What José has done, is seen.

So the Dominican mid-term elections are this Sunday, and I have been receiving text messages to my phone.  This is the most recent one I have received:

Lo que José ha hecho, se ve.  Este 16 de Mayo vota por JOSÉ MONTAS SINDICO, vota PLD.

What José has done, is seen.  On May 16 vote for José Montas, Trustee - vote PLD.

Ah, good times.

Yesterday was, well, exhausting.

Mom and dad were flying here and were scheduled to arrive just after 7pm.  Their first two flights both landed early (good work Air Canada), but then their flight from Miami to Santo Domingo ended up being delayed (American Airlines) as the plane was late leaving from Paris.  I had J call in the morning to book Don Pedro to take me to the airport.  So when I saw this delay, we had to reschedule.  Then I got home and received an email that said the flight had been delayed further.  I thought I'd wait it out a bit before rescheduling again with Don Pedro, and I'm glad I did.  A few minutes later, the flight was cancelled (apparently mechanical issues with the plane). I ended up calling AA to see if they could tell me whether or not my parents would be on the next flight out, at 8:30.  Indeed, they had just been booked onto that flight.  I desperately tried getting in touch with O or J to call Don Pedro (he doesn't speak English) but O was in class, and J was teaching class.  Luckily, Maria was kind enough to call on my behalf and we rescheduled.  At 8:30, I checked the flight status again, and it said it would be leaving 10 min late.  Fine, I could deal with that.  I checked again in 10 minutes, and it said the plane had left.  I was so relieved.  They were scheduled to arrive at 10:40 by this point.  Shortly before 10:00 I thought, I'll just check again in case the arrival time had changed at all.  Thank goodness I did, because they changed the departure time to about an hour later!  Ahh.  So Maria called Don Pedro again to reschedule.  I felt so bad - even though there was nothing that I could do.  The flight ended up arriving a tad early, which I was grateful for, but by the time they got through customs, it was about midnight.  They also had damaged luggage.  And by that, I mean I now have damaged luggage, since they had taken one of my pieces.  Sigh.  Of course, American Airlines didn't have a booth open, and when we tried calling their offices were closed.  So we're hoping that if we call today, we can get something worked out. 

Don Pedro then took us to the hotel, it is a beautiful place!  I can't wait to explore it further tonight when I meet up with them!  I was hoping that their room would have two doubles, so that I could stay over, but no such luck.  Following that, Don Pedro took me home, where I proceeded to open up an array of birthday cards and gifts that my parents had brought with them from Canada.  Since I wanted to be talking to Bart when I opened up his gift, I went online and did just that.  But I didn't end up getting to bed until around 2am.  Just as I was falling asleep at around 2:30, the power went out, which caused me to lay there, wide awake until it came back on again and it cooled down enough for me to sleep.

Along with all of this excitement, David also arrived this morning.  Zak and Ozumy dropped him off at around 6am.  I tried to show him around the house but forgot a lot of things... I felt bad having to take off so soon after he arrived.  However, he was so very kind and brought me a lovely bracelet from Portugal as a birthday gift. 

Maria and I went to the salon.  We were supposed to be there at 7am, but it was closer to 7:30 when we arrived.   It is very different than salons in Canada.  Anyways, for RD$180, I had a manicure and a pedicure.  Unfortunately, I wrecked the polish on my toes once I got to work - so I will have to do a quick touch up at home.

My plans for the rest of the day, are to leave work a bit early so I can have a nap before heading to the Colonial Zone to have dinner with my parents at La Residence (the restuarant in their hotel).  And I'm going to wear my new birthday dress!

El Policía

Yesterday I had my first run in with the police...

I was on my way to meet Ozumy, Zak and Zak's brother, Karim, for lunch.  I headed over to the MC and had started walking up the stairs (they are on the 3rd floor) when I passed two police officers.  They were talking and of course, I couldn't understand, but then it seemed as though they said something to me.  Being a good Canadian law abiding citizen, I turned around to find out what they wanted.  The one officer continued down the stairs, and the other one stayed back to talk to me.  I told him right away that I didn't understand Spanish, and he asked me if I understood Spanish a little bit, and I said yes.  He confirmed that I spoke English, and asked me where I lived.  I told him I lived here in Santo Domingo.  He continued to talk to me in Spanish, but it was noisy and I had a hard time hearing him, on top of the fact that I don't understand spoken Spanish well yet.  I was pretty sure by this point that he was hitting on me (and that I was not being questioned for police type reasons) as there were a few words I picked out that hinted this way.  Finally, he asked about my phone number.  I was like, I don't understand (No entiendo!) hoping he would just give up.  Instead he wrote down on a piece of paper something close to this:

Usted se ve muy bien me de le pedia su numero?

Which roughly translated means: you look very well, can I ask for your number?

I said no as politely as possible but he was still persistent.  Then I was saved by the arrival of Ozumy, Zak and Karim.  I quickly told Ozumy to get him to tell her what he was asking me... she did, and he replied in Spanish, "oh I was just saying hi." When he was further away I told Ozumy about the note.  Then I asked her to teach me how to say, "sorry I have a boyfriend" but like most times when I ask what something is in Spanish, I forget.  Later I asked Maria, and I wrote it down: Lo siento, tengo novio.  Memorized!

Jennifer told me today that unless I think I might have done something wrong, to just walk away from the police when they start talking to me.  This goes completely against my instincts.  I mean, if I'm wandering around Edmonton and a police officer stops to talk to me, I stop and talk to him/her.  Obviously, I would understand a lot more quickly as to whether or not they were talking to me for business or pleasure, but still, I'd stop. 

Anyways, more importantly - lunch.  We went to a restaurant called Lasagna near the office.  I ordered cheese and spinach cannelloni with a tomato, eggplant and mozzarella sauce.  I wasn't sure what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised!  It was quite delicious!  Ozumy made me order in Spanish, I stumbled through a few new words... but the waitress seemed to understand.

On my way home - I ran into Orlando!  It was a lovely surprise!

Today, lunch was also quite exciting.  The original plan was to go to Pola with Zak, but just before it was time to leave he emailed to tell me that Pola was canceled and to come over to the MC right away because they had just cooked something.  So off I went.  Joel was over there (he is studying to be a chef) and he was teaching Zak how to cook this sauce for pasta.  It was amazing.  The main excitement came when Joel was like quick, do you have any rum?  Zak said no, but he had some whiskey.  Joel said this was okay and Zak ran off to get some.  Then he made Zak put some in the pan where he was cooking corn and then turns to us and says, stand back!  We're like what?  As Joel puts the pan back near the flame and starts the entire thing on fire.  It was crazy.  Since there were two pans for sauce (one with ham, and one without ham - for me) he did it again for us with my pan, which we caught on video.  I don't think I could do that.  Anyways, the food was great and we sat outside on the patio to eat!

When I arrived home I found out that I had received some mail!  My dear friend Chelsey had sent me a card for my birthday and another one to tell me she missed me.  That made my day!

This evening was rather unexpected.  After altering my appearance slightly, I turned on my computer to see that mom and dad were still at home and online.  I chatted briefly with them but I can't believe that I will see them tomorrow!  Just as I was finishing up my conversation, there was a knock at my door and I heard Ozumy's voice!  She, Orlando, Zak and Rene had stopped by.  Zak ended up going with Pavol to play football and the rest of us stayed at the apartment.  I made some dinner and we watched some Monty Python (Holy Grail).  An enjoyable night.

Tomorrow will be a big day for me!  Taking a taxi alone to the airport!  It's exciting but scary at the same time. 

Oh and coffee update: I am no longer included on the coffee run. However, last Friday, I had to do a survey in Spanish at the office which asked demographic questions along with whether or not I drink coffee, how I like my coffee and if I would pay RD$15 to get it from a machine at work.

Dominican Tarzan y Los 3 Ojos

Sunday was our trip to Los 3 Ojos (The 3 Eyes).  We were supposed to go to Faro Colon, but we ran out of time.  Which was alright in the end, since we were very exhausted and hungry following our adventure.

We met at the MC (Me, Ozumy, Zak, Yeimy and Paula) and called a taxi.  We made our way out to the park, it is on the outskirts of the city on the road that leads to the airport.  The driver didn't really know where he was going, and ended up passing the place, and had to drive quite a long way until he found a spot to get onto that road.  Although for a couple moments he considered off-roading it across this piece of land, but we were like no! no! since I'm pretty sure there was a barrier on the other side, and I don't think his tiny, run down car would have been able to handle it. 

When we arrived, we were swarmed by men selling little statues.  We politely declined and headed in, where a man in bowling shoes approached us to be his tour guide. He spoke like 6 or 7 languages, so he claimed.  We just liked his bowling shoes and didn't end up hiring him.  We sat down to wait for Jennifer and Ricardo.  Zak and I particularly enjoyed how the men with wares to sell would get all flustered and would hustle to prepare their goods and their makeshift cardboard fan whenever visitors would come out of the cave.  They sold many types of necklaces too.  It was quite the interesting sight, as one man would fan the lady with the piece of cardboard and the other would show off all the necklaces trying very hard to sell them.  Behind us, sat Dominican Tarzan, in his purple shorts, just chilling and having a cigarette, waiting for someone to hire him to put on his show.

Jennifer and Ricardo finally arrived and we paid for our admission (RD$50) and headed into the caves.  It was very interesting.  The first eye was full of "Dominican Carp" and turtles.  The turtles were adorable, especially when one would chase another one around.  Somehow we ended up with a tour guide (I'm not totally sure how this came to be, he just was suddenly leading us around) who was sort of able to speak English and French, but even when he spoke English I could only understand half of what he was saying.  And whenever we'd be posing for a picture he'd say "belle photo" even if he was standing behind us and had no idea what it looked like.  We also saw a big iguana near the end of the first pool/eye (I think it was the first one).  He/she was very cool.  But ran away when we tried to get close enough for a good photo.

Soon we were at the pool where Dominican Tarzan put on his show.  He had a little hang out where he kept a backpack with a book of photos inside that he was showing to another couple.  Eventually we decided to pay him the RD$400 to do his thing.  Totally worth it.  He climbed up on the rocks and then from a spot in the cave wall (marked by a small Dominican flag) he dove off and into the water.  When he surfaced, he did this odd spinning while making crazy man noises in the water thing and then proceeded to swim closer to the ledge the jutted out into the water, came up and made a big fountain of water from his mouth.  We, of course, had pictures taken with him. 

From there, we got into this little ferry/raft to go across the pool, into a bat cave, and out to another pool that was surrounded by lush greens and vines that hung down from above.  (This place was more tarzan-esque than the one where D. Tarzan did his show).  We sat around for a bit, enjoying the view and taking pictures before heading back on the ferry/raft.  Of course, the ferry/raft cost an additional RD$20 each...  My favorite part of that was how the one "ferry master" would put some nice music on via his cell phone while we crossed the pool.  After that, we wandered down to another pool, and saw another iguana who was totally posing while wandering around eating leaves.  I was able to get some good photos of this one (I believe it was a she) and some video footage as well.  Near the end of the tour, we were shown a piece of rock/cave that looked like a dolphin.  Upon our exit, we paid the tour guide RD$50 each and then we too were being shown necklaces and such while we relaxed back up at the beginning.  The necklace sellers were proving to us that their wares were quality by rubbing a part of the necklace against the stone bench and showing us how it was the same material underneath.  We didn't buy anything.  We ended our trip by heading over to the concession to get some water and hang out in the shade.  There were some cool murals on the building that I snapped some photos of. 

We caught a taxi back to the MC and went to EmpareDado for a late lunch.  I was happy to be able to find out which drink it was that I had had the day we ordered in EmpareDado at the office.  I knew it was passion fruit, but apparently, Dominican Spanish has a different word for passion fruit and thus I had not been able to find it on the menu, since my Latin American Spanish dictionary had the non-Dominican word.

The rest of my day was spent struggling with my horrible internet and several power outages.  It caused me great frustration!  But, that's just the way it goes. 

Shopping!

After an uneventful morning at the office, I met up with Maria for an afternoon of shopping!  There were a few things, in particular, that I wanted to purchase and I ended up getting some of those things, plus a couple other things...

Since it is my birthday coming up, I had a bit of money to spend, so I ended up with some new sandals, a dress and a purse.  Maria did an amazing job of bargaining for the pair of sandals I wanted!  I'm so glad she was there!  We also bought each other our birthday presents.  They are the same style of dress, just in a different pattern.  Mine has birds on, hers has flowers.  We plan on wearing them on our birthday - don't worry, people will not ask us if we're in a band, since we won't actually see each other that day.  The clerk's at Zara found us amusing, since we got them to wrap the dresses up as gifts, and then we proceeded to give the bags to each other and wish each other happy birthday.  It was a lot of fun!

I was also very surprised to see a pair of sandals that I had bought at Nine West last summer (on sale) being sold for full price at the actual Nine West store (and at another store)!  I kind of wanted to be like, you know that shoe is from several seasons ago, right?  So weird.  But they also had some of the same stock that is in Edmonton right now (or at least just over two months ago when I was last there), along with some sale stock that I've had already for at least 2 years.  Granted one was a pair of booties, and I don't think those sell well here...  Kind of like we found fur trimmed leather gloves in one store.  I guess if you were heading north for winter... but why would Dominicans leave sun and sand for snow and cold...

Tomorrow I am heading to a few new sites in and around the city - so stay tuned for (hopefully) some great pictures!

The Week... So Far...

The truth is, this week has been rather boring.  A whole lot of being tired, going to work, having lunch, working, walking home, eating supper, and sleeping. 

Yesterday had a bit more excitement in it.  I was running a bit late so I decided to take the carrito.  Pavol also wanted to take one but he ended up catching a bus that came first instead.  I am still afraid of the buses and am still unsure of the proper procedures surrounding taking them, so I just waited for a carrito.  I ended up in one that was full, and I got the not-so-coveted console position between the driver and the other passenger.  Whenever I've ended up there before, the driver has always had a little cushion at least... not this one. 

At lunch today I headed over to the MC where Zak had cooked up a mini Moroccan feast for us!  It was delicious!

After work, I met Zak and Ozumy at the corner near my office, and from there we made our way to the International Book Fair at the Cultural Plaza.  We met up with Orlando near Nacional and then took the guagua to near APEC where the AIESEC Santo Domingo office is.  We then met up with Paula and Yeimy.  Unfortunately I only found out that we were going at around 10am, so I didn't have my camera or a lot of money.  And I ended up having to go in my work clothes.  It was all good though.  We all sort of shared one camera for the evening.  So essentially, the Book Fair is a large event with lots of pavilions where different countries sell books and stuff.  Paula ended up meeting some fellow Costa Ricans at their booth and Zak spoke to a woman from France, while Yeimy and I posed with either Thomson or Thompson.  There were also a few art exhibits and that sort of thing.  I ended up buying two books in Spanish, the Iliad and Little Women.  Don't worry they are condensed easy reading versions!  I also bought an English book on wine.  (Total book cost: RD$150)  I enjoyed some Yogen Fruz (RD$80) and a slice of pizza and pop (RD$50).  While we were sitting and eating our pizza and pop, this bat started swooping in around us.  Paula was quite frightened by this, and I was just hoping it didn't hit me or land on me.  I think that was my first experience with a bat that wasn't in a zoo. 

While wandering, we met up with a group of Dominican students that were studying English and they wanted to talk to us.  They wanted to know where Zak was from, so he said "Guess."  The best part was that they were like "Ohhh... Guess..." we had a good laugh and then had to explain in Spanish what guess meant (and that it was not a country). 

Our other main excitement was taking the newly opened Santo Domingo Metro.  It just has one line currently and they are working on the second line.  It seems as though there was quite a bit of controversy surrounding it, since as you can imagine, some people feel like perhaps having water supply to the entire city or enough electricity to supply the city may have been a higher priority.  Regardless, it was a nice subway.  For Ozumy, this was her first ever ride on any subway, so she wasn't really sure what to expect.  At first, she was a bit scared, but then, she ended up enjoying it!  Favorite "what not to bring on the subway" sign was this one.  We still don't know what it actually is, as the only thing we could guess was a fridge.  Not to worry though, we didn't bring a fridge with us.  The security in the train is also very concerned that people do not step on the yellow line.  In my subway experience, this is more of a caution than a rule.

The four of us, (Ozumy, Zak, Orlando and me) took the metro to the stop that is near our apartment, picked up one of the big bottles of Presidente and hung out for a bit at the apartment with Pavol and Maria.  It was a long day for me, and I'm quite tired this morning - but what's new, really.

Additionally, the receptionist today at work told me I had a good Spanish accent.  I found this funny because I can't roll my R's.  However, I don't think I have ever said anything that required a rolled R to her before.  Once she hears that, she'll take back everything she said!  Regardless, it was still flattering to know that my greetings are getting good.

AND finally: Orlando has also started a blog.  His first post is about carritos; should you like some good Spanish reading material.

Señora?

Quick post.  While I was getting groceries today, I was milling around the juice section when a man said, Señora? Señora?"  I turn around (why would he ask me when there were obviously some Dominican women nearby?), and he asks me in Spanish if the juice he was holding was a nectar or not.  I gave him a look of not being sure, and then said no. (I hadn't tried that juice before but judging by what it said, I didn't think it was)  He said, okay thank you.  Then when I walked away, I heard him say concentrate in a very English accent.  Later, I thought, I should have found out if he did speak English, because then I could have recommended the best orange juice in the place.  Oh well.  But, more importantly, someone asked me a question in Spanish, and I understood and replied (although it was only a rather feeble "no").

As you can see, my day was rather unexciting/uneventful.

A Busy Weekend

Thanks to Saturday being Labour Day, I had a two day weekend.  It was joyous!  And I was actually busy and social for once - what a difference that extra day makes! 

Friday night, I went out with the girls to Cappuccino for pizza and wine.  It was very enjoyable even though the pizza's were too big!  I met a few more of Maria's friends, which is always nice!  After dinner we went to the Colonial Zone to say hi to Jody and Quentin as it was their last weekend in the DR.  They are heading back to France this week.  Most everyone else went out after that, but I headed home since I had to be at Nacional at 9am to meet up with Ozumy and Orlando.

So yes, Saturday, I went to the beach with Ozumy and Orlando.  We met up with another AIESECer from Spain, Maria (from here on in she will be Spain Maria) and her boyfriend.  This time, the trip out to the beach only cost RD$60. (Our last trip was RD$100, and on a smaller not as good bus).  However, the bus ended up having some mechanical issues, so we had to get onto another bus that wasn't as nice and was more crowded.  At least we all got a seat.

We decided to go to Hemingway, since Pavol has said that it is nicer.  I agree.  There are more palm trees there which is nice since at Juan Dolio, the last time, we were out in the hot sun the entire time, no shade escape!  It was very relaxing.  The water was great, although had a bit too much floaty seaweed for my liking, but really, who am I to complain!  The trip back to Santo Domingo cost RD$80, which incidentally was the same price I paid for an ice cream bar at the colmado on my way back to the apartment.  I spent my evening, like I always do, playing board games online with Bart.  He beat me in the first game of monopoly (I didn't have a chance based on what I kept landing on...) but then in the second, even though he had no full sets, but all 4 railways, and I had two full sets, he was about to bankrupt me in about another 2 turns.  BUT THEN, I came back and bankrupted him and ended up with an over 200 million dollar net worth (since he had accumulated nearly 100 million in cash alone from not being able to buy anything...)  As a result, this was a really long game.  Yep, we are both geeks.  I guess that's why it works :)

The new MCP for AIESEC DR arrived today, Zakaria from Morocco.  All the interns, except Pavol, went over to the MC to have lunch with him.  It was pouring rain when I left, and I got splashed by a vehicle while I walked to Lincoln to catch a carrito.  However, the lunch was a lot of fun - and the food was great (thanks Jennifer, Ozumy and Orlando!) 

And now, another week begins...