Caballo! Caballo!

This weekend actually felt like a weekend.  I still worked, like usual, on Saturday but for some reason, Saturday felt longer.  After work, I made a quick stop at Pola for some date night snacks and headed home.  Not much was happening around the house and I ended up in my room, trying to cool down.  I had a nap and when I woke up, I realized that mom and dad had been trying to call me on skype.  So I chatted with them for a bit.  I spent more time just chilling, doing some reading, working on my Spanish before going for sandwiches with Pavol and Maria.  We went to a restaurant called, La Panioteca.  I had an excellent Mediterranean wrap.  It was so fresh and tasty!  It also came with a side of chips, but they seemed like healthy homemade chips that went well with their house sauce.  Following the meal, Pavol and Maria headed to Acropolis to do some shopping, and I headed back home for date night.

When I arrived, the power was out.  I sat there in the dark, sweating profusely, hoping that it would come back on before 7:30.  At about 7:15, it came back on and I was so grateful! I ended up dominating in each game that we played... okay well one of the scrabble games I didn't dominate, but I still won...

The plan for Sunday was to go to the beach.  It wasn't raining when I woke up, and that was all I needed!  Pavol, Maria, Paula, Jamie (new CEEDer) and I met up at Nacional and took a taxi and guagua to the beach.  It was a rather uneventful trip out, which was a nice change.  On our way we got to see several tall ships in the ocean.  They appeared to be representing/from various countries and there were a few military ships out there as well.  We went to Hemingway again and met up with some of Maria's friends who had already claimed a spot under a nice palm tree.  I spent a bit of time in the water, but there was a lot of seaweed so it wasn't overly pleasant.  I did a bit of tanning and some reading but I don't think I got much of a tan. 

I also got to try a palito de coco.  This was a  candied coconut ball.  The inside was a kind of gooey coconut and the outside was candied but had a molasses type flavour to it.  Each one cost RD$10.  Later on it got quite cloudy and made for an almost dusk-like feeling at the beach.  It was perfect though.  A nice warm breeze, it wasn't too hot, it wasn't too cold.  We all just sat around, some of us slept, the rest of us chatted, etc.  Manuel and his friend came by too which was very nice.  Finally, at around 5:00 we headed back into the city.  Manuel was gracious enough to take us back with him, even though that meant we had to do it carrito style (3 in the front, 4 in the back).  The trip back was fun.  My favorite moment was when I turned to see if the tall ships were still in the ocean and Paula says, "what are you looking at?"  "I'm looking for the ships", I replied.  "Chips??" said Paula excitedly.  She was super hungry and really wanted to hear me say I was looking for chips to eat.  Manuel also played us this song that seemed to be a very passionate, heartfelt, intense ballad.  Maria turned to me and said, do you know what this song is about?  I said no, I hadn't been paying attention to the words.  She goes, it is about a homosexual horse in the mountains (Caballo Homosexual de la Montaña).  Seriously?  Yep.  If I could attach a music file here, I would.  It's a great song - very catchy.  Seriously.  It is by a rather unknown Dominican artist, Kaim.

Once Manuel had dropped us off, we got cleaned up, ate and met at the colamado a few blocks away (our usual colmado had already closed).  At first it was just myself, Pavol, Maria and Manuel, but later Zak, Adaica, Jamie and Jakub joined us.  Lots of beer was had, along with cheese, ham, chips, chocolate, etc.  When they had moved onto rum, I decided it was time for me to head home.  Pavol and Zak walked me back to the house where I proceeded to have a brief chat with Bart and then fell fast asleep.

I had a slightly interesting carrito ride this morning.  When I got in, the driver said, "blah blah puerta" (at least, that is what I heard).  I was confused, what did he want me to do with the door?  Anyways, it turns out he said to ensure the door was closed by pushing on it, which the guy next to me did.  He just laughed at me - in a nice way.  I had no idea since I knew that the door was closed all the way so I was just unsure of what I would still need to do with the door!  Ugh, regardless I felt a bit embarrassed, but I got over it quickly.  Can't dwell on these things - its all a part of learning, right?

After work, we all met up at the MC for a welcome dinner for Jakub and Jamie.  We had tacos.  They were different from the tacos I'm used to (different toppings) but still good.  We ended up just hanging out on the balcony for a few hours.  We even had a fantastic rendition of Caballo Homosexual.  I ended up not getting home until after 11.  Very tired.