Description of Aerial Photo of Temple environs

In the center of the photo, when it loads, is the Santo Domingo Temple.  The main door faces east.  There's a long, covered walkway going north from the main door, about 100 feet, ending at a curved drive, where passengers can disembark.  Just north of that is a tall, square apartment building that is not on the temple grounds, and is separated by a high wall not visible in the photo.

Just northwest of that square building is a very long building going north/south.  You can see it's shadow on the north and west sides.  That is the Casa de Huespedes, where we live.  Our apartment is on the south end, second floor, directly above the temple president's apartment.  There's a door in the south end of the building, and an immediately adjacent stairwell, so we don't have to walk all the way to the middle of the building (outside in the heat) to use the elevator, which is not accessible on the ground floor from the inside of the building on our end (without going through the president's apartment).

Just west of the Casa de Huespedes is a VERY tall apartment tower at the corner of the block.  You can see it's shadow to the north.  It's nearly two-thirds as tall as the Church Office Building.  The Area Authority Presidency lives there.  We go to the home of the First Counselor, who is also a member of the Seventy, and a General Authority, once a month, for a potluck dinner.  His apartment is bigger than ours, but not nicer, and our view of the temple is better.  He can see the ocean, though, while our view is blocked by palm trees.

Just west of the temple grounds, across the street, are the heavily treed grounds of the Conservatorio Nacional de Musica.  The building visible (without scrolling to the left) is where we went Friday night with some other couple missionaries to see a dance concert.  A little further to the left, out of the picture (without scrolling) is another building, where we saw The Amazons. 

The long street slanting to the east and west, just south of the temple grounds and conservatory grounds is Avenida Bolivar.  (Sorry, you Spanish-speakers! It's too difficult for me to put in the accents in this program.)  Bolivar is one of half a dozen major thoroughfares in the city going east/west.  It's one-way to the west in this part of town.  The street to the north of the temple grounds is one-way to the east.

If you scroll to the left, you'll find Alma Mater street along the west side of the Conservatory park.  You can't scroll to the south there, because they haven't got the data yet, but if you could, you'd see that it dead-ends into the main entrance of the Santo Domingo Autonomous University about half a mile south, the oldest university in the New World, founded in 1532.  Half a mile south of the temple, where you can see it, is the Caribbean Sea.

To the east of the temple grounds, just north of Bolivar, are some buildings arranged in a square around an open space, with a baseball diamond to the north.  That's a school.  In the mornings, it's an elementary school, then, from 2:00 until 6:00 it's a junior high and high school.  This arrangement is typical for schools in the Dominican Republic, and may be one reason why many students do not complete high school, even though public education is free.  The two hours in the middle of the day is for everyone to go home and have dinner, which is the main meal of the day here.  Without air-conditioning, I wouldn't want to cook in the afternoon or evening either!