My day started off pretty well, putting the rest of my stuff from Berkeley into my closet. It was kind of like a giant jigsaw puzzle. And, of course, doing as I do, I left everything until the last minute. Whoops. Anyways, I managed to get everything put away in time, be packed (although after arriving here I realized I didn't bring enough underwear. Oops. Guess that means I'm going into town this weekend), and in the car. I bid my farewell to everyone, and was off in the car with my mom to San Francisco. I got to have a nice lunch with my mom and dad before I left, which was wonderful.
Once at the airport, I learned that my flight from Salt Lake City to New York City was delayed 40 minutes...giving me 30 minutes to change planes. They told me the flights were scheduled out of gates right next to each other, but I didn't buy it. Luckily, the goodness of humanity came through for me and the customer service guy was nice enough to double book me on my original flight and on the flight that left about an hour after mine, to assure I would make it to the Dominican Republic in time. Now, I consider myself fairly proficient in airport travel, but in Salt Lake City I could not find my flight on the departure monitor...anywhere. Nor were there any gate agents. So, I wandered around the entire airport (literally). While it was good, because I had about 4 hours, with nothing to do and was badly in need of some exercise, it was also a little weird. I've never had a non-existent flight. It was, however, displayed at one of the gates. When I finally arrived in New York, my flight was not in the gate right next time. In fact, it was in a different terminal. And I had about 20 minutes to make it there. So, I ran to a monitor, found which gate it was, asked a security where to go, and ran to the bus to change terminals. The lady who was loading the bus was really nice (again, humanity coming through). She called my gate and told them I was on my way so they wouldn't close the door and leave without me. Then, she loaded up the bus and had us going so I could get there. I must have had a really concerned look on my face because she also asked if I was okay.
Once I arrived in the Dominican Republic I declared the snacks I had brought with me on my customs card: toffee peanuts, wasabi peas, corn nuts, goldfish and chocolate. One customs official wen through my food and was unsure what to do, so she called over her boss. He proceeded to go through my food and ask me what everything was and wrinkle his nose as he pulled each thing out...I guess they don't eat a lot of those kinds of snacks here :P He was very nice though, and it was kind of amusing to see him try and process what all my weird food was. In the end, he took my peas but let me keep everything else.
After that, I took a taxi to the bus station and the bus to Jarabacoa. Everything went surprisingly smoothly. I had a bit of trouble getting ahold of Mark once I arrived, even though the bus station let me use their phone. But, luckily, some nice people stopped by and let me use their cell phone which worked. Plus, if I had just waited a little longer, Mark would have come by 4pm anyways because he got my mom's email that I was arrive then :) Gotta love technology.
Today we had our first clinic which was CRAZY!! But I think overall successful. More to come on that on the volunteersaroundtheworld.blogspot.com blog.
I'll try and get some photos up, but don't hold your breath. The internet is not very good here.
Jarabacoa is beautiful and I think I'm going to enjoy my time here :)
