Sporcle!

Does everyone know what Sporcle is? Sporcle is an amazing way to procrastinate and actually learn at the same time.

This is what Wikipedia says about it, which can define it better than I could: "Sporcle is a trivia quiz website launched in July 2007, on which users have a set time limit within which to name all of the items within a given subject, such as Presidents of the USA or Countries of Europe. According to the website's founder Matt Ramme, the name Sporcle is inspired by the word 'oracle'.
The website was founded in response to Ramme's own desire to learn trivia, and his accompanying frustration that there was no existing website suitable for his needs.
Sporcle's mission statement is "We actively and methodically search out new and innovative ways to prevent our users from getting any work done whatsoever."

Over the summer, my sister, my mom and I had a contest to see who could memorize the most countries of the world. Coll won by a landslide, but by the end of the summer I was doing a lot better than I had been at the beginning.

Anyway, so why is Sporcle relevant to the DR?

During my layover in JFK two months (exactly two months) ago, I remember frantically doing Spanish exercises on Sporcle, knowing that once I got to the DR I was going to need to take a Spanish placement test which I reallllllly didn't feel prepared for.

Because I am a frequent Sporcle-er, I got an account so that all of my scores are saved. I logged on today to do some Spanish stuff for fun, and I saw that when I took a certain Spanish verb test in JFK, my best grade was a 75/100. I just took it again, and got a 94.

Can you name the 100 Spanish Verbs?

I only missed establecer (to establish), devolver (to give back), charlar (to chat), fijar (to fix), merecer (to deserve), and quejar (to complain). Not badddd. I think.

So here is some concrete evidence that my Spanish is getting better. I kind of want to do a mid-point recap, but I'm in a café next to a row of tables where there's this great big group of 25 screaming Dominicans and I'm getting a headache.

But before I go, some of my favorite Sporcle quizzes for your procrastinating pleasure:

Countries of the World (the infamous)

Countries of Europe (a good warmup to Countries of the World)

US States (if you didn't pass 5th grade)

Pokémon Characters (pro.)

Harry Potter Top 200 (amazing.)

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27 Charcos Photos

I wasn't able to bring my camera with me to 27 Charcos because it's not waterproof, but another kid in my group, Aaron, did have a waterproof camera and served as our photographer.


The group before we left. Most of my ISA group went, as well as 3 "estudiantes de apoyo"- students at my university that assist foreign students.


Nice helmets.


Jumping. This was one of the shorter cliffs.

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27 Charcos

Yesterday, my group took a trip to 27 Charcos, which is described as the "best adventure tourism site in the Dominican Republic!" on their website It was an optional excursion and it set us back 1400 pesos ($37.58) each, so I was really hoping that it'd be worth it. And yessssssss it was.

Like, I cannot even describe how awesome this place was. I've traveled a decent amount in my 20 years... the Grand Canyon, the Vegas Strip, Versailles, Niagara Falls (overrated.), the Eiffel Tower, Neuschwanstein Castle, New York City, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Catacombs of Paris, Disney World, LA, blah blah blah. But I've never, ever seen anything as cool as this.

How to describe 27 Charcos? Well, okay, to start off... "charco" means pool, or puddle. But these charcos were definitely not puddles. And there were 27 of them.

27 Charcos is on the way to Puerta Plata, and is about an hour north of Santiago. We got out of the bus and headed over to rent shoes. For 50 pesos, you could rent a pair of nasty, probably fungus filled Keds for the afternoon. I did it, because you weren't allowed to wear flipflops and I didn't want to ruin my running sneakers or Converse. My Keds had holes. I think it gave them character. Anyway, we were also told that we had to leave everything in the bus- weren't allowed to bring anything with us to the Charcos. "Even sunscreen?" "Even sunscreen." "But I'm going to burnnnnn." "No sunscreen."

We were given helmets and lifevests, then were lead by our two guides into the woods. We walked for about 15 minutes through a few creeks and some forest before arriving at the first charco. Helmets went on, and we headed in the water.


The first charco

So just imagine that... times 27.

Pool after pool after pool. This one had a latter, but a lot of them involved being pulled up a cliff by a guide, or having to pull yourself up with a rope, or both. In between charcos there were often large/deep canyons that you needed to swim through to get to the next one.


Tunnel/canyon thing

And some of them were connected by shallow creeks, so a lot of careful walking on mossy rocks was involved. It reminded me a lot of when I would play in the creek/woods by my house with some of the neighborhood kids and my sister. Coll, if you're reading this- when I was here, I just kept thinking how much you would absolutely love this place. When/if you come to visit, we're going.

And just to be clear- these charcos weren't just all next to each other in a line. No. We were hiking up a mountain, mostly through a river. Para que sepas.

Have I mentioned yet that there were 27 of them? This was quite a workout. After about 2 hours we got to the top of the mountain. But then how do you get down? You jump, slide, or you cop out and climb down a ladder. Needless to say, most of us jumped or slid. Each charco is a different height, but the tallest one was about 30 feet high. So it's pretty much cliff jumping on steroids, because you do it 27 times in a row.

I can't really explain it any more that how I already have- you really just need to go to experience it. None of these photos are mine- they're from online- but here's a video from the website that has some footage of the charcos.



And here's a small review of the experience from Wish You Were Here:
"If one waterfall is awesome, then what do you call a couple dozen of them? In a row?
In Puerto Plata, the Damajagua river flows down to the ocean through a network of 27 waterfalls no more than about 30 feet high.
Stop by a hut in a sugarcane field for gear (lifejacket, helmet) and a human guide (or two), and hike up to where the first of the falls begins, passing plenty of gorgeous scenery en route.
And begin your day of gliding down limestone slides, cannonballing into turquoise water, bobbing in cool whirlpools, and floating along until the sound of rushing water tips you off to the next waterfall.
Note: It's worth investing in some sort of waterproof camera before hitting the 27 Charcos. Just saying."

Annnnnnd I guess that's all I can say! It was just such an awesome, sometimes painful, but always exciting experience. Good luck finding something like this anywhere else in the world.

PS We didn't even have to sign a waiver. I couldn't help but think that if we were in the states, we would've had to sign about thirty.

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Natación + Lessons in Interpreting Dominican Sarcasm

The only class that I'm taking here that's with alllll Dominicans is mi clase de natación. My swim class. I received (and still do receive) odd looks from people, both here and in the states, when I tell them that I'm taking swimming. I don't know, I like to swim, okay?

Class is for two hours, once a week. Before we were even allowed to swim, we all needed to have a physical and a blood test to be tested for God knows what. There are three pools in the complex- one is Olympic-sized, one is about 15m squared and pretty deep, and the last once is a normal lap lane pool.


Olympic-sized pool at PUCMM

The first difference that I'd like to highlight between my swim class here and the swim class I took at my university last term is this: we are swimming outside. At first, I liked this. Nothing is better on a 90 degree day in the middle of fall than a nice dip in the pool. And I suppose I still do feel that way- it definitely is relaxing. However, especially recently, this whole swimming-outside-for-two-hours-in-the-middle-of-the-day thing has also caused me some problems. Well, mainly one problem. Unavoidable sunburns.

I swear, I'll be rocking the one-piece Speedo swimsuit "burn line" wayyyy into February. No matter how much waterproof sunscreen I put on, nothing lasts for the whole two hours. The other day was exceptionally bad, because I spent about 20 minutes outside of the water listening to my teacher talk about the midterm. Anddddd the next day I had some nice swim goggle burn lines on my forehead. As in, there were two white ovals in the middle of my forehead, and the rest was red. I looked like such a tool. Thank God for full coverage concealer.

I was talking to my friend Rose, another ISA student who has been cursed with this immense lack of melanin in her system, and it was agreed that people like us should be given a warming before attempting any outdoor activities in the Caribbean. And it's true.

Whatever, whatever, enough with the complaining. Sunburns aside, I really do enjoy my swim class. There are 10 of us in the class, and everyone is so nice. Seriously. Maybe it's because they're all freshman and are still in that I'm-going-to-be-nice-to-everyone stage, but I doubt it. They're really cool people.

Example: I'm the only one who walks to class. The pool is about 20 minutes from my apartment, so whenever I show up to class, it looks like I just ran a marathon (DR heat + 20 minute walk). However, the past couple of weeks I've been stopped on my way to class by other kids in my class driving by, and they'll give me a ride. Same goes for the way home. Since the first day, there's been this one girl who has given me a ride home every week.
The first day of class it rained, and everyone ran from the complex to their cars to avoid getting soaked. I had contemplated taking a taxi, but I then just decided to suck it up and walk through campus with no umbrella. I was leaving the pool area and had started walking towards the university (for some reason, the pool isn’t attached to the university. In order to get there from my apartment, I need to enter the university, walk all the way through, leave, and walk another 5 minutes down the road to get to the pool) when this girl waved me down and told me to hop in. I definitely owe her a candy bar. Or a soda.

Another thing I like about the class is just how easy it is. When I took a swim class last term, we spent most of the 50-minute period doing set after set after set, and most of them were timed. Our instructor would give each lane (we were divided by skill) a certain time for each part, and we had to stick to it, or it’d throw off everyone else in our lane. A common set would be something along the lines of 1 x 200, 2 x 100, 4 x 50, 4 x 50, 2 x 100, 1 x 200. Nothing as rigorous as what you’d find during a practice for a swim team, but it was still pretty intense.
Here however, we aren’t timed. Our sets are 400m, at the longest. Our instructor also makes it clear that it’s totally acceptable, and even encouraged, to rest after every 100 or 200, if we’re tired. Our midterm? A 50m swim across the pool. He critiqued/graded us on our technique. Yes, I agree, technique is important… but I swear, the next time I try to sprint, it’s going to be pathetic. I wasn’t very fast in the first place, but especially after 4 months of summer and 2 months of a very, very lax swim class, my times are going to suck.

Sorry, I always end up complaining. Let me reiterate, I really do like the class. I know it sounds like I’m trying to convince myself more than I’m trying to convince you all, but it’s really the truth. The instructor is really nice, and we have a very similar sense of humor. Aka 90% sarcastic. Which is often difficult to translate. Very difficult. So he’ll say something to me, and he’s saying it sarcastically, but I won’t pick up on it, because his humor is so dry. So I’ll just smile and nod, then he’ll be like “Es un chiste, Katherine” (“It’s a joke”), and then I’ll get all awkward and start nervous laughing “Oh… lo siento… no entendí…” then he’ll try to explain it and I still won’t get it, then other people will try and explain it, and then I’ll get it, but this all happens about 5 minutes after the sarcastic remark was uttered, so all is lost.

I am getting better with it though. The other day I tried [and completely failed] to do a successful backstroke start. Like, when you grip onto the railing under the platform, and then lift yourself up and let go and push off once you hear the whistle and go into a streamline for backstroke. Horrible explanation. Anyway, anyway, I failed at it, and ended up inhaling a decent amount of water. When I came up for water, my instructor was there. I told him that I tried, but I ended up drinking water. “Yeah, but it was free, right?” And it took me a second. But then I started to put the pieces together. Let’s see… I drank water… free water… water in the Dominican Republic is rarely free… so even though it was bad that I drank it, it was still good because it was free… oh, so this is a joke. Ish. “Sí, el agua fue gratis!” He seemed relieved that I finally, finally understood one of his random side remarks, and that this time, I didn’t look at him as if he had suddenly sprouted a extra eye, or had just lost a limb, or… something.

Okay, it was funnier at the time. But you get the point. Swim class = bad sunburns, nice kids, mad easy workouts, and lessons in interpreting Dominican sarcasm.

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DR Cooking Attempt 2/?

PANCAKES.

Easy, no?

Well...

I had a sudden craving for pancakes a few days ago. I was in my apartment, and didn’t have internet, so I called my mom to get an easy recipe. She found a pretty basic one in my Betty Crocker cookbook (I’ve got quite a cookbook collection… for a few years, I would get at least one for my birthday and one for Christmas. No complaints, I love them all) and read it to me over the phone.

Easy Pancakes

1 egg

1 cup all purpose flour

3/4 cup milk

1 tbsp sugar

2 tbsp veg. oil

3 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

Butter or cooking spray

Beat the egg with a fork until the yolk is broken up. Mix in all other ingredients, except the butter. Butter/spray the pan, drop batter onto skillet ¼ cup at a time. Flip once bubbles start to form and edges darken.
(To make banana walnut pancakes, I doubled the recipe but only put in 1 ¼ cups milk, mashed two medium bananas, and added probably about ½ cup of chopped walnuts.)


Most of the ingredients.

Problem #1: We didn’t have any baking powder. I dug through all of our cabinets, trying to find at least something that resembled baking powder, with no success. Most of the things in our kitchen are in bottles and containers that are labeled incorrectly (example: the sugar is in a coffee jar), but even my host mom said we didn’t have any.

So I had to wait. This was Sunday.

Monday I wake up and I feel like someone has punched me in the sinuses and shoved a pinecone down my throat. Sorry for the detail, but that’s the truth. Fortunately, my first class was cancelled, so I went back to bed. I ended up going to the ISA office for a bit and used the wifi, returned home to eat lunch, then took a two-hour nap. After this, I was feeling a lot better, so after my 4pm class my friend and I took a walk to La Sirena to buy what was still needed for the pancakes.

The walk is pretty long and I didn’t want to drag all of my school stuff with me, so I left everything but my cell and my money at my friend’s house. Including the list of ingredients.

Problem #2: Even though I only needed to remember to buy one thing, my memory often sucks and it turns out that I forgot what I needed to buy. I swear, sometimes I feel like I have the memory skills of an 105 years old. After pacing around for a few minutes, I remembered that my friend’s roommate was home, so I bought some more minutes for my piece-of-crap cell phone and called her so that she could go through my bag and find the list. Okay, so it was baking powder that I needed, not baking soda. Glad that that’s cleared up.

I had decided to make banana walnut pancakes, so I picked up a packet of walnuts as well. I remembered that there was one banana left when I had left the house this afternoon, so I texted my host brother and told him ”¡No comas el guineo!!!” (“Don’t eat the banana!”). I picked up a few more things (including some mad pricey decongestants, what the heck La Sirena?!) and we headed back.
The walk from La Sirena to my friend’s house is about 15 minutes, and from her house to my apartment is about 20. So, 35 minutes later, at about 8, I head into the apartment… and I see my host mother making herself a Gyro.
”Ay… dije a [my host brother] que iba a preparar la cena para nosotros… ¿él no te dijo? (“Hey… I told [my host brother] that I was going to make dinner for us all, didn’t he tell you?”). ”Sí, pero… tenía hambre…” (“Yeah, but… I was hungry”). Okay… I guess that is a legit excuse.

I asked her where my host brother was, and she said that he was out at his girlfriend’s house, about 45 minutes away. She was just about to call him when I realized…

Problem #3: Someone had eaten the last banana. It’s not that my heart had been really set on banana walnut pancakes from the start, but I had bought walnuts just for this dinner.
I asked to speak with him, and I told him to steal a banana from his girlfriend’s house. He said okay, but then my host mom told me to tell him to stop at the store and buy five. (“Okay,” I thought, “even more time that I’m going to need to wait to make these freaking pancakes”) ”Ella quiere que tú compres cinco.” “Cinco que?” “Guineos” “Oh, okay, nos vemos a las nueve”. At this point it was still a bit after 8, and now I learn that yes I’ll be able to make pancakes, because yes I’ll have some guineos, however… I have to wait another hour.

So 9pm comes… and goes… and my host brother and his girlfriend still aren’t back. After preparing as much of the batter as I could, I headed into my room and watched some quality television- E! True Hollywood Story: Kendra. I’m sure a few of my brain cells died as I wasted 45 minutes of my life away watching this.

When I hear my host bro and his girlfriend arrive at about 945, I sprint into the kitchen and start digging through the grocery bags to find the bananas. “¡Ay, suave!”, my host brother yelled as I ran by him, "Calm down!"
I mashed up one banana and threw it into the mix, tasted it, and added one more. I also sprinkled a bit of canela en polvo into the bowl, a secret ingredient that my good friend Lizzy adds into pretty much everything she makes. (What does it mean? Pick up a dictionary!)
I scoop the batter onto the… flat-hot-thing (I can’t call it a skillet, it was just this flat metal thing) and wait. And wait. Finally my first pancake starts to bubble, and I anxiously flip it and wait for a few more seconds. I take it off of the heat a bit prematurely, spread a huge glob of peanut butter onto it, and take a bite. Mmmmmm…



I make about 9 more and call everyone in. My host mom and my host brother’s gf (my cuñada, my ”sister-in-law”… this term is used even though she’s not married to my host brother) have already eaten and only take one each, so my host brother and I devour the rest.
“Mantequilla de maní, que raro” (“Peanut butter, how strange”) my host brother says as he sees me spread more and more of it on my pancakes. “Yeah, I know, most people don’t eat pancakes with peanut butter. My sister and I are the only ones I know who do it. Waffles too”, I respond. “No… I was being sarcastic. You put peanut butter on everything.” At this point, everyone else in the room chipped in with weird things that I coat in peanut butter. Apples. Bananas. Saltines (okay, that one isn’t that bizarre). Oreos. Chocolate bars.

I thought that the pancakes turned out pretty good, for the most part. They probably could’ve used a bit more banana. I kept asking my brother how they were “y no me mientras!” (and don’t lie to me!) and he said that he really enjoyed them. I’m not sure how much I believed him. I’m oddly incredulous (big word) about other people’s reactions to my cooking/baking, I usually believe that people are just pretending to like what I prepare because they’re my friends/they’re family/we’re dating. However, when I saw even my host mom return back into the kitchen and scrape the bowl to get the last of the batter, I knew that pancake night had been a success.

...How corny.

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Language people

I’ve written a lot about Dominicans that I’ve met here, but not too much about the other Americans I’ve met. There are 19 other people in my program, ISA, from all over the country. I’m pretty sure that all of them are either Spanish majors or Spanish minors, like me.

Most of my friends at my university aren’t language people. I mean, okay, to be honest, there really aren’t a lot of language people there at all. I feel pretty confident in saying that 75% of the people I meet are either studying some type of science or engineering. Or both.

That’s one reason why it’s been so nice to get to meet other like-minded people here. Here are a few examples of what makes these people different from many of the people I’m close with at school/home:

When I was spotted reading my Spanish version of the first Harry Potter book, the response was not “…why the hell aren’t you reading that in English?” but “Hey can I borrow that once you’re done??”

I’m not the only person in my group of friends here who appreciates Pitbull and Daddy Yankee for all of their trashy Spanish rap goodness.

Speaking Spanglish and actually being understood. “Vas a salir tonight or would you rather just quedarte aquí?” “Comiste yet?” “Where are my malditas llaves?”

Just to reiterate, people here like and actually understand the same kind of music that I like. A few nights ago I was out with a group of my friends, and we were more excited for the Spanish version of Waka Waka than for Usher’s OMG.

Plus, it takes a certain type of person to love a language so much as to completely leave all that they're familiar with to travel to an island in the middle of a Caribbean, where nothing is familiar, and study there in a language other than their first, for at least four months. Some people are here for nine.



I love my school and home friends, but just as I can’t really get excited about organic chemistry and political science, most of them don't really understand my excitement when I find a new foreign artist or buy a movie that comes with both French and Spanish subtitles.

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No Me Gustan...

I’ve really enjoyed about 98% of the foods I’ve tried here. Even though I eat more-or-less the same stuff for lunch during the week, I haven’t gotten sick of it yet.

However. There are a couple of foods here that I really have… less than enjoyed.

Malta India- I’d never met a soda I didn’t like… until I took a sip of this one. It just tastes awful. According to wiki it's more or less unfermented beer. Whatever, it's still nasty.

Mangú- This is a very typical Dominican food that’s made up of mashed plátanos mixed with onions and oil. Occasionally it’s sprinkled with Parmesan cheese, but even that doesn’t help the flavor.

Chocolate- Again, never thought I’d have a problem with chocolate, but… the chocolate produced here is just not. good. I’ve tried multiple candy bars hoping to find one I liked (Más Más, Crachi, etc), but have yet to find success. It all tastes chalky. Really chalky. Fortunately, all of the imported chocolate here (Hershey’s brand, Nestlé brand, etc) tastes fine. Side note: I’ve heard that Hershey’s has come out with pretzel M&Ms?! I haven’t been able to find them here, but I will not give up looking.

Seafood- Okay, granted, I’ve never really been a big fan of seafood, but I’ve been especially cautious here. Whenever I see fish being sold in the grocery store, they’re wrapped up and not kept cold. They look like… freeze dried, taken out of the freeze-drier-thing, then wrapped and left out to get all crusty. Sorry for the details.

Lechoza- Not to be confused with lechuza(owl) or lechuga (lettuce), this redish orangeish fruit has to be one of the worst things that I’ve tried down here. I can’t even explain how bad it tastes. The first time I tried it, I thought it was rotten, so I tried another slice a few days later. Nope. Still nasty. PS I have just found out that in English, this means papaya. Ew.

…And let me reiterate that I’m a fairly un-picky person and that I have liked almost all of the food here… these are just the terrible, weird-tasting exceptions.
…I also do not like olives, cottage cheese, pickles, mustard, most oranges, marmalade, and most fruit-flavored chocolate.

PS I’ve watching E! as I’m writing this, and there’ve been tons of commercials for Joan Rivers’ shows. I don’t know why the people of E! thought that it’d be a good idea to give her a first one, and more importantly, why they felt it was okay to give her anOTHER half hour of TV space per day. Not. Okay.

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