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.

No entiendo nada!

Well it´s not completely true that I don´t understand anything.....However, I did sit through one hour of my spanish class with one of my teachers not understanding a damn thing she was saying to me. Probably what´s worse it that I was too tired to care or want any explanation. We were working on the use of some grammatical something or other. My one teacher speaks so quietly and almost doesn´t move her mouth which makes it difficult for me to understand her. I don´t want to ask her to repeat herself everytime she speaks, so it gets to the point where I just shake my head......

My other spanish classes are going well. This school is very interesting. You have four different teachers and change every hour. You have, grammar, conversation, vocabulary, and I forget what the other one is supposed to be.....we end up having a lot of conversation.

Tomorrow I will be going to Volcan Masaya....at least I think that´s the one I´m going to. It´s near the capital Managua.

I found ice cream today for 25 cents. Whoa! How the heck did I not discover this sooner. It was yummy and I´m tempted to stop back at the same ice cream place on my way home. The only thing keeping me from doing that is that I haven´t run since my travels started and am afraid of the repercussions of no exercise :)..........

I´ll let you know how the volcanoe hike goes. One of my teachers said he´d go with me!

|Hoy es viernes

Hola Todos! I just finished my spanish lessons a little bit ago. I´m learning and reviewing a lot, which will definitely be helpful for my next round of travels. I can hold a conversation quite well, but I probably sound a bit illiterate at times. I find when I´m immersed in Spanish that my English suffers as well, but that´s ok with me. I have times where I cannot think of what to say or what something is called in English or Spanish.

I met a Nico in parque central yesterday and we were talking about the different cultures. I was telling him that it´s becomes annoying when the men whistle, hiss, make comments, etc. while you are walking through the streets and how that doesn´t typically happen in the United States. I told him that "we" women in the U.S. don´t like that. I guess I should only have spoken for myself, but I think the majority don´t like it. He was very curious to know more, hahaha. It´s so amazing how the cultures are so different.

I walked down to the lake that borders Granada. It´s so pretty, but dirty to swim in, which is such a shame. I also went to one of the catholic cathedrals here and to another one San Francisco with my maestra today. It´s such a pretty city.

I was able to get my backpack repaired yesterday for 40 cordoboras???spelling, which equals about 2 U.S. dollars. I was quite happy about that, since I didn´t really want to buy a new one. It´s just like new.

I think I´m going to finish this before I start to sound completely illiterate in English.....I can blame it partially on the computer as well because I may have typed something and not gone back to recheck it. Have a great weekend everyone!

Granada, Nicaragua

I started my Spanish lessons yesterday afternoon. I know I shouldn´t complain, but I´m sooooo tired. The climate is kicking my butt. I haven´t gone for a run since I´ve arrived in Central America. My poor body. Oh well.

I´ve also managed to get another stomach bug or maybe it´s the one that I had before. Who knows. Love it, hehehe.

My family here is great. They have a sweet little 4 month old baby girl and a 4 year old. The baby girl is absolutely adorable. She peed on me yesterday, haha.

My Spanish is definitely rusty and the review is very good. I cannot wait until the day when I don´t have to think about it at all. There are times when it´s like that and other times that I don´t understand a thing that´s being said to me. Then there are those days that I don´t understand spanish or english or can´t think of the words to say in either language, eeek.. I guess it´s just my brain working things out.

I´m heading home for lunch now and will hopefully make it there before the rain hits. Granada is beautiful and I cannot wait to see more of it. I´ll keep you posted on how things are going. I have a little over a week left here.