First full day yesterday

Wed, Aug 19, 2009, 8:59pm

Welp, first full day here is done. Valtteri (or Walter in English or Valentín in Spanish)—he’s the guy from Finland—and I went to the university today to figure out our classes. It ended up taking practically all day long, but oh well I guess. I’ll be taking four classes, 2 in English and 2 in Spanish: Comparative Political Systems, 20/21st Century Latin American-US Relations (which I’m super excited about learning from a Latin American perspective), History of Nicaragua and Central America (in Spanish), and International Economic Relations (also in Spanish).

We went to a restaurant that serves typical comida nicaragüense (Nicaraguan food), including gallo pinto which is basically just rice and red beans mixed together with some garlic and salt. I like it quite a bit, and good thing since I’ll have it with probably 80% of my meals for the next 4 months. Among other things, I also ate fried bananas, fried pork skins, fried cheese (are you getting the picture that lots of stuff here is fried?) and last but not least and certainly not best, rice and pig’s blood. I tried it before I let Maricela tell me what it was made of, because I knew I probably wouldn’t try it if I knew…hahaha. It was definitely hard to swallow after I heard, but I choked it down and went on to the next food.

Tonight Christoph, Valtteri, and I were going to go to a concert of Beatles’ music at the national theater but at the last minute Emilio convinced us to go to a presentation at a university with him and Carmen. His cousin wrote a book about contract law and was presenting it. I was so tired I hardly understood much of what was said, but afterwards there was red wine and appetizers, and lots of mingling and socializing. We met some pretty important people, including a past UN ambassador, a university president, and a former president of the Nicaraguan Supreme Court, among others.

Emilio is one of my favorite people here so far. He is the sweetest old guy ever and calls me “mija” (mi hija—my daughter) and tells me he and Carmen are my family here. Carmen reminds me a lot of my grandma, which is really comforting too. Emilio is super intelligent and is one of those people who is always hungry to learn. He was a lawyer, and writes poetry, and today gave me a stack of books in Spanish to read.

Tomorrow hopefully we’ll go to the bank to exchange money and perhaps set up an account, as well as check out the area in our neighborhood. Valtteri and I both have a few things we need to buy, so we’ll probably go to the metrocentro (the mall) and see what it’s like. We have wireless internet here at the house, but it’s being really finicky today so I haven’t really been able to get on, and my Skype call with Elisa got dropped earlier today (sorry love!). Sooooo…I’ll keep trying, but I don’t know how reliable it’s going to be. If I can’t get on and have a post to write, I’ll just write it in Word and post it next time I get internet (that’s what I’m doing right now).

I’m enjoying myself a lot so far, but am still tired and adjusting to the climate, etc, and am mostly just anxious for classes to start so I can start meeting more people and be on a more regular schedule. Que Dios te bendiga! (God bless you)