hola todos!

so this may be it! im thinking i may get at least one more blog entry in before taking off from this beautiful place. the fiesta de despididas (good bye party) is tomorrow! and then uncle dirk comes in tomorrow so its off to the south coast!

this is going to be short to (i apologize), got lots of things to take care before coming home next friday!

baseball game was great btw, home team won. and let me tell you, baseball here is nothing like baseball at home. they scream yell and make noise like you wouldnt believe, with whistles and all. they stand all the time and people dont leave early. it was great and i have some great photos to share when i get home!

for now, its off! you can still email me, although internet has days where it will let me check and others where it wont.

if this is it, see lots of you in a week-ish!!! hope you've enjoyed my blog :)

Im in a little internet "cafe" nearby my house trying to work the spanish keyboard! Yesterday was quite a day as I went to the Haitian border! Dont worry, didnt fully cross over into Haiti, but my friends who did made it out just fine! It was quite a place to see! The border market was FILLED with people selling all sorts of things imaginable. Food, shoes, backpacks, underwear, it was everywhere. I even noticed a shirt from Pigman´s BBQ! Yes, believe it or not, a shirt from Pigmans all the way in the Outer Banks of North Carolina was being worn around the market near the border of Haiti! Some of the clothes and shoes were new, but the majority seemed second hand, Id like to hope from charity organizations that donate! So for those of you who donate your clothing, keep doing so! It looks like they are making there way to the right places.

There was a lot of smog and pollution too and I noticed sadly a number of pregnant women wondering around barefoot and trying to sell things. It really is a different world from the US. It felt so surreal at the time, but when I think back, I am really amazed that I got to stand at the border crossing into the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. People crossing through into Haiti were carrying all sorts foods and on their heads too! Dozens of eggs, chickens, juices, sacks of rice... standing on that bridge, I felt like the biggest obstacle. On the other side, I saw UN trucks as well.

Going back from the border was especially interesting. Our bus was stopped four times to see if we were carrying Haitians with us. At one point all of us were asked for our passports. Our friends that went into Haiti came back on a different bus and my friend Iolani was actually harassed for her passport because they thought she was Haitian.

Tomorrow its off to my first Dominican Baseball game! Did you know that after Americans, Dominicans are the second most common ethnicity of baseball players found in the major leagues? Off to go witness the future!

So its finally beginning to cool off here! At least it seemed that way yesterday and this morning, but I could easily jinx that... hopefully I wont.

It is very weird here to see Christmas decorations up and have it be so warm!! Im starting to get a feel for how it must be for people living in Florida. Palms trees and heat... it still seems like August to me! They have Feliz Navidad sign up along the highway and the school has even taken to putting up reindeer (or llamas as we have been calling them). In addition, at both entrances they have lights outlining a Mary, Joesph, and baby Jesus (yeah Catholic University!). My apartment building is also in FULL swing... we have a giant blow up snow globe right in between out balconey and our neighbors!! It cracks me up that the globe says Happy Holidays though. Spanglish anyone?

My Uncle makes his way here in a week and a half! The original plan was to go see him in Punta Cana, which is supposed to be BEAUTIFUL. Even with 750,00 tourists each year, you can walk stretches of the beach without seeing anyone! (weird huh?) However, Tara and I found out that it is 7 hours to get there!!! (why must this island be so big?!) So Im am THOROUGHLY disheartened and feeling like its not going to happen :( But other beautiful south coast options are in swing as we speak.

BTW- to anyone who wanted anything from here, you time is getting close to passing! Let me know now or you will be SOL.

BAD NEWS!!

my keyboard is pretty much done for. in the middle of the email i sent to my dad, the space bar and enter decided to se fue (accidentally go out). so yay fun. gracias a Dios, i have a giant warrenty that dell will be facing when i get home. in the mean time, i hate to say it, but i will not be purchasing another key board to attach to my computer for the remaining 2 weeks that i will need my computer. instead, and inconveniently, i will be borrowing my familys keyboard while at home and otherwise, using the dreadful computers in the lab. so i can still know what is going on, please email me at

Sweeti1243@aol.com in addition to the Vandy email. I will be able to check the Vandy one on occasion with Taras computer, but when Im in the lab, I can only check my aol account. so no pictures! hence if you want to know whats going on, give me a ring-
829 886 0991. ill update the blogger when i can, just with words tho.

onward...
we stayed in the zona colonial at hotel europea. i dont know why it was called that, it didnt seem anymore european than the other hotels... but then again, i have never been to europe so...
inside the lobbytara and mine's room, with our rather large and comfy beds.
friday after arriving at the hotel, we had time to change, and then it was off to dinner. i dont quite know the name of the restaurant, but it was italian. walking into it was like walking onto a stage set up for a mid summer night's dream, ie very green forestly, lots of pastel colors...
a better image here... we sat over in the back behind this waiter dude. we started off with yummy appetizers of eggplant parm, some yummy meat thing and mozarella. for dinner i made the unfortunate choice of alfredo... not to say it wasnt good, but i didnt quite understand that flank steak was another option... we finished off with tiramisu (eww coffee) . while some other went out, my friend callie and i had a night in. we ended up watching part of clockwork orange... and now i understand why it was ranked the 2nd most disturbing movie by entertainment weekly.
my table, starting on left up then going back down... katelyn, melissa, kaleigh, adam, liz, sarah, afton, tara, katie, hattie, and charlotte.
same deal... tomas, iolani, shannon, megan, callie (my friend who just got engaged last weekend to her wonderful bf jared of four years), rachelle (who goes to school with bum), quinn, brian, ryan, jeanette, katie, alex (who i go to Vandy with), and renee.
lynne, nathaniel, marcos, two of our drivers, and amanda.

so this is about it for now... since i wont be doing very much this weekend due the strike, i will only have more santo domingo pictures to post next week. so coming up, the actual zona colonial, el mercado where i bought some x-mas gifts, los tres ojos (caves), el aquario (aquarium) and more!

so viva la capital! this past weekend CIEE treated us to a spectular weekend in the capital. the capital is about two hours away from santiago. time flies by too when youre immersed in a great book like blink. i highly recommend it to anyone who hasnt read it. so picture time!
first shot going into the city... there was this car dealership. and creatively and geniously to advertise, they had cars attached tot he side of the builing. yes, the picture was taken looking straight at the building.
before arriving at our hotel, we stopped at the museo al hombre dominicano, which was not just about dominican men like the name seems to indicate. according to my wonderful guide book, thanks annie!, it was rank as one of the 24 things to do while on the island. so here we have the famous lembo, what a macho man. his caption says that he was a slave in the 1500's who rebelled up against his owners. im no expert on statue making, but his proportions seem a little out of line, like they were trying to hard to emphasize certain parts....

some of the actual shackles used to enslave the africans that were brought over.for those of you who watch family guy, we have here the inspiration for stewie! :) he happens to be my favorite character on the show. i don't actually know what these are, i assume some type of art, but they are just too cute. kinda lookin like my puggy. some pretty shell jewelry.

for now, its off to a quick meeting about the end of the year fiesta coming up in only two weeks! ill post more afterwards.

unfortunately however, today will be the only day i can post because there will be a national strike this thursday and friday. the strike is the result of the president announcing his impending tax reforms. it is very dangerous to be out during strikes, so CIEE has told us to stay home. dont worry, i will be ok. all couped up in my house, but ok.

from now on i will be writing in lower case letters, to forewarn you. for those of you curious as to why, there is a wonderful explanation. my computer is having problems. problems that as my little computer geius kstew believes, will not be solvable until my return to the states. as of the present moment, my delete, not backspace key, no longer works. in its place, my left shift key has kindly- note the sarcasm- decided to takes its place. in addition, the right shift key decided one enter button was not enough for me. as such, my grammar and punctation will not be as clean as i like to try and make it. tough for a grammar perfectionist like me. so, once again, i apologize. no exclamations etc... bc in addition, i cannot shift to use those functions either. and inserting them woudl take too long. so i just wanted to give you all that for now to explain my lack of blogging today. i mean its tuesday. somethine bad had to happen today just like it has the past two tuesdays- getting locked oout of my room and losing my debit card. YAY. im going to put this aside and blog tomorrow. so be on the look out- exclamation point- smiley face. lol.

I apologize for yesterday's second blog entry. It was the result of some chaotic multi-tasking. BTW- the first photo was of my friend Quinn and me. He taught me how to play chess! And told me I put up a very good fight for a first timer. Maybe Im the next Bobby Fischer, who knows.

So now I'll finish off the Peace Corp pictures with some of the most interesting photos that I have been taken of me yet, as if me building a latrine didnt shock some of you enough :) In order from least to most shocking.

This may not look shocking, seeing as to how its just Tara and I in our bathing suits and towels. Whats interesting is why we are in them. We took a bath in the rio. Thats right. Shampooed my hair and had it washed off with someone throwing a bucket of water on my head.

I have now done this twice, but here is photo graphic evidence. Here I am cliff jumping. This was not as high as the other one I jumped off of, but the water was kinda disgusting. Especially when we saw some very interesting things floating by that I will not mention in case you happen to be eating while reading this.

Here begins the most shocking. All the meals we had while working were homemade from all natural ingredients and were so delicious. One night, we had chicken noodle soup. Being all natural, the chicken was killed earlier that day and most of it put in the soup. I happened to discover the chicken foot (see above) in my bowl. Marcos, one of our directors, told me that he had never seen an American try and eat the chicken foot. He says we are too afraid. So to prove him wrong...yes, i decided to try chicken foot. not very much too it, therefore not very tasty. but now i can say i have tried eating a chicken foot.

Now onto weekend pictures! So this past weekend was a 3 day (4 day for me because I dont have class on Fridays anyway) weekend. So I had originally hoped Brian would come down and see me. At one point, he thought he would be able to, but then it ended up not working out. So this Monday to my surprise, I get an email from him saying that he has decided to throw everything aside and come down to visit. So I frantically planned our a weekend which turned out very well, aside from a few mishaps Monday and a mini disaster Tuesday.

So here he is! Tan serio. The first night we stayed in Santiago at Hotel Platino, right near campus. The hotel is situated in this plaza, so on first appearence, it looks a little interesting, definately not like a hotel. But it was very nice. Brian took the actual photos of the hotel, so check his blog if you want to see them. We had a very relaxing day, just mainly walking around campus and meeting a few of my friends. Then we went to my fav, Pasta House, where we enjoyed some yummy pasta, friend hongos, and sushi!! Brian had his first concho experience, which went over pretty well I have to say. He survived! So then we hung out in the hotel, watched Grey's Anatomy, and had some room service :)

The next day, we Metro Bused to Puerto Plata. We got to watch Elizabethtown (in English!) on the way up there. While the music was fabulous, it was def not Jerry MaGuire (my all time fav). So we then took a short taxi ride over to the hotel CostAtlantica. The rooms are actually condos. However, the service at this hotel was not very pleasant and I do not forsee going back there any time soon. Brian standing outside on our porch.

The night improved though. We went and had a dinner of jamon y queso and pasta on the beach.

and got to watch a beautiful sunset.
the next day, we took off to Cabarete, abouot 30 minutes up from Puerto Plata. It was there Brian fell in love. We stayed here, at Villa Taina, a beautiful hotel situated right on the beach. In fact, he loved it so much, we stayed for another night.
cool little taino art decorations.just beautiful.
inside our beautiful room complete with balconey.
getting ready for the beach! dont you love the candid shot? :)
And now a not so candid photo... future model right here lol.
Now if you can recall back in September when I first visit Cabarete, I mentioned the beautiful little row of restaurants neatly situated along the beach. You may also recall that I posted a photo of a restaurant called Casanova. Well Brian and I went and visited (and sat in the cool swing chair!) and had some of the most delicious food I have had on this island. Although not like the ones from Sala Thai, these are Thai spring rolls!
we also enjoyed a yummy chicken and aguacate wrap and a "new york" caesar (or cesar as they spell here) salad, with BACON!
close up of brian's lunch.
mira! what a perfect kara salad. in fact, so perfect i had it the next day. brian being a copy cat decided to get it too.
Chilling out after our nice meal.
such a touristy location that our bill comes with the option to pay in five different ways!

Heres looking out from our restaurant.
typically you have to pay to use the chairs along the beach. but thankfully with our hotel, they came complimentary.

walking along the beach together.

a shot of the beautiful shot of the sky.

shadow shot.
the most enormous lobsters either of us had seen. they were just HUGE!

for you bum :)

So this has been a very long blog, so I will finish up Brian and mine's weekend possibly tomorrow. But if I dont, I will be in la Capital, Santo Domingo, eating in a cave and exploring the Zona Colonial!