October 24

On our way to the tea restaurant, we saw these guys along both sides of the street.  They looked like they were just hanging out, waiting for something. It was a bit unsettling.  Courtney guesses there must have been some important politician in the area.

Also note the second soldier from the right.  

Brynn's caption reads, "Halloween costumes or military raid?"

I just noticed shorty in the back, waving to us gringas staring at him from our taxi!

October 24

Thanks, Brynn! I took these from her facebook page...

Don't know what this is about, but one of these guys confused me while waiting for a concho.

Where do the English professors from the US go after a department meeting? This awesome tea restaurant, Naturaliste.   I ordered green tea with mint, no sugar. So refreshing!

This is me taste testing tea with and without sugar.  

October 18

This is a supermarket selling milk.

Milk here is uber pasteurized.  

So much so that it is not refrigerated... 

October 15

Walking to class with Marie.  

Who says there are no seasons here? 

These trees are starting to bloom, and Marie had to stop to smell!

October 10

First pay day!

Marie and I splurged and bought paint!  I'll be sure to keep you updated on my bedroom mural!

October 8

I was never an avid fan of Halloween, sure I enjoyed it, but I forgot about it as soon as it was over.

Now I'm really missing it because it held back the onslaught of Christmas decorations in stores.

I have no such luck here...

That's a full on Christmas tree at the grocery store on October 8th.

October 6

Me and Courtney went to Santo Domingo to go to Festival Presidente

It was such a great music festival!  

Lots of merengue and bachata, then Prince Royce and Daddy Yankee 

with a surprise appearance of Mozart

The last act was Bruno Mars.  What an incredible performer!  

After the concert we got Yaroa!  

My first time trying it was perfect, at 3am, just how it's meant to be enjoyed

September 28

Beautiful and lazy Sunday!

Breakfast on the beach!

This was our view to our left and to our right...

September 30

Spent the day with Kelsey! We went to Centro Leon and checked out the history museum.

Guess where they put the exhibit representing Dominican Republic's African influence?

Yep, behind this wall, where it's difficult to view.

But I snapped a couple pictures on the sly... 

The music tree!  the leaves said New York Salsa, swing, bossa nova, work songs, latin jazz, etc.

Then we stopped for some cafecitos and un chin de tres leche

September 27

Today we went to Samaná and took a boat tour of the coast of Los Hiatesis National Park.

This boat took us all around.

The coast of the National Park.  We stopped at one of these spots.

When we got to shore, we walked up some steps and walked into this! 

We toured the cave.  Here's some prehistoric hieroglyphics!

We walked through the cave and found a clearing.  Here are roots of trees coming over the cliff searching for water.

These are the roots of one tree that looks like it came out of Jack and the Beanstalk.

There's my roommate swimming away!

After the cave tour, we kayaked through mangroves.  We kayaked just around the corner to the right.

Afterward we all went swimming alongside the boat, it was really deep.  

When we got back on the bus, we bought some snacks from this vendor.  

I had a delicious coconut fudge thing!

September 26

Spent the weekend in Las Terrenas!

We stayed at a cute little hotel owned by a Canadian expat.  She was very helpful and kind.

This is us after enjoying the continental breakfast.  You can see our hotel room straight behind Marie.

This is the view from the main road, right across from our hotel.

Our hotel was down a little lane from the main road, which set us away from the noise.

September 20

Here's a boring picture that turned out to be a nice looking photo.

I had never seen this particular sign.  So I snapped a picture.

September 19

There's a festival down the street from where I live and it seems all the school kids in Santiago go there for a field trip.  It's not all that interesting, it's just a bunch of companies showing their products.

My favorite thing is how every car blasts music, including school buses.  Here you can see students hanging out the window and the whole bus singing along to Romeo Santos

September 15

Water is a blessing.

This is how I shower when I don't have water.  

I quickly learned to conserve water and shower with half of that bucket.

This is the first thing we do when the water comes back on! Rejoice and do the dishes.

We're going through a drought here, so the water has been coming and going without a schedule and for days at a time.  Hopefully we get some rain and get back on a predictable water schedule.