busy busy

the norweigen girls and i on the beach watching the competition

This last week's been pretty crazy. spanish lessons every day, kiteboarding, nightlife, (little work), and the Dominican Nationals for kiteboarding. the competition lasted 3 days, and the top 4 riders go on to compete during the upcoming week in the PKRA World Cup of kiteboarding. the city is getting busier every day, professional riders are everywhere, and everybody is getting excited for the competition.

we've done a few more downwind rides. kiteboarding for 5-10 miles down a Caribbean coastline is probably one of the most amazing things you can experience. you ride past all these little local dominican beaches and villages... kids at the beaches (if you're close enough) will try to run along with you as you kite past. what's really nice is you can make the session last as long as you want. me, i'm a fan of riding 5-10 feet from shore; here the shorebreak makes large flat sections of water that you can rocket down at amazing speeds. or,l you can relax and head out just past the breaking swell and casually carve the waves rolling in. the fact that you have a coconut trees to your left and an endless expanse of water to your right makes all the more amazing.

this last weekend was pretty out of control. both friday and saturday night i was awake until well past 5a.m. party scene is startin to (the locals tell me) turn into what it should be for the remainder of the summer. this is probably bad news for my liver, but i'm also keeping a little more restraint seeing as though i'm in a country with very little law enforcement. it's all workin out though, and i'm absolutely loving all of it.

me and a few guys are now in the process of planning a trip. i think in about 3 weeks time we're renting a minibus and taking a trip around the dominican. first, we're going to head over the the las terenas peninsula (GORGEOUS area) then down to the south coast, stay in the big capitol Santo Domingo for a bit, then head back up through the mountains. looks to be 5 or 6 of us going, so it should be amazing. already we're trying to figure out how much kite equipment we can fit :)

i just added milk back into my diet. not that i have any problem with drinking only orange juice(sometimes a gallon a day... mmmm) and water constantly, but i just missed milk too much. they don't sell it in more than 1/2 gallon containers here, and everything is 3% (is that whole milk?). i, of course, prefer 2% to skim so 3% doesn't seem too much different. dad, thanks for the metabolism; i drink about a half gallon of it a day now (about my average back home) and i've no worries about becoming pudgey. haha

adios, i need to catch up on some sleep. this week is going to be even crazier as PKRA IS HERE! a week of professional riders, great wind, and the craziest nightlife this town gets. uh oh....

amazing session

well, yesterday we had an 8 mile downwind ride. there's a river that runs into the ocean, and we launched right at the delta. sweet thing is you can ride up into the river because the wind blows straight up and you get GLASSY flat water. amazing riding in the river, then out to the ocean and down 8 miles just about 20 feet or so from shore. the wavebreak leaves wide (30 yard or so) sections of flat water between the sets of waves, and you can ride extremely fast if you catch the glass and ride right next to a breaking wave all the way along shore. absolutely great day, we might head up again tomorrow and do it all over.

today the wind was a bit lighter. i got out surfing for a short session in the morning, but my elbow started giving me issues 40 minutes or so in so i had to stop. paddling is a lot of work, and if you've recently broken your elbow (this winter) it doesn't like it. but it was fun. then a spanish lesson.

wind picked up a little bit in the afternoon so i got out riding for a few hours. nailed my raley kiteloop, tantrum backflip, and a hoochie glide - all unhooked. if you don't know what any of that means, that's okay. just tricks. not very hard, but i just learned all of them. i'm getting better! hopefully soon i'll have some pictures.

tonight is dinner at a friends house (shrimp something or other..) then off to voy voy (a bar) to sing karaoke. yes, my arm is being twisted to going. oh well, after they hear me sing once i definitely won't have to do it again! haha

A True Cabarete Week

well, we finally got wind. every day this week was beautiful, sunny, and windy. lots of people on the beach, and on the water. actually, right now is a sweet time... all the pros are starting to pile in to Cabarete for the PKRA World Cup of kiteboarding. so there's guys and girls all over on the water throwing insane tricks. it's amazing to watch, and though it makes me look like terrible, its mildly inspiring.

I got my harness back today somehow. apparently some of the instructors from the kiteschool that I keep my stuff at were able to buy it from some random dominican guy for like 10 bucks. so instead of $80 for a shittier harness, i pay $10 for my awesome one. made my day.

I started taking spanish lessons. I decided that I have a great interest in becoming as fluent as possible in spanish right now. hopefully, as I continue to travel the world, I will keep learning new ones. the language barrier here hasn't been impossible; there's enough europeans who know english well enough, but being able to converse to the locals will dramatically change my experiences for the better.

i'm definitely not in the states.

this place is obviuosly different than the states; however, until you get here, you can't really appreciate all the little things.

electricity is huge. its very expensive, and its not available anywhere on the island 24 hours a day. most places that need it have generators and batteries. my landlord has a battery system, so i get power all day long... but this is unusual.

phones. everyone has a cell phone, like the states. the difference is that for most, its the only option there is. there is not an infrastructure of phones like the states have. of course, they're available in places. but its not an every-house-has-a-phone situation. most don't. and cell phones even work a lil bit differently. you buy a phone number and get a sim card for US$10 or so. then, you buy phone cards and add minutes. there doesn't seem to be very many people that have 'plans' like in the states.

sewage. you cannot drink any tap water, period. the locals can't. nobody can. the sewage system is poor, and as a result, the ground water is contaminated. bottled water, or nothing. also, you have to throw you toilet paper in the garbage. you can't flush it down the toilet. i don't know why, but that's how it works.

yesterday was a great day of kiting, and ... recovering. friday night got pretty crazy. oops! last night i found shrek (in english!) on tbs. i just plugged in the tv that was in my room and discovered that it actually works, so now i can watch spanish movies every night.

the photo here is myself and some of my norweigen friends.

Mi 'rutina' diario

forewarning; no shift button will be used in this post. refer to previous post. i could use the left one, but i don't like it. deal with it.

my 'daily' routine is beginning to take a little bit of shape, but its considered routine to me if it happens for more than a single day in a row. itll probably change in a week, but for now, its what i do.

if i've not gone out to bars/party the night prior, i normally wake up with the sun sometime between 6 and 8. i met a girl from morocco, alí, a few days ago who taught me how to surf. i also got a sick deal at the surf place from the owner for board rental. so now we go every morning to the surf beach, which is convieniently only a few minute drive from my house. right now after about an hour my shoulders are too sore to move-- from all the paddling-- so that's all the longer i stay out. eventually that will get longer, i hope. alí leaves in like a week to head back home for the summer, but i'm positive i'll keep going. it's a great way to wake up.

then, i come back to my apartment, and eat pancakes. aaaaand thats about all the more my routine has established. after that i do errands, or eat more, or --if its windy out-- head to the beach and chill out with everyone and kite.

like i said before, alí is leaving in a week. all my norweigen friends have left. a group of the canadians i met leave today. it's annoying. everyone i'm meeting and getting to know leaves a week later. however, i'm told that in another week or two a lot more people will supposedly start coming for long hauls. so hopefully they're right, because having to re-form 100 percent of your friends every week or so is a lot of work, and a lot of repetitive conversation. not that i mind learning about all these people- its actually quite interesting- but not having someone around who you can bank on getting a hold of is ... well, annoying.

new finance issues; haha of course there's always something. my phone broke, so i need a new one. still trying to figure out a solution to this keyboard. i had flat tire on my moto, and the tube was in absolutely terrible condition, so i had to get a new one. haha i also got my hair in cornrow-braid thingies on the beach in sosua yesterday but i hated it, so i took them out. there's 20 bucks down the drain. oh well. hey, in the states that'd cost like 100 so i'm getting a deal, right....questionmark

finally, i'm starting to work. my money supply is quickly dropping so i have to. its actually a welcomed 'productive' break from my otherwise completely hippie/bum lifestyle. my spanish is getting better, but quite slowly.

the coffee here is pretty yummy, too.

p.s. if you're reading these, add a comment... i want to know who my audience is exclamation-marks111

kthxbye
-t

So I'm not frugal. Big deal.

Immediately (of course) following 'mi moto' (my motorbike thingy) purchase, I had to repair it. The front wheel needed to be rebuilt with new parts. The labor cost 150 pesos (like US $5)!! but the parts were a little more. Oh well, hopefully it'll work now...

Then, my kite ripped. Oops. Found the repair place and they fixed it in a few hours for US $10/foot tear. In the states, that'd cost at least 5 times that for normal sized tears if you considered shipping costs and everything. So I'm technically being a smart shopper.

My friend Erin came up from Santo Domingo for the weekend, and we spent a day in Puerto Plata. We took the gondola thingy up the mountain and wandered around. Amazing, amazing views, and lots of fun. That city is crazy. Thank god Erin is fluent in Spanish, because I would have been completely lost. I'll try to get pictures up as soon as she sends me them...

Of course, with Erin in town and plenty of my Norwegian friends getting ready to head back home, we've been eating at resturants nonstop. Not U.S. expensive, but not quite as cheap as in-house cooking. I also have to do dishes, which doesn't really lend itself to promoting in-house cooking on my part. Oh, laundry is also becoming a looming task. Maybe tomorrow.... riiiight....

Oh. My brand new Liquid Force 2007 model kiteboarding harness. Yeah, the one I love. Stolen. But in a rather strange situation. I keep all my gear in one of the Kiteboarding school's gear-room. It's filled with kites and boards much more expensive than my harness, yet my harness is the only thing that was missing. And supposedly the only people who have access to this room are people associated with the kiteschool. Therefore, it must be someone who knows that I am the owner, or it was taken by mistake. In either case, I'm on the hunt. Being a very hard-to-find model (because they're not even retail available yet) if I see someone who has this harness on the beach, I'm going to tackle them. I'll keep you posted.

So, like a hundred dollars later, its been a good few days. Tonight is probably going to be my last night out on the town for some time, as tomorrow I'm going to start working and trying to recover funds from my ridiculously irresponsible spending habits. It's not really irresponsible unless I don't make it back, right? sounds logical to me.

and just now, the right shift button on my keyboard stopped working. this will be an issue, because i only use the right shift button. hmm. changing my typing habits of 14 years to use the left one would not only be difficult, but would be letting the keyboard win. i will surely spend an inordinate amount of time figuring out a solution tomorrow.

k time to go teach norweigens how to play beer pong. hasta luego1