The second day arrived slower than first anticipated. The lack of sleep on the red-eye flight made the 5 hour flight seem like a 12 hour flight, but finally, after what seemed to be a marathon, we landed in Philadelphia. We filled our growling stomachs with the closest food, which happened to be McDonalds. With an Egg McMuffin down, we had about 2:30 hours of free time before our flight to the DR. I spent it shopping around with AJ, Gordy, and Stephen. We walked about a 1/2 mile but eventually found the store I was looking for - Lidz. I bought a camo Yankees hat and a Yankees BP hat. The time had finally come for us to board the plane bound for Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Once we were situated in our seats, the pilot declared over the PA system "We are having some maintenance issues but we should be ready to fly here shortly". Hearing the news, I dozed off for about 45 minutes, only to be woken up by "attention all passengers! This plane is out of commission, please make your way to gate 11B for the new plane. Set to take off in 15 minutes." A hop, a skip, and a jump, and we were on our plane headed to the DR. The flight included some beautiful views of the Bahamas and the Florida keys. We landed in Santo Domingo at 4PM local time. The incredibly humid air was stunning at first, and it felt like you could drink the air. The airport was not air conditioned, so the outside temperature strongly resembled the inside temperature. After grabbing our baggage and somehow finding our way through customs, we loaded all our gear into a van, and we got into a bus which was headed for our destination - the highlands complex. The bus ride to the complex may have been the scariest bus ride ever imaginable. Cars were driving the wrong way, motorcycles we being wrecklessly ridden by helmetless drivers and passengers, there was no stopping for intersections, you honked and hoped it was clear, and the amount of pedestrians was amazing. We survived the bus ride. I don't know how, but we did. We arrived at the Rawlings Highlands complex at 4:30 PM local time. We had enough time to drop off our gear then we went out for some yummy pizza. We were treated to delicious, unleavened bread pizza (arguably the best pizza I have ever had). The group was conversing when a couple guys came up and started singing for us! I believe they sang 3 songs for us, and for a guitar, bongos, and a lead vocal, they were pretty good! Completely exhausted from a full day of travel, we returned to the complex, did a short devotion as a group, and FINALLY went to bed....
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