Christmas 2010 in Nica Part II

So, I have heard people are reading this although nobody´s left a comment (ahem!), so here´s a little update on the last few days...

Monday night we ended up getting food from one of the local ¨fritgangas¨- basically where people set up food stands right outside their house. They have some of the best food I´ve had here. We both got gallo pinto (rice and beans), maduro (fried sweet plantain), cheese (fried, which sounds gross and maybe is, but it´s amazing), a tortilla and a meatball. I´d never had a meatball here before, but man they are delish. We went to the hotel to eat and then walked around the park for a while and took in the sights. The park has been absolutely packed at night lately, and we like to people watch. Then, just as we were leaving, I ran into my friend Karla and we made plans to hang out the next day.

Tuesday we went to the house in the morning where Jorge washed all my dirty clothes for me (minus underwear, that´s weird). He also made me breakfast again - scrambled eggs and little pieces of fried plantain. Again, delicious. While Jorge washed, I sat and visited with his sister-in-law some more, and then later his brother came home and we sat and spoke in English for about an hour. His brother has been learning English for a few years now and is pretty good. It was really nice for me to have it so easy for a little while, although I have to say I haven´t noticed myself feeling tired from constantly having to think in Spanish.

Then Jorge went off to the stadium to run again and I went over to Karla´s house to pick her up. From there we headed to Liza´s mom´s house, which is sort of a common meeting ground, because we always know Liza will be there. Soon after, Freddy showed up and the four of us just sat and visited for a while.

Something sort of fun is that we got to Skype with Leah and Mauricio (her Brazilian boyfriend, for those of you who don´t know), so we got to ¨meet¨each other´s significant other. It was a little frustrating because we were using a headset and so we couldn´t both really hear or participate in the conversation at the same time. But it was so fun to get to talk, and Mauricio´s Spanish is great. Leah was too wimpy to speak but promised that next time she would. I so enjoyed getting to have Jorge meet my friends!

Then Jorge and I went and got ready for church. It was actually cold in church because of the crazy wind and I had no need for the fans to be turned on, which is very strange for me. After church we grabbed food at the same fritanga and then headed over to the basketball courts to watch Anthony play. His team is in the finals and they won (not sure what the score was since there´s no scoreboard, just a man that keeps score). If they win tonight´s game, they win it all. We drank milkshakes and then just walked around the park for a little while.

Today we got up sort of early and went over to the house for breakfast again - he made me scrambled eggs with cheese, and a repocheta, which is a fried tortilla with this sour cheese inside. It´s really good, but that cheese definitely is an acquired taste. I sat and visited with the girls of the family a bit while Jorge went to his little cousin´s house and played video games. Then we headed back to the hotel, took a nap, and played cards. I need to go look up the rules of War because I´m pretty sure I was forgetting something really basic. Even though there are like three rules total. Anyway, now I´m here writing this and he´s taking a shower and getting ready at the hotel. We´re headed to one more baseball game at the stadium tonight (Chinandega versus Granada again). I thought the last one was the last one, but apparently this one is.

We just found out yesterday (Jorge heard it on the radio) that his last baseball game on Sunday will be at 6:00 at night and will be in the stadium where we´re going tonight, so that is really neat. It will feel like a real game! and there will only need to be one, since they´re tied 3-3.

In the next few days we´re hoping to visit some people we haven´t seen yet, to go to the beach, and to get out to Jiquilillo to visit Toney, who I may end up working for next year down here.

There´s the update as promised! Hope all is well with all of you. Hope you have a Happy New Year!