The Final Post

The last month has been a bit of a whirlwind.  It has been a bit of an adjustment, in a lot of ways, but also fairly easy in other aspects.

Not a day goes by that I don't think about something from the Dominican, the people, places and things I miss.  Sometimes I forget that my friends are so far away.  Take the other day for example, when I was standing at the bus stop waiting to catch a bus downtown and I saw a silver VW drive by, exactly like the one that Manuel owns.  My first thought was, "oh, I wonder if that was Manuel," and then immediately my brain kicked in and reminded me that it was definitely not Manuel.  I've had a few skype dates so far, but it still feels weird and horribly distant.  Luckily, all of the various forms of communication we have are really handy.  I finally got a blackberry again and I love being able to instantly send pictures in the moment to Ozumy and Maria showing them what I'm doing or seeing, and I love being able to receive pictures from them of those people, places and things that I miss so much.

At the same time, I have enjoyed a lot of what I love about home.  Being able to see my family and friends on a regular basis, going to my favourite restaurants and other places in the city, wearing my favourite clothes and shoes, cooking, getting to feel cozy again - it is all so wonderful!  I have even got to take in 2 Oilers' games since I got back, and even though we lost both of the games, it felt really good to be singing my national anthem, drinking Molson and cheering on my team!

Today, I started my new job, and because of that, it seemed fitting to write my last post that would wrap up the insane adventure that was this past year.  Going to work today made reality set in.  I'm back in Canada and here to stay (at least for the foreseeable future).  So now, I just get to reminisce about all the crazy memories, both good and bad.  Everything from eating green Mangos that Paula picked off a tree on our walk home, the day David lit the sink on fire to kill a centipede, having rats eating at our kitchen door, living in the princess room, relaxing on catamarans, eating beach food, breakfasts with Ozumy, Saturday afternoons with Maria, learning how to play Dominos, drinking at the colmado, power outages, explosions in the night, the pouring rain, the insanely hot sun, Orlando and I with our fry masks, Pavol making his own rum infusions in our fridge, looking out to sea on the Malecon with Andrew, videotaping the morning commute with Robert, Marola teaching and testing me and my Spanish over lunch, driving with Manuel, riding in carritos, chinola juice, mentoring Lostania, never understanding Yeimy when she spoke in her extremely quick Spanish, Sylvia's driving making me car sick, paragliding with Arturo and his friends, pilates with Mari, all those crazy Norwegians, prepping O for his move to Canada, teaching JCL English, all the laughs I shared with Sr. S and J, finding ways to communicate with L, learning I had a good friend in E, the girls at Sweet Bakery, Super Pola, lunches at the MC with Zak, rides to and from the airport with Don Pedro, Gerardo and 2 Pinocchios, eating at IKEA, the watchiman, the fruit vendors, to the slow internet, the ants, Marlon and Mariangeles' wedding, my mosquito net, moldy clothing and Zona Colonial.  All of it.  I wouldn't change a thing and will cherish all of these moments forever.

Gracias por todo!  Abrazos y besos!

Last Week in the DR (Part I)

I'm having a hard time believing that my last week in the DR is complete.  Understandably, I've been quite busy getting things in order for the move home and even threw in a trip to the North-East side of the island.  So let's recap.

On Thursday, I was at the office by myself since Robert had gone to Isla Saona with his dad and Trond.  I ended up being quite busy and even had to work through lunch (not that I minded since that meant a free lunch from Emparedado).  I spent the evening doing more painting and organizing.

On Friday, we had another busy day at the office.  At lunch, Robert and I went to Pizza Hut.  We took a carrito there, since the walk is about 15 min long, and I was so excited when we got into the carrito and discovered it was a female driver!  But not the female driver that I had seen before, a new one!  

When it was time to leave, it started pouring rain.  We decided to wander around the building that the Pizza Hut was in, and came across another "super" business.  

I was hoping to pick up some rum at Nacional, but when we arrived, I was quite disappointed to find that they didn't have any of the brands I wanted.  Normally they carry what I was looking for.  Now I will just have to see what is available at the airport.  (This may be a good thing though since it will mean my bags will be a few pounds lighter since they will be weighed and tagged before the duty free gets stuck into them!)  Anyway, so we decided to go over to the bookstore since I've been wanting to get something for JCL in the line of a phrase book or dictionary.  I settled on a nice English dictionary.  I remember my French tutor forcing me to look up words in a French dictionary (not an English-French dictionary) since it would help me learn more, so I figured the same would be true for English.  Maria was kind enough to help me write up something nice for the inside in Spanish.   I also bought the Little Mermaid, on DVD in Spanish.

After work, I went home for a bit, changed and headed over to one of our coworker's house for a goodbye party for Oscar.  I had a sneaky feeling that it was also for me, since people kept confirming that I would be there.  It was a nice evening, there was good food and drinks, and Oscar and I were presented with some gifts!  Very thoughtful!

I was up early on Saturday to head over to Robert and Mari's at 7:15 am.  I got to meet Mari's parents and then we headed off to Caribe Tours to take a bus to Sanchez.  When we arrived, we met up with Trond, and two of Mari's coworkers, Silvia and Claudia.  The trip to Sanchez was uneventful.  I slept the entire way.  When we arrived in Sanchez, we were greeted by many taxi drivers, wondering where we were headed to.  One guy had a mini-bus (there was 8 people in our group) and wanted RD$1500 to take us to the hotel in Las Terrenas.  I thought this was reasonable, since we were a large group and the trip was a bit long.  Others in our group didn't agree and wanted less, so we ended up standing around with no one making an executive decision for a while.  I found this to be kind of frustrating.  Per person, it was less than RD$200.  I can deal with that.  Anyway, we ended up going with him.  He went over a rather nasty bump and totally scraped the bottom of the mini-bus and then it seemed like something happened to his front left wheel.  He proceeded to stop every few minutes at first to check on it.  The road to Las Terrenas was steep, curvy and in not so great condition, but the view was fantastic!

We arrived at our hotel, Las Palmas, and got checked in.  We had 3 apartments between the 10 of us (Lars and Line met us there) and the grounds were quite beautiful.

Once we got settled, we all went out to grab some lunch.  I ate a giant pizza and it was very tasty.

After lunch, we all went to hang out at the beach, except Mari's parents who went back to the hotel to chill and do some reading.  While the beach was not the greatest, it was still nice to just hang out in the sun.  We did have a bit of an adventure watching Robert climb up a palm tree and toss down two coconuts, after which, him and Lars worked hard at getting them open (eventually they did!).

After our beach time, we all showered up, some of us had a quick nap, and then we were off to find groceries to have a BBQ.  Unfortunately, as we were about to leave, it started pouring rain.  So we ended up just hanging out by the reception area until it stopped.  We walked into town and ended up finding out that the main grocery store had already closed and the only one open was a small colmado type store.  We checked it out inside and it didn't have enough for the dinner but we were able to get some food delivered for breakfast and snacks.  Lars was kind enough to walk back to meet the delivery at the hotel, while the rest of us went in search of a restaurant for dinner.  On our way, Trond had seen a place that served crocodile so the plan was to go there.  I was a bit worried since the menu they showed at the entrance had no idshes without meat.  Once we were seated, I was happy to find that the full menu had some vegetarian dishes.  I setlled on a plate of 4 cheese gnocchi.  All of the guys tried the crocodile and said that they liked it.  There was one not so fun part about dinner, and that was the insanely high pitched and constant noise coming from, what we believe, was a lone cricket, strategically placed to make his sound much bigger and much more annoying than it should have been.  Literally, when he would pause, all of us would bolt to attention and get excited over the mere seconds of relief from this annoying sound.

When we returned, the hotel's watchiman wouldn't let us into the hotel.  I guess we confused him because there were 10 of us.  We even showed him that we had 3 keys.  It took a lot of convincing for him to let us in.  Then, once we were inside and thought we had settled things with him, we were all going to walk over to the apartment that had our groceries that were delivered earlier.  But then the watchiman was more confused and so we just went to our apartment so he wouldn't cause any more issues.  He also kept trying to talk to Lars (since Lars had been by earlier to receive the groceries) even though he didn't speak any Spanish.  They ended up having to say to him, "Alright, there are 4 beds in each apartment right? Right.  Okay and we have 3 apartments, which makes 12 beds, and we are 10 people..."  Finally he understood.   I was just too tired to stay up and hang out, plus we had a taxi scheduled to pick us up at 7:20 am, so Silvia and I decided to go straight to bed.  The others followed shortly after.  The next morning we were up early and I was sure to take a few pictures of the hotel.

The taxi driver took us to Samana.  The majority of the trip had us passing through small villages.  There was something so beautiful about watching the locals, adults and kids alike, out just going about their day.  Little girls helping their mom wash clothes, boys practicing baseball, women singing, men waiting for rides to construction sites, etc.  When we arrived, we found out that the whale watching tour actually left at 10 am, not at 9 am like they had told us on the phone.  So we took the time to find a bite to eat and to take some photos.

At 10:00, we all boarded the boat.  It was a nice size, with two decks.  Kim, the lady who runs Whale Samana, is a Canadian marine biologist who has been extremely influential in ensuring the protection of the humpback whales and the area they mate and give birth in, near Samana.  She essentially started the whale watching industry in the Dominican.  The trip was quite informative as she was sure to tell us lots and had her staff hand around pictures and models so that everyone knew what they were looking for.  I believe I was the first one to spot a spout, but I was kind of unsure of myself so didn't yell it out, and instead just told Robert and Silvia.  Sure enough, the spouts I saw were the first two whales we ended up approaching and viewing!  They weren't that exciting though so we went in another direction and came across a female and her male escort.  In addition to the two of them, there were two challenger males who were trying to become her escort.  It was very interesting to see the escort showing how macho he was by doing things like making long bubble trails.  She seemed to be enjoying herself and we watched her breaching, flapping her fins in the air and slapping them on the water, and at one point, she was on her back with both fins in the air.  It was an amazing sight!

After watching the female for a while, we ended up seeing a few more whales before it was time to head back in.  By this point, we had been out for over 3 hours and most of us were really tired.  When we arrived back on shore, Claudia, Silvia and I said goodbye to the rest of the group since they were heading back to Las Terrenas and we were heading back to Santo Domingo.  The three of us went in search of some lunch.  We ended up at a cute restaurant but the food took forever.  We ended up having to scarf down the food quickly and run out the door and onto the bus.  The bus we had for the trip home was quite luxurious.  Only 3 seats per row (two on one side, one on the other) that reclined fully with foot rests.  I had a good sleep on the way home!

When we arrived in the city, I shared a taxi with the girls and headed home.  I was really tired but ended up doing quite a bit of packing before bed.

Surprise! The Carrito Fare Increased!

On Monday morning, Robert and I had to wait for over 1/2 hour just to get a carrito.  Then, when we finally got into one, there was a sign inside saying that the carritos had raised their price from RD$20 to RD$25.  Not a big deal, but that's a fairly hefty increase in percent terms!  So now the RD$20 bill seems a lot less useful, and the RD$25 coin seems a lot more useful!  I also love how they just print out signs that say they are now charging more.  It seems so unofficial and kind of hard to take seriously.  I mean, when we have a fare increase for our public transportation systems, it has to be announced months in advance so that people have enough warning and such.

Since Monday was Valentine's Day, a lot of people were wearing red and pink, including myself, although in my case it wasn't on purpose.  At the office, a few people brought around chocolates and heart shaped cookies for people.  Sweet bakery was insane as they were getting tons of their Valentine's Breakfast packages ready for delivery.  There were also many "felicidades" being passed around.  I still don't understand why we congratulate people here on special days like New Years and Valentine's.  About an hour into my day, L told me to go down to the receptionist.  The only time this happens is when something has arrived for me, so I had a pretty good idea about what I was going to find.  Sure enough, a beautiful bouquet of roses awaited me from Bart.  I'm so spoiled!

On Tuesday, I didn't have to wait for a carrito, which only partly made up for the ridiculous wait the day before.  The highlight of the day was meeting up with Ozumy for lunch.  Unfortunately though, she had arrived 10 minutes before we were planning to meet.  She sent me a text informing me of this, but I didn't receive it until 15 minutes later.  10 minutes after she sent it though, she figured she'd better call me since she was still waiting outside.  I felt bad, but I had no idea!  So Robert and I rushed out and we decided to go to that new pizza place we had tried last week.  It was a wonderful lunch and we had lots of time to catch up.  We were sure to finish off the meal with a trip to Sweet Bakery as well.

I had been kind of putting off doing the second painting at home, but I knew that I had to get a start on it if I wanted it to be finished before I left.  So as soon as I got home, I sat down and started taping out the design on the canvas.  Not having my usual tools made this a bit more difficult, and some of the paint did bleed through a bit, but nothing major that can't be touched up.  Between paint coats, I had some dinner, then chatted briefly with mom before engrossing myself in the book I'm reading.  Though I had to break up the reading for chat with Bart, I still managed to read over 100 pages.  I was pretty impressed by myself!

This morning, I got up early because I had plans to leave at 8:00.  Maria and I had decided to have breakfast together at the Bakery.  She came to my apartment to meet me and then we took a carrito (no wait!) the rest of the way.  She also gave me a cute valentine's gift of a few chocolates in a pretty red bag!  I was very touched.  It was Maria's first time at Sweet Bakery and I think she really enjoyed it!  We sat and talked for over an hour.  When it was almost time to think about heading to the office, I thought I would text Robert in case he wanted to come by and say hi.  Texting seems to be an issue, as he didn't end up getting my text in time, but he and Trond had planned on coming by the Bakery anyway.  So they came in, saw us, and joined us to eat their breakfast.  It was a perfect morning with excellent food and even better company!

The work day went by quite fast as I had a lot of little things to do.  We ran over to Emparedado for lunch and Robert, like usual, asked for some salt for his fries.  I had a good laugh when they brought him this cup of salt:

Throughout the day I assisted Robert with the Samana trip planning for the weekend.  Seems like everything is set now - I even have travel companions for the trip back to the city (Robert & Mari took Monday off, but I need the day to wrap things up at the office).

The plan for the evening is more painting and reading, and some packing... the dreaded packing.

It's a Line

Hard to believe that I only have 13 days left in the Dominican.  It really does feel like just the other day that I arrived here, although I do still remember back to April and May when the actual 1 or 2 months I'd been here felt like years.  Even though I have been here for nearly a year now, and life has become pretty "normal" there are still things that make me laugh and wonder.

On Monday, I watched a guy a few cars ahead of the carrito I was in spray his windshield with windex and then turn on his windshield wipers.  not only that, but since the bottle was nearly empty, he took off the nozzle portion and just sort of threw the windex across the windshield.  The worst part of this was that it was kind of windy and you could see the windex blowing back into his car (since the rest of his windows were open, and onto and into other people's cars.  Although, I must admit, if your windshield washer fluid isn't working or you've run out, I guess it isn't a bad way to get the windshield clean.

Even more hilarious was on Tuesday when I watched one car pulling another.  They had attached the two together with what looked like a really long exercise band.  When they first started going, it seemed that the guy  in the car being pulled was able to use his brakes.  However, when they attempted to turn a corner and the first car had to stop quickly, the second just kind of slowly and leisurely ran right into it.  To make matters worse, as it ran into it, it drove onto the exercise band thing, so then the car ahead, when it attempted to get going again, couldn't pull the car behind since the weight of the back car was holding down the band that had tied the two together.

On Tuesday night, I decided to do some reading once I had gotten home from work.  It was quite enjoyable until I started having my vision go funny: Migraine.  I haven't had a migraine that bad in several years.  It was so bad that I emailed/text mom and Bart and told them that I just couldn't talk to them that evening, and so after taking a few Tylenol and drinking some more water, I went to bed shortly after 8pm.  When I woke up in the morning, the migraine was still there, but not quite as bad.  I went into work anyway, which maybe wasn't the best idea.  I made it until about 2:00.  But with my head pounding, I wasn't able to concentrate on anything and everything was made that much more worse because the air conditioning hadn't been working all day.  So I went home, and slept for another few hours.  Yesterday evening, I had the pleasure of talking to Kaitie, who is currently doing an internship in the Netherlands.  It was really nice to talk to another Canadian doing an internship abroad.  Even though our situations are very different, we are going through a lot of the same things which is comforting to know.

This morning, I left the apartment a bit late since I had taken the time to gather up a few things to take over to the MC.  Usually that means that there won't be a line at the carrito stop, but there was.  In fact, I ended up waiting about 1/2 hour for a carrito to show up.  As I've mentioned before, the Dominicans are starting to line up for the carrito, which makes a lot of sense.  At other main stops, like 27 de febrero, there is just a huge clump of people and they literally push and shove their way into a carrito.  But the line thing still doesn't quite work.  People still come and butt into the line, and not all of the people in the line are capable of speaking up and telling those people to get in the line.  Although when they do, it is beautiful.  I get such a kick out of seeing them standing by the carrito door, telling a person who had butted in to get out of the carrito and into the lineup.  When I told Erin about this the last time she was here, she didn't believe me that they were actually lining up.  So I snapped this picture on the blackberry earlier this week for her as proof.

Maybe the next time I come back for a visit, the lines will be the norm.  That would be super cool.

Altos de Chavon

Sunday was a day for adventures.

On Saturday night, Maria sent me a message saying that she would be able to go to Altos de Chavon with me on Sunday, only catch was, she was already in San Pedro so I would have to meet her there.  This, of course, meant me taking a guagua by myself, which I have never done.  But, I figured it couldn't be too bad, plus I could always call Maria if I ran into any issues.  So Sunday morning, I got up and got myself ready.  I called a taxi at 9:20 and then went to wait outside since they had told me it would be there in 3 min.  Well 15 minutes later, the taxi showed up.  First thing he says to me (conversation in Spanish) is that I didn't give the right address, and that he was over somewhere else, blah blah.  So I just said to him, it's Correa y Cidron, #11.  And pointed to where it was written on my building.  I've never had any trouble with the address and taxis before, but as I was soon to learn, this guy was just out to make my life hell.  So he asked me where I needed to go and I told him the ASTRAPU station.  He asked me if I wanted Duarte or Nuñez, and I said Duarte (didn't know there was one in Nuñez).  Then of course, he asks me where I am headed, I told him to San Pedro, and like all good Dominican taxi drivers, he tries to convince me that he will give me a good deal and take me the entire way.  (To understand this, the minimum taxi fare in the city is RD$150, for me to take an air conditioned bus an hour outside the city to San Pedro is RD$110, so unless he wants to match that, it's not a good deal for one person.)  He continues with this, but also taking the time to keep saying to me, you don't speak Spanish, and calling me Rubia directly to my face (normally guys will yell that at you on the street, but I've NEVER had someone call me that in a direct manner, especially when I am paying someone for a  service.  Once we arrive near Duarte, he tries to tell me that the station is on our left.  I tell him no, it is by the big park.  He's like, well this is Duarte, and I said I know, but it is not here.  So he pulls over and asks a few guys on the corner to tell him where the station is, but the guys on the corner don't get what he's asking them so they ask me, and I tell them, the ASTRAPU station near the big park.  They understand this and direct him that way.  He continues to tell me that I told him the wrong place, and I keep arguing no I didn't.  He then starts speaking to me really quickly and when I say that I don't understand him, can he slow down, he just keeps doing it, as if taunting me.  Finally I know exactly where we are so I just start directing him.  When we arrive, he turns around and tells me that this isn't on Duarte, it's on such and such a street.  I pretty much yell back at him, yes, and it is 1 block away from Duarte, thus, it is close to Duarte!!!!  Then he wanted to charge me RD$400, I was so pissed off at him, I didn't even argue, just handed him the RD$150 and walked out and onto the bus.  I was so angry.

Luckily, I had still made it onto the bus that would leave at 10:00, getting me to San Pedro around 11:00.  Maria had told me to tell the cobrador (guy who takes your money and tells the driver when to stop) to let me off at the McDonald's in San Pedro, but that I didn't know where it was so to please let me know.  But apparently, my accent when saying McDonald's is not comprehensible, or at least not to the cobrador and the lady beside me. (Again, entire conversations in Spanish)  I mentioned the words "restaurante" and "para comer" but that didn't help.  I even pulled out my little book where I had written down exactly what to say, and showed him.  He still had no idea and neither did the lady.  He carried on, collecting money and I called Maria in the mean time to have her talk to him.  When he came back, I put him on the phone with her.  She told him that I needed to be dropped off at McDonald's.  He didn't understand the first time, but when she said it again, he exclaimed, "McDonal" (pronounced like Mc then the name Don and the name Al).  The lady then also exclaimed, "Ohhh McDonal."  We all had a good laugh.  The lady asked to see my book again and when she read it that time she was like, "ohh I don't know why I didn't understand that."  The lady then started asking me questions, like where I was from, what I was doing here, etc.  So we had a nice little chat.  When we arrived in San Pedro, the lady was getting off before me, and when she left, she reminded the cobrador to not forget about the Americana, which I thought was really sweet. (I had told her that I was Canadian, but that doesn't seem to make a difference here).  I was one of the last people on the bus and we were nearly at the McDonald's when one of the guys nearby started asking the cobrador where the Americana was going, then this caused all the people in front of me to turn around and try to sneak a glimpse of me.  The cobrador told them I was going to McDonal.  When I got off the bus, I was swarmed by the motorconcho drivers, I just kept telling them, "No!" and finally made it across the street where Maria had just arrived.  We went to find a bus to take us to her mom's new place and were successful, sort of.  The chofer spoke some English and I guess he was trying to speak to me in English, but I couldn't hear him over the noise.  So he just kept talking to Maria in both Spanish and English.  This particular guagua took forever to get to where we needed to go.  Eventually, we just got off and walked the rest of the way.  It was a nice walk, minus one crazy man in pink who was yelling at us, and I got to see a new area of San Pedro - which I really liked!  When we arrived at the house, Maria's aunt, uncle and two cousins were there to pick up an adorable puppy.  Inside, I was greeted by 5 dogs and another aunt and cousin.  We ate sandwiches quickly before Maria and I headed out to get ourselves to La Romana.  We were running short on time, so Maria asked me if I would be okay with taking a motorconcho to the bus station since it would be much faster.  I agreed.  The driver who took us was really quite smelly, which was unfortunate for the two of us, sitting behind him on the bike.

We caught a guagua right away and were off to La Romana, unfortunately, there was no air conditioning in this one.  Once we arrived, we went and sat in a park to wait for our taxi driver.

Once the driver arrived, we headed to Casa de Campo - the exclusive and beautiful resort complex in La Romana.  For us to get in to see Altos de Chavon, we had to pay US$25 per person.  It was then that we found out that the fee gave us access to the beach and the marina as well.  Had we known that, we would have brought our bathing suits and made a day out of it!  It was a bit of a drive to get to Altos de Chavon but an enjoyable one.  So essentially, Altos de Chavon is a little 16th century Mediterranean style village that was built using historic techniques and materials in the 1970s.  It's a very beautiful place.  We wandered around, took pictures, did some shopping, ate ice cream, had drinks, got a tour of the museum and finished the afternoon off with some pie and coffee at the French bakery.

When it was time to call the taxi again to pick us up, we had to call to the front security at the resort so that he could be let in.  We had some issues since the lady kept telling us that they couldn't authorize the taxi to come in and pick us up.  Maria kept telling her, we are visitors with the day pass, we don't have a car, you let him bring us into the resort, so you need to let him come in to pick us up!  Finally she agreed, after taking down every detail possible about the taxi driver and his vehicle.  Here's Maria making it all happen, using both of our blackberrys at once.

Once we got to the main gates to leave Casa de Campo, the driver had to hand over his keys to the security so that they could search his trunk.  Intense stuff.  The taxi took us to the bus station and we hopped on the first bus to head back to San Pedro.  Once we arrived, we were again, surrounded by the motorconcho drivers.  It is so annoying, they barely let you get off the bus before they are grabbing at you and trying to get you to take a ride with them.  Maria got really angry and yelled at them, which was funny and they totally deserved it!  We were able to catch a guagua that dropped us off across the street from Maria's mom's house, which was helpful.  We stopped in quickly so that Maria could grab her bag and her puppy, Luna.  While I waited, I showed her cousin the pictures we had taken on my camera and then her mom gave me a set of dominoes.  But not just any set, HER set.  The reason she did this is because she had wanted to get me a set with that particular design, but they are a bit harder to find, and since she knew I was leaving soon and didn't want me to leave without a set, she gave me hers.  It was the sweetest thing and I was so touched, and I nearly started crying.  I gave her mom a huge hug and thanked her so much.  I will definitely treasure those dominoes forever - especially because she was the one that taught on me how to play, with that very set.

After another set of goodbyes, and me promising to vacation in the Dominican frequently and to come to San Pedro, we caught another motorconcho to the bus station.  This time, the guy was not smelly, but he did have one of the amusing, yet kind of disgusting seats.  There was one moment, while stopped at a red light, that I looked back at Maria and then at Luna, who was tucked in Maria's purse.  It was so cute.  Luna was just looking up at the two of us with her big eyes, seemingly saying, "why am I in this situation right now?"  We bought our tickets, got on the bus, ate our sandwiches that Maria's mom had packed for us earlier in the day (which were now squished and a bit soggy from being at the bottom of my bag all day) and headed back to the city.

We took a carrito to Tiradentes, then I walked with Maria a bit until we were near her street, then I took a carrito down Tiradentes till my stop.  I had two blocks to walk to get to my apartment.  As I started walking, I looked across the street and saw this guy:

Yep, just a random horse, standing on the sidewalk, eating away.  An odd feeling to be walking down a street in the middle of a major city and find a lone horse.