Rum, aparently no one even drinks water

1. So this post I just want to touch on a few of the interesting little details of this amazing country. Lets star with empanadas..fried bread things with cheese or whatever you want inside...I hate there existence , and that I pass by an empanada stand every day on my walk to school! YUMMY! They also have this obsession with ketchup and mayonnaise...its on everything!!!! There are little stands all over the place selling the local food, and they are open till like 5 in the morning, needless to say after a night of some serious merengue, fried food is just what any normal person would want! There is something called Yaroa, and this is only found in Santiago. It is the best invention ever, just imagine,, fries on the bottom, like this crumbly fried meat(like from a cheese steak) and then melted cheese on top with ketchup and mayonnaise! you eat it with a fork HAHAHA. Ok enough of food! I also enjoy that I hear ALOT of French just walking around, because of being so closely attached to Haiti, French is almost just as common as Spanish. I love my classes for the most part, not exactly challenging but I am getting great practice. I am taking an ESOL course and starting next week I will be teaching English classes in the university ...kinda scary ..kinda not :) By the end of the four months I will be certified to teach English.
   
2. This past weekend we went to Samana, a little town on the southern coast. We visited what they call Los Haiteses, which is an island that has amazing caves they we got to go into ..I decided I really don't like bats! We had to take a boat to get there, i decided i really like riding on boats! :) Its great because very time we take a boat ride there is always blaring music drinks and pineapple! We got to go to the beach and again I cant even explain the color of the water, it was amazing, and a guy in our group brought goggles and we could see all the neon fish and sea urchins , and be glad we had decided not to step on the rocks before we realized there were all these prickly sea creatures all over them! Our ride home was my favorite part. It was like a mountain jungle adventure, with these little houses scattered all over the place some were made of concrete and some of wood. There were always little naked kids running around and people just sitting in plastic chairs outside their homes. What these people do all day, easily answered they sit on plastic chairs, and some might play dominoes. There is always so much to take in its almost impossible! Tomorrow we are going to Puerta Plata for the Merengue Festival!! talk about color! To end this I just want to yall to maybe get a little glimpse of my walk to school. Part of it is through the very nice neighborhood that i live in then it turns into a farm area where i have to be careful not to step on the million chickens running around my feet, then i go down a mud slide to a little bridge that goes over the dirtiest river i have ever seen, meanwhile dodging the men on little dirt bikes that think its funny to scare the gringas by almost running them over, and then up a hill, that immediately provokes SWEAT!, past empanadas and across the street, an all the time dealing with the stupid comments EVERYONE makes to you as you pass by. The other day a young guy in a car slowed, rolled his window down and exclaims at me, "Holy Californian Sunshine!"...I'm not joking that's what came to his mind to yell at me... "Holy Californian Sunshine"... and there you have it a little piece of my life here in the Dominican Republic