Lights Out

Not a single day has gone by yet where the power did not go out at least once or twice at work, so I'm getting used to it.  However, until last night, I had yet to experience a power outage at home.

It was around 9:40pm when the power went out, just as I was saying goodbye to mom on skype.  Of course, I had just started recharging my macbook, so I couldn't even do any work.  I went out to the living room with one of my many flashlights (I have at least 4 in preparation for this very event) to chill with Andrew.  However, "chill" is not the appropriate term to describe what happens when the power goes out.  It got very hot and stuffy in our place.  It isn't any colder outside, so there isn't really anything you can do.  The power ended up being out for about an hour.

Later, as I had just fallen asleep, the power went out again, just before 1:00am.  I wake up, and think, no, no, no, please, no, no...  It only stays out for about 10 min, but that was enough for me to feel suffocated by the heat and have sweat dripping down my face.  Disgusting.  However, the benefit of sweating was that when the power did come back on, along with my fan, I cooled off faster!

Today work was quite good.  I didn't have much of a voice which was kind of funny.  The cleaning lady and I had a discussion about my cold.  She, along with every other Dominican, believes that the cold is a good sign that means I am acclimatizing.  However, I don't feel like I'm doing so well in that area.  Once again, I was disgusting (reoccurring theme) but luckily, J was in early and noticed that I was extremely "caliente" and turned the AC on right away.

Here's me, at work (after I had literally toweled off and enjoyed the AC for a while):

I realized today that I am only 2 days ahead on my list of things I enjoy about the DR.  I added a new one today: the flowers that grow between the traffic lanes...

Another thing I've mentioned is the quality of the sidewalks.  Pavol said today (after I had taken the following picture) to make sure I explain that when you go to cross the street (or essentially walk in general) you need to look right, left, in front, behind you, up and then down before you can move.  This is an example of why you need to look down...

There is another hole, just like that one, about 2 feet away.  This is about a block from our house.

Perhaps tomorrow, I will get a picture of why you have to look up...

And finally, probably the most exciting thing about today is that I bought a frozen pizza on my way home and I am incredibly excited to get it in the oven and eat it!