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