First of all, 20 cool points to whoever knew where the title of this blog post came from, without using Google!
Once again, I have fallen behind on my blog posts. I know, shocker! So here it is, my first November blog.
On Saturday, October 30, I went with CIEE to Los Charcos de los Indios. A charco is a natural swimming pool, and this one was used by the Tainos. They carved a giant face in the rock, and it is right above the swimming pools. Half of the face has collapsed, in various earthquakes over the years, and personally, I had trouble making out the face, but the before picture is pretty impressive! We hiked a short way to the charcos, and swam and jumped into them for a while, before eating lunch. The place was beautiful and peaceful and paradise-like. It was really nice to relax in such a gorgeous place!
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| What the face used to look like. And some random Dominican |
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| Me jumping into one of the charcos |
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| CIEE students on the face. See the eye? |
After our visit to the charcos, we journeyed to this place near there where there are 50 million-year-old clam fossils, and went looking for fossils of our own. It was easy to find the clams, they were everywhere! Everyone found at least one, and some even found awesome shells. We got to take home our finds, and I am proud to say that I came away with my very own 50 million-year-old clam fossil. Then we went to the house of a friend of Lynne's. The friend makes this type of yuca bread, and we learned how that is made. It was very interesting, because the type of yuca they use is poisonous, so they have to soak it in water to remove the toxins, and then dry it completely to make sure all of the now-toxic water is gone. The bread was delicious!
We finally made it back to Santiago after a long day, but as it was the Saturday before Halloween, I wanted to do something that night! My friend Kim and I decided to go to TGI Friday's, and ended up meeting up with one of the Estudiantes de Apoyo. We ate a delicious Halloween brownie. TGI Friday's was all decorated up for Halloween, and the waiters and waitresses were in costume. Our's was some sort of zombie creature. Also, one of the TGI Friday's Halloween decorations was a Richard Nixon bobble-head. Then we went to H2O, another hot spot in Santiago, and saw some crazy costumes. All in all, it was a fun Halloween adventure!
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TGI Friday's delicious brownie!!
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The next day was actually Halloween, but as it was Sunday, I spent it mostly doing homework. However, I ended my Halloween by watching "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" and eating tons of Sour Patch Kids, so I consider it a win.
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| My Halloween-ified room |
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| My pretty Halloween toes! |
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| Another tasty Halloween treat! Look, it's a pumpkin! |
Last weekend we were supposed to go to Playa Ensenada, but unfortunately Hurricane Tómas had to come and ruin our plans, so I stayed in Santiago. Friday I had a lazy day, and then Friday night I went out with Kim to see a movie. We saw "Easy A," and if you haven't seen it, you should. Because it rocked my socks. And made me reminisce about those good 'ole John Hughes movies. Saturday and Sunday were pretty boring, with group projects and homework taking up most of my time, but on Sunday evening I went to a baseball game!
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| Me at the Águilas game, showing my spirit! |
The Santiago team is called Los Águilas Cibeañas, or the Eagles from the Cibao. Baseball is very big here, and I was excited to get to see the game! At the game, everyone gets free bam-bams, or those plastic tubes filled with air that people hit together to make noise, and horns and whistles are sold, so the games are crazy loud. And food is sold, which is to be expected, but the food sold here is very cheap, such as 50 pesos for a slice of really good pizza or 30 pesos for a bag of popped microwave popcorn, and some of the food is a little strange, such as blocks of cheese and salted meat. The game was good, although sadly we lost. But the game was close, 6-5. I bought myself an Águila shirt, so I guess that makes me a true fan!
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| One of my little chickadees!! Cute, no? |
On Wednesday, I decided to bring a camera and take pictures of my little chickadees. They are so cute, and try to play the violin so hard. Some of them concentrate more than I thought 7 year-olds could! I also took a couple of videos. Enjoy! Also, I found out that three of my little chickadees go to Adventurers after the lesson every week, which reminded me of my childhood!! Adorableness!
Here is the link to the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hgBCAKV3mk
