Quest to See the World

I love Nicaragua!! So far it´s my favorite country. The people here are much more friendly than in other countries, even friendlier than in Guate. I think one of the reasons that I like it here so much is that in the few days that i´ve been here in Leon, i´ve gotten to know some local people and have real conversations other than what i want to eat and where i need to go to get the bus.

On Friday I started a spanish class - 5 days, 4 hours a day for $135 including ¨after school activities¨ like a city tour, trip to the beach, and i heard we´re having a cooking class this week! the first class was a bit of a dud, but i´m much more satisfied now. my teacher is 24 and a native of leon. the first class was boring. i took a test and we reviewed really basic stuff that i already know, oh, and i read a local folklore too. i told the girl that i want to learn about nicaraguan culture and politics too, which is what we discussed today. yesterday i was disappointed because we talked for the first 2 hours of class and she didn´t correct me one time. i was like, what kind of a class is this. today i brought that up and she said that she didn´t correct me because i didn´t make any mistakes, cool!! i guess my spanish isn´t as rusty as i thought afterall. today we worked on a few grammar points and discussed politics here, interesting. tomorrow, not sure, but it should be okay. i´m looking forward to the cooking class.

as far as my housing situation here in leon goes, it changed for the first 3 days. the first night i was in a hostel, then i stayed with a maryknoll nun who i got in contact with through my great aunt who is also a maryknoll nun, then i began to stay in a private home with a 28 yr old woman, her 7 yr. old son and a few other tourists. i went to a hostel to check prices and a lady there told me about this place and took me there. the lady rents out 4 rooms, 2 with bathroom, 2 share a bath. i´m in a shared bath one, but private room. it´s a really nice house, i love it!! i feel really comfortable. the first 2 nights there was a couple from israel, a couple from portugal (guy was french though), a woman from france and me. the place is $8 including breakfast and it´s an additional $2 for a great home cooked meal which i always take advantage of. the dinner is communal and we all speak spanish. the lady who owns the place and her son eat with us too. she tells us stories about her life and we feel like we´ve gotten to know her. actually, she shares stuff that i wouldn´t tell random tourists passing through my house, but that´s not me.

so basically, since i´ve been at this house, i get up at 7am, take a shower, begin to sweat after drying off, eat breakfast and head to class from 8-12. it´s a bit long, but oh well. i actually don´t like having a schedule now that i haven´t had to stick to one for a while now. i also have to be ¨home¨ (it´s amazing how quickly one can start calling a place home) by 7pm for diinner. after dinner i try to get to the internet, but i´m always really tired by then because the heat and sun really drain me. it´s more intense here than i remember it being in the caribbean. i sweat all day long, even if i´m not moving. at night i take another shower and start all over again.

i´ve been having trouble finding good internet access here and lost a long blog entry last night when the thing timed out when i was saving it. i will really update tomorrow with a much better, in depth one. i have some much to write about at this point, i need to catch up. i write in my journal at night too, so lots of writing, but i´ll take my journal with me tomorrow so that i don´t leave out too many details.

well, the internet place is closing now, so ´va pues´, as they say here. ..

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This entry was posted on Sunday, April 29th, 2007 at 10:52 pm and is filed under Central America 2007. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.