Plaza Lusitania Samaná Peninsula

... job! There were also other British people, some Germans, Canadians, all of whom live in Juan Dolio as well. There were about 40 or so people there, and the salads were great...as was the rum! The puppies were thriving, but I have some very sad news about them...apparently the mother dragged in a pig bone to where the puppies were sleeping, and they all ate off of it and got diarrhoea...and despite the antibiotics and vet visits, they are all dying one ...

... the independent, backpackers and high rollers alike. From Samaná, you can easily get to the pueblos of Las Galeras and Las Terrenas and it's about 1˝ hours from Playa Rincon, one of the top five beaches in the entire Caribbean. I can't wait to check these places out! And, I can't wait till I have friends and family to visit me and go exploring with ;-) The past two weeks have been busy ones. I spent the first week in my site just ...

... my goodbyes, and getting on a plane and heading back to the US of A. It's hard to believe that my time here is almost up. I have mixed emotions about it all . . . excitement about seeing friends and family, anxiousness about "what comes next," and sadness to leave this place that, although crazy at times, has been home to me for two years. I have been talking about my departure with people in my community and we have already had some ...

... hour water - no, I don´t mean 24 hr HOT water, but water full stop. Often the water stops running at 10:30 and doesn´t start again until 7 or 8 in the morning. This is not good to discover after a late-night trip to the bathroom that results in the all-too-common poo soup, or its cousin, poo mash, (an unpleasant side affect of foreign bacteria in the digestive system). We´ve cottoned on now, and fill up empty drink bottles with tap water before nightfall. Have I ...

... to walking around. We read later that the 'outdoor party zones' are further down the Malecon. So maybe on our way back to the airport in a few weeks we'll try to check out that part of the Malecon later at night to see if it is any different. We ended up having dinner at a local Italian place, which had a very different style of bruchetta and calzone than back home. The bruchetta consisted of roasted vegetables on top of slices of French bread, and ...

... there, which was stolen by some ******* kids on Curacao (avoid Curacao, it's not worth it--see the other travelogue) a year later. The other fun trip we took in Santo Domingo was to the Old City, which is ancient and historic. It supposedly contains the oldest church in the western hemisphere, as well as one of Columbus' original fortresses. The view from the forts is nice, and the old city does have ...

So after being back in my site for the past 2 weeks after my lovely vacation back in the States I realized how I really dislike the current town I live in! Like I mentioned in past blogs, the people in my act like high school teens. They love to gossip about other people, and there is so much unnecessary drama always going on in my town. Also the colmado always plays music loudly every weekend and people get drunk and do cocaine! Nobody ever came to visit me when I lived with my ...

... another family, but they are sweet. There is a dońa and a don(so a husband and a wife), and they are probably in their 60´s maybe, and then their son lives with them and his daughter, who is 9 and is learning English...yay! His wife is studying in the capitol, so she is there only the weekends, with their son, who is 2, and we are now best buds after a day of playing outside, giving airplane spins, and then watching the Little Mermaid together. He is ...

... a tool to provide to their kids to battle peer pressure, for one. When we arrived, I was happy to find around 100 eager mothers of the community, and even two men! We gave our charla and it turned out better than I could have hoped. In discussing better ways to elevate self esteem, we also made the women concentrate on ways to alter their own self esteem. The women were so riled up about excepting themselves for who they were, the pride on every countenance could be ...

... garuntee that nobody will steal it!! Well, that´s all the exitement from the DR for now. I´m pretty much just sitting around, sweating a lot, dealing with my mosquito bits, and speaking lots of spanish. I hope all is well in California. You should keep me updated on what´s going on over there. The only news we get from the states here is from NY because that is the only state dominicans have heard of. They always assume that every american they see is from new york. It´s pretty funny.