For my first artifact, I chose to analyze my family’s trip to Punta Cana this past summer. While tropical vacations are most often associated with beaches, relaxation, ad leisure, my family also took some days out of our trip to venture into some of the less tourist populated areas of the Dominican Republic, and learn more about a different culture. The first day we ventured out, my father and I traveled to Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic. While many tourists do visit the city, we made a point to take a historical tour, which would take us closer to the roots of this societies rich culture. Yet for me, the most meaningful day was spent with locals on an amazing tour of what it can be like to live in the Dominican Republic. On this day, I was exposed more to the labor, food, music, and life within the Dominican Republic more than I could have ever imagined. Our day started out at a cigar shop, where we learned the extensive process of rolling cigars, one of the Dominican Republic’s biggest exports. After that, we learned of the importance of livestock and farming to their economy, and helped to heard cattle with locals who do it for a living. At our next stop, we learned about another popular export, cocoa. We were given a demonstration as to how to cocoa is farmed, picked, then processed into the cocoa we see the the United States, which is a very labor intensive process. Finally, we ended our day with the most traditional food in the Dominican Republic, rice and beans, and some music. For me, it was extremely eye opening to get a taste of these two things, because it was so drastically different from what we saw at the resort. At the resort we had extensive choices when it came to our meals, and the music was what you might imagine to hear on a “tropical vacation”. Yet in reality, the food had been prepared traditional, and the music seemed to have much more meaning to everyone who heard it, which made me greatly prefer what I saw outside of the resort. In conclusion, by traveling to the Dominican Republic and venturing outside of the resort, I feel as though my knowledge of the world has been greatly broadened, and I would highly recommend to anyone venturing outside of the bubble of a resort, and seeing what life is really like in any country you are visiting.