Home....sort of!

I arrived back in the U.S. late Saturday night. It feels good to be "home". I put that in quotations because the U.S.A. is home, however I do not have a (home, home)....hahaha, by choice that is. I've been getting caught up on doctors appointments, and car appointments........I will head to NY this weekend for my youngest brother's wedding. He is getting married on Saturday at Chautauqua Institution....it should be beautiful. I think it's supposed to rain, but hopefully it won't rain all day long.

I'm not getting antsy yet, but I think I would if I had to stay for a long period of time without a place of my own.
My plans are still all up in the air..I've been going back and forth with where I want to go first. I think I will still be heading to Argentina first. My sister talked about going to Thailand at the end of October, which would be fun, but I really don't want to be in Virginia until that time. Not that anything is wrong with VA, it just gets old staying in other people's homes (as much as I appreciate their hospitality).

Soooooo.........I will keep you posted on my next plans.

Another Day in Nicaragua!

I can hardly believe that I only have a few days left....it´s crazy how fast time passes by. I´ve been thinking about going to the market a town over, but I´ve been so lazy. I haven´t bought any souvenirs at all. I bought a few postcards, but I really don´t need more ¨things¨. I suppose I should buy something small as a momento, but I seriously have so much stuff already. I also don´t have a whole lot of room in my backpack and don´t want to to be any heavier.....so I hope it´s ok that I´m not bringing presents back ;).

For some reasons I´ve befriended a couple of the old men in the area, weird, a little, but they are so cute. There is one man who sells souvenirs in parque central. He was burned on his torso, front and back and on his head and he also is missing an arm. He told me how it happened, but I really only got parts of what he said. I showed him my burns, ahhhhh....the worst pain a person could ever feel. At least in my experience. It´s a pain that doesn´t go away with pain medicine. The pain medicine dulls the pain a little bit, but while the burns are fresh, you can feel everything....maybe not as intensly as it would be without the pain medicine, but still. When I was in the burn intensive care unit in Buffalo, the nurses told me that if I could handle the burns that giving birth wouldn´t be difficult....Anyways...I got off on a tangent. So that´s my one older male friend. There´s another elderly gentleman who lives on the same street that I live on and I see him every morning. I say ¨buenos dias¨every morning, but this morning he started following me and touching me. I just walked fast because I was on my way to class. He´s harmless, and I don´t know what he was saying but he´s a cute little old man.

Anyways......tonight I will attending a salsa class to brush up on my salsa skills. It should be fun and interesting, as it seems that each country has their own spin on each dancing style. Tomorrow I´m planning on doing a little tour of the island off the coast here. I´ll let you know how it all goes. I hope everyone is having a good week.

Orphanage

Today I visited one of the local orphanages here in Granada. There are about 18 girls and I´m not sure how many little boys live there. They attend school at the orphanage and are learning English as well. They allowed me to come in and the nun went and got the children. All of the children came up to me and were hugging me. One girl asked me to speak English and she spoke a little bit of English to me. Ahhhh.....my heart strings were definitely pulled. I had to bite my lip to not cry. I took a couple of pictures and will post them soon. The girls were so sweet and seemed to be well taken care of, but don´t have families to give them love. As I walked out of the orphanage I was left speechless and tears flowing down my cheeks. It breaks my heart and I wish I could take every single one of them home with me. I wish I had brought some of my spanish children´s books with me to give to them. I hadn´t planned on coming to Nicaragua or to the orphange or I would have brought some......Next time. I just thought I´d share a little bit about my day with you.

Volcan Masaya!

I climbed/walked up Volcan Masaya yesterday. It was pretty.....not quite as impressive as other volcanos that I´ve had the opportunity to climb. I think only because it had a road that led up to the volcano. That was a bit weird to me, but it was still really cool. I took some great pictures and will definitely be posting them in about a week or so, once I get home. I was a little sore in the middle of the night....craziness. My body hasn´t had much of a workout in the past few weeks. No running ;( since it´s so darn hot here. I plan on resuming the running when I get home...at least for a bit.