9 – 20 Marzo
Tuesday we decided it was time to skip school and go to Sosua. Being a good kid and knowing I’m going to skip class when my parents are here I went to my 8am and met them at the bus station for some McD’s bfast. It was sadly cloudy the entire day until about 5:30 which was about 10 minutes of evening sun before we got on the bus to go back. It was still an awesome day, we played in the ocean a lot and just hung out and obviously beach > school any day so victory. That night we got back and I went double dating with Richard and Brie and their friend Nico who is Richard’s giant friend who I met at the Haitian party on Saturday. No joke, both of these guys are at least 6’4 and are just hugely built guys and since a lot of Dominican guys are about 5’4 and 150 pounds they look even bigger in comparison. We saw “Apparaciones” (Appearances) which was in English but was a terrible movie about witchcraft in the 1800s. (Our only other choice of movie was Mega Diva which did not look promising). Also, the theaters follow the Dominican rule that if you have air conditioning you have the blast the shit out of it or it’s not worth having. Literal igloo in there. We all went to Nico’s apartment to hang out and while we were there his roommates found a little present in the kitchen.. a live tarantula. Yep. Sooo much wildlife but as always, part of the experience.

Thursday night we went out to Fogon with a lot of people from the other programs who we’ve been meeting so that’s fun because we’re branching our friend circle out even more and they’re all really cool guys. It’s so refreshing to have guys who are just your friends and you can hang out with them knowing that their only goal is to sleep with a blond American girl so that’s been a wonderful new development for us. Oh ha and there was this really attractive guy there who bought me a drink and asked the bar tender to give him my number and when I went and talked to him the first thing he says to me is “I want to be your boyfriend, I love you.” Naturally I laughed but told him I don’t want a boyfriend and he still proceeds to invite me to his house the next day, and slips in the fact that he’s 30 and has a 2 year old daughter. No gracias senor. Although he told me that “love has no age” I still just laughed and had to ignore his 30 calls the next day because that’s just too much for me. We went with everyone to another Haitian party at a dance club and a bunch of the guys from my dance class were there so we practiced all of our routines which is so much fun, especially after a few cocktails.

Friday I had a girls shopping day with Brie, Trena, and Joe downtown (Joe doesn’t live with any other students and gets really bored so he comes on a lot of the girl dates to pick up girls while we do girl things. It all works out). About 95% of the stuff I could never imagine wearing because it looks like a corset or something that would fall apart after you wash it once but I bought one cute top for like $6 so that was a score. After walking around and shopping for most of the afternoon we rewarded Joey and ourselves with yogen-fruz on the way back. I’m literally going to cry when I can’t have it anymore and 100% am going to try making it when I’m home. That night we met Ben and Iverson at the monument and I tried a lot of the Dominican street food for the first time. We had empanadas which were awesome and things called keepay (that’s for sure just phonetically spelled.. I’ll investigate later) that are like shredded chicken mixed with cheese inside a crispy ball of fried breading.. hard to explain but amazing. After we went back to the dance club we went to when Paige was here and Nico was there along with Rosie and Dimitri so we hung out with them and danced there and stuff before going home.

Saturday was PI DAY (3.14 woo!) so my friend Jared invited me to his house to celebrate with them. Him and Will (sorry about the random names, I assume they mean nothing but we keep hanging out with these guys so yeah) bought apple and guayava pies along with making their own pie with graham cracker crust, a layer of peanut butter, Bon ice cream, whip cream, crumbled up chocolate cookies, and chocolate syrup on top. Phenomenal. We had that with beer which was a terrible combo but boys drink beer with everything so I just went with it. Later that afternoon I went to Dimitri’s house to have a “tanning party” with Dimitri, Rosie, Richard, Brie, Nico, and Richards roommate Gracia. Aka, Rosie, Brie, and I put our towels out on the roof and laid out in our swimming suits while these guys all crouched under this really tiny part of the roof that gave like 2 feet of shade. Hilarious. Rosie made bean dip and we just hung out there all day so that was really fun. That night we had all planned to go out but everyone decided to stay home besides Joey and I so we went and met Jared and Peter (another guy from the other program who also is in my dance class along with Jared) at a pool hall and watched them finish their game before we went to this dance club named Ahi bar. Joey and I had bought a little bottle of rum and some coke before and made our drinks which usually you can just carry around with you to the outdoor clubs but we went into this real bar so I had to drink my entire drink before we walked in so I got surprise drunk which ended up being perfect because they played tons of bachata and meringue so Jared and I just did all of our dances from class and probably looked like fools but I had a great time so I didn’t even care. Everyone is literally such good dancers and Jared is dark and could look fake Dominican so I was literally like the only white girl in the bar and I’m sure I looked like a fool but I had a great time. We even tried doing salsa which is way hard and we only learned for like five minutes in one class so it was a struggle but way fun. After that bar we went up to the monument parking lot (tons of people just drive their cars up there and play loud music and just drink and hang out there) so we just walked around there and helped Joey pick up girls. Again, friends who are boys time proved to be so much fun. Jared, Peter, and I went on this random stage thing while Joe was talking to people and Jared tried to break dance because apparently he can but might have had one too many cocktails so more just jumped around/proceeded to fall a lot. We went back and met Joe who had met some guys who wanted to take us all to a strip club.. I love boys time but not quite that much so we decided to go. Jared, Peter, and I went back to Jared’s house to celebrate Pi Day round two with more ice cream cake which was a strange combo with the rum and cokes but overall a very successful holiday.

Sunday was pretty worthless, slept until noon and did homework/laid out/watched the office with Rosie. Not bad. Monday too pretty uneventful; school, homework, the office, rinse repeat.

Tuesday was surprise St. Patrick’s day.. literally no one celebrates it down here so we all forgot until like the afternoon so we decided to go out to Fogon to celebrate. It was pretty empty except for the small crowd of Americans wearing green and drinking more beer than usual but it was fun and we met Ben’s friend Victor from La Vega who was really fun so that was cool. Better than fake getting written up like last year so we’ll definitely take it.

Wednesday I went to my community service as usual to find out that the kids I usually do sports with were on a field trip so I got to help out with the chiquitos, the little kids who were between like three and five. Literally adorable, they made bracelets, necklaces, rings, and earrings out of fruit loops on strings (also eating a ridiculous amount of fruit loops which I tried and were stale and terrible but they loved them) and were just so adorable. I brought my camera with me and when they found out I had it with me it ended up creating a two hour senior pic session of all of these babies. They were so funny, they would do ridiculous poses and ask me to take “just one more! Just one more! Ok one more. Now again!...” so I ended up with about 150 pictures of the same ten kids on my camera doing different poses. So much fun though. And before we left the teacher had them sing us all a song that had all of these actions and dance moves so that was adorable. There is no way I’m leaving this country without stealing one of them. That night I worked on a lit paper all night which took awhile but I’ve gotten literal A+s on my other two big papers so I wasn’t too worried.. I literally haven’t gotten A+s since elementary school and it’s obvious that I do not have an A+ Spanish writing level so I think it’s funny but a good confidence booster. Oh also random tangent, one day I was wearing soccer shorts because I came from playing sports with the kiddies and they turned me away from the library. They literally don’t let you in if you’re wearing athletic shorts, and we don’t know if it’s just for girls or for everyone but I couldn’t believe it and I’m glad that Luther lets me be a slob otherwise I would have failed out of school by now. That’s all about that.

Thursday we had a girls night at Trena’s house which was so much fun. We bought chips and dip and salsa, had pizza, oatmeal cookies (that they put too much water in so it turned into a giant cake but was still good) and Bon ice cream.. sooo much food but amazing to have a little American-ness. We also drank an entire jug of wine so that was pretty cool. We girl chatted and watched Baby Mamma so that was really fun to just have a chill night with the girls (Joe was mad because he said it was just a “don’t let Joe hang out” night because he’s the only guy who ever comes anyway but it was more the idea of it). Oh and Trena’s host sister who looks about 21 was there and we told her to have some wine and later we found out she was in fact 15 but magically had bigger boobs than all of us so we never could have known. Ridiculous. Still a really great night, I love all of these girls so it was way fun.

Finally I’m actually caught up on here for you.. and even if it sounds like I drink everyday I really just have one or two cocktails so don’t worry mom. I’m literally loving everything and AMY COMES THIS SATURDAY so I cannot wait to spend the week with her and Annie (for non-Luther kids, Amy is one of my best friends from school who plays golf with me and her and Annie spent the semester here last year and now I’m living with their family so they’re coming to stay with us/visit people/play with me so I’m way way pumped) and then my parents get here the following Tuesday! I’m sure everything will be a blur but I can’t wait for everything, love love it so much. Hokay les extrano a todas, espero que todo este bien! AMOR.