Pik-too-rays: Granada

What? It hasn't been that long. Maybe almost that long, but not quite. Anyhoos, since I don't currently have the next Ender book, and won't until the library opens, which is, in fact, tomorrow, I decided I ought to attempt to finish up my travel blogging. And hey, it's what you've been waiting for...pictures!!!!!!!


Maybe it seems wrong to you for me to open up my Granada pictures with one that is not, in fact, in Granada. But there are probably many things about you that seem wrong to me, so how's about we just leave that where it is. This is our luggage. Which may seem unimpressive, but when you consider that before we had giant backpacks to lug around everywhere, you can perhaps understand my excitement to have only carry-ons.

On our little tour of Granada which our school took us on, we got to go up into the bell tower of a church and have a lovely view of the yellow church and the lake beyond. They had signs saying not to ring the bells. Which of course I had no temptation to do until I saw signs that said not to ring the bells. Sometimes there's no justice in the world.

One might wonder why in the states, we're all about the grey and brown houses with little to no variation...ever...when people in other countries have buildings like this. I say One might wonder, as I do indeed wonder, and so I wonder if One might not wonder too.

On one of our field trips with our school, we were taken to a nearby woman's house to make (and of course eat) tortillas. There happened to be a kitten there...one of the only kittens I saw on the whole trip. I wasn't paying much attention to the tortillas.

This cat would not leave the poor dog alone. She kept pouncing and jumping and slapping, and the dog just sat there and did nothing...it was fantastically funny.

Inspite of my lack of attention, I did manage to draw my eyes away from the kitten long enough to make my own tortilla.

Look, I graduated!!! I actually learned Spanish!!! This is my teacher, Maria.

We learned to make churritos at the school. Here I am expertly rolling them as Janine watches my grace and epertise with envy.

Angelica proceeded to fry the churritos we had rolled. They were quite tasty.

We later had a party for all the students still in the area. They made mojitos. We helped by squeezing the limes...ow...but it was worth it. Oh, and the Victoria is their local beer. That and the Tona. The Tona seems to be more popular, at least with the men. To me, they both taste like beer.

Here I am at the Cocibolca Jockey Club that my uncle belongs to. He got us guest passes. It was very relaxing and quiet there.

On our way out of the jockey club, we spotted these horses on the island in the middle of the road. It was such a bizzarre sight to a city girl like me, so a picture was needed.

Thanks to a small refrigerator our uncle provided for us, we were able to keep a few snacks and things in stock. Our favourite by far was the vanilla waffle wafers. You see them here, along with our homemade mint iced-tea. I had some tea bags, so we took the last of them, made hot tea, put that in one of the water bottles and left it in the refrigerator. It was so refreshing, especially considering how HOT it is there.

??? It's by the main square, I can tell you that. I've no idea why it's crooked like that, but I like it.

This is a nice view of the main square. The yellow church is on the left (clearly) and the central park is on the right.

...'sigh'...Moving on...

This is the old church...I think it was used before the yellow church. But now it's just old and cool looking, neh?

Carita Feliz kids!!!! Aren't they cute? Well, as cute as kids can be.

This was our standard breakfast, with occasional variation. Watermelon, melon, banana, and pineapple, plus bread and an egg, and coffee to drink.

Gustavo is the pharmacist at Clinica Alabama. We loved working with him, which was good because we worked with him a lot. You'll see in the third picture post just what that grueling work entailed.

Cecilia is the administrator at Clinica Alabama. She made us feel welcome right from the start, and we enjoyed working with her immensely.

Finally, some pictures of our apartment. It took us all the way until the day we were leaving. It was just one of those things that you could keep putting off. It wasn't like in Europe where we knew we'd be gone the next day. Anyhoo, here's a view from the door inwards. The refrigerator's on the floor behind that counter on the left. And the stairs lead to...

The bedroom! My bed was just a matress on that platform. The shelves were full for most of our stay. It was nice to be able to unpack. Very nice. Elizabeth called me a weirdo because of the coke...

...and yet...'nuff said. But do note the fans, if you would. Talk about life savers. I would lie down every night on the very edge of my bed with my face in the fan.

Clearly, by this time I had completely abandoned the .5 liter water bottles and gone for those three times that size. And I was chugging three to four of those per day. Criminey, but it was so hot! And there on my plate is the infamous gallo pinto. Actually quite good, especially with some chile sauce.

This was another, though slightly less frequent, favourite snack...mangos!!!! Yummy.

Look, I had a friend!!! Actually there were lizards all over the place in the homes. And they make the cutest little clicking sounds. I was very pleased that this guy showed up to say goodbye. In case you can't make sense of the picture, the wall next to my bed was cement, and had a row of those holes in it. I assume in order to keep bugs out (which I greatly appreciate because there were swarms of mosquitos), they had a screen on the inside of the holes, and my friend is sitting on the outside of the screen.

Here I am ready to leave for the last time ('sniff'), with only my small bag packed and ready for San Juan del Sur. We had sent the rest of our luggage to Maria Celia's home for safekeeping while we were gone, to be picked up on our way to Managua later. Which was without doubt more info than you needed. No worries.

Sarita (we never could quite figure out if that was her name, but it's close to that), Susana, and Xavier. Our hosts and their hired help. And also our family while we were there. They are wonderfully sweet people, and made our stay there so pleasant and comfortable.

So, that's Granada in a nutshell. A very pleasant and smallish city, with plenty of nice shops, walks, views, and foods. :-)= It really was the perfect place for us to stay.

Next up, our little weekend trips away from Granada...