Hello! It´s been a really long time since my last post. So this week I changed to my new family. They live really far away from my school and where most of my friends live.. And most of the time i walk places and its always really sunny and hot! But our family does have a car.
School is going good, Im´ getting used to it and i´ve had to memorize alot of different stuff and recite it in front of the class, which im getting used to too. Two weekends ago i went to another party where you had to wear green, yellow, or red, (colors on a stop light) and they all meant different things. I wore blue.. And i didnt stay for very long. I didnt really do anything..They tought me how to merengue for about two minutes, then I had to leave.
One day I went with Julissa to meet up with Orquidea and Ramona and Sheila to go to an orphanage to give the kids a bunch of our old toys that we dont use, but on our way to Orquidea´s house it started to rain realllly hard, so we ended up staying in Orquidea´s house (which is huge..they own a restaurant and a pool) and cooking spaghetti, the we went outside after the rain let up a little and played in the pool (which only had rain water in it) and after a while we ended up being soaked from head to toe from playing in the rain water. It was really fun. Then afterwards, we went inside and ate pizza from the restaurant, which was really good, too. Here they like to put corn on pizza, which is different, but tastes good. They also eat alot of things differently. Like meat, they eat allll parts of the chicken, including the feet! And they cook fish differently too, they dont cut off the head or the tail. Also, in Homer i eat plain grilled cheese sandwiches..but here they put ketchup and mayo and tomatoes and random sauces on ham and cheese sandwiches, and it´s really good! On Sunday I went to a karaoke club, with Eliza and Yomalsy, and they sung songs in Spanish and I learned how to merengue a little more (i´m not very good at it).
Then the next week there was a big book fair in my town, called the Ferie del Libro, and there were lots of booths with books, food, and places for people to read poetry and stuff like that. I went about every day, and it was fun, most of my friends went too. One day we were supposed to meet at 5:00 for our language class, but only three people showed up! haha. Wedesday we didnt have school because it was a holiday. I met up with Felix and Till alot too. That weekend there was another party that the seniors in my school were having. It was in the town casino. I didnt go for very long to that either. Then this week i´ve been hanging out with friends and with Till and Victor, walking around the town and doing homework! Here are some pictures of me and my friends in Orquidea´s house and in the Ferie del Libro:

Julissa, Ramona, and me with spaghetti hornsLots of people in the Ferie del Libro!
Me and OrquideaRamona, me Sheila, and Orquidea
Me, Sheila, Ramona
Orquidea, Felix, me, Julissa in the Ferie
Ramona, Julissa, me, Cristal in the Ferie - uniforms!

Orquidea´s dad, Julissa, Sheila, Orquidea, and Ramona cooking
me Julissa and Ramona
us eating the spaghetti dinner we cooked
me ramona, julissa, and orquidea in the pool
Cristal, me and Ramona in the Ferie - with uniforms

Pictures!!!

Me and six other AFSers. Four are from

the U.S., one from Italy and one from Germany (i think Germany)

My little brother (Angel) and my host mom

A Castle in the colonial part of Santo Doming. We climbed all the way to the top!

there was an awesome view.

Me and Yomalsy in an ice cream shop while walking around town.

Me and Andrea, and AFS advisor, in the AFS camp.

Front View of my school.

My class (uniforms!)

Hello everyone! Okay, so I had five days of school this week! A new record! It only rained three or four times in the evenings, and one time there was a lightning and thunder storm, but we still had school the next day.
Lots of things happened this week! On Monday I played softball (yay!) not with a team but with one of my friends and her dad and her brothers. I like to play catch in my street alot. There are always a bunch of people who will play with me, and its kind´ve funny because theres always people watching..And then we went to the stadium (it´s an olympic stadium...not like olympic games stadium, but it has a tennis court, a baseball field, a skate park, a track..and much more!) and I got to play baseball with Ramona and with a group of guys who was playing there. We only hit because we didnt have our gloves with us, but it was fun.
On Tuesday after school we had a study group. My grade is divided into two classes, and the classes are divided into groups..I haven´t figured out how the groups are divided yet..But anyways, we met at one of our friend´s houses and did some homework, and then afterwards we went to this club meeting. The club was this group of teens who holds parties and movies to raise money for food for children in need. The meeting was fun I guess but i didn´t really understand what people were saying. I think they were planning to have a movie night at one of the schools.
Wednesday after school I met up with Felix and Till, the two exchange students from Germany who live in my town. We walked around a bit, and then it started to rain a little, and the clouds were extremely dark and there was lighning in the distance, so we hurried to my house but it was locked (i dont have a key) so we waited in Julissa´s house for the rain to ease up a little (it was coming down really hard) and then Felix and Till left and I waited for my parents to come home from work.
Thursday was my first day with a full normal uniform (there are sport uniforms and normal uniforms..you wear sport uniforms on the days you have P.E.) In class we played this game where you write a random question that starts with ¨por que¨then put it in a hat and draw someone elses´question and answer it with porque...whatever, then put it in a hat and draw another question and answer, and then you go around the room and one person reads the question out loud and the person behind them answers with the answer on their paper, and then they read their question out loud and the person behind them answers, and so on.
After school I hung out and did homework in another study group at Carolina´s house.
On Friday in school we played that game again. And it was kind´ve awkward because some of the questions were about me (haha). Then, after school we went home and I worked on translating this paper that I have to read out loud in front of the class on Monday...and the translation doesnt really make sense! haha.
Then, I met up with Till and Felix again, and we walked around a little bit and tried to go to the bank to change money, but all banks here are closed at 5...
So then I went home and then played catch and then walked to a party with Julissa, Cristal and Felix, at Felix´s house (which is huge!)
At the party there were lots of people from my school and Felix´s school and Till´s school (we all go to different schools) and i met lots of people. There was dancing but i didnt dance because it was kind of crazy! And people were supposed to wear white because there were black lights and strobe lights.. And that was fun, and afterwards we rode home with Cristal´s dad.
And today, Saturday, I havent done anything...I tried to sleep in but I can never sleep past 930 here..i dont know why. but i guess that is sleeping in. Haha. Then I walked around town a little with Yomalsy, and we came here to this internet place.
In Febuary, theres an AFS trip to Pico Duarte, which is the tallest peak in the Carribbean! I´m really excited because it will be cold when we get higher up! and I miss the cold! Haha, It´s like in the winter time when I really want summer...But now that I´m always hot all the time except when i´m taking a shower (always cold, haha) I wish it was cold outside.
Anyways, the trip to Pico Duarte is for 6 days and we will go all the way to the top, so I´m really excited for that, I´ve always wanted to climb a mountain!
So, that´s all I can think of to write right now.. Thanks for commenting...I miss everyone!

Hello everyone! Okay, so i left off on Tuesday with my first day off from school. We had the next day off, and Thursday I went to school again. I figured out that I have more classes, and that the schedule is different every day. All the classes I have are math, spanish, P.E., computer, french, biology, history, orientation, art, civic, and religion. Wow. On Thursday I was just about as lost in class as I was on Monday, but thats ok. After school on Thursday, I rode the bus to Santo Domingo with my host sister for an AFS welcoming party. We got to the party an hour and a half late, and it was at this big fancy club place. It was fun and I got to meet some other people who are here from other countries on a foreign exchange with AFS. That night, I stayed with the five other girls from the U.S. who are here. We slept at one of the girls houses in Santo Domingo, and stayed up late talking. It was nice to talk to people in English :) The next day we got up early and all of the people from around the world who are here in the Dominican Republic with AFS went on buses to the colonial part of Santo Domingo, where there were castles and old buildings and monuments and it was pretty cool. I took lots of pictures, but I didnt take my camera today so Ill have to post pictures later. Anyways, after we walked around colonial Santo Domingo for a few hours, we went to this camp. It wasnt exactly a camp, but thats what they called it. It was about 45 minutes out of Santo Domingo, and it was this nice resort-ish place with a pool and a volleyball net and lots of trampolines. We gathered into groups and had meetings about safety tips and stuff like that. It was pretty fun, because all of the AFS advisors are in their 20s so it was pretty relaxed, very different from AFS in the U.S. because they let us do pretty much whatever we wanted. We hung out and ate good food and played volleyball alot. The next day we all went back to Santo Domingo, and then back to our host families. I was supposed to get picked up by my host sister, but AFS told me she called and asked them if I could stay with K.C., another AFSer, in Azua with her family. Azua is about an hour out of San Juan. So we rode the bus to Azua and went to K.C.s house. All this time I didnt really know what was happening, or why I was going, because nobody really knew. The AFS program director told me that it had something to do with my family being sick, so that didnt help and just made me worry more. Anyways, we went to get pizza at this pizzeria, and it was corn and chicken pizza. It sounds kinda weird, but it was actually really good. After that, we went to KCs house and changed then went to the park. By then it was already like 10 P.M. We walked around the park once, where there were a few people and loud music playing, then we moved on to this outdoor party thing with lots of booths for food and beer and soda, and tons of people. We danced a little, and some people showed me how to Bachata and Merengue (I cant really tell the difference). After that we went home and slept. The next day we just hung out because it was Sunday, and didnt do that much. But KC plays softball, so we decided to find a ball and throw some. A friend of one of the girls who lives in KCs house had a lefty mitt, and we found a softball. Then, there were two little boys who wanted to play with us, so we set up a little game in the street with random stuff for bases and a piece of wood for a bat. It was fun :)
That night we went to the park again, and then to the same party that was still going on. This time we didnt dance, because there was this random pageant thing going on, where they were crowning the new Queen of Azua...It was random. And then they had fireworks. Hahaha. It wasnt very smart of them...they had them right in the middle of all the people.
The next day, I was really anxious to know what was going on, because i had talked to AFS the day before and they didnt know either, so I talked to Andrea, an AFS advisor, and she called my sister and my sister said that she would pick me up at four oclock. She found our house at like 5 and then we took the bus to San Juan. That was on Monday, and apparently there was some kind of party at the school that I missed or something.
The next day I went to school and we only had classes for about an hour and then all the students left because there were teacher meetings. I walked around town with my friends Yomalsy and Julissa and we tried to find a cafe with internet, but the internet was down everywhere (that happens alot here). So we stopped in a bakery and got cake and then walked around some more and then went back to the school, and then went home. The next two days we didnt have school because of the rain, apparently there was a type 1 tropical storm nearby named Ike, and the whole country was on red alert. But the storm didnt hit us, all we got was some rain. For those two days I didnt do much other than hang out with people and do homework and read a little. Oh, and my uniform is being made..the school has uniforms but they dont hand them out..you have to go out and buy them somewhere...
And I got my sport uniform. My school, CEILU, has a softball team and a volleyball team..and a basket ball team too, i think. Im hoping to join the softball team :)
Oh, and the food here is really good! There is lots of rice and beans and fruit..one time i had a lot of really good mango for breakfast...it was amazing! They have lots of mangoes here..and platanos (plantains) which look like big green bananas but dont taste anything like them. And the music is really good too. They listen to alot of rap and alot of latin pop music..and its pretty good. They like Daddy Yankee alot. And theres always loud music playing somewhere. Like..on my street someone will randomly turn up there music really really loud so that you can hear it everywhere..and theres always the same like ten songs playing all the time :) its funny but it can get a little annoying if you want it to be quiet. Lots of things here are different from what we have in the U.S. The electricity goes out on average three times a day..for a few hours. And not all of the toilets flush all the time. (luckily the one in my house does) In the bus station, if you want to use the toilet (this is really gross, sorry) they are all clogged with everything...yeah..and smell really bad. Oh, and theres random really skinny dogs walking around in the streets and its really sad :( and it seems like lots of people are afraid of dogs..
Anyways, right now its Friday and really nice and sunny and blue skies. Theres a really nice view of the mountains from my school. Today we didnt have school because only like..one eighth of the students came. My host sister told me that here theres always an excuse not to go to school...haha. But we came anyways. We go most days that there isnt school just to make sure that there arent classes.
So, I got some comments asking about my house.. Its small but cozy. I have my own room, which is really nice, and the living room has a couch two chairs and a small t.v. When you first go in my house there{s a little sitting place, like a porch, which almost all houses have. Then, you go inside and theres the living room and then you go straight down a hallway and theres three bedrooms off to the right and then the bathroom off to the right, and then the kitchen. There{s no pets, but in my other house there is a dog named Campion and a cat..whose name i dont know.
Okay, well, I dont know what more to say! I think i covered most of it.. Hope everything is going well for everyone! Thanks for all the comments, sorry if i dont get back to you..i hope the blogs can answer questions.
:)

Finally in the D.R.!

Hello everyone!
I am here in the D.R. in the school that I go to on my host sister's computer. She is a teacher here at the school. Yesterday was my first day of school and not very many people speak english, so it was a little scary for me. It is currently raining and here they cancel shool when it's raining ( I wish they did that in Homer!) I'm not really sure why they do that, and my host sister tried to explain it to me but I couldn't really understand.
When I left Alaska, I went to an orientation in Miami where everyone who was going on an exchange to South America from the U.S. met and got prepared. There were six people going to the Dominican Republic.
When we landed in Santo Domingo, the capital of the D.R., another exchange student and I got picked up by her host family and we went to this big Italian dinner thing at the host family's friend's house. There were five courses! And on their t.v. they had a video of one of Celene Dion's concerts playing over and over, I guess they like her alot :) after the dinner we stayed at the host family's house and watched 3.10 to Yuma with the host brother (we watched it in english because that host family knew english very well. People in Santo Domingo speak english alot..but other places not so much). The next day I rode the bus to San Juan and met my host family there, and I was feeling a little homesick so the AFS people who spoke english let me go with them to Las Matas for the night so I could get more accustomed. I also found out that I'm only staying with my host family for a month, and then moving to a different family for the other 9 months. This is because the family is going to Europe for a month so I need a place to stay.
Both of my host families are very nice, even though none of the parents speak any english, but my one host sister does a little. I'm learning more Spanish every day, which is good.
The school I go to is good, the classes I have are trigonometry, Spanish, physical education, informatica (a computer class) and French. French and Spanish are pretty hard... because I have to go from Spanish to French. But the French teacher is also the English teacher, so that helps.
Everyone here is very nice and welcoming so that is good. One thing that's really different is when I'm walking down the street, guys will whistle or yell, "Hola, Rubia!" which is "Hello, Blonde!" because noone here has blonde hair or blue eyes. It's kind've funny but it gets annoying.
Well, that's about all I can think of to say right now! Please comment or send me an email or something..I want to hear from everyone! How's Homer going? How's school there? Anything new? Miss you all alot! Lots of love.