Hey Everyone! My name is Ashly and I am 17 years old. I am a summer search student from Boston Massachusetts and I am amongst the 20 other students that has been given the opportunity to be on this trip. On August 2nd, 2015, we had a free day and were able to go to a beach called Quemaito. The beach is a stone beach full of gravel and large stones only- not sand. It is 2 hours away from our hotel located in San Juan. At the beach, everyone had an amazing time. Some of us played in the water the whole time. The water was so crystal clear and warm! The weaves were ferocious- not too ferocious to wipe us off the island but enough to give us a perfect “wave pool” to enjoy. Some of us were playing “Marco-polo” in the ocean which definitely brought a lot of laughter. At some point, myself along with some others were playing volleyball using a net that the beach already had. Some of the locals joined in on the game and it created a perfect friendly, competitive game volleyball. Having so many options as to what to do to have fun on that beach created a once in a life time experience for all of us.
We had our breakfast along the way to the beach which was just a cheese sandwich and a banana. However, for lunch it was amazing! We had lunch on the beach underneath a hut. Lunch was vegetable brown rice with boneless chicken and veggies on the side. It was so delicious that I went back for 3rds! When it was time to start getting dressed to leave the beach, we had to use their bathroom which everyone found gross. There was gravel everywhere and it just looked uncomfortable to want to change in. Rather than going into one of the stalls, we took turns holding each others stuff to keep it off the ground and held towels around each other to change.
We then headed to a shop where a couple called Cesar and Maria help make special rare stones called larimar for the locals and tourist. The larimar is crafted and handmade into beautiful necklaces, bracelets, rings, earrings, etc. Larimar is a special type of stone only found in San Juan, Dominican Republic. Some of us got to sculpt together our own larimar shapes others just brought different types of jewelry made from the larimar. I got to create three different larimars and I even shaped one of them too! No one left that place with regrets (I hope).
Lastly, we went straight to Sheilas to eat dinner. For dinner, we had three different kinds of pizza. The choices were cheese, pepperoni, and veggie which just had corn and tomatoes it. The veggie pizza was surprisingly the best out of all of them! In the end, we 
headed back to the hotel for our nightly meetings. That day, was the best day of this trip so far, not just according to me, but on behalf of all of us.