holler

I hope that the first piece of our trip is a sign of how it will end up being! so we flew into Philadelphia, with a few hour layover. We thought about eating chik-fil-a, just so we could tell everyone at home how cool we were, but ended up deciding against it. We noticed that the boarding began an hour before the flight, we were a little confused by such a long boarding time, but the reason became clear right as we started: it was a complete gaggle. Now, i consider myself pretty well-versed in the lack of personal space that most other countries have, but I had no idea that someone could, or would ever want to, stand so taht her stomach was touching my back then entire time i nudged my way down to gangway. When Rosie and I got to our seats we giggled about how chaotic the entire experience was, with the stewardesses yelling at everyone about their bags, the women stopping to talk to everyone, the 15 unattended minors that were on the flight, and the loudness with which everyone was speaking. Soon there came to be a huuuge mess with the exit rows. You need to be able to speak english and to be over 16 in order to sit in them. Rosie and I being the only two non-dominicans on the entire flight, were moved into someone’s seat. This exit information did not seem to be common knowledge, and absolutely no one understood what the stewardesses were talking about. What began with the stewardesses asking people to move around, ended up (twenty minutes later) in an all-out fight between all the passengers and the stewardesses, to a point where one stewardess threatened to kick one woman off the flight. Who knew such a simple task could be so incredibly complicated. At this point rosie and i are nearly peeing in our seat from laughter at the utter mess of the situation. Never in my life have i been on a such a wild flight. Throughout the entire thing, there was hardly anyone sitting down - it was a complete social hour. And how can there be a social hour with no music?? They took care of that by blasting some Dominican music out of a computer! To top off the most incredible flight ever, upon landing, it was as if we had been saved from a horrendous crash, with how loudly they hooted and hollered and clapped. It even occured to me before landing that there might be a few claps (like there are in Italian flights) but this was hardly claps, it was a total party for having finally arrived. Anyway, upon landing we got into a taxi who had absolutely no idea where he was going, and he drove us around in circles for at least an hour, asking everyone where to go, until finally finding what seemed to be an incredibly easy apartment building (across the street from a pretty large hotel)…poor special driver :) SO here we are, we have situated into our house. Our host is incredibly nice, although her choice of food to cook us is interesting….last night we had pasta and rice, talk about a healthy meal! We have only just begun to explore the city, but it has been great thus far. I already have blisters on my feet, and am completely sunburned from our first trip to the beach yesterday (which was absolutely gorgeous) We started classes today, so we met everyone in the group. The program has already set up an outing to a bar tonight, so it sounds like it will be a great, busy time Until next time xoxo, gossip girl