Catching up

Sorry I haven't written in a while...I've been meaning to, but just haven't gotten around to it, or have been too lazy/tired to sit down and do it! So...where to start??

Last Sunday, I went to church in the morning and then to Granada for the day. I hadn't been there before and had heard it was awesome, so I wanted to go check it out!  It's a beautiful Spanish colonial city, the oldest city in Central America, and absolutely charming.  There are churches all over the place, cobblestone streets, horse-drawn carriages for tourist rides, and cool parks and plazas all over the city.  The city is situated on Lago de Nicaragua, and there are over 300 isletas (tiny little islands, some no bigger than a few square feet), so an hour-long boat tour through the isletas was in order.  At one point, we got to an isleta with monkeys on it, and were close enough to be taking pictures, and a monkey jumped on our boat!!! It was really funny and a bit scary at the same time...monkeys are NOT as cute and furry and sweet as the man in the yellow hat makes them seem.  They have scary faces and teeth, and can be downright mean!  This one came on the boat, stole the driver's lunch, ate some of it, then jumped back to his tree, lunch pail and spoon in hand.  Here's a picture of the crazy monkey:

Overall, Granada was beautiful and one of my favorite places here so far. And it's only an hour away!  Here are some more pictures:

One of the main streets... 

"Liberty is having nothing to lose"

 

I LOVED this old house!

One of the big old churches

A view of the Mombacho volcano

Me enjoying my vigaron--yuca, cabbage salad, and pork rind

Wednesday was an especially wonderful day.  I got to sleep in a bit, then was talking to a friend online and because of that conversation learned that UW has the nursing program that I want to do, so my latest plan (hopefully this is the one that sticks) is to move to Seattle when I come home from here, find somewhere to live, find a job, start volunteering, and start working on nursing prereqs!  I'm pretty excited about it and about the chance to do this program in Washington rather than having to move elsewhere.

I also was reminded that I have angels for friends, as my dear friend Lauren--used to be Bishop, now Molinaro, yay!--sent me a wonderful little package with all sorts of yummy treats in it. It totally made my day!  That night at church, I was spacing out a little bit for a minute, and then the pastor's voice caught my attention as he was giving this really passionate speech/sermon.  And then I realized that I had heard it before, in English!  It's a few minutes long, it's called "That's my king!", and it's awesome! Listen to it if you never have before.  So anyways, it was really cool then to hear it live, and translated into Spanish. I loved it.