The chocolate factory

Today was not a bad day. Instead of staying for the last half of Spanish classes, we convinced our wonderful Spanish teacher, Barney, to take us to a chocolate factory a little off the Parque central. Poor Barney. We also dug into his personal life today, asking whether he had a girlfriend and the like. That’s what happens when you have three girls in a group of four students. The chocolate “factory”  turned out to be a hotel/spa that also made chocolate on the side. I fell in love with the hotel, which contained an impressive array of paintings, which had all been curated along the theme of stray dogs, which are very prevalent on the streets of Nicaragua. The furniture was also amazing, all sorts of shapes and angles and made from colorful steel wire. Like all Nicaraguan houses, the hotel was open air, made of wood, and painted a variety of pastel and neon colors. Disappointingly, the chocolate wasn’t great and the brownie I bought for the excessive price of a dollar fifty (I was hungry!) was a tad dry. Still, I might go back for a chocolate-making workshop this Sunday. We are definitely going back to swim in the pool they have in the hotel this Sunday. 

Beautiful courtyard surrounded by open air seating arrangements in the center  of the spa.

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Gallo Pinto in Chinese... Mama, what do the character say?

My disappointing brownie.

Oh. My. God. I just wanted to jump in. It's surrounded on three sides by an open aire veranda, a perfect azure blue, and within view of the hotel rooms behind the camer taker (me).

Amazing furniture. Art History nerds, go! I love the way the chair supports the sitter yet it completely penetrable. It creates a space around the sitter, but still provides structure and strength...idk, loved this chair.

If any of you reading the blog want to go somewhere different for a vacation, consider Nicaragua. Besides the plane tickets, it’s pretty cheap to spend a week in relative luxury here. Hostels are only five dollars a night, and Hostel Mochilas was an excellent place to stay in my opinion. Hotels on the upper end are probably around 20 to 30 dollars a night, and trust me, they are beautiful. Picture brightly painted, colonial style houses, huge verandas where one can be served meals and take in the view, and beautifully decorated interiors complete with open air gardens and creatively designed pools. 

On the way back from Spanish class I heard some marimba music, so I stopped and investigated. It was a few street musicians in the Parque Central playing the trumpet, strumming a guitar and playing the marimba pretty skillfully. The marimba player was certainly better than I ever would be in marching band at Amity. While I was looking on, a boy came up to me and tried to sell me a straw flower for a dollar. When I refused, he lowered the price to 10 cordoba (about 40 cents), and when I refused again, he tried to force the flower on me, which I repeatedly turned away. Feeling that all the stops had been pulled, he demanded a sip of my soda. Pretty saucy!

I actually have quite a busy schedule here. I wake up at 6:45 (earlier tomorrow, because Racquel agreed to take me to the market at seven AM!), go to Spanish class at 8, eat lunch at 12, continue classes at 2 (after a short break at the Café Euro, my fave place) and continue until around 5:30, whereupon I come home, eat dinner, and do my homework (yes, we have homework) and complete some activities I impose  upon myself, like vocabulary review and writing my journal and blog. Today for example, I had to prepare, in Spanish, a part of a marketing stint we’re doing for the products we’ll be selling this Saturday in a small, rural town called Santa Teresa. Additionally, I have about 15 pages of reading (not too bad) and also purchased a Spanish translation of Eclipse, for which I suspended better judgement and decided to pay an exorbitant 220 cordoba (about 9 dollars) for it. I figured it would be a good practice in Spanish reading, because 1) Eclipse isn’t really known for its sophisticated writing and 2) I confess that I have read it before, making comprehension easier. I brought the novel home and was surprised at how many of the family members recognized the books. They had even seen the movies and thankfully shared the same opinion as mine about the quality of both. 

I gained a book (especially valuable, since I found out the postal system is too unreliable for my mother to send me the rest of the books I had ordered for summer reading) but I almost lost a toothbrush the other night, when Voltio, that mischievous  dog, stole the brush while I was showering. Hearing scuffling outside, I ran, half naked after the dog, which ran away as soon as it saw me. I gave up since I couldn’t find him and could only hear the chewing of plastic. After a few minutes, Voltio accidentally turned on the brush, which began vibrating in his mouth, stirring him up into a frenzy and waking up Grace, who retrieved the brush (which is still in working condition!!!) for me. I thoroughly washed the brush a few times and now it’s good as new. 

Goodnight!