Bienvenido a Nicaragua

It’s been quiet around here lately, but that’s because I have been on the road and barely cooking a thing!

Instead, I spent a fabulous week and a half roaming the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, eating all sorts of goodies and seeing some pretty amazing sights (I swam with whale sharks! Hello!). After that, I had two days in party city, aka Miami, before I embarked on my month long tour through Central America.

I’m starting my time in Granada, Nicaragua, taking classes in Espanol and living with a wonderful Nicaraguan family. From here I will be moving south, working my way towards Panama City, from where I will fly home.

So far, Granada has been treating me well. My mornings are spent practicing forming sentences in Spanish from the massive list of verbs my teacher has given me (the main problem is, I’m running out of nouns to form these sentences with!). After class, I head home for a huge lunch cooked by my Nicaraguan mama. Yesterday I had spaghetti served with rice AND tortillas. I haven’t seen many vegetables yet, but I try to communicate to Damarys (my host mom) that I love salad and fruit and all vegetables! This backfired on me when she served me pineapple yesterday morning – the one fruit that I cannot eat because I get severe stomach aches from it. In broken Spanish, I explained the problem, and she completely understood. Instead, she served me a big plate of Gallo Pinto (a mixture of beans and rice), eggs, and bread.

In the afternoons, I have been going on excursions organized by my school. I will write more about those later – mi mama is serving lunch in just 10 minutes – but suffice it to say that so far they’ve been fun, interesting, and a great way to meet other people.

I’ve also been hanging out with my host brothers – Joel and Ernaldo – ages 20 and 21, respectively. Joel is currently in law school, while Ernaldo is studying to be a doctor. They help me out quite a bit when I cannot understand what Damarys is saying – both of them speak excellent English.

Until later then… adios!