Well friends, another week has gone by. This one is much less exciting to report about. I haven´t really been up to much besides hanging out with friends and eating lots of good food. No day trips or anything like that. This week we´ll probably be out and about a bit more, and then Steve and his group come on Friday, so the next week will be super busy.
Everything is pretty much the same. Still hot. Still eating delicious food. We play lots of Phase 10, Cribbage and Yahtzee. I visit with Liza pretty much daily. Anaiah is such an active and fun baby!
One of my college roommates, Jhanna, and her husband Ryan just had their baby Harper this morning. I´m so excited for them and I can´t wait to meet her!
This week I´m hoping to get out to see my godson, Emilio, and to go make a bunch of copies of papers that I´ll need to do the visa paperwork for Jorge. Other than that, I am really enjoying just relaxing and being in each other´s company! Hope you all have a great week!
xoxo
Jackie
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
la primera semana
Well friends, I´m trying not to let this ´I´m going to blog a lot more´promise be a complete crock, but it truly has been hard to find time to come to the internet cafe! Things here have been great. Like I said, I´ve been staying super busy. Here´s what I´ve been up to: (sadly there are no pictures because I don´t have the cord that connects the camera to the computer...)
: One day, Friday I think, we went to Leon and saw Ice Age 4. There weren´t a whole lot of choices for movies - it was either that one or wait like two more hours for that vampire one with Johny Depp - and I was kind of bummed, but it was actually super cute and I enjoyed it.
: Saturday was baseball day. Jorge´s not playing with a team right now, but when teams reach the playoff phase of this never-ending baseball season, they can pick players from eliminated teams to come play a few games with them to help out. So we were at the field all day. His team lost, but he played pretty well. He ended up getting thrown out of the game at the very end for arguing with the umpire... :( It was pretty comical but I was embarrassed, too.
: The weather has been really nice. VERY hot, of course, but nice. It has rained a few of the days but not as much as I thought it would. The rain can be nice because it cools everything off, but it also brings a ton of bugs with it afterward, so I have been fine with little rain. It has probably been 87-90 degrees everyday, and I´ve actually been managing really well, of course, with the help of my cacao drinks as often as possible. (´Oh, what, you want me to go watch you play basketball? You know what my payment will be, right?´ ´A cacao...´ ´Yup!´) That´s pretty much what I demand for everything - it is seriously that good.
: Sunday we went to the beach at Paso Caballo - it´s about 15 minutes away but the buses manage to make the rip about 35 minutes by stopping and letting people off at completely random and inconvenient intervals. Anyway, we ate some delicious fish - served whole, head, eyeball, everything - with rice and tostones. We swam and I laid out for a bit. It was beautiful weather but I put lots of sunscreen on because I have three more weeks here and don´t really want to spend them miserable and lobster-red.
: Yesterday we went back to Leon. We decided to be spontaneous and go see another movie, but when we got there, we found that the theater doesn´t open until 4:00, and we were there around 11:30. So, we decided to make it a fun sight-seeing day. I hadn´t been there to tour the cathedral and park for a few years, so off we went. Jorge doesn´t really know the town that well, so it was nice to sort of explore it together. Well, it turns out practically the entire city square is under construction. The entire park was ripped up and they were even doing a lot of work inside the big cathedral. So we walked around more of the city and saw a lot of the same - construction. Then we went back and ate a pizza at Hollywood Pizza. I had an iced coffee of course, and then we left. We take these large vans when we go to cities like that, and this one costs 9 cordobas a person, I believe, which is about 40 US cents. The trip should be around 40-45 minutes. Well, yesterday the sugarcane workers decided to go on strike and throw a little protest because they want their wages raised. This resulted in a massive pile-up of traffic both ways on a one-lane highway, (the ONLY way to get to Chinandega from Leon). It literally went on for MILES. I know what you´re thinking, big deal, we have pile-ups all the time, but imagine being in one in 89 degree heat, with no air conditioning, sandwiched between two big, heavy, sweaty Nicaraguans! (No, Jorge´s not big and sweaty. He was sitting in the row behind me.) It was HOT. I was wearing jeans, a camisole and a shirt, and I could barely take it. We would wait fifteen minutes, and then inch forward a few feet. This went on for a while, then our driver and a bunch of other drivers thought they´d be ingenius and try to go off-road and pass everybody. That resulted in a nice ticket for him. The police were basically there to make money. They fined anyone who tried to go around, and yet if you paid them a nice sum, they would help you somehow manage to get through and be on your merry way. After about an hour and a half, Jorge and I got out and jumepd in a triciclo (rickshaw) that took us to the point where the protesters were. Then we jumped out and ran, literally, and got in a taxi which was already passed the pile-up point of origin. That taxi then took us all the way home. The poor driver was probably only around 19 or 20 and he had Jorge and some bossy Costa Rican lady telling him what to do the whole way home to avoid the most traffic. It was at least a little comical. The trip ended up being over three hours, and I felt like I had just soaked in a tub of my own sweat. It´s amazing how Nicaraguans are so different than us though. I sweat like a mofo and then stink horribly. Nicaraguans just perspire and then wipe it off and they´re good to go. It doesn´t seep out everywhere like our sweat and stink do. So obviously I had to shower before I could do anything else.
: I have been visiting a lot with Liza and Anaiah, who turned one on Thursday, the 28. She is such a fun, happy baby. She has been walking since 11 months, and boy does she love it! She does not want to be held because she wants to be running around constantly. She can tell you how old she is, she looks up at the sky when you ask her where the moon is, and she can wink at you. And the girl has no idea how much she is loved, how long her parents waited for her. Liza and Freddy have finally given up the charade of living away from her mom and have moved all their belongings back into Adelita´s house. They spent all their time there anyway, and it´s just more convenient.
: The house I´m staying in is super nice. It has 5 or 6 rooms and three of the rooms share a little bathroom. My room is right off the patio and it gets a nice breeze. It´s very homey and I feel comfortable there, so I like it.
That´s all for now. Congratulations if you made it to the end of this post - who knew someone could talk for so long about a van ride home, right?
Hope you all have a fabulous 4th of July. It will go largely unnoticed here, except by this gringa.
xoxo
Jackie
: One day, Friday I think, we went to Leon and saw Ice Age 4. There weren´t a whole lot of choices for movies - it was either that one or wait like two more hours for that vampire one with Johny Depp - and I was kind of bummed, but it was actually super cute and I enjoyed it.
: Saturday was baseball day. Jorge´s not playing with a team right now, but when teams reach the playoff phase of this never-ending baseball season, they can pick players from eliminated teams to come play a few games with them to help out. So we were at the field all day. His team lost, but he played pretty well. He ended up getting thrown out of the game at the very end for arguing with the umpire... :( It was pretty comical but I was embarrassed, too.
: The weather has been really nice. VERY hot, of course, but nice. It has rained a few of the days but not as much as I thought it would. The rain can be nice because it cools everything off, but it also brings a ton of bugs with it afterward, so I have been fine with little rain. It has probably been 87-90 degrees everyday, and I´ve actually been managing really well, of course, with the help of my cacao drinks as often as possible. (´Oh, what, you want me to go watch you play basketball? You know what my payment will be, right?´ ´A cacao...´ ´Yup!´) That´s pretty much what I demand for everything - it is seriously that good.
: Sunday we went to the beach at Paso Caballo - it´s about 15 minutes away but the buses manage to make the rip about 35 minutes by stopping and letting people off at completely random and inconvenient intervals. Anyway, we ate some delicious fish - served whole, head, eyeball, everything - with rice and tostones. We swam and I laid out for a bit. It was beautiful weather but I put lots of sunscreen on because I have three more weeks here and don´t really want to spend them miserable and lobster-red.
: Yesterday we went back to Leon. We decided to be spontaneous and go see another movie, but when we got there, we found that the theater doesn´t open until 4:00, and we were there around 11:30. So, we decided to make it a fun sight-seeing day. I hadn´t been there to tour the cathedral and park for a few years, so off we went. Jorge doesn´t really know the town that well, so it was nice to sort of explore it together. Well, it turns out practically the entire city square is under construction. The entire park was ripped up and they were even doing a lot of work inside the big cathedral. So we walked around more of the city and saw a lot of the same - construction. Then we went back and ate a pizza at Hollywood Pizza. I had an iced coffee of course, and then we left. We take these large vans when we go to cities like that, and this one costs 9 cordobas a person, I believe, which is about 40 US cents. The trip should be around 40-45 minutes. Well, yesterday the sugarcane workers decided to go on strike and throw a little protest because they want their wages raised. This resulted in a massive pile-up of traffic both ways on a one-lane highway, (the ONLY way to get to Chinandega from Leon). It literally went on for MILES. I know what you´re thinking, big deal, we have pile-ups all the time, but imagine being in one in 89 degree heat, with no air conditioning, sandwiched between two big, heavy, sweaty Nicaraguans! (No, Jorge´s not big and sweaty. He was sitting in the row behind me.) It was HOT. I was wearing jeans, a camisole and a shirt, and I could barely take it. We would wait fifteen minutes, and then inch forward a few feet. This went on for a while, then our driver and a bunch of other drivers thought they´d be ingenius and try to go off-road and pass everybody. That resulted in a nice ticket for him. The police were basically there to make money. They fined anyone who tried to go around, and yet if you paid them a nice sum, they would help you somehow manage to get through and be on your merry way. After about an hour and a half, Jorge and I got out and jumepd in a triciclo (rickshaw) that took us to the point where the protesters were. Then we jumped out and ran, literally, and got in a taxi which was already passed the pile-up point of origin. That taxi then took us all the way home. The poor driver was probably only around 19 or 20 and he had Jorge and some bossy Costa Rican lady telling him what to do the whole way home to avoid the most traffic. It was at least a little comical. The trip ended up being over three hours, and I felt like I had just soaked in a tub of my own sweat. It´s amazing how Nicaraguans are so different than us though. I sweat like a mofo and then stink horribly. Nicaraguans just perspire and then wipe it off and they´re good to go. It doesn´t seep out everywhere like our sweat and stink do. So obviously I had to shower before I could do anything else.
: I have been visiting a lot with Liza and Anaiah, who turned one on Thursday, the 28. She is such a fun, happy baby. She has been walking since 11 months, and boy does she love it! She does not want to be held because she wants to be running around constantly. She can tell you how old she is, she looks up at the sky when you ask her where the moon is, and she can wink at you. And the girl has no idea how much she is loved, how long her parents waited for her. Liza and Freddy have finally given up the charade of living away from her mom and have moved all their belongings back into Adelita´s house. They spent all their time there anyway, and it´s just more convenient.
: The house I´m staying in is super nice. It has 5 or 6 rooms and three of the rooms share a little bathroom. My room is right off the patio and it gets a nice breeze. It´s very homey and I feel comfortable there, so I like it.
That´s all for now. Congratulations if you made it to the end of this post - who knew someone could talk for so long about a van ride home, right?
Hope you all have a fabulous 4th of July. It will go largely unnoticed here, except by this gringa.
xoxo
Jackie
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