As for it being a week since we got here, it feels like it's been a lot longer than that! Before we came we were talking to a friend of ours in our ward who is from Mexico and she told us that time is different south of the U.S. She said she was always able to do so many things in a day when she lived in Mexico, and now that she's in the U.S. her day is over right after it's begun. We just laughed it off when she said it, but now we realize that she was totally telling the truth! It is the weirdest thing! We can sleep in til 8, get up, get ready for the day, walk a mile to the market, spend forever walking around and looking at things, buy some things, walk the mile back and it will be 9:00. Make breakfast, eat breakfast, wash the breakfast dishes, watch Sesame Street in Spanish for an hour, read a few chapters in a book, hand wash some laundry, go on a walk around town for a few hours, come home and it will be 11:00. It is SO weird. I guess it just means that we'll really have 9 months of time for the 3 months that we're here. 3x the adventures!
We are sad to be missing Meservy family dinner today - especially when we found out that Papa Murphy's pizza was on the menu! I am starting to crave anything that is not rice and beans. The pineapple and mangos and bananas are nice additions to our daily diet, but when I hear things like pizza or brownies or ice cream, I start to go a little crazy inside. I know Joe's feeling the same way because one of the first few days we were here we saw a place that serves hamburgers and fries in town and he's mentioned it at least twice a day since then. So on Friday we decided to go try it out. And it was fabulous! The patty was definitely not hamburger (we're not quite sure what it was :\) and the ketchup tasted like a mixture of tomato sauce and strawberry jello, but it felt wonderful to finally be full!
And the other awesome food news is that last night we stopped in at a new bakery to get some bread for today and found doughnuts with chocolate frosting and sprinkles! Yay for sugar! I've had an inkling before that I was a sugarholic, but not having it available for a week has done a little to prove it :)
Also went to the cocoa museum to find out about the history of chocolate. They have a few posters on the wall that people can read about how chocolate was discovered, how it spread to the old world, and how it became what it is today. Pretty interesting.
It was always used as a hot frothy, bitter, luxury drink in the Americas and the cocoa beans were even used as money. When the Spanish explorers discovered it and took it back to Europe people started adding sugar which also came from the New World and eventually added milk to make it lighter. In the 19th century British John Cadbury discovered how to make it into a solid bar. Very cool. Here's a picture of how the Aztecs and Mayans would crush the beans.
The cocoa pods that grow on the trees.
Inside the pods are the cocoa beans that then need to be cracked to get out the nibs which are then crushed to make the powder.
They even had a little mini cocoa plantation there so we could see the trees!
And a beautiful garden. A lot of these colonial buildings in Granada have absolutely beautiful gardens in their courtyards. I love looking through the gates as we walk down the streets and seeing the gorgeous tropical plants growing inside.
Also checked out a place that we heard loans out books! It's called the Garden Cafe and it's a restaurant, but they also have a room with books and couches for anyone who wants to sit and read. And it's true, they just let us take books on the promise that we'll bring them back. So I checked out a few. Sweet!
While we were in town we decided to drop by Hotel Granada. Our landlord had told us that they will let you pay to swim in their pool for a day and that they might have monthly rates as well. So we decided to check it out. Beautiful hotel. And beautiful pool. The receptionist said we could go back and look at it, but it wasn't open for swimming until Monday because they're in the middle of hosting Miss Teen Universe. And sure enough, as we were walking down the stairs to go see the pool, Miss Teen Costa Rica was walking up with her mother. So crazy that in the middle of this city with so much poverty there are places like this that are so refined and high class.
Just other pictures from walking around Hotel Granada.
Hotel Granada is located pretty close to the lake, so we decided to walk along the lake before we went home. This is a baseball game we saw on our way. Baseball is the national sport. Didn't get any lucky baseballs this time :)
Joe loves these trees. I have no idea what they are but stuff just hangs from them. They remind me of the trees in the Forest of No Return in the movie Babes in Toyland. We've seen quite a few of them.
Lake Nicaragua. Some locals swim in it, but I don't think we will ever join them... There is so much trash in and around it and the mosquitoes get pretty bad around there. But it's beautiful to look out over.
The Toña beer truck in the background is making its huge delivery as the bars along the lake strip gear up for their Friday night :)
Joe just couldn't resist taking this picture :) It's the best carved and painted firefox sign we've ever seen! Ok, it's the only carved and painted firefox sign we've ever seen. Hence the picture. It was hanging over the doorway to an internet cafe.
Walked through the city square on our way home. All of the horses and buggies are constantly lined up along the west side of the park hoping some tourist will want a ride around town. We haven't gotten a ride yet, but maybe sometime soon we will.
And then we saw the clouds...
We took pictures of them all the way home because we were SO excited.
As we passed through the market people were frantically closing up their booths as the clouds came rolling in. And it was super windy, and Joe even saw some lightning and there was thunder! For a whole week I keep thinking I hear thunder and get excited and then realize that it's just a truck or bus or motorcycle trying to get up a hill (Joe's car is quiet as a mouse compared to most of the vehicles around here), but this time it was REAL THUNDER!
And then it just started pouring like you wouldn't believe. We were in heaven. Everyone was running to find cover and we hurried home to get the books out of the rain and then we stood in the courtyard and enjoyed every minute of it. It was the first time either of us has been cool since we arrived in this country and it was absolutely GLORIOUS.
It was so glorious that I even saw Joe smile for the first time since we got here :) j/k. It was that good.
This is the sky after the rain stopped and the cool air stayed.
Random picture time:
These trucks with the speakers go up and down the street blaring their advertisements or music. So if you ever call us and we can't hear you for a few minutes - that's usually why :)
We saw our first cart being pulled by oxen the other day! Since then we've seen quite a few, but I'm always amazed at how skinny all of the animals are here. There is absolutely no fat on any of them. The dogs, the horses, the oxen - they are all just bones and muscle. That's what Joe hopes to be by the time we leave here :)
Thanks for all the updates. It is so fun to hear your adventures. What a neat experience.
ReplyDelete