Live the same

There were a lot of people at the airport, but to my surprise, I quickly found the person who was supposed to meet me, even though I didn’t know what he looked like and I had no internet connection (the free Wi-Fi in the country was really bad back then). Funnily enough, this guy turned out to be from the same city as me 😄. We got into the car, where the director of the photo studio I was going to work at was waiting for us, and he drove me to the place where I was supposed to stay. On the way, he said: "It's a great spot: only 150 meters to the ocean, and 1 km to work. I used to live in this apartment myself, but I wouldn’t walk around there at night. Yeah, when I lived there, I got robbed twice. One time, someone climbed in through the window while I was sleeping. I tried to catch the thief, but he was covered in oil and kept slipping away 😅. But overall, it's a great place!" Haha, that really "inspired" me, didn’t it? 😅

After settling in and meeting my neighbor (a drug addict and a fool), the next day I started learning about my job responsibilities — until then, I had no clear idea what I would be doing. It turned out I had agreed to work as a tour photographer. This meant that I would join a company's bus on a tour and had to independently offer my services 😊. I had never done this before, but I had no choice — just a camera and no money 😅. There were four tours with a photographer, and the most popular one was the trip to Saona Island. First, we spent two hours picking up tourists from hotels, then drove an hour to the city of Altos de Chavón (often seen in Hollywood movies; one of the recent ones is "Red Notice" featuring The Rock, Gal Gadot, and Ryan Reynolds). After that, we descended from the hill and spent another 1-1.5 hours on a boat to the island. I would start at 6 AM and return to the office by 7-8 PM.

Incredible adventure, it's cool to change your life like that

You can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending. 
- C. S. Lewis

In the end, yes, and everything went well, I was lucky)