Bart's Adventures in the DR

Those who visit me, beware of the Miami curse.  Or at least, I'm convinced that there is a curse on anyone who travels to the Dominican, particularly to see me and who arrives via Miami.  Granted, Bart had much better luck than mom and dad.  His flight was delayed about an hour due to a storm.  Mom and dad had their entire flight canceled.

Luckily Don Pedro, the taxi driver, is an easy going guy.  Maria was amazing, as always, and gave him a call for me to rearrange the time.  Traffic turned out to be horrendous when we left (which was odd considering the time) and the plane had landed before we had even arrived.  The fun part about having too much traffic was that we took a different route which allowed me to play tourist and Don Pedro to play tour guide as we drove through the area containing the presidential palace, the central bank, etc.  So even though we were late getting to the airport, we still had a bit of a wait until Bart appeared through the big doors.  It was so wonderful to see him, and almost surreal at the same time.  We both said that each other looked different than we do on skype.  As we wandered out to Don Pedro's car, Bart was hit by the humidity.  I didn't even notice.

Once we arrived at the apartment, we got Bart settled in and then headed to the colmado to meet most all of my friends.  Due to the cold/flu that is circulating around, two of my friends couldn't be there and another two decided to catch up on some sleep... We enjoyed Presidente, snacks and then we moved onto rum.  The colmado closed at 11, so we took the party back to the apartment, where everyone hung out for another hour or so.  One of the most enjoyable parts was when Pavol, Jakub and Bart were communicating in a hybrid Slovak/Czech/Polish language.  Overall, it was a good evening!  Only downside - I had the beginnings of a cold...

On Friday, I woke up with a very sore throat but I didn't let that stop us!  I took Bart in his first carrito!  It was quite a nice one, in comparison to most, although we did end up with the full 6 passengers.  I took him to Emparedado so he could see one of my lunch hangouts and so that he could try the Jugo Chinola (passion fruit juice).  After lunch, I took him to see where my office is and then we went to the Haagen Dazs store.  From the moment Bart heard that we had an entire store dedicated to Haagen Dazs, he made me promise that I would take him there.  We ate far too much ice cream (we really should have stuck to just 1 scoop) but it was worth it.  We then proceeded to walk to Nacional to pick up a few things.  On our way, we were approached by 4 small Dominican children who wanted money.  They even followed us for a block.  Again, my heart broke.  From Nacional, we walked back to the apartment, only to find that the power was out.  At first, the apartment was cooler than outside so we hung out there for a while.  Hours later, the water had also gone out so even a cold shower was unavailable.  We decided instead to go for a walk down to the ocean, hoping that there would be a good breeze to keep us cool.  Nothing too exciting was happening at the ocean.  Just lots of fishermen.  At one point, I think someone must have thrown something into the water as an entire school of fish began jumping out of the water.  It was neat to see the fish, as well as all the fishermen that rushed over in the hopes of catching some of them.  The evening was pretty relaxed, we just chilled at the apartment.

Saturday was beach day!  Bart got to go in his second carrito (this one had a hole in the floor that you could see the ground through). We met up with Maria and Nicole at Nacional, then Eduardo came to pick us up, and then we went and picked up Paula from her house.  We decided to go to Hemingway since certain people didn't want to deal with the waves of Playa Caribe.  Even though we missed the turn and ended up in San Pedro, we still managed to arrive early.  The weather was alright, although we had a few moments of rain and wind while out in the water, but Bart still managed to get a bit red from the sun.  He was very impressed by how warm the water was.  I was just glad that he got to go to the beach since I knew there was an approaching tropical storm and thus, was unsure if we would see sun for the rest of his stay here.  We left the beach at around 2:30 as Eduardo had to stop by his family's place in the country to pick up a drill.  I was glad that Bart was able to see some of the countryside as it is both beautiful and also gives a bit of insight into how the rest of the country lives outside of the major cities.  It began to rain as we headed back into the city.  We hung out at Maria's place while she got ready and then took a taxi back to the apartment.  Our taxi driver was decked out in a full mesh camo outfit.  It was ridiculous.  As Maria said, the last time I have seen something like that was at Halloween... Anyway, the three of us sat and watched some of the TV shows that Bart had brought me before Maria headed out to meet Pavol. 

The remainder of Saturday was again spent at the apartment.  There was a welcome party at the MC for Laura but I still wasn't feeling well and I figured, I can welcome Laura another day, I only have Bart around for a few days.  So we made some pasta for dinner and watched a movie instead.

Sunday morning was spent packing up our bags before heading to Nicolas de Ovando in the Colonial Zone.  We had a quick skype chat with mom, dad and Jonathan - which was nice - where Bart shared his new experiences and mom and dad provided their take on their same experiences here.  I had some issues calling the taxi... it went something like this:

Taxi: Allo?
Kierstin: Allo!  Yo quiero un taxi a calle Juan Tomas Diaz, numero ciento trece.
Taxi: Calle Juan Tomas Diaz?
Kierstin: Si.
Taxi: numero ciento veinte?
Kierstin: no ciento trece.
Taxi: veinte?
Kierstin: no trece. 
Taxi: ciento veinte?
Kierstin: no, ciento trece.
Taxi: Puedes decir en Inglés?
Kierstin: si, one hundred and thirteen.
Taxi: oooh trece
Kierstin: siiii trece...**

I had Bart laughing and even Pavol gave a few chuckles as he walked by.  After all that frustration, the taxi arrived and I got us to the hotel with no issues.  When we checked in they brought us warm, moist towels to clean our hands and cute glasses of fruit punch!  Our room was lovely and the little gift they had waiting for us was 3 cigars.  The cigars made Bart happy, me, not so much.  However, they brought us chocolates later on in the evening so I was happy again.  We had lunch at the pool bar and then went for a quick walk around the Colonial Zone and Parque de la Independencia to give Bart an idea of what we could see.  Since it was raining, we didn't stay out too long but instead hung out at the hotel and had a nap before dinner.  We ate at the hotel restaurant and our meal was excellent!  It was so nice to just sit, eat good food, drink good wine and catch up in person.  Since it was still raining, our evening was spent watching a movie that, due to faster internet at the hotel I had finally finished downloading off iTunes, and a few TV shows.

Monday morning was pretty lazy since it was still raining.  We had a quick lunch at the pool bar again where I got to deal with some issues in Spanish.  I had ordered a small pizza but had asked for it to be made with pineapple instead of ham and mushrooms.  Once the waiter got over his surprise at someone wanting pineapple on a pizza (interesting) he seemed clear about what I had asked for.  When the pizza arrived though, it had ham on as well.  I think perhaps the cook got confused by the pineapple and thought I wanted a "Hawaiian" pizza.  Anyways, I had to attempt to tell a waiter who didn't speak any English what the problem was.  This didn't work so well, but then the regular waiter came back and was able to get the problem fixed.  By the time my correct pizza arrived, Bart had already finished his meal.  It was an excellent pizza though!

We headed out into the Colonial Zone and went to the Larimar and Amber museums.  The Dominican men were pestering us to go into this store and that store and trying to offer us tours.  Bart, similar to my father, was too nice to them so they would keep following us.  I told Bart that I bet they don't know how to speak Polish, so we should pretend that we only speak Polish and see what happens.  It was quite funny as they would try desperately to somehow speak to us in a language they did not know.  And Bart would speak in Polish to me and I would just reply with "tak."  It was actually kind of impressive how they didn't give up!  We then headed over to Fortaleza Ozama.  A guide tried to get us to pay for a tour, but we were content to just wander around on our own.  Other than the walls, cannons and old buildings, there isn't too much to see.  Again, it started raining, so we headed into the main building.  It kept raining so we decided to be adventurous and explore all of the building even though that meant we had to go outside a few times.  It turned out to be a lot of fun and I got some great pictures.  When we returned to the hotel we were a bit chilly so we decided to just sit and have a cup of tea before dinner.  We had dinner again at the hotel's restaurant.  Since it had been raining for essentially two days straight, it had gotten a bit chilly.  For the first time, really, since I arrived I needed to wear my sweater outside! 

Tuesday was Bart's last full day here.  We had a nice breakfast before checking out and seeing the remainder of the sights in the Colonial Zone.  We went to Museo de las Casas Reales, Alcázar de Colón, Monasterio San Francisco and the Ruinas del Hospital San Nicolás de Bari.  Following that, we did a bit of shopping for gifts for Bart to take home and then began to head back to the hotel to grab our bags when I realized that we forgot to go into the Panteón Nacional.  Once again, the guides wanted us to pay for a tour, we just ignored them but the one guy continued to ask us which language we spoke.  Spanish? No. English? No. French? No. Italian? No.  Bart turns to him and says something in Polish.  Russian? No.  Again, you have to give them credit for trying!

I took Bart to La Panioteca for a late lunch.  We took a carrito most of the way there and then walked the rest of the way in the rain.  At the restaurant we saw a young politician guy TV personality (I think) who is on a billboard near my house!  We then walked to Nacional to get some groceries and then had a very wet and rainy walk home.  We both had soaked shoes and pant bottoms. 

Don Pedro was kind enough to get up at 3:30am this morning to be at my apartment by 4am, which is when Bart had to leave at to catch his 6:10am flight to Miami.  It was definitely sad to have to say goodbye all over again. 

It was pouring rain on my way to work today.  I was happy that the carrito driver was kind enough to pull into a small parking lot to let me off as the alternative would have seen me walk into an extremely large gutter of water.  Regardless, I was still soaked up to the knees when I arrived less than one block later at the office (and yes I had my umbrella!).  I promptly went into the washroom and tried to wring out the bottoms of my pants and my sockettes as well as dumping out the water from my shoes.  This is not helping my cold! Sr. S saw that I had a cold, and that I had gotten wet (he had apparently called O to get O to pick me up, but I had already gotten to work and O was already on his way here), he told me that I was not to go out in the rain.  He meant it.  At lunch, it was raining again so he came by and told me to come and pick out what I wanted for lunch as he was ordering in his lunch.  No air conditioning needed today.  Sweater was a must though!

**... I'm not sure how my trece sounds like veinte... I mean sure, I can't roll my r's but really... (similar to how at Wendy's the lady didn't understand, Combo numero nueve, I think it is something about how when you hear someone with a different accent you get a bit nervous that you won't understand and then try too hard which leads to not actually understanding)

Just Another Week... Until Now!

So, I forgot to mention to things about the beach on Sunday.  One, was that there were lots of beautiful yellow butterflies flying around us on the beach, it was really cool!  Also, for the first time, someone knew where Edmonton is.  Jakub asked me where exactly in Canada I was from.  Normally, even saying Alberta gets me a look of confusion, so I clarified, "you want to know the province or the city or?" He said, "city."  I said, "okay, I am from Edmonton."  "AH Edmonton!" he exclaimed.  What, he knows where Edmonton is?  Turns out that when he was small growing up in the Czech Republic, his favorite hockey team was the Edmonton Oilers!  I thought that was pretty cool.  So then we talked hockey for a bit.

The week has went well so far.  I've been quite busy at the office working on several projects.  One project turned out to be quite successful and my boss was very happy with me!  Moody, the air conditioner (right), is still being moody, but has been producing lovely cool air more frequently now.  Random: I particularly like the warning that Moody possesses: "Warning: Don't put your hands and others into the air outlet" I just picture someone lifting up another person and trying to stick their head into the 2 inch opening...  I have done really well eating healthy this week (minus popcorn at pop at the movies last night).  On that note, we saw The A-Team last night.  I wasn't sure what I would think of it - it seemed like it could be one of those movies where all the good stuff is in the previews, but instead, I actually really enjoyed it.  Only not so great part about the movie was when Paula spilled some of our Extra Grande popcorn (hee hee) but as the picture shows, we still had lots left:

I also did a bit of shopping last night before the movie, with Ozumy.  She was a lovely shopping companion, translating my dissatisfaction with most everything I tried on to the store clerks.  Finally, we found what I was looking for - a nice cover-up for wearing over my bikini at the pool or beach!  It's lovely, pink, and unique!

And today is the big day!  Unfortunately, I woke up not feeling so great - to the extent that if I wasn't already taking the next 5 days off, I would have stayed home.  I blame it on O, who was sick on Monday/Tuesday and then probably had leftover germs on Wednesday.  Hopefully all of my usual remedies will kick in and I'll feel much better tomorrow. 

As I write, Bart is sitting in the Miami Airport enjoying a 5 hour layover.  And by enjoying, I mean he is really tired.  There was a storm during the last hour or so, but it appears to have cleared up.  So far, his flight is still scheduled to leave on time, but there is a bit of backlog due to the flights that couldn't leave during the storm.  My plan for the evening is to head home a tad early (1/2 an hour more to go!), do a few things around the house, and at 6:45, Don Pedro is scheduled to pick me up to take me to the airport.  Once we return, everyone is planning on coming to our colmado to have some beer and meet Bart.  Should be fun! 

Bad Day for Food

Another weekend has come to an end.

It began with a nice Friday evening at home.  I just relaxed, which was exactly what I needed.  I had the house to myself since Pavol and Maria went to a resort for the weekend and David was at a party at the MC.  Our only issue was that we ran out of gas for our stove.  There I was trying desperately to get the stove started so I could heat up some food.  Then I realized that we had no more gas.  Of course, I had no idea how to get more gas.  David was able to ask his boss (who lives in our building) the process and we found out that we had to order some more.  As of today, we still haven't done this.  My little kettle has been the only form of cooking we have.  Saturday, I had to work and the day was quite slow until I got given a whole lot of work about an hour before I was supposed to leave.  Luckily, it didn't need to be done that day, so I'll be able to finish it up this week probably.

After work, I picked up a few groceries at Super Pola.  The bag boy wanted to help me out with my groceries even though I told him, "I'm walking, it's fine."  I had brought one of my reusable bags so it was just one bag in total and it wasn't that heavy.  He insisted on helping me with the groceries out to the street.  I had a quick carrito ride home where I met up with Paula and Manuel.  Manuel took us to a vegetarian restaurant/yoga studio.  It was a yummy meal and a cool atmosphere.  After that, we decided to take Manuel to IKEA for his first ever IKEA experience.  We had a lot of fun and Manuel decided that he really liked the place.  I splurged and got a jade plant and two really cheap green pillows.  They have made quite a nice addition to my room!

After IKEA, we picked up Zak and went to Beer House.  It was a lovely little rooftop patio lounge/bar that carried a wide array of beers from around the world and made pretty decent cocktails too.  I was a little sad to see that their Canadian beer representation consisted of only Molson, but was impressed by their overall variety and selection (including Guiness).  I was feeling like a beer at first, but then decided to have a cosmopolitan instead.  Manuel and Zak stuck to Presidente and Paula had a pina colada. They also played excellent music (jazzzzy goodness)! After the drinks, Manuel took me home so I could have date night with Bart.  Once again, we played monopoly and had an overall score of 1-1. 

On Sunday, the plan was to meet at the MC at 9:00am as AIESEC had rented a guagua to take us all to the beach.  I got up early to ensure I'd be ready in time.  David added a bit of excitement to my morning when he decided to light our sink on fire (with a lighter and air freshener spray) due to the presence of a centipede.  With the centipede gone, we headed to the MC, arriving just after 9.  I always hold out hope that when we're told that we're meeting to leave at 9, that we will actually do so.  When we arrived, most of the people that live at the MC weren't even up.  Sandwiches hadn't been made (which was supposed to happen the night before) and we were the first ones to arrive.  Slowly, the more timely people showed up.  After sitting around for over half an hour we decided to go and get some breakfast since there was no way we'd be leaving by 10 even.  I had a really yummy breakfast of mashed potatoes and some baked cheese (and a juice box which had an interesting straw - a closed end but three small holes to let the juice out.  I think I prefer it to the regular straws!).

 We finally got going and headed out to Playa Caribe.  We made a quick stop at a gas station to pick up some ice and a big bottle of Presidente which we enjoyed along the way.

The beach was quite lovely.  I enjoyed the stronger waves and the more natural setting that surrounded it (instead of having large condo buildings to look at).  One of my favorite parts of the day was watching the pelicans dive into the ocean.  I was surprised by how near they got to the humans and how they were fine to just float along with us.  It was a pretty amazing sight though!  For the most part, we just bobbed up and down in the waves and chilled on the beach.  We had some fun with Manuel's new camera, which is waterproof, and were propositioned by a seedy looking lady claiming to read palms.  I ended up having to pay RD$15 to use a washroom that didn't have running water, no toilet paper, and you couldn't even flush the toilets.  It was disgusting.  But I didn't have any more appealing options.  I mean if I'm going to pay to use a washroom, I expect it to be half decent... On a more positive note, I indulged in a little beach fare consisting of a very sweet pineapple and coconut treat.  Jakub had a sort of peanut brittle that I tried as well. 

Once I was back home I ran into some problems with my food.  First of all, I went to make some pasta.  It was a bag of pasta I had bought less than a week ago and that I had rolled up to seal.  I guess this wasn't good enough because as I poured the pasta into the pot, I saw little bugs falling in too.  Gross.  So I ended up throwing that pasta out.  My next try was with some pasta I keep in a tin.  Now this tin is tightly sealed.  But, you guessed it, bugs in here too.  But at least they didn't end up in my pasta that I was cooking this time, although I was sure to keep the water on boil the entire time that I cooked it.  And now, I need to buy more pasta, and some Rubbermaid containers to keep it in...  Then I went to cut up a mango and realized that the mango I had bought the day before had broken skin and had started to rot.  Ugh.  Seriously.  So I threw that one out and cleaned up the other two.  When I went to cut up one of the other two, it had a hollow bad spot inside (you couldn't tell from the outside).  It wasn't that big though so I was able to cut it out and still eat the majority of the mango, however, it was a very frustrating night for food.


The day at the office has been alright so far.  I'm busy working on a project that I've had for over a month (but haven't been able to work on due to lack of approvals for the past 3 weeks).  Spent most of the morning without air conditioning but when J came in, somehow he was able to get it to work (this boggles my mind since O and I, along with various other coworkers, spent Thursday, Friday and Saturday struggling unsuccessfully to get it to work).  Not that I care, I'm just happy to be cool.

El Rey Juan

The week so far has been quite normal since Monday.  However, yesterday brought a bit more excitement and some new experiences into my life.

First of all: a new plantain dish, pastelon de plantano maduro con queso.  This one is sort of a sweet mashed plantain and cheese casserole.   It was an interesting contrast of flavours, which I enjoyed but I don't think I could eat too much of.  Sort of a once and a while thing for me.  I think I would have liked it better if it weren't sweet...

We've been trying to see a movie once a week, as a group.  On Wednesday, not many people could go and it just didn't end up happening.  Instead, we chose to go on Thursday and to see Robin Hood.  We ran into some issues getting to the theatre on time.  The original plan was that I was supposed to meet Zak, Adaica and Jamie at the MC at 5:30 and then we were going to take a taxi to the theatre. (We were supposed to meet at 6:10 for the movie at 6:30)  I left work at 5:20 and called Zak to let him know that they could call the taxi since I'd be there in about 5 minutes.  They informed me that they were actually a half hour away from the MC.  So I ended up walking home and they were going to pick me up from there.  By the time 6:25 came around, I had kind of given up.  I called them back and said, where are you - oh just a few minutes away.  In Dominican, that can mean anything, so I asked, "where exactly are you?"  "Nearly at Lincoln/Lope de Vega," was the reply.  Yep, that's still going to be a solid 15 min if not more.  I ended up calling Pavol to see where he was.  Turns out they were just a few blocks away on Lincoln and Independencia and were going to take a carrito to the theatre.  This seemed like a faster option than having the rest of the crew pick me up still and then make our way over there.  So off I went, speed walking to meet up with Pavol, Orlando and Jakub.  We got off where we thought we should, but Orlando and I were convinced we had to turn to the right.  Pavol believed it was the left.  We were all too stubborn and went separate ways.  Turns out Pavol was right.*  So that delayed us further...

Anyways, we finally got into the theatre and quickly grabbed tickets and food.  The movie had started by the time we got in, but I don't think too much had happened.  It was then that we realized the movie was in Spanish, even though Ozumy said that the ticket people had said it was English.  This was an experience for me.  At first I had a few issues understanding how the characters were related to each other - but I fixed that by doing a quick google search on my phone.  There were several jokes that I didn't catch (but a few that I did!) and overall it just felt odd having a movie set in old-timey England and people speaking Spanish.  That and Prince John was suddenly Rey Juan.  The few lines that were in French though excited me immensely.  I did try for a while to just tune out the sound and focus on reading lips, but I've never been good at that and, as such, was rather unsuccessful this time.  The popcorn was really tasty though!

After the movie, Pavol and I began the trek home but then he got the idea to go for a drink at the Hilton.  Normally, I'd be like, "I want to go home and sleep," but last night, this sounded like a good idea.  So we did that.  It was so nice to have a good cocktail.  First up, my usual cosmopolitan.  It was good, I like it to have a tiny bit more cranberry flavour, but this did just fine.

Here's Pavol and his drink.  Some sort of rum and sours...

Pavol's friend Ramon was working at the pool bar that night, but he stopped by to say hi to us and chat for a bit.  Manuel also joined us after the first round, so we decided to have another round.  I wanted something totally different, so between my tastes and Pavol and the bartender's knowledge, this was created:

It had muddled strawberries, vodka, grand marnier, and the oils from that bit of orange zest.  And maybe other stuff, I'm not sure.  It was very tasty though.  See:

Mmm.  And that was our evening.  Unfortunately, I am now even more tired and so I'm looking forward to a brisk walk home, a cold shower and a nap.

Today has been frustrating.  We are without air conditioning at work and my lunch plans fell through, as after half an hour of being at the restaurant alone Adaica came to tell me that she had to get to a meeting at 2 and that Zak and Jamie decided they had too much work to do.  I'm not sure why they didn't know this at 1:00 when I confirmed the plans or why they couldn't just call me... Anyways, that is the Dominican for you.  I try very hard to get used to it and to not let it anger me, but it's tough.  Really tough.  I am a planner.  I make a plan and I stick to the plan.  If something changes, everyone involved knows it has changed at the very earliest moment I can inform them.  And I am on time.  I'm trying to be more relaxed about being on time (I'm doing good at the relaxing at being on time at work...) but again it's tough.  I'm a fan of 5:00 meaning 5:00, not a mixture of 5:00, 5:15, 5:30 and 6:00 (or later!).  Overall, this is actually one of my biggest struggles and frustrations here, right up there with the language and the heat.  Don't worry though - my more relaxed attitude is improving... slowly...

*normally Orlando and I go with Alejandra and we always remember that she turns near a car dealership type of place and then goes to the right.  We got out near the National car rental so this was our hint to go right.  Now we're curious to see if there is another car place the next block over or not.

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.

Shades of Muted Citrus

On Wednesday we ended up seeing Date Night instead of Prince of Persia.  I was okay with this, since Date Night was originally my vote.  Reason for the switch was that it turned out that Prince of Persia cost RD$100 and we go for the RD$50 movies.  I enjoyed the movie.  Also, it was ridiculously hot that day and the air conditioning didn't seem to be on in the theatre until after the movie began.  To get this picture (right) looking half decent, Ozumy and I did a good kleenex pat-down on our face to reduce some of the shine... and this was taken on my phone, thus no flash. Crazy hot=crazy shine.  Best part was, we had just been seated and the movie previews were soon to begin when an employee came in and said they were moving us to another theatre.  So the mad rush was on to get to the other theatre and get good seats.  I had popcorn again.  It was fresh this time, and I ate the entire bag full.

Thursday was a holiday here, which I was quite grateful for.  I spent the day at home, relaxing and napping.  The morning began with a storm that included pouring rain, big thunder and lightning.  However, this made for excellent morning nap conditions as it kept my room nice and dark.  I've been feeling very tired lately.  I am still not used to the longer working hours and longer work week.  I'm getting used to the heat, but it still drains me.  And another symptom that expats usually face is exhaustion, generally.  So my focus for the next bit is kind of recovering and also getting myself back to feeling positive about the whole experience! 

We received another new intern this week. His name is Jakub and will be working with Pavol, David and Orlando.  I met him yesterday, briefly, when I stopped at the MC to pick up my font template...

Also, at lunch yesterday, I went to Emparedado and was waiting for Adaica to show up and ended up being mesmerized by this guy's suit.  He seemed to maybe be an owner of the company or the building or something.  He had a guy who drove his big Chevy Tahoe and who also carried his portfolio with his files in.  He seemed very stereotypical wannabe TV style Italian mafia in the Caribbean.  The oiled back hair, never took off his sunglasses, cheesy suit... And yes, those are lemon dress pants, paired with a lime green dress shirt and a mint-lime blazer.  Enjoy!

Trabajo? Trabajo?

Well now that I know I have bagworms, life is back to normal.  Or at least as normal as it can be here.

Yesterday was quiet, boring, slow, etc.  The only exciting thing that happened was that I walked home for the first time since the ankle injury.  It was still fairly sore when I got home, but worth it.  Especially since I save an average of 15min by walking home as opposed to taking a carrito!  On my way home, I saw this on one of the large electronic billboards.  I was hoping the person would have something scandalous and compromising on their desktop for all of Santo Domingo to see.  No such luck...

This morning, I did something that left me kind of embarrassed. 

While waiting for a carrito to come along, I got honked at.  A man in a black Toyota stopped, put the car into reverse and tried to get me to get in his car.  Now he was saying trabajo which means work.  My brain went, I think that guy works at my office, but I'm not sure.  Do I recognize the car, maybe?  Since I estimated my level of sure-ness at about 75% I just kind of looked confused and shook my head no.  He looked confused and then drove off.  A carrito came shortly thereafter and in I got.  While in the carrito, I kept seeing a blue BMW just like that of JD at work.  Turns out it was him.  As I walked towards the office, I noticed the same black Toyota in the parking lot.

Crap - I do work with him.  He probably thinks I'm extremely weird.  I hope I didn't offend him... he'll understand, right?  

I met up with JD as I was heading into the building, turns out he also tried to get my attention and pick me up, but he did so after I had already performed the finger wiggle to get the carrito to stop for me.  He said that the next time he is going to work around that time he will bb text me so I know to watch for him.

O and I had a little giggle fit together this morning when J started belting (and I mean BELTING) out a song.  It was a type of Christian Gospel song and he didn't know most of the words and it was loud.  O and I just turned to each other and started laughing.  J couldn't hear us though, he was singing that loud.  O says to me: "and I thought I was weird."  I may have gotten audio footage of the singing... I need to do a quick edit on it, since there is a lot of dead space, and then I will upload it.  It's not the most intense part of his singing, but at least will give you an idea of the way he sings. 

Then, after I had gotten back from lunch, the man from the black Toyota came by our area.  It was then that he realized I didn't speak any Spanish.  This seemed to make him understand more.  He told O and J the story of this morning, and how he was like, "Trabajo? Trabajo?"  O explained my side of it and translated back to me.  The guy just thought I looked dazed and confused.  I got O to tell him that I will know it is him for next time.  Ugh.  I felt really stupid.  At the same time though, my gut wasn't positive that it was someone from work and I mean, I can't just be getting into vehicles with guys I'm only 75% sure I work with.  And I'm sure that they understand that it is easy for everyone else here to remember me.  It is not so easy for me to remember everyone here, at least not yet.  Plus I've said, "hola!" to this guy maybe once before. 

It's RD$50 movie night!  Tonight's pick: Prince of Persia.