Blue Mall.

Like kiosks, except a lot.

     Last night after work we had dinner together, and then felt like going out. My host mom suggested we got out and see a movie at a local mall, so we put on nicer clothes and out we went.  We're getting really good at sardine-ing people into a car...   
      The mall that we went to is called Blue Mall, and ... it's six stories high.  The first floor was the ritziest, with huge stores such as Louis Vuitton and Cartier (what...).  The rest of the mall had tons of clothing stores whose names we didn't recognize, but many of which looked comparable to many stores in the US.  One of the stores looked so much like Gap... I wanted to go in. :[   
     We went up to the food court and bought some ice cream--quite delicious. We still had quite a bit of time before the movie started, so we stationed ourselves at a little standing-table and people watched. So. Entertaining.  I'm not sure if the people here really like to dress up, or if the mall is just a bigger deal than it is in the States, but oh my goodness.  We were all wearing nice jean outfits/casual dresses and were severely underdressed.  All of the women wear heels, with bright lipstick, and hair all done up.  Colored jeans are everywhere, worn by women of all ages and sometimes even men. There were quite a few of the early-teenage crowd waiting for the movies as well, so we had a blast spying on them and narrating their actions.  

The Brooks Brothers of Latin America?

     The movie theater was the classiest theater I've ever been to. The bathrooms, the decorations, everything, was just super class and kinda fancy. We again felt out of place and underdressed. Oops. We'll do better next time. 
     Almost all of the movies there are American films with Spanish subtitles... the exact same ones you'd see here. Men in Black 3, American Pie, Battleship, The Avengers.  There's such a huge American influence everywhere you look. Many of the products you buy in the stores either are American brands and are only written in English, or have both languages on the label.  Many people follow TV shows from the US too. After seeing all of this, it's no wonder that many people know a decent amount of English. I'd say a majority of the people we talk to can recognize words in English if we ask about something, or translate them themselves, even if they can't speaking English conversationally.  It's way more than could be said about Americans and any foreign language. 
     We had a great time at the mall, and loved going out to see another part of town.  We're hoping to go back soon and do some actually shopping... hopefully it's not all too pricey! 
      Also... I noticed that for this whole post I've been saying "we." That's because if I'm not at work, most of the time I'm hanging out with the five other kids that live here in Santo Domingo. We've become our own little family of sorts.  :] I'll try to get more pictures of our whole group soon, I keep forgetting to put people in the pictures!  


    LOVE,
    Abby

Endless escalators.

The movie theater even has a skywalk!