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Today is the fifth day we’ve been here and it already feels like a month at least. But we’ve been doing so much, we’ve seen so many new places and met so many new people.
Day 5
Elin Thyr2006-02-25 13:41:52
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Today is the fifth day we’ve been here and it already feels like a month at least. But we’ve been doing so much, we’ve seen so many new places and met so many new people.
School starts tomorrow and I’m really looking forward to it. I found out today that I made it into the upper level and that feels great because I’d rather that the course is a bit too difficult than too easy. I’d rather work a bit harder because I really want to learn Spanish. I feel that I understand more and more the longer I am here with the language around me. I’m starting to loosen up and I don’t think that talking is such a nightmare anymore. Of course I don’t get the right word or the right grammatics all the time but who cares? As long as I’m talking I’m learning.
The other day we went to the most beautiful beach, Playa Grande, about an hours ride from here. It was like a beach you see in pictures of paradise. Palm trees slowly blowing in the wind giving some shade, beautiful white sand, water in hundreds of shades of blue - and the best part was that we were all alone. We got the chance to try some surfing and it was a lot of fun. I would really like to learn it properly. I really love staying at the beach but I usually get restless and tired of just sunbathing. So I think that surfing would be a fun activity - now that I can’t dive anymore.
We’ve also been to Santiago - that’s the second largest city after Santo Domingo and it’s located in the middle of the country. It took us about one and half hour to get there and we got a chance to see a lot of the countryside and a lot of small villages. Inside the bus the radio was on so we listened to Bachata, Merengue and Reggaeton as the country whirled passed outside the windows. The drive went over the mountains and they were so beautifully dressed in green. The green gives such a freshness and vitality to a place. Most people here in the Dominican are very poor and live with no more protection than a few wooden planks. The nicest houses are of cement and painted in jolly colors… Bright blue, bright yellow, bright pink. And
I think it’s quite agreeable with the atmosphere here. Because even though people are poor and have next to nothing they are happy, hospitable and never hesitate to give you a smile.
But I don’t have much to say about Santiago. It was a bustling town with a lot of people and a lot of cars and a lot of exhaust. And I never feel much like shopping when I’m sweating in floods…
One of the girls got such terrible food poisoning after eating shrimps in Santiago. When we got home she went to lie down and then they found her in total apathy and she could barely breathe. So a doctor had to come down here and he gave her intravenous drip and a vitamin B shot. It was terribly unpleasant and I’m surely going to stay away from seafood from now on.
Otherwise we’re all having a good time and we’re all beginning to get to know each other better and better. I’m already dreading the day when we have to go back home…
Take care!
See photographs from:
Dominican Republic Gallery
JEAN PIERRE GIUSEPPE :), 2008-05-03 20:10:07