Columbus was a Ginger?

So, as always, I feel I have so much to talk about since I last “blogged” (I don’t think this counts as a word). So lets start with Saturday! We had a buscador de tesoro! That’s a scavenger hunt (or treasure hunt) for all of you non-Spanish speakers. I rode a concho for the first time, which was both exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. It’s crazy crowded, the concho driver turns the radio up super loud, and, of course, the drivers of Santiago don’t seem to have any rules of the road. First rule of the road that I learned: Pedestrians do not have the right of way. My team and I successfully navigated ourselves around the city, finding the post office, the bus station, and the cultural center. In fact, we were so successful we won the scavenger hunt! Unfortunately, there was no prize, and even the lottery ticket we bought as part of the scavenger hunt ended up being a dud.

That afternoon, we had a dance class with los estudiantes de apollo. I now know how to dance the bachata, the salsa, and the meringue. We had to dance, first in a line, and then in partners to make sure we knew the dance. There were just two problems with this: first of all, I am not at all coordinated and can’t dance. And second, I am about half a foot taller than every estudiante de apollo and pretty much every boy in the country of the Dominican Republic. Although I made a fool of myself, I had a good time.

On Sunday, we went to Santo Domingo. Santo Domingo is the capital of the Dominican Republic, and it is also the oldest city in the Americas. It is where Columbus first landed, where the Spanish first colonized, and has a Hard Rock Café. I heard many stories, especially one about an orangutan and a baby, all of them dealing with historic places and famous people. We walked on the first paved road in the Caribbean, saw the first monastery in the Americas, and the ruins of the first European-style hospital in the Americas. I also saw my first Dominican ocean and beach, which was beautiful!!!! So so gorgeous!

Later that day, we went to the ruins of a sugar plantation that was the site of a slave revolution back in the day. It was cool because the owners had kept half of the ruins, and restored the other half, so the main building is half ruins and half restored. It lets you see what the plantation really looked like when it was running.

Today, I had more classes, and tomorrow, surprise surprise, more classes. But I am going to try to venture to the shopping mall, called Plaza Internacional, and the Dominican version of a K-Mart, called La Sirena. Sirena means mermaid in Spanish, and the logo and the S of La Sirena is a mermaid tail. I will have to take a picture and post it! And the movie “The Little Mermaid” is called “La Sirenita” in Spanish. I’m trying and trying to find my way around the city, and will hopefully be going to the discoteca on Wednesday for ladies night.