i went to the DR…?

FIRST THINGS FIRST!!!

i did not take many photos or rlly use my phone during my trip so these are some that i did take. all the other photos i took are still getting developed at the camera store.

SECOND THINGS SECOND!!!

i have like three foot plus long hair that my step mom braided for my travels. i wish i had a photo but she braided mine to look like hers so we were twinning! they stayed in for not even like 48hrs bc i rlly only needed them to protect my hair while i was traveling. so pls donut come for me, my dominican taino step mom rlly wanted to put me in a protective style. it was rlly cute i loved it <3

ANYWAYS….

just before christmas , my family flew down to the Dominican for some festivities. our step mom lives there and our dad has dual citizenship, this was our first time meeting her!

the group we went with pooled funds together and bought a ton of groceries which we then proceeded to distribute at some local schools and in some barrios in cabarette. it was rewarding to give back during this season especially.

i got to attend catholic church as well! which was basically the same as it is in america the only difference is that i don’t speak spanish so i was going off muscle memory essentially lol. also there was a wedding there that day that my step mom didn’t know about which made it lowkey awkward for me to be there as i felt like i was crashing a wedding. it was at the end of service but either way. we didn’t know about it until it was too late.

when i have travelled in the past, i have always gotten anxiety about whether or not there will be food i enjoy available to me- but most dominican cuisine is similar to what we already eat. the sausage being salami caught me off guard but it was a pleasant surprise, i fucking love salami.

i discovered they don’t have lemons there ???

any lemonade you get is a limeade but it doesn’t matter bc it’s delicious.

anything that’s sweet is typically made with cane sugar. they have this version of redbull called Ciclon and it’s sooo much better than redbull. it even tastes good warm ? like at room temp? usually redbull starts to taste nasty when it’s warm but this stuff was like crack or something my man and i became obsessed. the icecream there was also so much better. you could taste that there was far less salt and sugar in it than what we have here.

the traffic situation? INSANE.

i’m from the midwest so already people drive fast as hell and aggressive af. but this was a whole new animal. i literally cannot begin to explain exactly what i witnessed but what i will say is that when my step mom does come to the US she will be incredibly restricted with our traffic laws. it was like the wild wild west.

we got to see a lot of the culture there since a whole large group of us rented out a villa in puerta plata. which is basically in cabarette right outside of sosua. the nightlife is crazy and everything is right on the beach.

my step mom ordered us a round of something at a bar and it was called mamajuana which is like this herbal rum liquor that was insanely good. it was like wine that could never be consumed like wine. super strong and tasted a little like medicine but also like juice???

at the beginning of our trip everyone except for me caught some kind of flu or something so i got to visit the pharmacy a few times and there pharmacy situation is so different. i pulled up and asked for azithromycine and ibuprofen 800 and they gave me a full round of antibiotics and the pain medicine no questions asked. for less than 1,000 peso. here you would be lucky to get into a doctor same day and get your medicine. they usually tug you around and you end up having to spend even more at an urgent care to get in asap.

we had an amazing time and when i get my photos i’ll post some of those as well. i would say if you are an american and want to visit, you should have a guide lined up or at least another american that can a) speak spanish or b) is familiar with the country. we are lucky enough to have a family member who is born and raised dominican, which helped us out a lot as far as navigation and communication.

but yeah ! that was my trip !