Day 20: Free Day (Errand Running!) ~

6.18.12.

After staying up relatively late last night chatting with the roomies, I had the pleasure of waking up whenever I woke up - which ended up being 9. A little disappointing, but better than 7 or 8. I mooched around the pool, my cabin, and the chillax area until noon where I ate a filling lunch of Cheetos and salad..

Then I got to go run errands with Jane (and Leonard, Louisa and Carly), which pretty much consisted of chatting in the car until we got to Sosua, spending an hour there drinking smoothies, chilling in the sand and doing some last last minute shopping. Then Jane had a lunch date with her best friend Darren, so we got to go to Cabarete one last time, where we did some more last moment shopping before eating sandwiches (yes, the reaallly good kind) on the beach drinking the heaven juice and some coffee (first time in 17 days). THEN we went to Beach Comber where we searched for left behind towels, honey and bathing suits (success rate 0%) before visiting the bottle school honey keeper for some more honey for the GLA members. However, before his wife had sold them for 50$DR when the actual price was 100$DR so we only had half the money we needed, and ended up getting zero honey. The Cabarete coffee company (where we were going to fill peoples orders for natural, organic, Dominican coffee) was closed on Wednesdays, so we didn't end up getting that either. All in all though, it was a fantastically fun 5.5 hours of 'errand running', where we got to visit all the places we'd spent so much time during the last 20 days, and say a final goodbye. 

Pool Funsies

Twizzlers and String:
Ingredients for the perfect all nighter

We made it back just in time for the final meeting we were to have, where everyone went up and made a little speech about the last 21 days, whether it was concerning expectations, service, new friends, happiness, eye openers, or more. Then the rain started to pour so we were all trapped in the chillax area unless we wanted to get soaking wet, so we all traded numbers and took funny photos until the rain subsided. Then we all jumped in the pool and got soaking wet anyway, and Fergie blasted music and we had a dance party/circle sing along moment when Coldplay Fix You came on. Slowly people started to drop off, until there was 5 of us girls dancing just outside the pool around the ipod for a good half hour.
 The night sky is so beautiful in the DR, so we figured we might as well make the most of it, and as we neared the roof top, we found half of our group perched on the roof or dancing by the flag pole. We chilled up there for a bit before heading back to the cabins to shower and get ready for bed. We'd already decided the previous night that we were going to pull an all nighter, though, and there was no going back now. So we gave each other hair wraps and traded artists and listened to Sophia's iPad music until there was just 5 of the 10 roomies that were still asleep. It was 1.45 am and Juliana and I went back up to the roof and stargazed again. I've never actually stargazed before, because I live in a tree filled neighborhood where the branches block out most of the possibility of seeing the night sky. Plus, the stars are never as bright as in the DR. I saw my first shooting star while laying on that white, sloped roof and it was wonderful. We ended up running back because every crunch and crack we heard (most were probably us) we were convinced were murderers out to get us. After booking it back to the cabin (ours was the only one left with the light on) we found everyone fast asleep. But it was only 2.30 in the morning! So after Abby and Emma had woken up (it may or may not have been because of us) we convinced them to come to the roof with us one last time. After stopping in the kitchen for a quick bread fix (Juliana was hungry), we climbed onto the roof.

Just hangin on the roof

Messing with "Fergie"

Earlier that week, the boys had told me they were going to mess with Ferguson, because his room had a fireplace, who's chimney was on the roof. And was totally accessible. After explaining this to the girls, we all proceeded to make noises into the little opening, and then began to sing into it - horrible singing, as you can't really sing nicely when it's four in the morning and your heads stuck sideways into a chimney hole. About half an hour later, we heard rattling, and a figure jumped out onto the roof, head down. We all grabbed each other, scared for our lives as we thought it was going to be that murderer coming to finish us. It ended up just being Fergie, followed by Patrick and then Jake... I guess we were kinda loud. Then we heard the gate to the pool squeak open and squeal closed, and heard thudding steps coming from below. We all jumped back over the fence or hid behind the sloping roof, before realizing it was Ashley all the way from Cabin 1 who had stormed over here because she had woken up to the sound of our laughter. Fergs sent us back after that, where we hung out for a big (waking up Andrea in the process), before collapsing onto the beds at 430am...