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.