Santo Domingo Race Day Vid

So part of the World Race is to do “Race Days”
where we either have to get to our next destination on our own or explore a
city. We have had two of these so far, in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic,
and Bangkok, Thailand.

Blog from February:

January 31, 2009, 6 am: We’re sitting outside of our house
with all our stuff when Dave grabs the group’s attention and says, “The buses
are not here yet because they’re not coming. Today is our first Race Day. Your
goal is to be the first team to get to Santo Domingo and complete these five
tasks. Go.” Let me back up a minute to clarify a few things. It’s called “The
World Race” because we actually do have days where we race around the world.
Literally. It’s based off the show “The Amazing Race” but we stop in each
country to love people. We each have a set amount of money per person to
complete the tasks, so we have to be mindful of the budget. So here we are
sitting on a curb, 4 hours from our destination with no plans on how to get
there. I was shocked but really excited because I like problem solving.

So we did what every other team was doing, and threw on our
packs and started running to the bus station to see if there was a bus we could
catch to get to Santo Domingo. Anna and Darci were a little ahead of our team
when a bus stopped them on the side of the road and the driver said “Are you
going to the capital?” I kid you not this happened. We said “Why yes we are.”
And Spectacle and BLING piled into this bus and went directly to Santo Domingo.
Normally I would not take rides from random bus drivers, but hey, I’m a World
Racer now.

The rest of the day consisted of a scavenger hunt around the
city, ending in the market to buy food for our travel day to Haiti. Our team
finished dead last because we decided to explore the city and check out things
that weren’t on the list, but we were so grateful for it.