The Traveling Two: Doug's first post, initial impressions of his new home, many many pictures

(Posted by: Doug)
Edit: Blogger hates me and refuses to let me format this correctly. Apologies for the difficulty to read some of this text.
I’ve been MIA on this co-blog so far, so as far as my reactions to this country I can say honestly that I love it here. Prime among these reasons is the overall laid back attitude of Dominican culture. I love the infectious music blaring out of all directions, and of course, being the Caribbean it's beautiful here. Even in the more impoverished parts of the city, of which there are many, there is an abundant variety of plant life that grow authorized or no, birds, strange bugs and colors everywhere. At first glance Santo Domingo is a chaotic place:

The traffic is litterally lawless, including a kind of decriminalization of things like DUI, and by no means do pedestrians have the right of way. Ever.
Though rich and colorful said music is generally very up-tempo.
About 3 million people are stuffed into an area which by my estimates can't be much bigger than greater Boise/Meridian/Eagle.
The volume of day to day life is almost impressive. From the horn-happy and ever present traffic to the music to the people.

Regardless, a tangible calm pervades all things. Very few activities are rushed and personal interactions are savored. Dominicans as a culture are outgoing and friendly, even to poorly dressed gringos who speak very little of the language. Very few things can be settled before recounting what you've been up to, how you've been getting along, etc, and tardiness is expected (you probably ran into a friend and had to catch up). Though motorists are remarkably pushy and aggressive, I've seen only one case of identifiable frustration let alone the road rage infused traffic in the states. A kind of “don’t cry over spilt milk” is very much the rule and is followed religiously. I greatly appreciate and readily identify with, especially being late all of the time and a certain flair and happiness for constant performance. This is not to say that there haven’t been instances where this laid back attitude hasn’t been frustrating or worse, but who wants to hear about that anyhow? :) Also, though louder than Boise still, Sunday’s are far more slow and quiet than the rest of the week and have quickly become our favorite day. Again, things have been awesome thus far and now that we’re settled into our place we’re looking forward to some stability in our schedule.

Thus far, for several reasons (see: time and money), our adventures have been small but we have indeed seen a lot. For the first few weeks we were unfortunately in a hotel that the school put us in till we found a place, and after spending the day at work most of our evenings were spent looking for apartments.Here's a shot of the place we were in. Doesn't look too bad, I know, but inside all I can say is bluk. Fine for traveling, but no good for living in and even more difficult to set up a teaching practice from.

The "breakfast" provided by our hotel , compliments of the school. Taost, coffee and OJ.

Lebanese food. Oddly there's a ton of Middle Eastern food here and much of it is a lot better than home.

A Lebanese take on the ubiquitous (here anyhow) empendada.

Stace modeling Presidente, a locally brewed pilsner and unquestioned king of the DR. I'm generally not a fan of such a light beer, but Presidente seems to be brewed with special insight into the thirst that this particular climate creates and is generally served so cold there's a few ice chunks at the top. Nothing cools you down like one of these suckers.