The Update

Sad that I'm already falling behind and my blog is only a few months old.   Well here's the update:

Dave started school in Sept.  In case you didn't realize, yes, its all in spanish.  He's taking science classes and is required to take "technical english" and dominican history.  The english class is, probably as you thought, totally worthless because he knows english.  The dominican history class' teacher talks about 1000 miles an hour so even a lot of native speakers have trouble understanding him.  Dave made some friends in that class to help him keep up :D

As for me, I've been "adjusting" to the unemployed life.  It was really hard at first because I'm used to going a million miles an hour but now I'm liking it so much that I don't want to find a job!  What do I do all day you may ask?  Well being that I was a Rec Director in my former life and planned 2 monthly calendars by the hour I made myself a little schedule.  I didn't want to be tied too down by a schedule so its more a guideline if you will.  I'm trying to start walking on the boardwalk each morning but I'm a little too lazy to get out of bed early (if you don't do it before about 7:30 it gets too hot), I'll keep trying.  But I make sure to read scriptures and study a little spanish in the mornings.  Monday I do colored laundry, which is a good chunk of time because i have to rinse it out and hang it on the line.  I actually really enjoy laundry because I feel like I'm actually doing something but best of all I go up to the roof!  From the roof you can see ocean alllll around and it reminds me that this is a fun adventure.  Yes I can go on the roof anytime I want but for some reason hanging clothes up there with the wind blowing is really fun.  Tuesday I do grocery shopping.  Dave is done with school by noon so he meets me to help me take the haul home.  Wednesdays is Davey's day off so hopefully we can make it beach day when he doesn't have as much homework.  Thursdays are looong days.  I'm home alone from 8-5pm.  I do whites (laundry), sweep & mop, and then usually watch one of our disney movies in spanish...I feel pretty justified because it's helping me learn spanish!!  Fridays Dave only has one class at noon so I just do some more cleaning.  Other projects that fill in my time our organizing our photos into years and making videos out of them, making movies about here, now blogging, a few sewing projects I've put off for years, keeping up with the presidential debate (yeah, i'm a little bored sometimes) and reading for fun.  I've read the Hunger Games series and the book from Laura Ling about being held captive in North Korea not too long ago.  Reading those back to back was kinda crazy....didn't know about the crazy things that actually go on in North Korea...some similarities to the Hunger Games...probably just similarities in general about communism.

Common Questions You May be Wondering:
Do you get to talk to your family often?
Mostly though my little itouch,which I would not recommend moving to another country without!  I have a texting app (Text Plus)  so I text my family on their phones non-stop!  Skype & Viber, and then we have a land line which gives us like 200 mins to call to the US with.

Do you have necessities like hot water and AC?!
We have a small hot water heater that we turn on and give it like 20 mins to heat up.  I was honestly quite concerned because I'd heard I'd never have a hot shower again but when the weather is 90 degrees and humid a hot shower is the last thing you want!
As for drinking water we dont' drink the tap water...no one really does.  We have big 5 gallon water jugs that we buy for about $1.
We have one A/c in our bedroom.  We also have a fan.  It gets really hot but it's usually alright if the fan is on.  Some nights we can sleep with just the fan but we usually sleep with the a/c at night.  Power bill is about $30...perfect.
We have a fridge, stove, no microwave, which I didn't know how long I'd last but its not as hard as you would think between heating things on the stove top and with our Panini maker....that thing was definitely worth bringing.  
Something you may not even have thought to ask is do you have electricity 24/7?  The answer is not always.  The electricity is known to go out regularly here.  Fortunately it's only about 1 time a week for about 30 mins.  It's annoying, yes, but when we first moved here it was in the middle of a hurricane and the power was out all day a few days so I'm glad that once a week for a few mins is all it is now.  Thankfully the stove is gas so we can still cook but the water is pumped up to our building so no water when the power goes out.
Are you the sore thumb that sticks out?
Yes.  Even though there are a lot of americans studying here, it doesn't even compare with how many dominicans there are.  I'm still surprised when I see an American.  The best though is Dave.  Walking down the streets all you hear is "CHIIIINO!!!!!" out the windows of busses and people going by (which is what they call all asians...chinese).  This is such a strange concept to me especially because #1 why would you yell someones race out your window and #2 There are quite a few chinese people here that run fired chicken stores so it's not like they've never seen an asian person.  Whatevs.

Well, I guess that's all for today.  Have a fabulouso day!