el capital: Santo Domingo

La zona colonial is the oldest part of the city in Santo Domingo. These ruins are of an old hospital over 500 years old.
This interesting graffiti translates into: When you were born, your mother gave you milk, not drugs, ok?
Lots of beautiful art for sale on the streets of Santo Domingo.

So--as you can see, yesterday we took a day trip to Santo Domingo, the capital of the DR. We left at 7 and arrived around 10 15 or so. Our resident director, Lynne, is an anthropologist and historian, so she was well equipped to give us a tour of the zona colonial. Not to mention she had lived in Santo Domingo for 7 years before moving to Santiago. If you look at my album on facebook you will read some interesting stories she told us about the buildings here!

After walking around for what seemed like forever in the baking heat, we finally got to have lunch!! I also got to see my amiga ALLISON! But she had class at 2 so we only got to see each other for about half an hour, but it was great to see her, she is SO tan! I also will get to see her this saturday because her program is coming to see Santiago!

After a delicious lunch (as usual) we went to el taller manos creativos, an art studio. We each received a miniature decorative herb masher hand painted, a tour of the studio, and then we got to make our own art piece. I left mine on the bus (but im getting it back!) so I dont have pictures of that stuff yet.

Today I had my first day of class, but only one. It lasted about 15 minutes because it was the first day so yeah, so far, so good!