happy birthday, begona!

last night we went to a surprise birthday party for begona. begona is a friend who is also our spanish teacher. (we've been taking spanish lessons for a couple of weeks now.) she is from madrid and is also the sister of sara, who we went out to las terrenas with. the top picture is of begona and her husband gordon. they own the windsurf resort, which is where sheila, jessie, and willow will be staying when they come down from boston in december.

the party was held at "open shirt mike"s house. mike is a photographer from canada, who actually was not at the party but generously offered the place where he lives as a spot for the party. this place was so cool. the property is made up of several homes on a large plot of land in the dominican section of town - el callejon. it feels like worlds away from that surrounding neighborhood though, as the property is quite large and spread out. the party was held at one of the homes, which was a bit rustic but had a very cool courtyard, pool, and BBQ area. the courtyard where we hung out included a great thinly shaped, long rectangular pool that was bordered by a high terra cotta colored wall. it was like an oasis in the middle of this part of town - and one of the coolest spaces i have been in since i have been here.

i met and talked to some new people - carolyn who used to run amber coast adventures but moved to NYC recently. (WOW! that's a bit of a change!) she used to live in the apartment near el magnifico that we admired when we were here on vacation.

talked to daniel whom i had met before but had not spoken much to before. he is building some condos out in the vista del caribe neighborhood. veronica and i plan to go out to check those out and get them listed for him with C21 when ready.

met a guy named joe, who was from greece but lives in germany, and had been visiting john for a month.

talked to bernhard a bit about living at maquey. learned some interesting tidbits there.

all in all had a good time and very much enjoyed the ambiance of the party's location.