The part of the story where I flee to the beach

This weekend, I made my first journey to a Dominican beach. And I am including a picture so you can jealous that you missed it. On Friday, eight of my fellow exchange students and myself went to Sosua to spend a couple of days at the beach. We took a guagua, also known as a bus, from Santiago, and two hours later we were in Sosua. During my time at the beach, I went to three different beaches: Chiquita, Alicia, and one whose name I never learned. It was a lot of fun, and I got to swim in the ocean to my heart’s content. It was nice and sunny during the day, and although it rained on Friday night, it felt good in the heat. The Caribbean ocean, at least where I was swimming, was warm. Like Arizona-pool-at-noon-in-July warm! I don’t think I have ever been in an ocean that warm! But it wasn’t uncomfortably warm. Just warm enough that, for the first time in my life, I didn’t leave the ocean because I was freezing. Also, the water is crazy clear and blue. All in all, it was a good time.

After the beach, we went decided to go out to eat, and this guy came up to us on the street, showed us a menu, and asked us to follow him. For some reason, most of our group followed, although he was taking us away from the crowds at night, and I was getting worried that he was setting us up. I was also glad that I hadn’t taken any of my cards with me. But we ended up at this super nice restaurant that, I think, had just opened. The food was delicious! I had passion fruit chicken, which was crazy tasty. We spent the night on Friday, and then went to the beach again on Saturday before leaving at about 2. All in all, a very fun trip.

Sosua, apparently, is a huge sex tourism city in the Dominican Republic, which I did not know until I got there. It’s not really a problem for the casual beach-goer, as we all were, but during the night there were hookers everywhere. It was kind of funny, because normally us girls are stared at as we walk down the street, but here everyone stared at the boys. They got to experience what we feel every day in Santiago!

Today I ventured yet again to find La Sirena, and yet again I failed. I have no idea what I am doing wrong, but I vow to find it tomorrow! I need hangers still!!!! Plus, my watch broke while I was at the beach, and I feel naked without one. It’s so pathetic, I keep looking at my wrist to see what time it is, and there is nothing there. I’m even afraid my watch tan will fade! But although I failed to find La Sirena, I successfully made it to Plaza Internacional, which is a Dominican mall. This was kind of a bittersweet victory, because I went for school supplies and the school supply store was closed. Then I made my way to Square One, which is a café across the street from PUCMM where they have internet. It is a really nice place, and I can see me spending way too much time there. Although my family is currently in the process of getting wifi!

Tomorrow marks week 3 technically, week 2 actually, of classes at PUCMM. I’m just started to get in the swing of things. It’s still overwhelming, but not nearly as bad as it was when I first started. Although I still haven’t had a real ping-pong class yet because last week none of us were dressed properly. I know, I don’t understand either. Oh well.

I love watching things that I watch in English on TV in Spanish. For example, at the moment I am watching “The Princess Diaries” in Spanish. It works really well, since I already know all of the lines. Execept for some reason the middle third of the movie was skipped. There was no “outing” of her, and no Baker Beach Party. And now the final scene was just skipped. It went from Mia running away to them all dancing! I’m really confused, and babbling a little because I’m so confused. So far, I have watched “Up”, part of “LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring”, and a couple of episodes of “Friends” and “Big Bang Theory” in Spanish. As well as a lot of MTV, but that is in English with Spanish subtitles.

My mom has decided that shrimp cocktail sauce is the same thing as salsa in the US, so she keeps putting it on my sandwiches and tacos. I don’t know why, because I don’t put salsa on my sandwiches back home. She asked me if I liked “picante” and I said yes, and then she brought me out cocktail sauce and now puts it on everything. I had never had cocktail sauce before, and I can say that I will not miss it back in the states.

Anyway, hopefully this week goes smoothly as I continue to get used to life in the Dominican Republic and slowly but surely learn my way around Santiago. Who knows what this week will hold!