ice cream, air conditioning, and a movie

This weekend I got out of Montellano!!

The second floor of building number 13 on the street called Maria Agramonte is inhabited by 5 single American missionary ladies in their twenties. It’s pretty fun!

Anyway, four of us decided to get out and go to the big city of Santiago J

We took an air conditioned bus about an hour and a half to a city that feels a little bit more like home. Wanna hear about my day??

We had lunch at T.G.I. Fridays!! I got a burger, fries, and a Diet Coke. I’m not usually a big burger person, but it tasted so good and so “American”. The menu had some English titles and the restaurant was decorated with English signs and lettering. Even the bathrooms had “W” and “M”. American pop music was jamming through the speakers…

Next we got in a taxi (again, air conditioned) to take us to….wait for it….the mall!!!!

In the mall, I felt a little bit like I was having sensory overload…so many stores, so much to look at, price tags on everything, so much variety, people everywhere, air conditioning…We found some cool jewelry stores and I stocked up on fun earrings J

I got on an escalator (don’t think I’ve done that in 6 months) to get to the second floor where we found Baskin Robbins. Let me tell you, that chocolate ice cream tasted so good. I have had ice cream since being here, but the Dominican ice cream is kindof different, and I can’t keep ice cream in the freezer since the power goes out for up to 12 hours at a time. That little scoop of chocolate hit the spot!

Then, we went to the movie theatre! Ironman 3 was playing in English. I really liked the movie (But I probably really would have liked anything- just seeing a movie on a big screen and sitting in a comfy chair!)

We got back on the bus and made our way back to the North Coast. When we take the bus, you can ask for it to stop at the gas station in our town so you can hop out quickly! There is always a group of motorcycle taxis waiting there to take people wherever they need to go. Well, one of our moto taxi friends was there and saw gringas through the windows of the bus…as soon as the door opened, he reached his hand to touch my face and grabbed Karen’s hand- so happy to see us and of course get our business. He whizzed us through the streets of Montellano until we were safely home.

And what a welcome home it was…there was no running water (our cistern must be empty), a cockroach fell on my neighbor so she was furiously looking for it to try to kill before she could fall asleep, and Karen and I suspected that the neighborhood cat went through our garbage…oh Montellano.

Disclaimer: I hope that none of this comes across as complaining about my life…its just that going to Santiago brought out how different this Montellano life really is! I am really excited about going home NEXT WEEK! I wonder what kind of reverse culture shock surprises are waiting for me…. J