My Life as a Pressure Cooker
After crying for an hour, talking it out with my teacher AND posting on Wednesday, I went home, had dinner and had a great night laughing and joking with the women of the house I live in. My Spanish isn´t great, but I don´t feel so freaked out anymore - I just try, screw it up, get corrected and continue. What an odd feeling.
After that, I went dancing Thursday night with a fellow student and another woman, which came in handy as a warm up for Friday night. Thursday morning, my stomach was doing its little number, so I ended up leaving later than I had intended - oh, well! I still got there!
I ended up in one of the hottest cities in Nicaragua - after so long up here in the nice, fresh hills, I had forgotten that I am right next to the equator... This weekend reminded me! All I could think about by the time I got to the hostel was taking a nice, cold shower - so, of course there would be no water. O.K., so nice, cold bucket bath was good enough. Once dressed, I went to the bar (as every good hostel should have) and was one gulp into my beer when I met Carlos. Carlos ended up walking me around León, showing me everything, telling me history and jokes, introducing me to his friends and basically allowing me to have a great time that night. The atmosphere of León is that of a university town with everyone knowing each other and out to have a good time (I was also there on a Friday - the best night for León, apparently). The next day, I played tourist and went back by myself to the places Carlos had showed me in order to take pictures.
I had another conversation with a guy who explained the politics of Nica differntly to me than I had heard before (though I´m sure others have heard it). Since I have been living in Estelí, I have been in the seat of Sandinista support - this guy remembers nothing from his childhood but war and poverty. It was a good conversation, but a but frustrating for me because he wanted to practice his English on me... I´m still looking to practice my Spanish.
After that, I headed out to the beach - it had some of the heaviest waves I have come across, but I loved playing in them and talking to the people who were patient with my slow Spanish. I love the fact that people here are willing to help me out with that! Last night, after having the most delicious fish I have ever had, I sat and read a novel all night long. It was cute, it was 378 pages, it was nice to get out of my head and into someone´s who isn´t real! Oh, did I mention that I did it while listening to the waves and lying in a hammock?! Then, this morning, I went kayaking for about 2 hours through mangrove trees with no sounds but the birds, the waves of the ocean on the other side of the mangroves to my right (then left) and my paddles! It was perfect! These tiny little fish kept jumping out of the water - at one point, 6 jumped from the nose of the kayak, 3 in each direction! There was another sound to my list as I laughed outloud and thanked the fish for a wonderful sycronized swim dance!
There are so many details I could and want to add to this, but it would get just too damn long! Sufficed to say, I had a wonderful end to last week and wonderful weekend. I feel happy, healthy and not completely stupid! I just wanted to put that into the universe!!!
After that, I went dancing Thursday night with a fellow student and another woman, which came in handy as a warm up for Friday night. Thursday morning, my stomach was doing its little number, so I ended up leaving later than I had intended - oh, well! I still got there!
I ended up in one of the hottest cities in Nicaragua - after so long up here in the nice, fresh hills, I had forgotten that I am right next to the equator... This weekend reminded me! All I could think about by the time I got to the hostel was taking a nice, cold shower - so, of course there would be no water. O.K., so nice, cold bucket bath was good enough. Once dressed, I went to the bar (as every good hostel should have) and was one gulp into my beer when I met Carlos. Carlos ended up walking me around León, showing me everything, telling me history and jokes, introducing me to his friends and basically allowing me to have a great time that night. The atmosphere of León is that of a university town with everyone knowing each other and out to have a good time (I was also there on a Friday - the best night for León, apparently). The next day, I played tourist and went back by myself to the places Carlos had showed me in order to take pictures.
I had another conversation with a guy who explained the politics of Nica differntly to me than I had heard before (though I´m sure others have heard it). Since I have been living in Estelí, I have been in the seat of Sandinista support - this guy remembers nothing from his childhood but war and poverty. It was a good conversation, but a but frustrating for me because he wanted to practice his English on me... I´m still looking to practice my Spanish.
After that, I headed out to the beach - it had some of the heaviest waves I have come across, but I loved playing in them and talking to the people who were patient with my slow Spanish. I love the fact that people here are willing to help me out with that! Last night, after having the most delicious fish I have ever had, I sat and read a novel all night long. It was cute, it was 378 pages, it was nice to get out of my head and into someone´s who isn´t real! Oh, did I mention that I did it while listening to the waves and lying in a hammock?! Then, this morning, I went kayaking for about 2 hours through mangrove trees with no sounds but the birds, the waves of the ocean on the other side of the mangroves to my right (then left) and my paddles! It was perfect! These tiny little fish kept jumping out of the water - at one point, 6 jumped from the nose of the kayak, 3 in each direction! There was another sound to my list as I laughed outloud and thanked the fish for a wonderful sycronized swim dance!
There are so many details I could and want to add to this, but it would get just too damn long! Sufficed to say, I had a wonderful end to last week and wonderful weekend. I feel happy, healthy and not completely stupid! I just wanted to put that into the universe!!!