You'll always be my thunder, so bring on the rain...

Bring on the rain. It's been raining for short periods of time every day recently but it is SO necessary I don't even care. I look forward to the rain because it takes sometime to get hot afterward...or if the rain happens late enough in the day, it doesn't get hot again. And by not hot, I mean it probably stays around 80-85.

As you might know, another part of the chorus from the song I quoted in my title is "your voice was the soundtrack of my summer..." The soundtrack to my "summer" here in Nicaragua has quickly become the sound of car alarms. I don't know if they are seriously always getting broken into or if the alarms are more sensitive here, but it is out of control...you hear a car alarm go off for like 46 minutes...and if you just understood that, you're probably a dane cook fan and you know the constant "soundtrack" in my head everytime I hear one of these alarms..."Heelllooooo...I'm a carrrrrr...GASOLINE MAKES ME RUN....bacckkkseaattt, trunkspaceeee...helllooooo...let's go for a riiiide...OIL IS MY BLOOD...seatbeltssss...radio knobs..." yea, try not thinking about that next time you hear a car alarm.



Not too much different has happened this week except that I successfully survived my first full week of classes! I have 3 classes on Mondays, 2 on Tuesdays and Wednesday and just 1 on Thursdays. So far the workload isn't too bad and all of the teachers are really nice and so willing to help us if we don't understand something. We started dance classes on Monday. They are Monday thru Thursday for one hour. We can go at 4, 5, 6, or 7. We usually go at 6 because that's what works with most of our schedules. Dance class is..interesting. Everything is really fast, and I can do the footwork but let's just say that we try to do some things that white girls should never try to do. Needless to say, we embarass ourselves quite a bit but get an awesome work out while doing it. On Wednesday a few of us began a volunteer project helping high school students who are having trouble in their English courses. I'm glad I at least get to do this since the internship didn't work out unfortunately. I am helping a girl named Jessenia. She really doesn't know any English at all so this is going to be a challenge. And of course she speaks Spanish very fast so I'm learning just as much as she is. On Wednesday night we went to Moods with Kristen's language partner Isabel and her cousin Luciana. It's another club like Hipa Hipa and on Wednesdays girls get in free until 11 so we went to check it out. It was also very upscale like Hipa Hipa and we had fun, but it had been a long day so we didn't stay long. While we were there I saw the girl that helped me in my theology class (whose name I still don't know!) and she introduced me to some of her friends too...slowly but surely we are meeting people!

Kristen's mom and cousin got here last night and so Greisy, Lora and I went out to dinner with them. They're staying in a hotel really close to our house. Kristen stayed with them last night and today they went to Granada. As you might guess, I was not sad about my alone time. I'm used to having to be very independent and doing things on my schedule so I absolutely loved coming back last night and being able to do what I want. I actually got to fall asleep with the TV on which is my favorite thing ever since I got so used to it with Beth Anne last year. I woke up when I wanted without an alarm...still very early though because the sun rises so early. I got breakfast and then walked to Greisy's house (about 20 minutes through the city) by myself. There, we worked on some history homework and then I walked back to my house, on the way stopping at La Union to get a grapefruit for 25 cents. It was glorious. When I got back I finished some more homework, talked to Alba who had come for lunch and then waited out the storm before walking to UCA to talk to Maria Dellores and Kathe about classes, Alba, etc. Then I met up with Lora, Sara and a girl from their house at MetroCentro. Max was also there, but unfortunately I have no funny max stories to share with you today :( The girl, (Lori I think?) is from Switzerland. So while we were at the coffee shop (where I also ate lunch because I hadn't eaten earlier) she was talking about how difficult French (her native language) is to learn because you don't pronounce a lot of the letters and a lot of the words sound the same but mean totally different things and are spelled a little different...for example vert=green vers=towards verre=glass and there is no difference in pronunciation. Then I turned to her and said "je parle un peu de francais" and she responded "tu l'a appris oú?" which means where did you learn it...but of course all I could think of was "escuela" (school in spanish) after a second I said à l'école and then we switched back to spanish. I was surprised I understood her with how fast she spoke, and it was harder to switch between French and Spanish then I had expected. Needless to say I practiced a lot of Spanish today...but the little French I got in there had to be my favorite part. I often think of vocab first in French and then Spanish since I have more background in French vocab. So I always say to Kristen, "This is the word in French, is there a Spanish word that sounds similar to that?" haha

I'm home now and waiting for dinner. We might attempt the movies tonight. Tomorrow Kristen, Greisy and I are going to Granada to meet up with Kristen and her fam. We'll probably stay overnight and then hit up the market and volcano in Masaya Sunday. Hasta luego!

[edit: today i assumed i would be eating dinner alone because the other girls go home on the weekends...but the (only) nice girl is still here so me, her, and alba had a nice convo over dinner...and at one point she just turns to alba and says, "ella habla muy bien el espanol" (she speaks very good spanish) and it totally made my day...and alba didn't disagree with her so that's an improvement...]

Sometimes it's better to say too much, than never to say what you need to say...

Lots of new pix on facebook - check them out! This weekend was fun, and the ride there was a piece of cake compared to last weekend's adventure. To give you a taste of last weekend's trip, I give you an excerpt from the guide book...


"Only the most masochistic and chronically pinche (cheap) travelers should attempt the highway from Managua to San Carlos. Past Acoyapa, the road disintegrates entirely and your bus is left to batter its way at walking speed for hours through gulleys, rutted tracks, and mud pits."
Yea...we did that.


But then we also got to kayak and swim in Rio San Juan. And hang out with Don Yaro who is this really old white man from the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua who speaks perfect English and Spanish. And walk through a nature reserve/rainforest thing with rented boots because you can't walk through with your own shoes. And ride horses into town. And lay on lots of hammocks.

^^ feer the deer^^
This weekend KVV, Greisy, Lora and I went to Leon. The first night we stayed in Lazy Bones because Lora stayed there in March when she came with the LACS class from Fairfield. It was nice, and there was free internet, but they were weirdly strict about lights out and quiet time..not really like any hostel I've ever herad of. It was nice though and we got a big bowl of fruit, yogurt and granola for breakfast..yummm. The night before we walked around Leon and went to the market. It was so cool, I could have bought everything there but I contained myself to a purse and 2 bracelets. In the morning after breakfast we caught a bus to Las Penitas, a really pretty, not at all touristy, beach which we basically had to ourselves for the 24 hours we were there. It was beautifullll.


The second hostel was more of a homestay than my actual homestay at Alba's. They immediately took us in and gave us all these suggestions of what to do there and in general in Nicaragua. We had the most delicious meal ever, chilled at the beach and swam in their pool. At night we just ended up hanging out in the hostel playing cards and met a few interesting people that happened to pass through to talk to the owners. Let me tell you that that whole stay including food, etc was less than $20/person. So...when do I move in? hahaha.


In other news, Alba gave us salad for dinner 2 dinners in a row, and told us she was going to buy pineapple for breakfast during the week...definitely an improvement...and today she helped us order delivery from Pizza Hut without making fun of our Spanish or saying anything rude...let's hope this wasn't just a fluke.

Random side note...on the bus from Leon to Las Penitas, the bus was very crowded and we had just gotten off another crowded bus where we could barely stand. We all looked exhausted. When I got to the place where I was going to stand, a man offered me his seat. Now, everyone was tired and exhausted, and last weekend I never would have dreamed of offereing my seat to anyone on that bus because it was just so unbearable. Now I know offering a seat is not something too special, but in Nicaragua I have not experienced a lot of that chivalry attitude. It's mostly been annoying cat calls and begging for money, etc. I haven't experienced a warm feeling from many people, including my host family. I enjoyed that ride so much because it helped me remember why I am so convinced that people really are good at heart :) And maybe next time I'm on a crowded bus, I'll think again about giving up my own seat for someone who's tired...

I MISS YOU GUYS!
current bribe: visit me during Thanksgiving, pay for your own flight and I'll pay for everything else...k great, see you then.

*I need you to show me the way from crazy, I wanna be so much more than this*

soooo, a LOT has happened since I last wrote...Rio San Juan will have to wait because there is just too much to tell...let's just say it's filled with a lot of memories that are only funny when we look back on them and not so much at the time...

we got back yesterday (wednesday) morning around 530 am. Our first class was at 11am...perfect. Kristen and I went to Fotografia together and it was great. There are a lot of people in our class and the dynamic is a little different than Fairfield classes..the students were disrespectul and a little chatty but I absolutely love our professor. I never had to ask him to slow down and I understood every single word. He annunciated everything well, so that helped. After class, Kristen and I went to introduce ourselves and tell him how we can understand, but we're not so good at speaking yet and he was very understanding. I think that will be a very interesting class!

Then I had Reflexion Teologica...I will not be attending that class. The professor was very rude and didn't care that I was an exchange student...thank God for the one friend I made in that class who helped me through it and said "no te preocupes, no entiendo nada tampoco" aka "don't worry, i don't understand what he's saying either" Luckily for the first couple of weeks we're just supposed to go to a bunch of different classes and then narrow it down to 4 or 3+ an internship, so i'm still in good shape.

Today, my only class was at 3, and I waited for a half hour and the professor never showed up so we left. That class was supposed to be Sustainable Development though, which I'm sooo excited to take. I should have it on Monday so I'll probably write about it then. This morning after showering KVV and I decided to do some laundry since we are planning on going to Leon for the weekend and all our clothes are dirty from last weekend (since we only got home yesterday). After Kristen finished, I tried to rush to do mine before mass at 12 and at about 1130 the water went out. We still don't have any water in the house...so my clothes are sitting sopping wet in a bin of soapy water. I'm not sure what I plan on doing about that yet... hopefully the water turns back on soon.

I'm also extremely unhappy in the house here. I know I've sad bad stuff and sugar coated it before, but I really can't deal with it anymore. Alba is so rude to me, and even Kristen finally admits that she treats us differently. I know at times I can have an attitude when I am unhappy, but I don't know even close to enough Spanish to be anything but extremely polite. I am sick of how she speaks to me, how rude she is and then turning around and seeing "nice" she is to Kristen. I say "nice" only because it's not night and day, she's still not a warm person, but there's a line between not being warm, and being rude...and she crosses that line with me everyday. Also, I am still unsatisfied with the food. I have no problem eating like Nicaraguans do, when I signed up for Nicaragua I was fully aware that I would be giving up a lot of my favorite foods for 4 months..what I was not prepared for was the lack of healthy options. For breakfast I get the choice between dry cereal heavily coated in sugar (none of the healthy stuff - cocoa krisps or fruit loops or sugar coated corn flakes), or white bread...occasionally pancakes..notice a trend of carbs and lack of fruit? We are frequently given different food than the Nicaraguans that live here and though I do enjoy the occasional pasta dish, I don't get sauce since I don't eat meat, so I hardly consider that a meal either. One time she made vegetables but it was mixed in with meat and God forbid she save any to the side for me...one time she gave us arroz con leche (rice with purified milk) which was tolerable, but not something iw ould choose to eat..it was also very sweet. When we told our Nicaraguan friends about it they said it was sweet cuz it's dessert, not a meal. Food is something I guess I can deal with, it's just hard because before I came here I had been making a conscious effort to eat healthy..and what makes it worse is seeing how all the other Fairfield students are eating at their houses...what I really can't stand though is how rude Alba is...people are trying to help me rationalize it by saying that sometimes people just aren't nice and you have to take everything with a grain of salt, and I do understand that, but there is no reason why she should be hosting foreign students if she is going to be like that. It brings me down every night to know I am coming back to Alba's house.

"I know God will never give me anything I can't handle. I just wish he didn't trust me so much." Mother Teresa

On a brighter note, I have a ton of pix from this weekend (or at least the first 2 days before my batteries died) but I'm still waiting to get my memory card back from Carlos..I'll try to post some before we leave for Leon tomorrow!

"Love is just God on a good day..."

So the past few days have been pretty standard...today was supposed to be our last spanish class but apparently it needs to be 40 hours, and we've only done 30 so we'll finish it up next week...i really don't see how anyone will get anything but an A because we are not learning anything new...the German kid Max is way too much to handle. I could keep a whole blog based on the things he says/does that make Kristen and I laugh for hours on end when we try to explain him to other people...I was so mad at my teacher today for making me work with him, it's impossibleeeee. Today after class we walked to Metro Centro to get a late lunch cuz I cannot do the UCA food anymore. I'll try it again next week sometime but I have been sooo sick. Greisy is too. Booooo. We also talked to Kathe today about the living sitch. Apparently our complaints were nice compared to what other people have said so Kathe is going to talk to Alba to at least try to rectify the lack of fruit situation. I could go into more detail about why they probably won't put any Fairfield students here again but I don't want anyone to worry...It's not horrible, I don't hate it, and it's not ruining the rest of my experience...it's just like...whatever. We got JUICE with Alex, the other American girl that lives here, after we got back from Metro Centro...I legit drink only water...sometimes a gatorade for lunch to help with the constant dehydration...but iced tea and lemonade never tasted so good. Her and Dave leave for Corn Island on Sunday and we'll see them just one more time before they had back to the states :(

Anyway, it still hasn't rained here and we need it bad. Even the Nicaraguans are complaining about how hot it is...This weekend we have a long weekend due to a national holiday so UCA is taking us on one of our 2 included trips within Nicaragua (somehow I'm pretty sure it will end up being the only one though...and we probably won't get our costa rica trip either...). We are going to Rio San Juan which shares a border with Costa Rica so its pretty far. In the U.S. it would probably take a few hours to get there...for us it will take 9 hours on the bus plus a 1.5 hour boat ride...can't wait!!! we leave at 5am our time..getting picked up at 4am...waking up at 330...whcih leaves me about 3 hours to sleep...of course i'm the least tired the day i actually have somtehing to wake up for...hopefully i can sleep on the bus! I won't have any internet there and maybe limited cell service...I'll be back Tuesday night-ish and then we start our first day of class!! (Let's see how long that excitement lasts...)

Also - I may be doing an internship with Fe y Alegria teaching English.... :) I hope it works out!

IF YOU LOVE

You might quiet the whole world for a second
if you pray.

And if you love, if you
really love,

our guns will
wilt.


i know it must be hard. but i am here.
your friends are here. God is here.
you probably won't even read this..
but we're all praying for you and your family
through this difficult time. <3

We're only several miles from the sun...

Dear Fairfield,
Please share your rain with us.
Love, Managua
p.s. I had macaroni and cheese for dinner. It was delicious.
p.p.s. The German boy wore a scarf today. It was over 90 degrees.

"You look pretttttyyyy happy" ~ Miguel

Random picture of me doing homework at UCA!!

Wow, so a LOT has happened in the past few days since I updated. So, Friday night we went out to a discoteca called Hipa Hipa. After literally being on the phone relaying messages for 2 hours between Greisy, Lora and Carlos, we finally figured out our plans for the night. The son of Greisy’s host father was going to the disco with his girlfriend so he ended up driving all 6 of us Fairfield people. We continued the theme of not having enough seats in the car for the number of people. Actually on Sunday night when we finally had enough room, it actually kinda felt weird to not have anyone sitting on top of me hahaha. They don’t have transit police here, so kinda everything goes…We didn’t bring cameras to Hipa Hipa because apparently they are a hot item in Nicaragua, but it turned out it was a very nice and safe disco, so next time we will definitely take pictures. The cover to get in was about $7 and with that you got free drinks/soda, etc. all night. That ended better for some than others. Needless to say, we were politely asked to escort one of our friends out of the disco around 130. Thankfully, all of us were able to get a ride back with the boy that lives at Greisy’s house and give our friend lotsssss of water. Despite that setback, we had a great time. We saw a German boy that’s in our Spanish class, and 2 boys from Spain that lived with Lora and Sarah (but they left to go home yesterday). Hopefully next time we go, some of our Nicaraguan friends will be able to come too!


Saturday, Greisy, Kristen and I took the bus into Granada with Alex and Dave. Alex and Dave spent the night and went to the volcanoes I think, but the three of us just walked around and toured the city. Granada is one of the oldest cities in Nicaragua and a lot of the houses are colonial style since it was colonized by Spaniards.



One of the first things we did after walking through the park and one Cathedral (there are 12 in Granada!), was take a horse and buggy ride tour of the city. (this is Greisy and Kristen in the buggy).


We had an awesome tour guide/driver that spoke slow and annunciated so we were able to understand him and learn a lot about the city. We drove to the edge of the city where to the shore of Lago Nicaragua which is a HUGE freshwater lake (that takes probably 8 hours top to bottom by boat). Fun fact - it is the only freshwater lakes con tiburones (sharks!). Inside the lake there are a lot of small islands. Next time we go to Granada we hope to go to one of the small islands. There is also a bigger island near the center of the lago called Ome Tepe which is supposedly BEAUTIFUL and very safe / touristy. That will defintiely get a whole weekend to itself.

After our tour we looked at some souvenirs at the tables set up around the park. Finally for lunch we decided to splurge and eat at the really nice restaurant. And by really nice restaurant I mean it was the most expensive restaurant and I spent $9 on 2 bottles of water, salad, garlic bread, and a nice big bowl of spaghetti with marinara sauce. After lunch we bought a few souvenirs and caught an early bus back to Managua since it was so hot and we weren’t sure what else to do there. Next time we’ll bring our book and stay over night because it’s sooo beautiful there. On the bus ride back, I called a few Fairfield friends to catch up and enjoyed the nice breeze from the open windows on our 1-hour, $1 bus ride home. I’m a huge fan of the exchange rate if you haven’t noticed.

Saturday night we were pretty excited, so we just hung out at our house. Sunday morning I woke up early because I was determined to find mass. I was out the door by 8 to walk to UCA. My plan was to walk to the church and sit there until more people started coming and that’s how I would figure out what time mass was since no one seems to know. My plan failed almost immediately when all the gates were locked. I’m not sure if I just went too early or if they were closed because school isn’t in session or what. Needless to say, I missed mass AGAIN. Next weekend we’re most likely going to be traveling again, but we’re not sure where since it is organized by UCA’s tourism students, but hopefully if it’s anything like Granada there will be a bunch of cathedrals where I can go to mass…

Around 11:30, Rebeca came to pick up Greisy, Kristen and I to go to her house. Again, we squeezed in the back since Rebeca also picked up another friend and her cousin. At her house we were greeted by Miguel and Rebeca’s dad who we had already met. We also met some of her friends, a few of which spoke perfect English which of course was both good and bad. We were able to understand each other, but we spoke a lot of English. Her house was also probably the most beautiful house ever, and definitely way bigger than most houses I’ve ever been in, no matter the country. She had a pool too, so we were able to cool off for a little bit. Towards the end we were able to practice a little more Spanish with her family, who mostly only spoke Spanish. That was a lot of fun, and her dad remembered me from when Rebeca was at Fairfield! I guess she mentioned coming to my room a few times…Also, for a while we were a little confused by the very white-skinned blonde-haired lady who didn’t speak English, but we later found out that Rebeca’s uncle is married to a lady from the Ukraine. After hanging out a little more and finding out that Miguel (Rebeca’s boyfriend) is extremely locooooo, they drove us back to our house where we waited for Carlos to pick us up. He was having a little reunion at his house with some of his friends from high school. We couldn’t stay long because Greisy had class at 8am this morning and still had some homework to do but it was good to see him again and meet some new people. We felt bad that he kept driving us everywhere, but we apologized profusely on the ride home and he really didn’t seem to care at all. I’m glad we already made such a good friend ☺ I think Kristen is going to try to have lunch with her language partner again soon so hopefully we can become friends with her too!

Today we slept in a little because we really couldn’t think of anything else to do. We attempted some more laundry although apparently so did everyone in the house because we ran out of room on the clothesline. Then we headed off to UCA for lunch before class. We tried a different place for lunch today and there weren’t really any vegetarian options, but after a while I got up the courage to ask for a quesadilla “sin pollo, solo queso” (without chicken) and the guy understood me right away and said it was no problem. Sooooo I had a delicious quesadilla for lunch and the only thing that would have made it better would have been a little salsa which they apparently don’t have here. After lunch we had class. The time is starting to pass by a little faster in class, but I’m still not really learning anything new…and we have the most ridiculous homework ever. I already wrote about our assignment to talk about a picture for 10 minutes. For today we had to think of “If I were a tree, what kind of tree would I be and why…” also, what animal, what famous painting, what famous person from history and what book we would be…not even our favorite of those things, but why we would want to BE one of those. Sounds like OBoard/Kairos style interview questions if you ask me…and as you know, I am not a fan of those questions. We ran out of time to do them for today but that should make for some funny situations tomorrow…and tonight’s homework…pick a song in Spanish and SING it in class tomorrow…not read the lyrics, we are required to sing the song. eff my life. Now, we are allowed to do an English song and translate it into Spanish, but I don’t think that will work very well, and no judgment allowed – but the only song I really know in Spanish is Frankie J/Baby Bash – Obsesion. So, I will be rapping/singing in Spanish in class tomorrow. Ohhhhhhhhh boy!

Sidenote-I also got heat exhaustion today. It came on all the sudden and I got really cold and was sweating a lot and had really severe stomach cramps for like the last 45 minutes of class. Right afterwards I went straight home and turned the fan on high and drank a lot of water and Gatorade. Kristen brought me 7-up to help my stomach and then we googled heat exhaustion and I had like every symptom, so yay for us diagnosing and treating the problem. I feel mostly better now but I also don’t really think there’s anything I could have done to prevent that since I already drink a ton of water and stay mostly in the shade…hopefully that doesn’t happen too many other times, though it has happened to me before so I wouldn’t be surprised :/

I’m loving all the Fairfield pix and I miss all of you guys! I have new pix on facebook too so check them out!

Hakuna Matata-para llevar una vida sin responsabilidades ni preocupacions

...is not as easy to say as "it means no worries, for the rest of your days"

So, I haven't written in a while..which is a good thing because it means I've been busy! I left off Monday night...that was our first experience in a taxi. The other Americans wanted to go to TGIFridays so even though Kristen and I had already eaten, we went with them just to hang out. It was fun and now we know how to get a safe taxi, etc. Then, Tuesday morning, Kristen and I ventured to MetroCentro by ourselves. It's less than a 10 minute walk so that wasn't bad except that it was by far the hottest day so far. Once we got there, we found the phone place (Movistar) and all in Spanish, all by myself, I had to buy a new chip for my phone and some minutes. Everything worked out and most of the time the guy understood me so I was pretty proud of myself. Then we ate lunch at the food court-but this time we decided to skip the American food and eat at the Nicaraguan place. I wasn't too hungry but I tried Queso Frito (fried cheese). Kristen loves it, and I know it sound delicious, but for some reason I think I've found the only kind of cheese I don't like hahaha. After lunch, we walked back to UCA and went to Rebeca's presentation. Her final project to graduate from UCA was the website she made about the Fairfield-UCA exchange program (www.studyabroadnicaragua.com) you should check it out - it's awesome and she passed with flying colors. I'm so glad we got to see it. After her presentation we had class. We were actually supposed to have class at 2, but since that's when Rebeca's presentation was, she just asked our teacher if we could miss an hour of class and she said yes...they're sooo laid back here. Class isn't anything like I expected it would be. It's very easy and we're not really learning anything new. Towards the end of the week it got a little better, but for the most part those 3 hours seem like 3 days. Wednesday went pretty much the same way as Tuesday. In the morning Kristen and I went to Maria Dellores' office to try to finalize our schedules. Next Tuesday the 6 of us have a meeting with Maria and Kathe to get the final copies of our schedules. I know for sure I'm taking History of Nicaragua, Photography and Sustainable Development...it's just unsure whether or not I will have an internship or take a theology class - both of which are very interesting to me! After talking to Maria, we had class at 12 instead of 2 so that our teacher would be out in time to go the barrio where she works/lives. It reminded me sooooo much of Gawad Kalinga it was unreal. The kids ran right up to us and said hi and gave us hugs without even knowing or caring who we were or why we were there. It was really kind of random that we even got to go, our teacher just asked if we wanted to see where she worked, so we went. We told Alba about it the night before, and she said as long as we were with a teacher and we didn't bring anything too valuable we'd be fine. I'm so glad we did...they only need volunteers on Fridays there and we'll probably be traveling a lot so I hope to find something else like that where I can volunteer.

Yesterday after Greisy's class at 10, Kristen, Greisy and I walked to La Union to pick up a few things that we needed and some fruit since we don't get much of that at our house. So far we only tried the grapefruit, and I don't really like grapefruit but it was delicioussss. After La Union, we got lunch at UCA (vegetarian fajita..yummm) and went to class. After class we came home to do our laundry...by hand. (pictures to come..when Alba saw us doing laundry she actually suggested we take pictures because as she said it's an "experience") Then we ate dinner quickly and Carlos picked us up to go the movies. It took us quite a while to find Greisy's house, but now we'll never forget. Then us 3 girls and Carlos went to see Tripulacion Dave aka Meet Dave. It was all in Spanish with no subtitles (which is weird because most of their movies are in English with Spanish subtitles) but we were able to understood most of it. The movie wasn't that great, but it was good for practicing Spanish.

Today we took the time to sleep in, and then did our homework in the late morning since we didn't have time the night before. Get this we a) had to DRAW (which neither Kristen and I can do) a picture of anything b) describe it in Spanish for 10 minutes. When we told Carlos it had to be 10 minutes, he laughed. It ended up that it didn't actually have to be a full 10 minutes, but mine was 8 anyway because I talked about EHF, and obviously I can talk about that foreverrrr. Class actually went by a little faster today because we had more work to do, so that was buenooo. After class we finally ran into Alvaro! We gave him a small guilt trip for not talking to us yet, but he's been really busy and he might come out with us tonight. I think all the Fairfield people and our language partners are going to try to go to a discoteca, so that should be an experience. And tomorrow we're going to Granada for the day with Alex and Dave, the other Americans at our house. And Sunday Rebeca's having a little get together at her house at 11am and Carlos is having a party at his house at 7 or 8 at night. So basically, we have a ton of fun plans coming up and I can't wait! Escribame!!!

p.s. - Fairfield people, take lots of pix this weekend...I want to see everyone's new TOWNHOUSES!!!!

The art of growing up...

So, I’m going to learn how to keep these shorter since I’m also writing in my own journal in Spanish to practice, but you ever want more details, please, please, please email me. I love to hear from everyone!

So far I’m having a great time here. I’ll start with Sunday. I was disappointed I couldn’t find a mass, but we did make it to a cathedral the end of mass, so I tried? Anyway, Alba cooked us pancakes for dinner. Part of Kristen’s gift was pancake mix because we thought it was very American, but it turns out they have that here too! After breakfast (and about 45 minutes earlier than we thought) Marisa, a tourism student from UCA came to pick us up. Then we got the others and went to the MetroCentro to get cell phones. Of course, I had problems with mine so I still don’t have one, but soon! After that we went to the Cathedral and then walked back to the mall for lunch. We ate at the food court, so some people got pizza hut, I got subway, etc…very American. It also rained every time we were outside on Sunday and of course we didn’t have umbrellas and my ankle hurt like crazy. I hope eventually it goes back to it’s normal size, but after 8 or so weeks, I’m not so convinced it will.

After lunch we went to a museum and Marisa told us some history of Nicaragua, etc. Here is a picture of the courtyard at the museum...

Then we went to la Laguna Tiscapa. Now, keep in mind this probably wasn’t the prettiest place we could have done this, but we went on zip lines over the lake. At first, Greisy and Lora were going to go. Kristen has done it before so I said I’d go if I could go with her. Then the other 2 decided to go as well. Mind you, it was still raining. I definitely showed my fear more than anyone else, but that just made me more safe in the end because the guide took good care of me. It was soooo much fun!




Then Marisa brought us back home. Alba got home with Albalucia at the same time as us, and shortly after we went to PriceSmart with her and Carlos (her son). We got some snacks to keep in the room but I’m never hungry after meals, so who knows, it would last us the whole semester! At PriceSmart we saw Rebeca and met her dad too, which was really random and really great. It was good to spend time with Alba outside of the house and really get to know Carlos too.

For dinner we finally had gallo pinto (rice and beans, but with really good flavor..and at Alba’s house with corn too!). It was delicious. I have trouble starting conversations even in English because I’m bad at thinking of questions so Kristen talked more than I did at dinner and it was frustrating because sometimes we would say the exact same thing and they would understand one of us but not the other, so I don’t know, I guess we just have to get used to it. But after dinner was my time to shine. Carlos was watching baseball when we were heading back to our room so I turned to Kristen and asked if we could stay. So we watched baseball and all the sudden I had things to talk about…go figure. Carlos also like the Yankees. And for football he’s a Dolphins fan but he hates the Patriots and rooted for the Giants in the Super Bowel (for obvious reasons, other wise the Dolphins would have lost their title as only undefeated season…) Needless to say, Kristen was not too happy with his choice of teams being that she’s from Rhode Island. While we were watching baseball, he asked what kind of music we liked and what our favorite groups were…again I had a lot to say, go figure. I told him “mi favorito es ‘Brand New’ pero no son famosos”. He searched then on YouTube and 5 seconds later, I hear Sic Transit Gloria…Glory Fades (hence the title). AWESOMEEE. Nicaragua already knows Brand New. He also played other popular music, some American and some Nicaraguan. Now, granted we haven’t known Carlos long, but when he put on Soulja Boy and told us he didn’t know the dance, we didn’t believe him at all. But we got up and did the dance for him. It was great, I love embarrassing myself, especially with soulja boy hahaha. We also briefly met a few other students staying here, Ana from Spanish, Alex a girl who just graduated from Fairfield and David who is from Hamden and just graduated high school and is taking a gap year. Go figure – more Americans right at our house. They have already been here a while though and are leaving in a few weeks.

Now onto today. I was soooo nervous for today. I woke up with butterflies in my stomach and they didn’t disappear until about noon when I started the interview. Kristen and I ate breakfast with David and Alex. Then Maria Dellores (from la UCA) came to get us and we walked to a classroom where Kathe (from la UCA) gave us an orientation/meeting just like Christopher did on Saturday. We talked about safety, classes, what taxis are good/bad, etc. Then we met our language partners. My parent’s name is Carlos and he is awesome. At first I was really nervous to meet our partners but they are just like us. And when I was an Internatoinal Orientation leader all I wanted to do was help and I never would have dreamed of making fun of their English, so of course they were nothing but nice. He seemed to understand everything I said and rarely did I have to ask him to repeat himself. He also knows English which is helpful in case we get stuck, but it was rarely necessary. After we met them, we had our test at 11. The grammar part was the easiest ever. Legit the first question was “De donde __ usted” and the choices were son, eres y es…really, we could have done that in Spanish 1. Then there was some that had to do with spelling and accents, also pretty easy. The reading was the hardest, but definitely doable. Then we had individual interviews and the professors spoke slow and asked basic questions. It really wasn’t bad at all. I felt very confident after that. Then we were split into 3 groups based on ability. Kristen, Sara and I are in the middle group…but only Greisy is in the highest group which is totally understandable since Spanish is her first language…haha. After we got placed in our groups, we all went out to lunch with our language partners at a restaurant. I got a drink and wayyy too much food (they spooned it out for you) and only paid $2.50 USD. Crazzyyy. And they give us $3 USD/day for lunch, we could actually eat that much food every day. After that we went to the libreria for school supplie. (libreria is bookstore, not library! And it’s the same in French, so I don’t often forget). It was greatttt day. Not it’s about 4:30 and I’ve written in my Spanish journal and this. I think Alba will be home soon and we’ll probably eat around 6. Hopefully I can think of things to talk about tonight. It’s a little different than home or Fairfield because we have dinner at a set time and we sit there for a long time after. I’m not so used to having such a strict schedule for meals, or even yesterday when Alba told us we were going to Price Smart ahora, now. But, I guess I can deal with a little more planned leisure time as opposed to my planned crazy/hectic meetings, etc. time at Fairfield.

…so much for keeping it short! Escríbame!!

title credits: sic transit gloria, glory fades...Brand Nizzzle