Thanksgiving Day = El Día de Acción de Gracias (lit. The day of the action of thanking)
Anyway.
I’m not really too too used to spending holidays away from family. Since I started college, I’ve spent two Easters in Pittsburgh, but I always had a solid group of friends or my Godparents to spend time with. Never Thanksgiving though- this one was the first one I’ve spent away from home. O sea, the first Thanksgiving I’ve spent away from my family, cause I have spent a few Thanksgivings in Jersey. In a good part of Jersey. Good parts of Jersey do exist. Para que sepan ustedes.
But I digress.
So yesterday was a Thanksgiving unlike any that I’d ever had. First of all, I got up at 7. Ugh.
730-830 Gym
9-11 Film class (all Americans, waiting for their Thanksgiving lunch. It was torture)
1130-1230 Hung out at the ISA office and stared at all the food people were bringing in
1230-4 Potluck lunch!/ISA meeting
4-6 Did homework at the Shell [gas station] with a friend
630-7 Skyped with about half of my Mom’s side. Which is still like 15 people. I think. I couldn’t really see. It was blurry.
7-8 Culture and Society class
For our Thanksgiving lunch, ISA had us all bring a dish to share (they provided the turkey)… (well, technically, Supermercado Nacional provided the turkey). I brought another Oreo Pudding Pie, which was one of like five other pies. There were also a ton more desserts too… cheesecake, cookies, Jello…
And I guess normal food too. Stuffing, green bean casserole, salad, Irish soda bread, potatoes, etc. One of the ISA directors even brought rice. No. No rice on Thanksgiving. It doesn’t work that way. Yesterday was probably the third or fourth day out of the whole time I’ve been here that I did not eat a single grain of rice.
MmmMMmm dessert table.
Anyway, that was yesterday. Today I went for a walk and bummed around, then at 3 a bunch of us ISA kids met up for an excursion to a cigar factory. It was only about 10 minutes away, and it was actually pretty cool. There were two guys working there, and they roll all the cigars by hand. All the tobacco had aged for at least two years, and up to seven years. I’m hardly a tobacco connoisseur and had no idea that it was such a long process.
A guy rolling cigars.
A few of my friends and I bought a box of five to split among us, and I bought another box for some friends at home/school. I bought the cheapest box there was, and it was still $12.50 for 5. One kid in my group is really into cigars, and he spent over $120. These cigars were really nice though- especially because they’re hand rolled. They’re one of the DR’s main exports (along with rum, fruit, coffee, and sugarcane). I did smoke one (sorry Dad) and it took me over an hour to finish it. These things are massive.
Anyway.
I’m not really too too used to spending holidays away from family. Since I started college, I’ve spent two Easters in Pittsburgh, but I always had a solid group of friends or my Godparents to spend time with. Never Thanksgiving though- this one was the first one I’ve spent away from home. O sea, the first Thanksgiving I’ve spent away from my family, cause I have spent a few Thanksgivings in Jersey. In a good part of Jersey. Good parts of Jersey do exist. Para que sepan ustedes.But I digress.
So yesterday was a Thanksgiving unlike any that I’d ever had. First of all, I got up at 7. Ugh.
730-830 Gym
9-11 Film class (all Americans, waiting for their Thanksgiving lunch. It was torture)
1130-1230 Hung out at the ISA office and stared at all the food people were bringing in
1230-4 Potluck lunch!/ISA meeting
4-6 Did homework at the Shell [gas station] with a friend
630-7 Skyped with about half of my Mom’s side. Which is still like 15 people. I think. I couldn’t really see. It was blurry.
7-8 Culture and Society class
For our Thanksgiving lunch, ISA had us all bring a dish to share (they provided the turkey)… (well, technically, Supermercado Nacional provided the turkey). I brought another Oreo Pudding Pie, which was one of like five other pies. There were also a ton more desserts too… cheesecake, cookies, Jello…
And I guess normal food too. Stuffing, green bean casserole, salad, Irish soda bread, potatoes, etc. One of the ISA directors even brought rice. No. No rice on Thanksgiving. It doesn’t work that way. Yesterday was probably the third or fourth day out of the whole time I’ve been here that I did not eat a single grain of rice.
MmmMMmm dessert table.
Anyway, that was yesterday. Today I went for a walk and bummed around, then at 3 a bunch of us ISA kids met up for an excursion to a cigar factory. It was only about 10 minutes away, and it was actually pretty cool. There were two guys working there, and they roll all the cigars by hand. All the tobacco had aged for at least two years, and up to seven years. I’m hardly a tobacco connoisseur and had no idea that it was such a long process.
A guy rolling cigars.
A few of my friends and I bought a box of five to split among us, and I bought another box for some friends at home/school. I bought the cheapest box there was, and it was still $12.50 for 5. One kid in my group is really into cigars, and he spent over $120. These cigars were really nice though- especially because they’re hand rolled. They’re one of the DR’s main exports (along with rum, fruit, coffee, and sugarcane). I did smoke one (sorry Dad) and it took me over an hour to finish it. These things are massive.
First of all, it is raining. That enough should be enough of a relation to Pittsburgh. I spent my morning dragging myself around in oversized jeans, an oversized neon green Pittsburgh sweatshirt that has DEFINITELY seen better days, carrying a mug full of hot tea, and getting soaked on the way to class. I'd say the only difference here is that I was surrounded by palm trees and Spanish, not tall buildings and the overuse of the words "yinz" and "pop".
One of the guys in my group made a promise to his Spanish advisor two weeks ago that he was going to stop speaking English. Since then, he’s been speaking about 98% Spanish. Props to him, really… but isn’t this what we were supposed to have been doing all along? We all started off being all YES SPANISH but that has obviously faltered in these past few months. I was talking about this with my friend 
Anyway. When I was in nyc last month I bought a book called Dirty Spanish. It’s not “dirty” Spanish as in inappropriate Spanish (well… not entirely), but instead slang, regional words, and words in pop culture. I went through and made a list of words that I thought would come in handy, showed the list to a Dominican… and she proceeded to cross out about half of them. No se dice aquí. They don’t say those things here. 
I downloaded it from iTunes one morning before one of my drives to Pittsburgh this summer. I listened to it on-and-off on the ride down and also on the ride back. I continued to listen to it sporadically throughout the entire summer… while I was at the lake house… when I was in Québec… on the way to the DR… while I’ve been here in the DR… and I just finished it yesterday when I was on a group excursion to Samaná.
Secondly, as I listened to her journey, I was starting to go through my own. Even just on that first drive to Pittsburgh… when I saw the movie version, and she was in Italy, all I could think of was my drive down to Pittsburgh. 
This is what wiki has to say about it: 
Wednesday night, 5 of my friends from my Cultura y Sociedad class and I went to an Aguilas game here in Santiago. The Águilas Cibaeñas (Eagles of the Cibao) are Santiago's baseball team... and apparently are pretty terrible. While they did win Wednesday night, it's apparently pretty out of the ordinary. I asked my host brother if they were worse than Los Piratos (the Pirates... like I said, people here are very knowledgable about baseball in the states) and he laughed and said that No, they're not that bad... 