Avast!

I'm back for another week of action here in San Pedro de Macorís. This past weekend was spent in Santo Domingo, celebrating birthdays (of people and countries) and going-aways of a number of people. It was quite a fun time, but an unfortunate dearth of sleep on Friday night led me to exhaustion a bit too quickly on Saturday night. Friday night began with several other Fellows and I moseying to a colmado/bar/local hangout near our hotel, where we met a few interesting folks and were eventually joined by several other interns. I met one amusing character who had come all the way from Finland(!) to vacation here in the DR. I don't remember his name (he had a pretty heavy accent), but he was a pretty big guy with a bleached-blond faux-hawk. When I asked him why he came to the DR, he responded (in a thick Scandinavian accent) "for the rahm (rum), the baych (beach), and the crazy wild seks (guess)". ...oooooookay. I guess that's what does it for him. We later went to an awesome open-air club playing non-stop salsa, merengue, and bachatta (sp?). Didn't get back to the hotel until really late, but it was well worth it.

Saturday was more relaxed. The day was mostly spent hanging out with Nate and Tim, two other Fellows. Nate is going into his senior year at University of Washington. Tim graduated from Princeton, then spent a year in Tanzania before coming to the DR. After wandering around a bit and eating lunch, the two of us went back to the hotel and played a whole lot of Dominoes. Nate won handily, but it was pretty much entirely luck.

Later in the evening we headed to the house where several of the interns in Santo Domingo live. We sat around and talked for awhile, before ordering a whole bunch of pizzas from, believe it or not, Pizza Hut. I guess nothing says Independence Day like cheap American-imitating-Italian food. Later that night was spent at hanging out at a club called "The Blue Velvet". Going there, I was slightly afraid it was going to be a gay bar. It turned out to be a normal, if kind of underwhelming, venue. I would have danced a lot and probably had a much better time if I wasn't so exhausted. It was still fun though, a lot of the time was spent outside chatting with the other Fellows.

All things considered, though, a weekend well spent. More to come soon!