we saw a man selling puppies.. literally the size of beanie babies, Victor’s aunt had one that small too, adorable) and had a different kind of rice and beans combo, avocado, different vegetables, and a dish with meat, cheese, and platanos amarillos (yellow plantains) that was similar to goulash, lasagna, and tacos mixed together.. fabulous. Also, I find it interesting that at meals everyone gets up after we pray and walks around the table to get everything they want and then sit back down to eat. Just different. After lunch I read and did a little more yoga on the roof and just relaxed until our afternoon orientation session. We got more information about PUCMM and took a tour with some students. Me encanta la Universidad, it feels like going to school in a jungle or a huge garden. When we got back Rosie and I worked on our vocab a little more and then went with mama, Stephanie, y Jennifer to the church where they had two bands that were soo good. The first had a piano, guitar, bass, drums, and two singers and the second was more like typical Spanish music with different types of drums and other instruments (I don’t know what they’re called, but I’m sure I’ll find out as we learn more about the musica.) It was so fun, everyone dances and sings and claps and it was way fun to do something with “the locals” (paige, ha). The singers were great too and I tried to understand what they were saying and could some of the time but songs are even harder than normal conversations so hopefully that will improve too. We just got back around ten and now we’re going to eat dinner.. mucho mas tarde que los estados unidos. Tomorrow we have a bus tour of the city and get to pick our classes so that should be fun! I’m getting better at initiating conversations with my padres y hermanas which helps me practice and have more confidence when I talk to people who can actually speak Spanish because it’s already flowing pretty well when I talk to other students. I’m completely exhausted by 10 because I’ve been thinking so much but I’m glad that Rosie’s really dedicated to really learning too so hopefully we can be real people. Woo!
This morning we had the same breakfast as yesterday, fresh pineapple and strawberries and toast with jelly. Today we got to go to the university (PUCMM.. Pontificia Universidad Catolica Madre y Maestra is the name of my school) to learn about what school would be like. The campus is gorgeous, it has green grass all around and a lot of plants and trees. We had to take a placement test today along with an oral interview with one of the teachers, hopefully that went ok. I got to talk to more of the ISA people in my group and its fun to hear where they’re from and get to know kids, it’ll be especially fun when we get to spend more time than just orientation together this weekend when we go to La Romana. We came back to our house for lunch (on the drive home we saw a man selling puppies.. literally the size of beanie babies, Victor’s aunt had one that small too, adorable) and had a different kind of rice and beans combo, avocado, different vegetables, and a dish with meat, cheese, and platanos amarillos (yellow plantains) that was similar to goulash, lasagna, and tacos mixed together.. fabulous. Also, I find it interesting that at meals everyone gets up after we pray and walks around the table to get everything they want and then sit back down to eat. Just different. After lunch I read and did a little more yoga on the roof and just relaxed until our afternoon orientation session. We got more information about PUCMM and took a tour with some students. Me encanta la Universidad, it feels like going to school in a jungle or a huge garden. When we got back Rosie and I worked on our vocab a little more and then went with mama, Stephanie, y Jennifer to the church where they had two bands that were soo good. The first had a piano, guitar, bass, drums, and two singers and the second was more like typical Spanish music with different types of drums and other instruments (I don’t know what they’re called, but I’m sure I’ll find out as we learn more about the musica.) It was so fun, everyone dances and sings and claps and it was way fun to do something with “the locals” (paige, ha). The singers were great too and I tried to understand what they were saying and could some of the time but songs are even harder than normal conversations so hopefully that will improve too. We just got back around ten and now we’re going to eat dinner.. mucho mas tarde que los estados unidos. Tomorrow we have a bus tour of the city and get to pick our classes so that should be fun! I’m getting better at initiating conversations with my padres y hermanas which helps me practice and have more confidence when I talk to people who can actually speak Spanish because it’s already flowing pretty well when I talk to other students. I’m completely exhausted by 10 because I’ve been thinking so much but I’m glad that Rosie’s really dedicated to really learning too so hopefully we can be real people. Woo!
6 Enero
This morning I got my other suitcase (which is good because mi mama told me that a lot of times it takes more than a week so that’s awesome) and had a phenomenal breakfast.. fresh pineapple, grapes, strawberries, and toast. Jennifer was making fresh lemonade (but with their limes, so limeaid?) which is absolutely fantastic and we drink with almost every meal. All of the food is so fresh down here which we love. After breakfast we went back up to the roof (nuestro lugar favorito) and read and began writing down all the new words we’ve learned so far. I also did a little yoga session.. yoga on the rooftop with the entire city as your view is quite relaxing, even with my old man back. For lunch we had fabulous rice with vegetables and fish, tostones (taste similar to French fries), fresh avocado (from the trees in the backyard, salad with tomatoes, and the chocolates that Rosie and I brought as gifts. This afternoon we had our first orientation at the ISA office (ISA is our program, International Study Abroad office) which was kind of dull but gave us a better idea of the city and what we’ll be doing. I got to meet all of the people in our group, it’s a wide range of Spanish speakers, some are fluent and are just visiting a different country, and others are closer to my level. We just had to sit and listen to a lecture so I didn’t get to know any of them but we have our first trip this weekend to La Romana which is an important historical place and also has beaches (estoy muy emocionante para ver la playa) and caves and other cool natural things that I’ll learn more about because I missed some of it in padre’s lesson about the country last night. After orientation we came back and our family had to leave to go look at pictures of my sister Jennifer’s quincenera (celebration when you turn 15, similar to turning 16 in the US but you get to wear a prom dress and have tons of people and basically a wedding cake to celebrate turning 15.. Jennifer is gorgeous and looked older than Rosie and I by a few years) but we were tired because thinking in Spanish takes so much more brainpower than we’re used to for normal conversation so we stayed home to rest. We watched Harry Potter with Spanish subtitles and wrote down words that we should know or just wanted to write down for future reference (“you know who” = ya-sabes-quien, mago = wizard, etc) along with reading our verb dictionary to write down important words in our palabras journal to try to improve our vocab. We’re going to try to do this everyday so we can keep getting better. Our familia got back around 9 and we at sandwiches at like 9:30 (dinner is usually way later, lunch is the big meal of the day) that for some reason tasted way better than back home (mama loves to cook for us, she’s perfect). Then Rosie and I did some exercise DVDs that she brought so we can be hot on the beach this weekend. Tomorrow we have more orientation at 8:30—first morning we’ve had to get up before 10—but we get to see the university and the city so I’m pretty excited. I hope all is well, hasta manana!
This morning I got my other suitcase (which is good because mi mama told me that a lot of times it takes more than a week so that’s awesome) and had a phenomenal breakfast.. fresh pineapple, grapes, strawberries, and toast. Jennifer was making fresh lemonade (but with their limes, so limeaid?) which is absolutely fantastic and we drink with almost every meal. All of the food is so fresh down here which we love. After breakfast we went back up to the roof (nuestro lugar favorito) and read and began writing down all the new words we’ve learned so far. I also did a little yoga session.. yoga on the rooftop with the entire city as your view is quite relaxing, even with my old man back. For lunch we had fabulous rice with vegetables and fish, tostones (taste similar to French fries), fresh avocado (from the trees in the backyard, salad with tomatoes, and the chocolates that Rosie and I brought as gifts. This afternoon we had our first orientation at the ISA office (ISA is our program, International Study Abroad office) which was kind of dull but gave us a better idea of the city and what we’ll be doing. I got to meet all of the people in our group, it’s a wide range of Spanish speakers, some are fluent and are just visiting a different country, and others are closer to my level. We just had to sit and listen to a lecture so I didn’t get to know any of them but we have our first trip this weekend to La Romana which is an important historical place and also has beaches (estoy muy emocionante para ver la playa) and caves and other cool natural things that I’ll learn more about because I missed some of it in padre’s lesson about the country last night. After orientation we came back and our family had to leave to go look at pictures of my sister Jennifer’s quincenera (celebration when you turn 15, similar to turning 16 in the US but you get to wear a prom dress and have tons of people and basically a wedding cake to celebrate turning 15.. Jennifer is gorgeous and looked older than Rosie and I by a few years) but we were tired because thinking in Spanish takes so much more brainpower than we’re used to for normal conversation so we stayed home to rest. We watched Harry Potter with Spanish subtitles and wrote down words that we should know or just wanted to write down for future reference (“you know who” = ya-sabes-quien, mago = wizard, etc) along with reading our verb dictionary to write down important words in our palabras journal to try to improve our vocab. We’re going to try to do this everyday so we can keep getting better. Our familia got back around 9 and we at sandwiches at like 9:30 (dinner is usually way later, lunch is the big meal of the day) that for some reason tasted way better than back home (mama loves to cook for us, she’s perfect). Then Rosie and I did some exercise DVDs that she brought so we can be hot on the beach this weekend. Tomorrow we have more orientation at 8:30—first morning we’ve had to get up before 10—but we get to see the university and the city so I’m pretty excited. I hope all is well, hasta manana!
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
y mas tarde en lunes
Tonight for dinner we had yucca (which tastes kind of like super dense potatoes) with onions and salami on top. It was very different but pretty good. Padre gave us a lesson about the Dominican Republic with a giant map that he gave us along with the history of the DR. (There are whales around the island, hopefully I’ll get to see one!) Then we went to go see Victor’s aunt at her house so we got to drive through the city a little bit. I would never want to drive here.. ultimate starting and stopping and honking and driving fast (mom, you’d be sick in five seconds) but it was fun to get around. We had our first legal glass of wine there :) which helped our Spanish flow a little easier. Next we went to Judith’s mom’s house. Everyone is really excited about the family’s new “daughters” and they were excited to talk to us. We came back to our casa and tried a potato-like food that is basically sweet potatoes and was way good along with some really good cheese (lots of cheeses before bed, nice). I’m excited to get out in the city tomorrow; our mom thought we would get lost today if we went walking so we’re going to wait until we actually know where we are. We get to sleep in again tomorrow and have orientation at 3:00 so that should be good. I’m excited to see Trena and the other people in our group, time to go sweat in my sleep with my fan on my face. Not bad. Les amo!
Monday, January 5, 2009
First warm day!
Today we woke up at 11:30 (my alarm clock is in my lost suitcase and Rosie and I both had a little trouble with the time change and still aren’t exactly for sure what time it is now.. I’m sure we’ll figs it out) and ate lunch with our madre, Stephanie, Jennifer, and dona Ana, the housekeeper. We had the best rice and beans I’ve ever had in my life, steak, broccoli, and fried bananas which were to die for. Rosie and I explored the house a little more then read on our roof for awhile (Krista sweats were out of control.. people are just going to have to deal with it for five months or I won’t have any friends) which was amazing because it was about 80 degrees and sunny. (Lo siento Minnesota y Iowa kids). It’s pretty humid here though too but gets cooler at night so it’s not too hard to sleep with our fans on. We took a bunch of pictures of our house because we’re still too excited about it (they’re on facebook, still haven’t had enough time to figure out how to upload them here and internet is slow) then have just been relaxing all afternoon. Tomorrow we have orientation in the afternoon and all day Thursday, and this weekend we have our first excursion. I still can’t get over how amazing everything is, and I’m already getting better at Spanish. I miss everyone very much but I’m having a great time and can’t wait to keep telling you about my adventuras. Les extrano!
Primer Dia
4 Enero 2009
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