Thoughts from the road

My mother and I make good travel companions. We both believe in leisurely breakfasts, drinks with lunch, and lots of museums. I'm happy to stop as she takes yet another photo, and she doesn't take it personally that introverted me needs an hour or two of silent time in my room when we come home every afternoon. I can't spend eight straight hours with another person, even when that person is the woman who gave birth to me.
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Things that I heard about the Dominican Republic that are, in fact, true: You can hear music almost all the time. The sidewalks are treacherous; if you don't keep your eyes glued to the ground, you will fall into the deep gutter that separates every sidewalk from the gutter or trip over rubble and bags of trash. People dress conservatively- even when it's 30C and 100% humidity, skirts and shorts are below the knee and shoulders are covered. Unless you're at an all-time inclusive hotel, hot water is not a given. The people are very nice; we had strangers help us across the street when they saw us bewildered at a huge intersection. There are no beaches in Santo Domingo - the picture shows the closest we got to the ocean, which was a boulder-strewn fifteen feet below the ledge my mother is sitting on.
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The accuracy of the weather predictions is laughably abysmal. In the evening, the forecast would show that tomorrow we'd have 80% chance of rain every hour. The next morning, the skies would often be clear, and the forecast would change to show rain around noon, which would change to later in the afternoon as the day went on. This happened *every* day. We always had some rain, but it was as if the forecasters used darts on a random list of weather icons. Or, you know, their models aren't very good at modeling a small island in a big ocean.
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There is a general election on May 15. Over 4000 offices will be filled, which is a huge number for a country of 10 million. Trucks drive through the streets, blaring campaign messages on loudspeakers and there are signs on every building and telephone pole. I can remain neutral on most of the election - if their ads are to be believed, everyone is for peace, prosperity, and the people. But the incumbent president it is favored to win, and this seems a bit suspect to me, as his party forced through a constitutional amendment ending the restriction that presidents can only serve one term.
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I need to learn more Spanish verbs. It's amazing how much one can communicate using nouns and about six verbs, but eventually one looks for some verbal variety.