Ocean! Finally!

Friday
Similar to most days, I went to work.  It was a very normal day.  However, on my way home, I was amused, in general.

1. In the park that is located where Lincoln and Lope de Vega meet, there was a man with a shiny trombone.  He appeared to be writing music, as his trombone was in one hand and in the other, was a pencil and a pad of paper.  I wish I could have heard him play.

2. Outside the Reinaldo building (obsessed much?) there was a small Reinaldo truck that was packed full of speakers.  I'm talking, outdoor concert speakers.  And they were on full volume, as if projecting to a giant outdoor concert!  I think I lost some of my hearing having to walk by that.  There was a Dominican lady in front of me, and once we had passed it, she turned back, shook her head, looked at me, shook her head.  I just smiled, and shook my head too.  Oh Reinaldo...

3. There are always men in the middle of the traffic selling things, mainly cell phone chargers, cell phone covers, kites, flowers, phone cards, etc.  But today, I saw a man selling sunglasses.  I wish I could have taken a picture.  The entirety of his shirt collar was covered in sunglasses (like when you put one arm of your sunglasses inside of your shirt and the rest of the sunglasses out).  AND the entirety of his waist band was also covered.  Of course he was wearing one pair, had a few on his head and a few in his hands.  It looked kind of awesome.  In a weird way.

4. (Technically this happened on Thursday) I saw a man carrying a very long snake and while walking through traffic.  It was a skinny snake, dark, but very long.  I don't know what type it was.  It was odd though.

Follow Up
If you're interested in knowing more about Pavol and his pursuit of happiness through rum, check out his blog: http://artofrum.blogspot.com/

And, I got a chance to capture the little lizards in my house in more detail.  This guy actually stayed still long enough for me to get out the good camera and take a few shots with my super zoom lens.

Keep in mind that these guys are maybe three inches long, including the tail.  I still need to prove the existence of the big ones in the yard...

Saturday
Just another day at the office.  However, getting to the office provided me with another adventure, of sorts.  I got into a carrito near our house.  There was just me and another girl inside.  When we got to Nacional, the other girl got out.  We had pulled over behind another carrito that also just had one person in.  There were two people, together, that were looking to get in a carrito.  For some reason, they did not want to get into the first one, so they started walking towards ours.  I prepared to shove over a bit, but then the driver turned to me, gave me my 20 pesos back and proceeded to tell me to get out of the car and take the other carrito ahead of us.  Of course, this left me very confused (this all happened in Spanish).  So I got out of the carrito I was in, and got in the one ahead.  I'm still not positive as to why this happened.  The 1st carrito ended up going the same direction we did, and he lost 20 pesos to the other driver by having me move.  Oh well.

I met up with Maria and Pavol for lunch.  We went to Domino's.  It totally hit the spot!

Following a short siesta, Andrew and I took a walk down to the ocean.  It was very relaxing and beautiful.  Being there made me actually realize that I am in the Caribbean. 

One thing that did make me quite sad was the amount of garbage that could be seen floating in the ocean.  I had such an urge to just go in and start picking it all out.

Additionally, since most of my work involves hotels, I've noticed that quite a few of them have heliports.  Now, I always wondered if they really got that much use (additionally several of the larger office buildings have heliports on top as well).  Today, I got my answer.  Andrew and I watched one helicopter come and land about a block away at a nearby hotel.  Then as that one was taking off again, another helicopter flew in to go to another location.  However, at the moment when they were both in the sky, facing each other, and being in the Caribbean, both of us were kind of waiting for them to start shooting at each other, like in a James Bond movie!  They didn't though.  Which was probably for the best.

We also watched several pelicans attempting to fish. 

As well, on the way back to the apartment, there were two buses driving nearly side by side.  Each had a similar horn but slightly different and they were honking them in such a way that it made a little tune, which put a smile on my face.

Tonight, Bart and I had our first official date night.  We found a site where we could play monopoly against each other online.  I won the first game and he won the second.  However, he would like me to note that he won the second one by a substantial margin...  It was a lot of fun!

Tomorrow, the plan is to hit the beach.  I'm quite excited about this!