Santo Domingo

During the last couple of weeks we have been in the capital of the Dominican Republic, Santo Domingo (Saint Sunday or Saint Dominic in English). We had to take a bus to get there and it was totally FREEZING! By the way I forgot to tell you that the reason we went to Santo Domingo was because dad wanted us all to study Spanish at Entrena, which is a language school.

When we arrived at the house of the Dominican family with whom we were staying, there were kids playing in the front yard. They were the grandchildren of the people were were staying with. They were playing baseball, which is THE most popular sport in the DR. We played with them.

I think I should just tell you the interesting parts as so much happened. On the main roads we got around on these things called “carros publicos” and “guaguas”. Carros publicos are just really old beaten up cars that you can take for like fifty cents but the driver crams as many people in as possible. Guaguas are just old beaten up buses that will cost you like fifty cents to go on and they also pack on as many people as possible.

Colonial Zone

We went to the Colonial Zone which includes one of the first forts in the New World and is first European city successfully established in all of the Americas. We went to the fort first its was quite small and was made out of coral. We went to the first church in the New World. We went to the first town hall in the New World and we went to Christopher Columbus’ house.

Zoo

We went to supposedly the best zoo in all of the Caribbean. It had all sorts of animals. There was even this weird turkey thing called a Cassowary. They are very shy, but attack if you get to close and they can kill!

The Botanical Gardens

We went to the Botanical Gardens and saw lots of plants (obviously). We went to a really cool Japanese garden there and went trough a bunch of bamboo forests. As you can see there’s not much to write about this.

Boca Chica

Boca Chica is a town on the coast 30 or 40 minutes east of Santo Domingo. We went to Club Nautico for sailing Optis to get out of the city and escape the pollution. It was great and had all sorts of things to do and there were lots of kids (dominicans mostly) there. We started out by playing sailing jeopardy in Spanish, then we of course went sailing and had some races. When we got back for the lunch break, we played king of the tramp on the water trampoline. Then we pushed each other down the huge water slide. Then we used the “rock-it” which I can’t explain.

During the week, we went to school from 9:00 in the morning until 1:00 in the afternoon. The school was in a huge office building with lots of different colors painted onto it. We learned Spanish of course. Our teachers’ names were Glenny (glen-ise) and Gina.

On the next to last night before we left to return to Samaná we went to my friend’s apartment that was practically a house and had dinner and played xbox and stuff it was pretty fun. My friend’s name is Franklin.

Ian