los photos

The first image here is from the aeropuerto en la republica dominicano (D.R. airport)
The airport we flew into was really small. There were only two planes there when we arrived - ours and one other.

Next, Padre drove us down an official, standard, DR road. What's really interesting is that there are no speed limits here - so needless to say, we were flying down the road.
What's really interesting is that the custom here seems to be for the motorcyclist to drive on the shoulder of the road - almost like having two lanes - one for cars and a smaller one for motorcycles.
At one point in time, our two lane road became five lanes as a truck, passing us on our left took up the oncoming traffic lane, two motocyclist drove on our side of the shoulder, side by side and one other motorcyclist in oncoming traffic drove down the opposite shoulder.
I'd say I was praying for safety - but a priest was driving our car.
Padre is so cool! He knows so many people here and would often honk the horn anytime he passed someone familiar and they would honk or wave back.
He also refused to let me and Sra carry our bags up to the apartment. The hospitality here is amazing. This random neighbor who lives near Grace even stopped what he was doing to help us unload.

The second photo is a sign of Brugals.
Brugal is this fantastic rum distillary - it's considered the best rum in the DR.
And who lives exactly one block away from it? Me!!
Sra promises to take me one Saturday and she said we could buy a few bottles of rum to take back home and give away as gifts.

It's 9:25am dominican time and I am ready to start the new day! Sra and I have a lot of planning to do. Our driver, Sr Johnson, is picking us up at noon - so i've got some free time until then.

Oh! and I learned my first bad spanish phrase.
On the plane yesterday, the stewardness gave me a free cookie (part of my treat for not flying first class)
I asked the boy next to me, who was a native of the dominican republic, "Quieres una galleta?" (Do you want a cookie)
He gave me a very displeased look and the saw the large chocolate chip cookie in my hand and started laughing. He said in Spanish, "Silly girl, don't ever say that phrase in the DR!"
I asked him why and he told me that "Do you want a cookie" and an idiom for "Do you want to get slapped?"

So, my first piece of advice to any future tourist to the Dominican Republic - never ask anyone if they want a cookie. ever. unless of course, you're Tre Folensbee and you're looking to start a fight.
Knock 'em dead, Tre.