Mis adventuras en la Republica Dominicana

2006-11-30T05:23:00.000-08:00

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 :)

2006-11-25T12:37:00.000-08:00

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!

2006-11-22T04:33:00.000-08:00

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.

2006-11-20T09:41:00.000-08:00

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.

2006-11-15T11:10:00.000-08:00

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!

2006-11-15T07:01:00.000-08:00

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.

2006-11-14T17:03:00.000-08:00

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.

2006-11-09T05:40:00.000-08:00

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!

2006-11-08T16:07:00.000-08:00

Ok so the rest of the pictures!
a view of the other side of the beach.
our diet. bread, cheese, and aguacate. it is delicious!
And here are the banana boats! Sosua has a bunch of these hanging out in the water. If you cant tell, they are giant inflatable rafts (shaped like bananas) with room for up to six. The boat in front drags you along for a fabulous view of three beaches!
My friend Brian took these shots of us on our way in. Here we all are on the boat.
Here is the boat turning sharply to dump us off.
And here we are dumped off into the water. Se fue. And I totally forgot about peace corp pictures! So heres what went down. A few weekends ago, a group of us who signed up went out to a pueblito en the campo to help build latrines with a peace corp volunteer named Dan. My friends put up my pictures on facebook of the trip and so I am now reposting them. Here is what the latrines we built looked like. Tara and I are standing behind overlooking a beautiful valley.to build the latrines, we needed to get sand from rio to mix with the cement. so adam, brian, and i went down to the rio with ten ginat sacks and filled them with ten scoops of sand. Here we are loading them into the back of the truck.
Next we took the pieces of wood that some of the others had cut while we got sand and nailed them together to construct the frame of the latrine. Here I am with adam attacking the nail ferociously.Here we are tying the metal bars together with ribar ties. In the middle would be the cement god.
And here we mixing the cement and filling it into the frame.
some of the ninos of the pueblo. we played monkey in the middle for a while after dinner.
another shot with my kiddies.

guaguas here gotta run!

2006-11-08T08:34:00.000-08:00

I am sitting in the student center enjoying my first lunch from here! Sorry about the delay with updating, but it has been quite a weekend!

But before I get to that, other promised pictures! First, the vodoo ceremony at the Batey.
Like the floor says, Bienvenidos! We went into this small building/hut type of place, sat down in chairs in a circle and in the middle of the floor was a whole bunch of designs created with some form of powder (maybe chalk). the bottles you see are soda bottles. I couldn't catch what all the symbols mean but the one on the right here is the watchiman- the guardian mas o menos.
Here are some of the guys helping out with the ceremony. The guy in the all blue with the white scarf on it the vodoo priest.
working his vodoo magic...
off to the far left here, you'll see a little cloud of smoke. using some of the stuff he had in his bowl in the above picture, he created got smoke to come out of this bowl.
Later on, he went and took off his blue robe and came back in a bathing suit. He then proceed to take this bundle of lit sticks and run it over his legs and arms, I suppose to prove his strength and power.

the most precious little girl i have ever seen! she had such adorable cheeks! it was so hott in the room that she eventually just fell right to sleep in my arms.

my battery unfortunately died, but the ceremony continued on with drums playing and the priest dancing with some member of the community. When I say dancing, I don't mean ball room dancing. I mean fast paced legs moving all over the place, almost like break dancing kind of dancing.

We were then able to go into his temple, where the priest spends his time waiting for another calling. It was a small little building with three rooms, many candles, and even pictures of jesus and the virgen mary.

The next day, a group of my friends and I went to Sosua, another beach on the North Coast.

On the way there, a telephone pole fell over on our bus. Yet, did that stop us? No, we just carried on like nothing had happened. Yep, no stopping, nothing.
We had the fortune of staying for free in my friend Brian's hot family giant (and empty) mansion. Here are some of us trying to get in...
Another view of Brian's enormous house. It had so many rooms (although unfurnished) and even a pool (although empty) on the roof!

Here is the beautiful gazeboo next to the giant house.

A view of Sosua beach and the fabulous (and fabulous expensive) hotels.

I will end my picture with this... I went into a colmado (min 7-11 things) to get a water and look at what I stubbled across. Although he didnt know anyone who goes to MD, what a beautiful shirt to have in the DR. Totally made my day. Fear the Turtle. That's right.

So this is all the time I have for now (I will add a few more of Sosua later). Maybe later today I will be able to put up the pictures from Brian's and mine's weekend or maybe tomorrow, but I will be going to a baseball game with my kiddies, so I don't know that I will have time the rest of the week because Friday we go to the capital for the weekend! YAY!

2006-11-02T07:06:00.000-08:00

I do not have lots of time, so no pictures :( I'm sorry! But next week for sure! But I have LOTS of good news!

So first off, Brian is currently on his way here! He gets in at 3 my time (2 and 1 other peoples times). We are going to have a fun filled weekend of the beach, dancing, food, and maybe some waterfalls! He leaves here Tuesday, so don't expect updates until then.

Second, I am the new President of Alpha Chi Omega! Too excited for words!

Third, I just got mail from my best girlfriends! (Kstew, you're slacking). Bum sent me a post card all the way from South Africa! Her program is wrapping up, she just finished classes! Kas is living the high life in South Carolina and tells me all is fabulous in her life. Kstew... I wouldnt know bc hes being a boy and not sending me mail :(/ disses me for ranger challenge (jk, i heart you stew).

Fourthly, I have had such a fun past two nights! For Halloween, me with all my creativity dressed up as a Roman (yay toga!) and went to my friend Rachelle house where I engaged in some more BINGO! On top of it, we had some DELICIOUS tacos... yum. Then last night, I went to my friend Tara's where I learned to play Dominican dominoes! And I rocked it! I know what you're thinking, Im turning 60 right? But I'll have you know its really a lot of fun! And there are at least 5 other 20 year olds that like it too.

So anyway, next week, not only pictures that I promised, but finally of me building a latrine and some from this past weekend!

2006-10-31T14:06:00.000-08:00

I have exactly a minute before Im supposed to be in Judo (but since Dominicans always come late, Im going to be a Dominican today!). So I have a quick update.

I will not be putting pictures up today, hopefully tomorrow, but if not, no pictures will be up until next Wed. Why you ask? Because I have a surprise visit this weekend from... BRIAN!! :) I will fill you all in afterwards, but its going to be a very fun filled weekend and I have been viciously planning it since he told me he was coming yesterday. Lets just say part of it includes a windsurfing lesson!

Also on the news of exciting visit, my Uncle Dirk is coming to see me my last week here, from the 3-7th of December! So excited for all my visits!

Also, if you happen to be curious, this weekend, I should find out whether or not I will be taking over our house as President! Eek! Let's hope I will so Brian will enjoy his long weekend :)

2006-10-30T06:28:00.000-08:00

Its been a great weekend here in Santiago! Lots has been going down...

Friday, first off, if you havent heard my excitement about this, I will just put it up for you now. They have SUSHI on this island. Yes, I said it. They have SUSHI. I am saved. Friday I went with a small group of my girlfriends and indulged in some fabulous shrimp tempura rolls. I feel infintely better and think I may be able to survive until the end of the trip afterall. In case you don't believe me about this wonderful discovery, mira...
On top of that, I wanted to make you all feel a little better about how early Christmas starts in the US. Christmas decorations started up here about two weeks ago and now are in full fledged swing. I realized that this is due to la falta de dos holidays here- Halloween and Thanksgiving. So they start prepping early!
I went to the supermercado to get some shampoo and walked right into this site! A giant sized tree like you would find in the mall right in the super market! There were also three more off to my left, but I didnt want to seem like the obnoxious tourist, so I just snapped a shot of the one.

Me with Ho Ho!

So later that day our group took a trip to a Batey, Batey Libertad. A batey is the little township where mainly Haitians live. They typically work the sugar fields. The one we went to happened to be a place where they haverst rice. The townships are typically very very poor. On the way there we happened to see this...

not the best shot as I was on the far side of the bus... but we actually did see the end too! Believe it or not, rainbows actually do have endings, this one in a field.
Here is the main street in the batey. The younger children typically were sans clothing. Some of the older ones were fully clothed, others just in underwear. They were all super friendly and loved the camera. They walked around with us, holding our hands.
One of the houses in the town constructed entirely of aluminum.
Baseball fields are referred to as PLAYs. You hopefully remember the pictures of the PLAY that I go to for community service... well this is their version of a PLAY.
With one of my little friends... some of the children knew Spanish. Others, just creole. More educated Haitians will typically know French. But for the most part, Creole is the language spoken. He unfortunately did not know any Spanish, so I was not able to get his name :(

Some of the fields they work to grow their food.

So unfortunately Im a little blogged out today :( Im having some serious frustrations with registaring for my spring semester. I was supposed to be able to log in with out a passcode and am unable to do so. But for those of you who were interested, I plan to take CMST Into to Public Speaking, SPAN 203 Lit, HIST 1888 WWII, HIST 200 Workshop, PSCI 238 which I believe is Global Political Parties (or something of that nature) and PSCI 243, American Presidency with my advisor! So lets hope I can get this done...

Up next will be pictures of the Voo Doo ceremony I attended and some more beach pictures, this time of Sosua.

2006-10-25T09:06:00.000-07:00

So continuing on with some more random photos! YAY!
Here is a small car dealership that I walk past on my way to pelota. I think there are about nine cars in the lot. Hondas and Toyotas are VERY popular cars here. You get the occasional Beamer as seen on the right and even a Bentley (yes, a Bentley).
This is not to say there are not a plethora of billboards here, but they also will paint advertisements along the sides of the roads on walls. Here we have some for I believe cleaning on the far left, a movie place, a place where they sell goat, a salon/ spa, and once again more political advertising.
Some nice aparment complexes.
This picture and the next one are my favorites. Bienvenidos a transporte publico. This is public transportation here. Although I have been taking these since the beginning of the semester, I have been holding off on putting these up. I felt that a few people may freak out knowing the way I have been getting around. These are called conchos. They are typically run down old Toyotas (this is actually a nicer one). They are ten pesos (3o cents) to take along a line (kind of like the Metro, there is a K, an M, an A, a U shown above, an F, and more than I still don't know). The drivers are trying to make as much money as they can so they fit up to 8 people in at a time if they can. Some conchos have cracked windows, others you can see the street through the floor. They drive maniacs, but so far, I'm doing well!
the nicest concho i have seen yet.

2006-10-24T17:39:00.000-07:00

Some fun random pictures for your viewing pleasure...

Here is Maribel, our muchacha, preparing tostones. Here we have the plantains chopped about to be smashed and put into the frier.

Here is an image of a typical lunch. We have the rice, con con (crunchy rice), some type of ensalada (sometimes lettuce and tomatoes with vinegar or like we have here boiled eggs and veggies), beans, and usually some type of meat (we didn't have any that day).

My mom loves my camera. Therefore she thought it would be fun to take a photo of me enjoying my lunch.

One of the many random doggies that lives on our street. They often eat out of the trash cans unfortunately :(

I think this is so cool. Some people running for office will paint the street poles as a form of promoting themselves. This person was obviously running in 2002.

Ok well the guagua is here. So I am cutting this short. But more tomorrow!

2006-10-24T09:14:00.000-07:00

First off, some very crazy news I got last night. Presidential elections for my house are this coming Monday! I had not been anticipating it being this early, but am very excited and plan on following through on my desires to run! So wish me luck, I'm super nervous and super excited!

Aside from that, this past weekend I spent helping a member of the Peace Corps build latrines for the community he works in. It was such a fabulous experience. However, I unfortunately forgot my camera! So I am still awaiting my friends photos to be put up on facebook so I can steal them and slide them over this way. So be on the look out for those coming soon!

I am hoping later on today or tomorrow morning to post some photos of Santiago itself. Check out the blog later on if you can.

On a side note, still not entirely sure when I'll be returning home, but it looks like it will end up being after Dec. 4th :( I will let you all know when I can!

Mil besos

2006-10-16T06:42:00.000-07:00

First of all, I want to send lots of hugs from afar to Kelly, Brian's cousin, who just gave birth yesterday to a new baby girl, Mia Charlotte (guessing on the spelling). Congrats!!!!

I feel that I haven't been giving you all the full spectrum of life down here. Thus, I am planning to take more pictures, not just of the pretty things, but more of real life Santiago.

To start, every Tuesday and Thursday, with my friends Charlotte and Tara, and on occasion Kaitlyn, I go to el parque PLAY to help a group of 50-60 boys aging from 5-17 play and practice their baseball skills. Which is very important here as baseball is the national sport (and not soccer). While I am not the world's foremost expert on baseball, my many hours of cheering on the O's along with my few years of softball have come in very handy. You may be asking yourself why did I chose to help out with baseball instead of the other options I had available, like pre-school or teaching english? Well to be honest, they told me that by helping with baseball, I would be not only learning Spanish, but I would be learning "palabras fuertes." Which to me is real Spanish. The stuff in the class is nice and all, but lets face it, slang wasn't taught in the classroom and is now part of the english language. And in hindsight, I'm very glad I chose baseball. While my friends in the pre-school and english classes are having fun, they are assisting other teachers. Whereas with baseball, Im the coach and I have to figure out what to say to the kids myself (or with the help of Tara). It has been great for my Spanish. After about ten minutes of struggling, I start to feel the flow coming on and then all of sudden, Im rattling things off that Im not sure if they make sense, but they flow out of me somehow. Which is really cool.

So picture time!

Here is el parque. Its about 15 minutes walking from my house. If I wanted to be lazy, I could just take the Q concho for ten pesos, but typically its a nice walk.

el Famoso Jochy in the jeans and dark blue/ light blue shirt. Before doing anything, Jochy has all the kids line up along la pared (the wall) so he can give them a nice life lesson. Sometimes it will be on the environment and how its important to pick up trash or other times on how its important to look your best. Since that lecture, all the kids have to tuck in their shirts.

look at our little babies. these are the munchkins of the bunch. too cute huh?

Jochy making sure the kids understand the difference between a linea y una fila. In case you didn't know, a linea is when everyone faces front. A fila is like waiting in line, therefore everyone is facing the person in front of them's back. Yes, there are two different types of lines. In English, they are both lines. In spanish, there are filas and there are lineas.

Tara leading our group's exercises. We spend thirty minutes stretching out before we go into practice and playing our games. Some are more willing than others to exercises. For those less willing, I get the pleasure of being the militant leader who stands behind and tells them to do them correctly unless they want to do more.
Sometimes even the one in charge doesn't like doing the exercises. Especially when you'll be doing the same ones two hours later in judo. Look at those sad jumping jacks... :)

Tara and I coach the 11-12 bunch against Charlotte and Kaitlyn's 8-10 bunch. The 8-10's are actually very good, its defiantely not all about the age. Right now the 11-12's are helping the 8-10's get ready to go to the capital and compete for a spot on the national team. The national team will then go on to compete in the US, I believe later on in November. I think some of 8-10's Have potential. Here is one of my favs, Bolivier, in pitching action. Our kids always seem to have a problem excepting the batting order we give them. Bolivier is always kind and offers his higher up position to someone else. What a great kid.

Ok my battery is unfortuantely starting to go before I could get all my pics up :( The internet is a little slow today. More later!

2006-10-11T07:52:00.000-07:00

So now that internet at school is running fabulous, more updates! And now that I am getting rid of my strenuous lit class, I will have more time to update and enjoy the life here!

So Rio San Juan/ Playa Grande. This past Friday, several of my friends and I went up to Rio San Juan to get a hotel so we could visit Playa Grande. Playa Grande is famous for is beautiful clear water and good olas (waves). However, there are no hotels on the beach. So we stayed in Rio San Juan, about 15 minutes out of the way. The hotel we stayed at we a little run down, but beautiful because it was RIGHT on the water. The rooms upstairs were very nice too. However, being the cheap college students we are, we opted to stay in the cheapest rooms available, which happened to be in the maid's quarters. I managed to alright for the night. Don't worry, a picture of the room is to come :)
Here is the Gri Gri Lagoon. You could rent a boat for the day and wonder down a ways. It made me want to sing some Little Mermaid, Kiss the Girl... floating in a blue lagoon, yea yea yea...
with Callie and Tara in front of the lagoon.
the tourist shops had some of the cutest things! its a shame i didnt bring enough money. if i can hunt this down, kas, this will be your christmas present. its a coconut monkey. i think we need to make up a monkey joke for it.
a beautiful view from the hotel of the sun beginning to set. this is from looking straight out of the hotel. a view of the mountains off to the left of the hotel.
a view of the mini beach alongside our hotel. what you are look at is a giant patch of seaweed. yes, the water is THAT clear.
in case you were doubting the clarity of the water. this, i am guessing, is about, oh 500 feet out from shore.
another beautiful view of the sunsetting on the water. i took about ten shots of the sunsetting because it was just so beautiful.
the hotel off to the right here.
tara and mine's room. goregous i know. but it was $15 a night! i mean the fan was rusty, tara got some ant bites, the electricity went in and out, but at least there was running water! and they were so classy and gave us hangers too.
Bienviendos a Playa Grande. Check out the waves. The clear water. The beautiful rocks out to the distance. And even further out, there is a golf course. Right along el mar. Dad, you are missing out.
this is white sand. in case you have yet to see something so beautiful.

the other side of Playa Grande. Look at those beautiful rocks.

Saturday night was supposed to be spent in Puerto Plata at a Merengue festival. Unfortauntely, for us the Merengue Festival was cancelled. When we got back to Santiago, it was raining intensely. And there is no drainage system here. I knew I had a house to myself and there would no food available. So here is a shot of the bravery of Tara and Kara and just how far we go to get food.

a little blurred because of the rain and the fact that it was dark. the water was up to my knees in some places. what would have been a five minutes trip from the bus station to the supermercado ended up being thirty. but very worthwhile because our food was delicious.

check it out! some yummy aguacate, huevos (eggs), and our wonderful attempt at queso frito. its a shame we picked the wrong type of cheese. upon showing this image to our muchacha, she then told me next time i was home alone and wanted food, she would come cook for me. i guess she thought it look that bad. but it really was delicious.

up next for the blog, i am going to talk about my community service that i have been doing- pelota (or baseball). i've got lots of fun photos, so be on the look out for that next!

2006-10-10T10:31:00.000-07:00

So my Dad/ Trudy are composing my very first package to send to me! Trudy sent me an email today asking me what I wanted in it and inspired me to think about some of the things I do miss about being home in the states.

I miss the food. Actually, I miss the variety of food.
*Saturday Brunch at Vandy with my mushroom and cheese omlette. Tons of biscuits with grape jelly. Yum.
*PF Changs. I didnt realize how much I really missed it until I couldnt't have it biweekly while enjoying some random movie in Heather and Cristina's room. Double Pan Fried Noodles would be fabulous.
*Amerigo's Artichoke Dip. I think I could eat two full ones right now, that how much I long for it.
*Cookies with lots of icing on top. Heather, eat one in my honor.
*Chili's endless chips and salsa. I swear, eating Spanish food is not the same without the bottomless chips.
*Berries.
*Japanese food. Rice Cooker would be fabulous right about now.

Oddly enough, I've started to miss Vandy. Not just the cool people that I know and love, but the school itself. I miss the munchie marts. I miss the detailed syllabi (yes nerd, I know). I miss the Vandy card and being able to swipe things on it. I really enjoy the structure of how things are run and how you know from day one when your finals are. Wearing shorts and people not giving you funny looks. I miss the idea of having roommates. Its really weird to always have to tell someone where youre going and when you'll be back. I miss having classes that don't take all day because of the giant siesta in the middle. I miss my house and being obsessively involved in it. All the fun activities that people are doing... It makes me wish there were two of me so I could be experiencing both worlds simultaneously.

I love being down here. It really is paradise. Yet, there are those small things I don't like living without.

Its crazy to think though, nearly two months has passed. Ill be home in a month and half! Eek!

2006-10-08T08:02:00.000-07:00

Lots has gone on! So last week I went to Samana on the eastern part of the island. Its famous for the humpback whales that come into the bay between December and April. This weekend I was in Rio San Juan/ Playa Grande along the north shore. So lets do some photos since Im pretty behind...

So I went to the Mirabal sisters museum a few weeks back. A very brief history behind the sisters, which will not do them justice... There are four sisters- Minerva, Maria Teresa, Patria, and Dede. Three of them were murdered through the orders of Trujillo (the infamous dictator of the Dominican Republic from 1930-1961. He had the SIM, very similar to the KGB, going around and killing people who opposed his regime. He also killed many Haitians that tried to cross the border. He would have them try to pronounce perejil (parsley), which is difficult with their accents. If they couldn't do it in two tries, they were killed).

Here is a picture of the three murdered sisters. Patria, Minerva, Mate (Maria Teresa). They were, I believe, 34, 33, and 25 when they were killed. They worked underground to try and over throw the regime. When their husbands were thrown in prison (there husbands were also apart of the underground operations), they daringly went out to visit them. On the way back, on Nov. 25, 1960, the SIM took pulled them over on the road and took them into the fields where they were each clubbed to death. Then they were put back into the car and the car was shoved over a cliff to make it look like it was an accident. However, Trujillo went to far. He was then assasinated just 6 months after the murder of the sisters.

The fourth sister, Dede, did not get involved in the way her sisters did. Therefore she is still alive to this very day. When asked by people why she didn't work with her sisters or how she makes it through the day, she simply smiles and says that this is what she was put here to do- to tell the story of her sisters.

Part of their mauled car.

Unfortunately, I was not able to take pictures inside the museum. So a lot of the very interesting things that I saw I do not have photos of. For example, when the sisters were killed, Dede had to go down to the mourge and claim they were her sisters. They gave her what possessions were left and had her cut off her sisters hair. Mate was famous for her long braids. So Dede has saved the long braid that she had to cut off of her sister. It is in a case inside the museum.

With a living legend. Isnt she beautiful?

The sisters were nicknamed the butterflies or "las mariposas." In memory of them, a lot of items around the house are butterfly oriented. The museum also sells a bunch of butterfly items as well.

On a bit of a different note, the Mirabal family raised cocoas beans (they stuff they use to make chocolate). Below is a picture of natural chocolate. It is a white and very smooth with the cocoa bean on the inside. It doesn't taste all too much like chocolate to me but it is very good.

The outside looks a little bit like a Dominican avocado (aguacate), but on the inside, it looks more like giant kernels of white corns. When I say giant, I mean like two times the size of your thumb nail giant.

And here they are in their cocoa bean form. Funny thing is you are not supposed to bite into the beans. They do not taste very good thats for sure.
some natural beauty. at times like these i remember the line from american beauty, sometimes theres just so much beauty in the world. i feel like i cant take it.

so moving onto Samana. Last weekend our group went on a nice little vacation about 4 hours away from Santiago.
Bienviendos a Samana. It makes me sad to say I did not get nearly enough photos to do this place justice because my camera battery died mid way through. So sadly, I do not have photos of the most beautiful beach I have been to yet, Playa Bonita. The water was clear so far out. Very few tourists. White sand. But no waves. Hence the expedition to Playa Grande this weekend, where they do have some waves. Those beautiful pictures will be up later.

The bay where the whales come into below.

On Saturday we took an hour and half boat ride to El Parque de Los Haitises. The Parque is filled with caves that were once occupied by the Tainos, the original inhabitants of the DR. On the way there we passed by a whole bunch of mangroves, including four different types. These birds were just hanging out on poles as we passed by on our way to the caves. I had never seen anything like them. They had eyes that reminded my of dinosaur eyes. Its hard to tell from this photo, but unfortauntely, we were passing them kind of fast.
A picture of some of the Taino cave art. Its sad to note that some of the art in tehcaves is not the original art because people have gone in and drawn their own verisons.

So that's it for now! Playa Grande pictures and info later.

2006-09-27T18:39:00.000-07:00

I have been swamped with work this week and as a result, have not found sufficient time to tell you all about my amazing trip to the Mirabal sister museum. I think it may have to even wait until next week :( but then I can tell you all about this coming weekend in Samana!

Today's quick entry is dedicated to my new fabulous friends, the mosquitos. As part of my community service class, I go to a baseball field and help kids play baseball. It has actually been great for my Spanish and the kids are for the most part, lots of fun (we get a few pains in the butt on occasion, but I feel like that is to be expected). Yesterday I was at the park in the hot afternoon sun and forgot my bug spray! So this morning I woke up and found a whole slew of new bites on my legs (joy). They itch like whoa (in fact I just itched one). I think my friends really adore my legs. So if you have the stomach, Im going to now show you some of the marks love my new friends have left me.

Can you see that giant gash above the sock? Thats love baby.

Another battle wound on my ankle... right below my vein.

On another note. I absolutely adore this place. But there are a few things that I can quite get used to. Maybe its just outside the US, but people here use theyre horns for absolutely everything. They honk to get someone's attention, they honk to let someone know theyre passing them, that they're coming- its just obnoxious. On top of it, car alarms go off here more than is necessary. There has not been a day that has gone by where I have experienced peace. I now hate car alarms. They have disturbed my sleep on numerous occasions, once for twenty minutes. They have disturbed my classes. All I want is one day. It makes me really excited for the idea of coming back home to a place where people use there horns with serious reason and where the sound of car alarms is part of the national anthem (I really think it must be here).

2006-09-26T17:45:00.000-07:00

Quick, yet important news! I have joined the PUCMM swim team (actually I was recruited... but I don't want to brag...). Yes, that's right, I am once again on a swim team and swimming competitively. I go to practice. I have to swim fast. I get beaten badly. I cry a lot (not really, don't worry). Life is good.

So if you had any interest in coming to see me, I have my first competitive meet in two years on Nov. 18th. I may have some before then, but the one on the 18th will be here at my school!

2006-09-24T06:42:00.000-07:00

So here are the finca pictures! A finca according to my dictionary is a country estate. But it was really more or less a giant farm. We went last Sunday, abruptly leaving church to do so. The finca we went to was massive. I dont remember exactly how large my dad told me it was, but the price tag was $750,000 US. How would my dad know this? He was the one who gave Fredrico, the guy who owns it, the loan. So Fredrico invited us to come check it out. Pretty sweet deal! Here is side one of the finca. This is were all the cows and horses run around. You can even see a few in the distance here.
So in reverse order here... this is me holding my almond that I cracked myself. Everyone was cracking them with rocks, so I tried to do the same. Unfortunately, it took me oh ten minutes to do what took them 20 seconds. When I was finally successful, this was my end result.I know you can't tell, but I only got a very small bit of the almond because I mashed that shell so much. My family thought it was hilarious- my inability to crack the shell. Here I am trying viciously to crack that stubborn shell.
We were actually sitting below the almond tree. So all around us were almonds just waiting to be cracked and eaten. They may look like rocks, but if you look a little bit closer, you'll notice the shells.
Me trying the coconut milk. I gave it a fair chance and have to say, I was not a fan. But I at least got a cool picture out of it!
The lovely inside of the coconut. This was the first time I had ever actually seen the inside of a coconut. In addition, I never knew that coconut milk was actually clear! I always thought it was white. So in order to eat the coconut, my family used the pieces that the guy below chopped off.
Above is our friend cutting the coconuts so that we can drink the milk.
The finca had two parts. There was the side with the animals and then there was this side... the side with the river. All of the kids and even some of the adults went in. I hung out since I had no swin suit with me.
Check out the little piggies! Lots of little Clarices (spell check on that one Kas), the babies above and the older guys below. It almost makes me feel bad for liking to eat them so much. But then I remember how good they taste. And how I really did once try to be a vegetarian. But failed after I realized that quesadillas are not the same without meat. Sorry piggies!
I tried to get a close up of the cows for Bum. But this was as close as I was allowed to get. That cow seriously looked like it wanted to run after me. It starred me down the entire time I was walking towards it for a picture. Truly a "mad" cow.
Below is a picture of lunch. So I may have not made it to the farm picnic this year, but I still managed to have my share of pig :) And in my opinion, this was actually better.

Next up, pictures from the Mirabal sisters museum visit. If you want to have a really good idea what I'm talking to about in the photos, do a little bit of some research. Google them. It such a tragic story, but very worth your while to know why Latin America's Day of Ending Violence Against Women is on November 25th.

2006-09-23T08:48:00.000-07:00

Unbelievably exciting brief note- if you had any desire to come visit me, I just did some research and found out that believe it or not, it is $208 round trip from Washington DC to New York to Santiago. Yes, $208 through Jet Blue. My ticket to come here was way more than that (sorry Dad!). The times are very weird, but I think for such a wonderful price tag, one can suffer through it. So family, I hope you all will now seriously consider a visit down to see me.

For anyone else, look at Jet Blue. Their fares are fabulous.

2006-09-23T06:32:00.000-07:00

Ok so before these picture, I had written a lot of information about my happenings here in the DR. And somehow, it has all been erased. Out of frustration, I am going to have to do another session of info/ and photos later. So below you will see photos from the orphanage. The finca will have to go up another day.

So this is the beautiful orphanage. However, the reason it is so beautiful is not because the orphans get a lot of money to live in nice houses here. This house used to belong to a drug dealer. The government then took it over and gave it to the orhpans to live in. It is a beautiful place, but very hard/ expensive for them to maintain. I also learned that adoption laws have become stricter in the DR as a result of some bad happenings, like children being adopted only to be exploited in certain ways. As a result, anyone interested in adopting a child now has to live in the DR with the child for a few months before the child can move with them elsewhere. So if you wanted to adopt a Dominican child, you would have to come live down here for a few months like me. Which would be fun, but I'm assuming would not be the most cost affordable thing to do, especially when you have a job.

Here is a kinda sorta view of the backyard. Off to the left is the pool. Off to the right, there is lots of space for running around.

Here is the group of us getting ready for a group shot.

with my friends, Estefani in the pink, and Rosemari in the white. if there was one very obvious thing, it was that these girls were not camera shy. in fact, they love the camera and love taking pictures with it. i told them they should look into being photographers.

Carly tried to teach the kids to do egg races (you know, putting the egg in the spoon and trying to run without dropping the egg). As a precautionary measure, she boiled the eggs. However, when some of the kids began to discover the eggs were edible, not raw, they decided racing was not worth it, that eating the eggs would be a lot more fun. So below is the mound of eggs shells they created.

Having an intense game of red light green light.

Ok so I will try and recover now from the meaness of technology and post more tomorrow if I feel up to it.

2006-09-21T10:58:00.000-07:00

This week has been nuts! I have been wanting to write on the blog for so long, but I actually was sick this past weekend into Monday, so much so that I wasn't at class. But no worries, I am all better now! So a few more pictures...

i love these pictures. these are the cabanas along the beaches. nice and romantic :)

So this is all I have time for unfortunately. So I thought I would finish off with this picture. There are some of you out there that incorrectly believe I don't go in the ocean. So here is proof to the contrary. Boo ya. :) Now Im off to community service! But to come- pictures for my trip to the orphanage and the finca (farm) trip on sunday!

2006-09-16T15:08:00.000-07:00

Its been a little while and I apologize. I made an entry the other day only to have it completely erased by an apagone (the power outages that randomly occur here, sometimes several times a day, other times we go days between them). I spent so much time on it that I haven't had the strength to do another one. I now feel rested enough to write some more.

So this week of classes has been very interesting. I switched out of my Dominican Folklore class. The profe had a voice that could put me to sleep. And I really could careless about refrains. So I switched into a lit class because its better for getting my minor out of the way anyways. My lit class is Female Literature (it satisfies my slightly feminist side). The profe is intense, which I typically like, but since I just got into the class, Im finding it a little difficult to overcome. My first day before even asking me my name she says, youre late. I told her it was because my schedule assigned the wrong room number. She mauled over my schedule for a good few minutes, then gave it back without saying anything. So we started discussing a reading the class had done (that I obviously had not read). At one point, we got to discussing the how down here there are no sex education classes. Seeing as to how you didn't need to do the reading to contribute, I began talking. At which point, I thought maybe she was warming up to me. But it didnt seem that way next class. I think she's going to be a bit of a battle, but I think itll be managable.
Aside from that, the beach last weekend was amazing. We, a group of 5 of us, went to the Northern part of the island to a beach called Cabarete. Here are a few photos:
This is the view from the street of Cabarete. It may not look all that appealing from this angle but...
Here is the beach from one view. It is amazing. There are restaurants lining the beach one side, like here.
The restaurants are all open up to the beach. Some have hammocks in them to sit on and eat. And they are all neatly decorated. . I took pictures of some others, but this one was my favorite and not just because its called Casanova. Check out the giant head scuplture. The other wonderful thing about having restaurants so close is that they can bring the food to you. What fabulous service. And its fairly cheap (surprisingly, it is a tourist region). But when you have an appetite like mine, it adds up.

And here is the beach from the other view. Breathtaking huh? Clear water, nice sand. And the added bonus of chairs, although not free, very comfortable.
Above here is a picture of the bed the 5 of us split. Yes we are cheap college students, go figure. But look at our towels all rolled up like pretty little swans. $7 each is not a bad deal, but I think we should have gotten more a discount for killing/ drowning a few cockroaches.
Here is another look at the beach. They have nice resorts right along it. The building off in the distance is a resort.

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Cabarete is famous for windsurfing. In fact, it is supposed to be one of the best places in the world to windsurf. Because it such a hot spot, they put up nice little sign.

Here they are in action. They come awfully close to the shore sometimes, hence the caution sign. My friends and I almost got run over by a few. There is also some parasailing and kiteboarding. I wanted to check out the kiteboarding, but apparently you need lessons. And in order to be really good (according to the girl selling lessons) you need 10 hours of private lessons, which costs in the ballpark of $400 US.

Ok so the computer isnt letting me add any more pictures, so well do part 2 later on!

2006-09-07T20:47:00.000-07:00

So I am giving in and putting pictures on the computer. So here goes the long ago promised entry of tons of pictures. I won't put them all up because that would be very overwhelming and half of them are only on my computer and no longer my camera. But I've got a good chunk here for yall to enjoy. So eat them up!

so as it turns out, i am not alone in the pug loving world. this is rico. he belongs to elaine and marcos, our resident coordinators. i don't know how he survives in the heat, im sure bow would be gone if she were down here. but its nice to have him around. he makes me feel better about living my little princess.

this bad boy is on hangs on my strett. now we all know i love my vw bugs, but as to why this one had to be a red bull bug is beyond me. what a shame, it looks pretty cool. minus the red bull.

there have been lots of things that have caught my eye since of been here. one is this fabulous salon called d chic kara. its over by the atm close to my house. i enjoyed that it had my name, hence the picture.

one day when i was being cool and practicing my dance moves in my room, Sebasthian came in and asked if he could join me. so here we are practicing my merengue moves together. my googles are being put to good use, dad. don't worry :) if only they actually fit him instead of covering his entire little face.

last weekend some of us took a spontaneous trip to a river outside of santiago for a ady of relaxation. here is one view of the river we went to.

some of us didnt have lunch so on the way in the guagua, we got some of these. i dont remember the name but i have to say i have never had fruit like it. you bite the green part with your teeth, then peel it away (it peels like an orange). then you suck kind of on the peach part until its all gone and then you get rid of the rather large seed in the middle. above me is tara attempting to eat one. and then me being me.

there were tons of beautiful birds all around the river. here are some of them in the water.

the picture that my worried mother and insurance broker father would never want to see. here it is- the cliff i jumped off of. if you look closely, you'll a pair of red shorts. that would be afton, about to jump into the water. im alive and well, i promise. it was amazingly fun. it may not look far down, but i definately had several seconds of reflection while in the air on the way down. a group of us hanging out. left to right, alex, katie, hattie, megan, jeanette, tara, and brian.

the rio group. kaleigh, ryan, me, brian, tara, liz, alex, jeanette, hattie, megan, katie, melissa.

yes i am on a horse! it was definately a little guy if you cant tell from the picture. but the point is that i have finally ridden a horse and here is my proof!!

i would love to say i did it all by myself, but that would be, well lying for one thing. this is a picture with my little helper. he is definately little. all the boys at the stable to help us ride were between the ages of 8 and 12 I'd say. and as much i felt like i was going to fly off, imagine how it was for him. although he did like to to go fast as i found out the hard way.

some of my group after riding the horses and walking to the waterfall. left to right, top then bottom, tara, katie, quinn, me, iolani. bottom,- dont know, serguio (one of the students helping us), callie, jeanette, and megan.

oh yeah. i swam by this. a bumpy horse ride and lots of walking very well worth it. isnt it unbelievable?

in case you didnt believe that i took that picture, here am with lef to right callie, jeanette, and tara. it was an unforgettable experience to say the very least.

this is the apartment building i live in with my family here. we are one the second floor and therefore get the enjoyment of the balconies in the white.

here is a view of the street i live on, calle paseo sur.

at camp david ranch my first saturday here. check out the amazing view! im a little blurred but its a pretty nice shot of santiago.

i saved my two favorites for last (best for last kind of thing). here we are tonight at judo practice. yes, i really am taking judo. it comes complete with a uniform for me too! tara, megan, and i were the only girls at practice today. there are 7 of us in total out of a group of id say 30. we practice with the actual judo team. today we learn how to fall once more, but we also did some throws! i practiced throwing tara and likewise. it was loads of fun. im hoping this class we get me in shape to climb Pico Duarte, the highest mt in the Caribe.

the three girls with the sensi (im sure my spelling is off but its too late for me to bust out dictionary.com like i normally would). we have to bow when we come in, bow to the mat (which we can only step on barefoot as i learned the hard way today), we bow to the picture of the guy who created judo, and then to our sensis (there are three). this one, luis, is from the states and so we enjoy that things can be broken into english when we have the look of confusion.

so that's it for now. i have tons more, of inside my house, campus, the goregous scenary, and the beach, but this took me an hour and a half to do and definately cut into sleep. so goodnight. more later.

2006-09-07T13:43:00.000-07:00

So today's blog will be inclusive of pictures too! I am so fortunate to have a family with DSL. To give back to them, I've taken some pictures of the family and stored them on the computer. I would store my own, but I feel like I hog this thing enough :) But if it gets down to it, I will sneak some of the good ones on to put up. So first off some pictures of my family.
my brothers love pirates. we watch the first one on the disney channel (let me tell you, its just not the same). then we watched a bootleg copy of the second one (haha). everything comes out here about a month later. example- miami vice has yet to come out. striking a pirate pose.
my host "mom" is the one in the pink. she's 26, so at times i just call her my sister. shes as far apart as beanie and i are, so why not? :) the two of the other three girls are our neighbors on the 3rd floors and the other in white is their friend. i wish i could tell you their names, but I don't know how to spell them. but they are both so sweet to me. and i'd say they're down here a few times a week just to say hi.

the boys... before Barnet left.

of the many wonderful things i could chose to teach my brothers about America and our culture, i chose to teach them about pringle duck faces. i am such a good cultural attache, i know.
in addition to the pictures, i have had some very interesting conversations with my family. yesterday, my sister/ mom asked me about why in the US girls are not taught to cook and clean like they are in the DR. I told her that in some areas girls are but more or less its because we have a different set of values. she explained to me that in order to even be considered marriage material, a girl must know these things or else she will have no hope of having a husband. i told her that (thankfully for me) things are different at home. Or else I would be hopeless wouldnt I, with my lack of domestic skills? :)
also, this is a little side story i find funny and thought i would share. for a few of you, remember the time when you didn't like to take a bath? i miss those times, but now i get to relive them thanks to my brother sebasthian. right now he is on his fourth day of no bath and still protesting. although i know he should shower, i find it hilarious his will power. he is still standind strong after my dad told him theyre going to have to take him to the doctor for shots if he doesn't shower soon. if my parents had told me that, i would have jump right in the water, hot or cold.
tonight i am off to see viajeros with some friends. its a movie about dominicans trying to escape to puerto rico for a better life. im very excited to check it out. then tomorrow its back of to the beach with my girlfriends that aren't going on the work retreat. ill will post more saturday. miss you all!

2006-09-06T12:28:00.000-07:00

yesterday i went to the caf to put up my pictures and found out that this week it seems that aim and skype will work, but i can't access any web pages myself. so maybe next week it will reverse back and i will be able to put up the tons of pictures i had to hold out on.

so classes have been going well... judo has been amazing. dance is still kicking my butt and i still dont think i can keep a beat. but at least i know some moves.

this weekend, some of us that aren't going on the work retreat are going to the beach for a night. until then, there is potential to go out tonight and dance with my friend tara's sisters.

on a random note, i've been living in my house for almost three weeks now and today just discovered another bathroom! today i also got to help Maribel, the lady who helps my mom clean and cook, make eggplant. if im lucky, ill remember how to make it and will make it for for dinner night in the suite :) haha yall should expect some dominican cooking.

so nothing too eventful going on. its definately been nice... things are finally settling down.

2006-09-04T12:23:00.000-07:00

Hey hey!

So I've been wnting to put up some pictures, but have been a little too lazy to drag my computer back up to school. But tomorrow I have (I think) a good chunk of time to use it, so hopefully I will be able to post some pictures because I had quite a weekend!

Friday was nice a relaxing. I will definately be enjoying these three day weekends. Saturday a group of us went to a river I'd say an hour-ish from where I live. We had to walk to get a guagua (mini bus type thing) which drove us for about 20-30 minutes into the moutains to a fork in the road where we proceeded down a large hill and finally to the river. It was so beautiful. We walked past a cow on the way to the river (Bum, I thought of you ;) ) then past what lo9oked like a garden of palm trees. I really cant wait to show my pictures.

But the exciting thing was that I went "cliff jumping." I use that lightly because I really don't know what else to call it. I walked up a hill, across a tree trunk and jumped into the water. On the tree there was a label that said 25km... Im not sure it was really that high. But it was quite a rush. I was definately shaking for a few minutes after my first time. But it was good practice for when I finally get the chance to go sky diving when I get back home.

So that's it for now. Ill put some pictures up of my crazy Saturday tomorrow. BTW- if you want to call me, please make sure that I will be around... Dad, check my class schedule (you called today during my class). I would love to hear from you all! So don't call me when I won't pick up. I'll be sad :( Miss you all bunches!

2006-08-30T08:45:00.000-07:00

and here and a somewhat good view of my room!
look at my GIANT closet! I think this closet my even be able to fit all my clothes that I left at home.
my very nice dresser. around my mirror i have pictures of the family. middle in the pink is a picture of brian. then along my dresser i have four frames with photos of the amazing friends.
so for picture of my room! here is my desk and tv. my tv is kindawell ancient, but still functional. i havent used it except the first day to see if it even turned on.

well this is all for now unfortunately. i had some more difficulties with posting. but hopefully tomorrow i will be able to get up some of my house and horseback riding!

2006-08-29T17:21:00.000-07:00

this is all i had time for. my internet connection outside the cafe is very slow. i will give myself way more time tomorrow to post the rest. i will also lable my pictures so i can put the important ones up first :) bear with me.
this is one of the trees around my campus. i hope you are able to recognize that the thing hanging off the tree is bigger than a head. while it may look pretty, according to my family, it is not edible.
this beautiful picture was taken inside a seafood restaurant. hott stuff huh?

Yay so more photos tonight! Here is another of downtown Santiago, I took these pictures up at the monument.

2006-08-29T14:46:00.000-07:00

downtown Santiago

with my brothers, Sebasthian and Barnet (the older one). Barnet, my translator, has unfortunately gone back to live with his mom until December :(

I've got o run to Judo. Tomorrow I will allow myelf more time to use the wireless. I hope you enjoyed my three pictures!

2006-08-28T18:04:00.000-07:00

First off, I am SO sorry! I've been saying I would put up pictures today and I havent done so. But believe me, I have tried VIGOROUSLY to get them up today and failed miserably. Hopefully tomorrow I will have some success. In the mean time, this will be a blog of words only.

Why? Well because after several hours of trying to figure out the wireless around campus, my friend Tara and I found success, but at a very slow rate.In addition, we could only get on select pages. With the few minutes we had, we got very little done. So after class, Hattie, Tara and I once again tried with minimal success. Tara got her messenger working. I couldnt even connect. On top of that we still ahve very little time. In fact, we had less than we thought because the bus that was supposed to get us to take us back to our houses left without us! But we managed and took a taxi back instead.

So tomorrow, I plan to pursue this dilemma and give it some resolve. Once I have success, then I will put up pictures, and call you all to let you know I will be on Skype (I really hope this can happen tomorrow). Tomorrow after class, Tara and I are going to el Multi Centro Polo (the Walmart of this joint) to get some supplies. I plan to purchase more phone cards then so I can clal you all. In the mean time, be sure and grab one so you can call me at your leisure (and es gratis para mi).

First day of classes went fairly well. I have a great bunch of professors. Dance class is already proving itself challenging, but I can tell already that I will know how to dance when I am done. In fact after I write this, I plan to go practice some moves ;) Tara and I may even pick up a belly dancing class together on our own... (Kas, I will teach you more moves when I get back haha). So good day other than the computer issues.

This weekend also went very well. In short, I saw a very different side of the island- the poorer side. But it was a really good experience for me. First we went to la capital, Santo Domingo, where we stopped in at my host dad's house to see his cousins. Then we drove out to San Pedro, fighting the crazy rain. It was so beautiful thought- when we were driving along the highway nxt to the ocean, the waves were crashing up against the highway. At times they would go so far as to splash onto the far right lane. Pretty cool sight when youre in the far left lane. We made it to San Pedro after 4 hours on the road. We first went to Gustavo's house briefly, then to my host mom's house, which was no more than 5 minutes away. The street was filled with run down houses, more like shacks actually. My host mom's parents lived in one of the nicer houses on the street. However there was no shower. So I took a bucket bath for the first time. It was actually fun too! And if I had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, there was a chamber pot for my use.

Aside from that, it was rally neat to see the closeness of the town people kept coming into Gustavo's house and visiting. In addition, a lot of his family was there. You can tell that they really are family people. My mom was explained that that is how there town is- a very close knit bunch of people. People just come and go as they please, no questions asked. I have lots of photos of the family too.

For now, Im off to finish my dinner, practice my dance steps, and hit the hay. I have my FIRST EVER (and hopefully my last) 8 am (yes 8 am) class tomorrow morning, Historia del Caribe. But with the sweetest little man for my professor. In fact, I talked to him briefly before getting on the bus to go to Puerto Plata on Friday (yay for seeing professors outside of class).

So tomorrow, cross your fingers that Ill be able to get the wireless going. Fortunately in a few weeks, I should be able to access wireless all over the campus. YAY! Buenas noches.

2006-08-25T16:50:00.000-07:00

The fam is out and so I have a lot of time to give you all a better update of my first week (officially today) in the DR.

Starting with yesterday... quite possibly the most breathtaking experience of my life. Jarabocoa had it all. There were so many outdoorsy activities to partake in... you could go white water rafting, horse back riding, moutain climbing, biking, pretty much anything. And the scenary was just beautiful, which to me is an understatement. I can't wait to show pictures. We got there and had a lecture series on the DR, traveling outside the DR, Dominicanisms etc. We had a large lunch then a group of us went to ride horses to the waterfall. I had a little horse, more like a pony. To help us along was a group of small boys, no older than Id say 8. My little friend liked to go fast which I could tell because at times he would just take off. At one point I actually had to tell him to slow down. Later on, we got a little behind he said something to me which he ended with the word copiar. I thought it meant to copy (like you copy that. I have no idea why an 8 year old boy would use that language, but oh well). So I said si and right as I did we took off like the wind!! My friends later told me all they could see was my hair blowing in the wind as we rode by. So I have now learned that copiar means to go fast. Yay for finding things out the hard way.

Once we got to the waterfall, I went straight in the water. It felt so nice. And the cascada (waterfall) was so powerful! I unfortunately could get behind it because it was so strong. But it was so beautiful.

Today we took a day trip to Puerto Plata, about an hour and half away from here, towards the Northern part of the island. Unfortunately, none of us checked the weather to note that it would be raining on and off today (this is acutally the first time it has rained on me since I have been here). We got to the buses at 9 15 only to find out the earliest time we could go was at 11 15. And I wanted to get back here before dark so I could walk home with my friends. So we had to leave early. But I plan on going back ASAP. The first part of the beach we saw was covered in trash (very sad). But on a positive note, there were guys cleaning it up! And a little further down, the beaches were just perfect. So we got to walk around a bit. I enjoyed a nice lunch of Italian food believe it or not. And then headed back here for a night in.

Tomorrow afternoon, I head off to San Pedro with the family. Im excited but very nervous because I will have no American friends to ask questions to in English. Eek.

Now for my class schedule.

Monday I have my lit class from 10-12. I have dance at 2 until 3. Spanish 4-6. Process class from 6-8. So I will be able to Skype either at 8 or 3. I prefer 8, so look for me then or let me know if you can do that (mom dad brian, anyone else who has skype and would like to chat).

Tuesday- Historia del Caribe from 8-10 Then community service from 4-6 Judo until 8. So again, Skype a little past 8 or in the early morning past 10 (Kass, could you do that then?)

Wednesday- I have dance at 2. So I can earlier than 2. Then I have Spanish at 4. So at 3 I could talk to, but I prefer not because I think I will want to go running then. The I have processes until 8, so later on again.

Thursday- Historia 8-9. Lit 9-10. Then I have an hour break which I think I may use to run then too. Then I have services from 11-1 and then community service from 4-6. So after 6, or before 4.

Friday, no class!! YAY for me.

So let me know during which part of my break you could be at your computer, online, and on Skype because I would love to chat with you especially since it would be free for me a free for you. If you want to get Skype, google Skype, then set up your account name and look for me online- Kara Michelle is my user name.

2006-08-25T05:45:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately I do not have a lot of time with this entry because in 15 minuts Im taking off for a day trip to the beach! YAY. Were going up to Puerto Plato. Then tomorrow Im heading to San Pedro with my family to visit relatives.

Yesterday was amazing! I rode a horse and swam by waterfalls.... it was beautiful. And I do have a TON of pictures! Unfortuntely, those will ahve to wait until Monday. Monday you can expect a blog entry of nothing but pictures.

I will have to put up my schedule of classes later. In taking more time, Im going to figure out when I will be on Skype so if you would like to talk to me (for free!) you can get on and do so!

Ill give you all a more detailed versiou of my excursion later. Adios! or Bye Bye as they say here too.

2006-08-23T21:34:00.000-07:00

I HAVE A PHONE! get yourself a calling card and give me a ring at

829-886-0991.

My phone cards go fast so I will call you all when I can. I will finally have my wireless next week when I start my classes. Tomorrow I have to get up to go to Jarabocoa for the day (I know in my previous post I said today but really its tomorrow). Very excited for that part minus the 1 and 30 minute bus ride.

I will put up a schedule of my classes hopefully tomorrow so you can know when to get ahold of me starting next week.

Also, I just got back from the discoteca for the first time. Lots of fun! But very hot. And remember, there is no AC. So my cold shower was amazing :)

2006-08-22T11:27:00.000-07:00

So I do not have my phone yet... but later tonight or tomorrow, I will post my number for everyone. But I wanted to give an update about my classes.

As it turns out, I know a little more Spanish than I thought. I am in Advanced Spanish 2, which is second to advanced Spanish 3 - perfect with me. Below is Spanish 1 and even further below that is, I don't even know the name of the level, but its basically for students that don't really know Spanish and will be taking classes with Haitian students trying to learn Spanish (and there is one girl at that level in my group...) But for me... I will be taking a History del Caribe class, a language class, a class on folklore, and a class of social progresses in the DR. In addition to those academic classes (here's the fun part), I will be taking a Judo class, a dance class that includes bachata, merengue, AND salsa! and a community service class. My community service is helping kids learn to play beisbol (baseball) believe it or not. There were so many options and still are other options not for class credit, but I thought this would be a good way to learn real spanish or as the advisor put it, palabras fuertes (strong words). So I am very exicted for this! I have no classes on Friday, which is something I could never do if I were at Vandy. I don't have class on Monday and Wednesday until 2 in the afternoon (and thats my dance class). Tuesday and Thursday, I only have 3 classes (I think), but they're very spread out.

So yay for classes. I'll give more details on the classes later. Tonight, I am having a neighborhood dinner. We start at my friend Renee's house for ensalada (salad) y sopa (soup), my house for pasta, and my friend Hadi's house for dessert. So that will be fun.

Thursday will be even more exciting. We are going to Jarabocoa all day where will have the chance to go to the beach and ride horses (something I have never done). So I am very excited! Now its off to go get my phone. More to come later.

2006-08-21T17:13:00.000-07:00

So for a quick update of my day and one very important note. First the note- it seems like I will be here longer than I originally planned (Dad, we'll talk about this, don't worry). I found out today that classes end much later than our handbook had said. Apparently, it has not been updated... so I don't know how much longer I will be here. I'm going to try to make sure its for not much longer. I'm definately a little ticked. So I will let you all know what I work out, but it seems unfortunately that things will have to change. Exams don't actually start until Dec 4th. Classes end Dec 2, not November 20th-ish like the handbook said.

Aside from that, I went to Cingular/ Orange as it is known here to get a new SIM card and number. My phone is restricted, so the guy is working on it tonight and will have it ready for me tomorrow afternoon. So tomorrow I will post my new number here so you all can call me! (I hope you have your phone cards ready!).

Also tomorrow I will be picking out my classes, depending on how well I did on my exam today. I think I may actually get to go on a little run too! Yay for exercise finally. The food is very good, but very high in starch. This morning I had pancakes and fruit. Lunch I had rice with beans and carne. For dinner, I had an egg on top of mashed potatoes. So I will be needing the work out.

That's it for now. Im going to go change into comfy clothes and join my brothers in watching Pirates 1 in espanol!! I've seen it so many times in English that I think I may be able to understand it well :).

2006-08-20T14:30:00.000-07:00

I AM HERE!

So now for a more extended version of my email. Also, in advance, I would like to apologize for the lack of pictures in this entry. I have yet to find an internet cafe. Then again, I haven't had a lot of down time until now.

So Friday I met up with Amanda, a history major from Tufts, in the airport in Puerto Rico. We sat near each other for a very quick plane ride to Santiago. A little girl in front of us named Julianna kept coming over to us and asking us questions and wanting to play with our things. So cute. I decided to try out some Spanish on the plane. So when the attendant came over to ask for my drink I said jugo de naranja, please. Yay for Spanglish... lol.

I got through customs (for the first time) with no problems. Amanda and I thought we were going to have to find our own taxi but as it turn out, CIEE arranged one for us. In the cab was the driver and his two kids, a boy who was 8 and his 8 month old sister. The poor baby was sweating unbelievably and no one was wearing a seat belt (there weren't even any available). It was really different then the whole "Buckle Up, It's the Law" deal back home. It was a 40 minute trip to our hotel. Our hotel was on top of a huge mountain with one heck of a view. I managed to get a few pictures there. The room was a little musty smelling but other than that, everything was fine. The food was delicious.

We got up yesterday morning and went over the precautions we should be taking. Then we did some more get to know you exercises. The group of students is wonderful and also very diverse (in comparision to school). There are, I believe, 29 of us in total, only five of which are guys (its high school all over again). But still, everyone has been very pleasant.

BTW- you can try and send me mail. It comes to the school, not to the regular post office here. It may take a while and they advise you not to send food and such, but if you choose to, you should send it DHL, Fedex etc that way you can track it and get insurance.

I met my family last night at a restaurant close by (I can't remember the name). I had one LARGE dinner of everything you could imagine. I met my host mom, Gris, as I call her for short. She is absolutely beautiful and so fit. And she's only 25. So as she told me yesterday, shes more like my sister. I have two brothers, one 6 and one 12. It sounds awful, but I cannot remember the 12 year old's name. He is the father's son from a previous marriage and stays here during the summer and the winter. Sebastian is the 6 year old. He is so cute and full of energy. He also loves computer games. So since they are not home right now, I am taking advantage and using the computer. Gustavo is my host dad. He seems to be in his late 20's early 30's. He works at a banco downtown, on La Calle De Sol, where a lot of cute stores happen to be as well :)

They all live in a neighborhood called Rosalenda, about 5 minutes or so away from Puerta 1 de mi universidad. Two other girls in my program live in this neighborhood as well, Hadi and Renee, so it's good to know I won't have to be alone. My apartment here is just beautiful. There are three rather spacious bedrooms, a nice sized kitchen and eating area, a spacious living room, and a very nice bathroom just for me :). My room is nice sized, about the size of Justine's. I have a double bed, a desk, a TV, and a closet bigger than yours mom. Its HUGE. It may be able to hold all my clothes fom home (believe it or not).

It is very hot here, just like DC when it was 100+ outside. Today we did a scavenger hunt around the city to help us get to know it better. It was brutal. But helpful for the few places we got to. I went out to lunch with my family today at a seafood restaurant. It was similiar to Seacrets in Ocean City, with waterfalls and streams going through it.

Tommorow, I will be going to take my language placement tests! Wish me luck! My host dad told me yesterday that they had a student that came here with very little english and in two months, she was perfect. So I'm hoping I will be the same way. My host mom speaks very fast. My host dad is much easier for me to understand. But I am feeling confident that I really will be able to learn Spanish.

I also hope tomorrow to have my new SIM card put into my phone. I will put up the number for you all as soon as I have it. Hopefully soon I will be able to post pictures. If not, by next Monday, when I actually start classes, not this Wednesday, like I had originally thought.

Thank you for the emails I've gotten so far! Keep me updated on things back home. I miss you all!

2006-08-17T05:41:00.000-07:00

It's my last day home!! AH!

Tomorrow at a very awful early hour of 3:30am I will leave my house to get to BWI so I can get on my plane that leaves to go to Boston at 6:50am! I will go from Boston to San Juan, PR and finally arrived in Santiago at 5:20 (EST). From the airport, I will be going in a taxi that my program has provided for me to a hotel called
Hotel Camp David Ranch
Carretera Turistica Luperon Km 7
Camp David Ranch
Phone #: 809-276-6400
Fax #: 809-276-6404

I'm not sure when I'll be able to update again (maybe the hotel will have wireless...). I start classes on the 24th (same time as Vandy!) so by then I should be able to give updates. I move in with my family on the 19th. They have not told us what is in store for our orientation week, but I'm sure it will be great and I will have lots of pictures to put up! Here goes... wish me luck!

2006-08-16T06:15:00.000-07:00

A few quick updates...

I talked with Morgan yesterday and got a wonderful bunch of information about what communication will be like for me down there. So here's the update-

It looks like my cell phone will be one of my primary means of communication with people back home. I think what I may end up doing is having Cingular install a new SIM card into my phone so that way my little Nokia will receive two phone numbers (I guess this is called an orange phone). I will post/ email out my new number. The deal is- it is free to me if you all call me. I will call you all too, just using a different number and a pay as I go plan. I'm not sure how expensive that will be, so I may not use it all that often- well see when I get there. I may even get a refurbished phone... but I will let you know as soon as I can.

Either way, if you want to call me, you should buy a phone card. A girl in my group has a boyfriend that lives in the DR (thus I take it she is fairly knowledgable on cheap phone cards) and recommended this website to me-

http://www.phonecardmonster.com/ - click here to check it out!

Also, Morgan said she had some problems accessing her school account. So I have made a new email address, so be sure to email me here as well. Its

karamallen@gmail.com

If you email me at my Vandy account and find that you don't hear back from me, then you should definately email my gmail account. I will let you all know how it is working out for me once I'm settled in.

Also in case you would like to know, my address down there will be:

Kara Allen
c/o Dra. Lynne Guitar
Directora Residente, Programma CIEE
PUCMM--Campus de Santiago
Santiago de los Caballeros
Republica Dominicana

And now it's back to packing!

2006-08-06T09:39:00.000-07:00

Bienvenidos/ Welcome to my blog for my semester abroad. In one week and five days, I will be going out of the country for the first time in my life. I will be traveling to Santiago de los Caballeros in the Dominican Republic, where I will be for 3 and half months (until November 30th). I will be doing a homestay with a family that I will know nothing about until I get there. There are 29 other American students going with me. My friend Morgan just got back from a summer program down there and had one heck of a time. I only hope to do the same!

A little run down of how to get in touch with me- you can definately email me still at kara.m.allen@vanderbilt.edu. I will try and email everyone as much as I can, but if anything, check here to see how my life is going. Also, I will be using Skype. So if you have Skype, we can chat for free! Just let me know when and we'll find some time to talk. I have yet to set up my account, but once I do, I will give out my Skype info (I have never actually used it before, but it comes highly recommended to me). Also, I will have a cell phone, not the one I have now. That one will stay home. I plan on buying one while I'm down there that if you have a phone card, you may call me on. A girl in my program recommended a website for getting cheap phone cards. I will have it posted in my next entry, after I come back from my favorite place, the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

In addition, you may send me mail. Just realize that it has about a 50% chance of getting to me. I will put up my address in my next posting as well.

As of the moment, I am just packing my things away. It's REALLY different than packing to go to school. And REALLY different for a pack rat like me. I have two bags. And that's it. Wish me luck!