Santo Domingo in the sunshine.

Today I finally got to see what the DR looks like in the daylight!



This morning we hung out at Efraín's house while Danny went to exchange our money and buy us cheap cell phones to use while we're here.  Efraín has a wonderful photo wall... I'm quite impressed.

 Once everything had been sorted out, we wanted to go on an adventure, so we headed for the main street.  After about a half hour of walking, all we had found was Krispy Kreme and Papa Johns, and so we headed back, feeling defeated.
We went to Virginia's, one of the host moms, house and told her we had no idea what to do for lunch. We must have looked kinda sad/pathetic because Virginia returned in two minutes, dressed with keys in her hand, packed us in the car, and took the six of us to Adrian Tropical, a creole restaurant right on the ocean. The food was so delicious! We tried to try new things... I got solomo, a type of pork, and tostones, which I would describe as plantain biscuits.













After lunch, Virginia took us around the colonial district, we got to go inside the first cathedral in the Americas! There's a plaza with a statue of Christopher Columbus, and many other buildings/monuments, as Santo Domingo was the first place he landed on his trip to the New World.

 

We went home and passed out... I don't know what they put in the food but we slept for almost two hours!

When my host mom, Ana, came to pick me up, I got to meet her granddaughters, Annette and Veronica.  Annette is a freshman in high school and speaks very good English. Veronica is eight, and the first thing she did when she met me was sing me an entire Luis Fonsi song, complete with an accompanying dance.  Needless to say, the evening was enjoyable :]

Work starts tomorrow! I'm rather nervous and I have to get up early so I'll stop here.

¡Buenas noches! 

Con cariño,

Abby

Some of the group in front of the cathedral. It was so beautiful!