This last weekend was really fun. I was on my own for most of the time and got to really explore Granada. On Saturday I went to the poets park and old train station, the old hospital, the inland fort, and Inglesia Xaltera and adjoining park. Before I started my trek on Saturday, everyone I told where I was going thought that is was a crazy distance. For me, after living in NYC and walking everywhere, this was a walk in the park, and not even as big as central park. I think the whole trek only took me two hours and I even took a couple of detours into two grocery stores.
The reason I went into the first grocery store, other than that I had heard of it before, was because there was a roaming man, who I assume suffered from a mental illness, following me and acting in a way that made me nervous. So I ducked into the grocery store to wait till he went by. Unfortunately when I got out of the store he was right across the street from the grocery store. When I walked out and down the sidewalk he again followed me so I went into the next store I could find, which also turned out to be a grocery store. These grocery stores are nothing like the other grocery store in Granada, Pali, which is best described as something akin to an Asian market in the United States. The other two that I went to were more like the grocery stores I would find in the US with a Latin American flair. The neatest thing that I saw was milk in a bag, and I thought that was only a Canadian thing.
So anyways when I got out the store this time the man was still around but in front of me this time. I figured that if I could keep him in front of me I could make a quicker decision if he started to do anything too crazy. At one point he had gotten too close to a group of young men and they cruelly threw water all over him, he screamed like a banshee after that happened running into the streets. Although I was a little afraid of this man, I felt really bad after that happened to him, I do not think he deserved that.
After my trek I got back to the house and just rested, all the walking in the hot sun really wore me out. I got home and just Felix was there. We sat and talked for the rest of the evening. It was really nice. He is a nice kid and has some good plans and ideas. It is still a little hard to communicate well, but we got along and did not even have that many breaks in conversation. Also speaking with a person in Spanish really gives me a bit more confident with my own abilities, which although still not very good are coming along.
Sunday morning I sat around making flashcards and playing Sudoku. The previous day I had noticed that I was getting a really bad foot tan due to my boat shoes so in the afternoon I went out and bought myself a pair a flip flops. I already had a pair but they are the ones that I were in the shower and did not want to dirty my host family’s shower with outside dirt. I went down to the Crazy market and found a place that was selling flips flops and got a pair that fit. I then went back to my family’s place and waited for the super bowl to start.
I had scoped out the bar I was going to go to earlier in the week. When I got there I parked myself in the best spot under the shade right in front of the tv. This other American guy sat down near to me and asked who I was routing for, I answered him and he said that he was also routing for the pats. That was the end of that conversation. We went back to our beers and watching the pregame. Unfortunately the bar was trying to set up a big screen at the start of the game and the tv I was watching kept turning off and on. I did not want to miss the start so I got up from my spot and watched at the door of the bar where the tv was still working. Unfortunately due to this my seat was taken and I had to relocate to a less comfortable seat, but equivalent view. Also due to the move, the guy that I spoke to briefly ended up sitting right next to me.
We all know how the game ended, sad as it may be. The guy, Ryan, and I spoke throughout the whole thing, just kind of shooting the breeze. At the end of the game I did not want to be rude and just be boring and go home so I stayed and talked a little more. He took me off guard after a little while and asked me if I wanted to walk to the water, due to the shock I said yes, I didn’t know what else to do. We got up to pay our bills and he ended up buying my drinks, totally unexpected as I was totally intending to pay for my own. We walked and it was nice, just really casual. We turned down our respected streets and his hotel came first. Ryan was like this is my hotel. I quickly said “well, it was nice to meet you” and shook his hand. He then responded, “well, I wish things had turned out differently”. I did not mean to flirt with him! I was just being nice! And it was also nice to talk to a fellow American who seemed friendly. After all, all the people I knew the two weeks before had already left Granada. Sure I may have led him on, but it was totally unintentional, I was just being friendly. But that’s where friendly gets me. Note to self, say no if they ask you to go to the beach with them.
First day of classes this week and I learned that there were only going to be three of us all week, myself and two other young women about my age. I get there and see them for the first time and learn that they are not Americans. They are instead from Holland. Super cool, but I was not sure they could speak English, all I had ever heard them speak was Dutch and Spanish, and their Spanish was clearly not very good. It was fun being the best at speaking Spanish in the class though. We did a group activity where we had to act out a verb, I knew almost all of them, where I think that they only guessed a few of the words.
For our activity today we went to San Juan del Orient, a place that I had wanted to go to anyways. I wanted to go there to purchase these spotted chickens I had read about in my tour book. San Juan del Orient is also the pottery capital of the Nicaragua. We went to ceramics school to learn how the pottery is made in Nica. It was really interesting. Unlike in the US and other pottery, they do not give the clay a first firing. Instead they let it air dry a bunch of times and smooth the clay out with different objects such as seeds and stones. They do this after the pot is dried the first time, it is primed, after they color it, and finally after they scratch designs into the clay. After all of that they finally put the pot in the oven and fire it. After we watched the process they led us into the show room and I totally felt that someone had to buy something to make the owner happy. I was waiting for one of the other girls to buy something, but it was clear that no one was and I had only gone there thinking that I would purchase a couple chickens. After looking around for a sufficient amount of time we stated that we wanted to leave. I felt bad, but I am sure the owner makes his money in one way or another.
Walking back from the school I stopped at every shop looking for the chickens. I was surprised to learn that they were only being sold at two stores. I went to both of them and learned the price and played one of the clerks, she wanted 5 pesos more for her chicken and I informed her of that and she lowered the price, while I then went to the other clerk and got a second chicken for the same price. Not really to tricky, but I saved 5 pesos. I really liked this trip for the only reason that I got to talk to the teacher a lot in Spanish and not have to compete with a bunch of other people for the attentions of the teacher, the two girls really do not speak any Spanish. We even spoke a little about the girls and I don’t think that they even recognized it.
On our trip back from SJDO we took another school bus. Our teacher lived really close to the entrance of Granada and did not want to walk all the way back from the school when she could be let off closer to her house, so she made me in charge because of my better Spanish, love it! Talk about making my head bigger than it needed to be. We all get out at the market and I ask them if they knew where they are in Spanish, thank goodness they answer me in English telling me that they also speak English. This was a relief. Although I had accepted the fact that I would be using Spanish to communicate with everyone this next week it was nice to learn that they speak English, leave it to a European to know their native language and English. But after I learned that they spoke English I got to know them a little better. It was a real short conversation but I learned that they are going to be in Granada for the next five months and that they are going to be living in an apartment in the place I will be living during my second month. They seemed like they might have wanted to hang out a bit after the activity but were not sure. I really wanted to get back to my place to see if I had time to settle some things with Cal State, so I left them to figure out their shit. But I told myself that I would make it a point to make these girls my friends.
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