Roof Parties on Kury V

The apartment complex down my lovely avenue Enriquillo is called Kury V. Many nice and some crazy people live there. These wonderful residents have graciously hosted two roof parties that provided breath-taking views of the Carribean Sea and the bottoms of many, many grande Presidente bottles. I just met a teacher from Seattle named Betty who learned to speak Spanish at the Las Margaritas on the corner of Aurora and 145th, 4 blocks from my house -- she's my new buddy. Pictured above is a photo with my colleague Paul who was just teaching in Croatia and is very much what his t-shirt advertises, but we like him anyway.

BTW, Ailing and Salvador arrived safely last week, and one of them is rumored to be the new Carol Morgan middle school volleyball coach...

No Ernesto, but lots of scary thunder and rain

The thunder has been ripping through the sky all day today adding an ominous tone to the start of school tomorrow...

Best of luck to all you teachers out there who are getting ready for day one!

Love,
Mark

made it!!!

After 6 straight months of macro and micro cosmic preparation, I have finally arrived in one piece in the beautiful city of Santo Domingo. The national beer is Presidente and the locals pride themselves on serving it as close to frozen as possible and it is pretty tasty for a macrobrew. The new teachers are an interesting an diverse cast of characters, and I am currently ranked 13th smartest out of 14 but hope to move up once I rebuff any requests to dance in front of anyone in public. We had a massive thunderstorm this morning that shocked the hell out of Kitty and me at about 6:45 a.m. with two of the loudest claps I have EVER heard; I seriously thought a bomb went off across the street. The streets were flooded in a matter of minutes.
The apartment is nice and the air conditioner in the bedroom works now after a very sweaty first night of (pequeno) sleep.

Ailing is still preparing to leave and will be here on the 22nd with Salvador in tow.

More updates later.
mrk

Day before departure

Renters signed the lease this morning; house is nearly empty and garage is swelling with our stuff; travelling with Kitty is proving to be increasingly complicated, but who else can I get to wake me up at 3 in the morning 2-3 times a week by jumping on my face?