Travel Day and Day 1
My travels started at Chick-fil-a in Loganville where I ate breakfast and said goodbye to everyone except Jonathan (My brother, for those of you who may not know) and my mom. They drove me to the airport and dropped me off around noon. This was the first time I had been left at the airport alone and went through, baggage check, security, ticketing, and all of those airport things by myself. But I was determined, as always, to do them all and do them well, and so 12 minutes later, my bag was checked, boarding passes were printed, security was conquered, coke for the plane was purchased, gate and seat by the window while I waited was found, all in 12 minutes. I would say I did alright :) My plane left at 2:25pm and I landed in Miami 2 hours later. I had time to update my family on where I was and get a cinnamon dulce latte from Starbucks before getting on my plane to Santiago, DR. I landed, claimed my bag, and went through customs quickly. I went outside and waited for Rachael, Beka, and their mom to pick me up from the arrival point. After enjoying a lovely pizza and cinnamon sticks dinner at Pizza Hut we headed "home". After arriving I met their dad as well. Both parents were amazing hosts for me and they are just amazing in general, I am very thankful for such wonderful people who are willing to offer their home to me on a 3 week notice. After telling my family I was safe and sound, I headed to bed tired but excited.
My travels started at Chick-fil-a in Loganville where I ate breakfast and said goodbye to everyone except Jonathan (My brother, for those of you who may not know) and my mom. They drove me to the airport and dropped me off around noon. This was the first time I had been left at the airport alone and went through, baggage check, security, ticketing, and all of those airport things by myself. But I was determined, as always, to do them all and do them well, and so 12 minutes later, my bag was checked, boarding passes were printed, security was conquered, coke for the plane was purchased, gate and seat by the window while I waited was found, all in 12 minutes. I would say I did alright :) My plane left at 2:25pm and I landed in Miami 2 hours later. I had time to update my family on where I was and get a cinnamon dulce latte from Starbucks before getting on my plane to Santiago, DR. I landed, claimed my bag, and went through customs quickly. I went outside and waited for Rachael, Beka, and their mom to pick me up from the arrival point. After enjoying a lovely pizza and cinnamon sticks dinner at Pizza Hut we headed "home". After arriving I met their dad as well. Both parents were amazing hosts for me and they are just amazing in general, I am very thankful for such wonderful people who are willing to offer their home to me on a 3 week notice. After telling my family I was safe and sound, I headed to bed tired but excited.
Picture 1: I love taking pictures of clouds from the plane, I always wonder what God was thinking when he designed clouds. I always try for a window seat just for this.
Picture 2: Rachael, Beka, and I outside the airport when they picked me up.
Picture 3: I didn't sit next to anyone on either of my flights to the DR, hurray for being able to put my feet up on the flight.
Picture 2: Rachael, Beka, and I outside the airport when they picked me up.
Picture 3: I didn't sit next to anyone on either of my flights to the DR, hurray for being able to put my feet up on the flight.
The next day I slept in, as you can imagine I was tired from a long day of travel, and when I woke up I went outside to see my first view of the DR in the daylight. (The photo is what I saw, doesn't really even begin to capture the beauty, but for now it will have to do.) After breakfast and such Rachael and I went out to collect several of her small group girls to buy food and prepare the meal for the evening. Two and a half hours later we returned with some of the girls, 3 chickens, rice, potatoes, carrots, and a lot of other things. Rachael and I were both exhausted at this point but it was time to prepare the meal. You should know the reason they were fixing food was for me, they wanted me to have a traditional Dominican meal. Fun fact: Rachael gave the girls a vegetable peeler, but none of them knew how to use it, so I peeled all the potatoes and carrots. After we prepared the meal, we all went down to the pool area for a little while and then Rachael took the girls home to shower and get ready for the evening. We sat down and ate a lovely meal together around 7:30, it was really fun because throughout the meal each of the girls would look at meal and ask me if I was enjoying something specific (example: Do you like the potatoes? or Do you like the chicken?) and after I told them yes (Because the food was amazing) they would look at me proudly and say, "That was me, I made that!" :) (They said this in Spanish of course) It was a very fun day, a long one, but very fun. One of my favorite moments came from when we were all riding in the car together, Rachael was driving and all of the girls, I believe there were 6 total at the time, in addition to Rachael and I, were talking away in Spanish. I can speak enough Spanish to get by, but they spoke so fast and used a lot of terms that left me looking like a blind radish (what that means, I have no idea). One moment all of the girls were talking and then one of the girls turned to me and rambled something off in quick Spanish, of course I didn't actually understand the question, and so I had to figure out how to answer. The whole day I had felt like a piece of toast in the bathtub not knowing how to connect with these girls since I couldn't really communicate with them. The specific girl who asked me the question is always laughing, mostly at her own jokes, but I thought it was hilarious, and since she was always laughing, that is what I did. That is right in a car with 6 girls staring at me, waiting for my reply, I looked at her and burst out laughing. At first they seemed shocked, saying to themselves, why is she laughing there was nothing funny. I stopped abruptly in my laughter, and then as if it were written in some movies script we all burst out into laughter. I had found my bridge, my connection. From that moment on, every time I saw those girls they would look at me and say, "HAHAHA", it became our inside joke and it was wonderful.
Picture 1: These are most of the girls in the small group :)
Picture 2: These is cajuiles. We were walking up random driveways attempting to purchase chickens and saw these in a tree, and apparently, if you see ripe fruit in a tree than you are allowed to just take it, so we ate these straight off the tree, and they were quite tasty.
Picture 3: Speaking of tasty things, this is the traditional dominican meal that the girls prepared for me. Seasoned chicken (very fresh, and my favorite thing), yellow rice with corn, smashed and fried plantains (a close second for my favorite, they are awesome dipped in ketchup), and a sort of potato salad with lots of Mayo.
Picture 2: These is cajuiles. We were walking up random driveways attempting to purchase chickens and saw these in a tree, and apparently, if you see ripe fruit in a tree than you are allowed to just take it, so we ate these straight off the tree, and they were quite tasty.
Picture 3: Speaking of tasty things, this is the traditional dominican meal that the girls prepared for me. Seasoned chicken (very fresh, and my favorite thing), yellow rice with corn, smashed and fried plantains (a close second for my favorite, they are awesome dipped in ketchup), and a sort of potato salad with lots of Mayo.