For better or for worse.

Oiyyyy. Thank god I´m back. I had a blast, and still have sand in my ears and a sunburn to prove it...but I´m happy to be back. I feel like Jinotepe is home right now. Not home home, but still a comfortable place where I know the people and how to get around and I can walk around the house barefoot and read all day if I want. That pretty much sums up my definition of home. Oh yeah and there´s actually food around. I guess in San Juan beer is an acceptable meal substitute, therefor being somewhere where I don´t have to sit around hungry when everyone else is pounding down the beers at 9am is quite refreshing! That being said...SAN JUAN IS AWESOME! I already have plans to go back next weekend with two other volunteers from the house. This time I went with one other volunteer, our friend from Jinotepe, my friend Tomas and his sister.

Okay so starting off, the trip there was really easy. An hour long ride on the microbus (which was filled to normal capacity due to a police stop down the road, ahh a full seat to myself...luxury) to Rivas and then a taxi ride to San Juan. I wish I could have taken a picture of the road from Rivas to San Juan...it looked like a scene from that movie/book Holes. There were foot wide, foot deep holes ALL OVER the road. I felt like I was on that wooden roller coaster at Six Flags, where you´re being jerked around so hard you start to go a little numb. Taxi drivers in that part of Nicaragua must need special training...The art of dodging potholes goes something like this: right side of the road, sharp veer to the left side of the road, veer to the right, offroading on the right side, big swerve to offroad on the left side, and on and on. It got to where it was smoother driving completely OFF the road than being on the road. Also, I think the taxi drivers would rather risk driving into an oncoming truck than hitting a pothole, because I felt near death so many times I´ve practically accepted it by now. So anyways, after a 30 minute ride on the paved potholed roller coaster of death we were finally in San Juan. We pull up in front of a surf shop (Arena Caliente Surf) and to my delight, we walked inside and it was a hostel for surf bums as well. I felt my cool rating rising the more surf boards I saw. It was awesome. Long haired, surfer dudes and dudettes lounging around, amazing murals and photos of surfers covered the walls, broken surf boards lined the walls. Bathing suits and wet suits hanging to dry on the line outside. Of course I was a total imposter, because I just wanted to take pictures of everything to show everyone back home this COOL place I was in, while this was just where they were crashing for the week or month. So alas, for the sake of "fitting in" I didn´t take any pictures and therefor I have no proof that I was in such a sweet place, so my cool rating is back down to zero. Anyways we hung around the house with everyone (the people we came with are related to/know a lot of the people there...which is why all of us non-surfers were staying there in the first place). A lot of the people were just around for a few days or a week, then heading on to costa rica or panama...there were a lot of people from the area, some Americans, a guy from Britain, etc etc...it was a mixed group but everyone was really nice and relaxed. Tranquilo is the equivalent to "chillin" in spanish and I think I heard it about a million times while I was there. I ended teaching some of them how to play beer pong, and I really hope that´s not my only contribution to Nicaraguan society while I´m here. That would be a little pathetic. We went out to a few of the clubs around town, some were really relaxed and tranquilo with surf videos playing on screens on the walls...and a few others were more american with 50 cent and ludacris playing and about a million white people hanging around. The thing about San Juan is it is REALLY westernized...a lot of bar and restaurant names are in english...most things offer both languages...there is an equal mix of locals and tourists. So being a blonde definitely didn´t make me unique in San Juan like it does in Jinotepe. We also went to a discoteque that played a good mix of salsa and modern music. I danced until I could barely stand up and then went to bed. Apparently 1:30 AM is a totally uncool time to go to bed. Most other people were just going out to the bars at that time, and I was woken up at 4:30 to Pink Floyd being blasted at a bar just down the street with 50 drunk people singing along. It was that song where the little children sing...something like "we don´t need no education...etc etc" and let me tell you, that´s sort of a creepy song to be woken up to.

We set off for Maderas beach that morning with a bunch of the people from the hostel (another death defying drive on a road that was more like an obstacle course). I decided not to surf that day because it was a little expensive and I was already planning on coming back the next weekend. It was an amazing beach though!! The waves were awesome, everyone was either surfing or body boarding and the beach seemed to go on forever. I got burned in the hour that I was in the water and therefor earned the nickname "little lobster". Awesome. Of course I forgot my camera again, therefor have no pictures...but like I said (stolen from Arnold), I´ll be back.

That night came the most bizarre part of the trip. Afer showering I was informed that I would be attending a wedding. I think one or two of the guys at the hostel were invited, and somehow felt that they needed a entourage of 8 to accompany them. So we drive up to the MOST INCREDIBLE hotel I have ever seen. Picture a hundred white sandstone cottages with red clay roofs scattered along the side of a hill/mountain with beautiful winding staircases connecting it all. It was truly magnificent. We walk up to where the wedding was and it´s half way over, we sort of stand to the side as they finish up the "you may now kiss the bride" part. The wedding was outside on a patio, there was one of those pools that looks like it goes on forever, it didn´t have walls, and it had the most breathtaking view of San Juan at sunset. There were a million twinkling lights all around and WOW it was just spectacular. Then we all clapped and drank passion fruit cocktails and ate chicken concoctions and chatted. I felt like I was on that movie wedding crashers...it was so strange to be at this amazing wedding and ohhh yeah I don´t know anyone here. But that being said it was beautiful. So I figured we were just there for hor dóeurves and would be leaving soon but then they ushured us all to the huge dining room (outside again with another pool) for dinner. WHAT? Okay I´ve only been to one wedding in my life so maybe I sort of think they´re a big deal...but they´re sort of a big deal. I don´t even remotely know who these people are and yet I´m toasting to them at their reception dinner. Strange. But I hadn´t eaten all day (no I don´t take part in the "beer instead of turkey sandwich"...I´m not that Nicaraguan yet I guess) so I was up for a little dinner. I got a little sick of the joke "lobster for the lobster", but I was eating lobster so I got over it. Dinner was delicious, we were deemed the most fun party at the wedding by one of the wedees fathers (wedee? person who is being wed?) and I think when I offered to take a picture of him with the group, we made his night (or maybe it was the 10 coctkails he had).

It was a lot of fun mixed with a little drama. Not to get too much into gory details but let´s just say that in Nicaragua, one is not flippant with the feelings of others--by penalty of severe scoldings by family members. I have learned that "casual dating" does not exist in Nicaragua, therefor will no longer be taking part in any flirting with, talking to, looking at, or dating while I´m here. I was "spoken to" for about an hour in spanish by the sister of a friend we had come with with no speaking skills to defend myself besides "No quiero luchar" (I don´t want to wrestle)...it´s about as close as I could come to "I don´t want to argue" which I hadn´t anticipated needing to know while here. Anyways here´s where my whole family is smiling and shaking their heads and saying "Ohh Alysse". End of gory story.

I had a great time at the wedding but strangely it made me really homesick. The couple was from the states, so most of the people there were American and it just made me think of my family. I´m missing my cousins wedding while I´m in Nicaragua and I was imagining my whole family at her wedding having fun and dancing and toasting her and it bummed me out a little. Because I´m not working yet (I start tomorrow, thank god) I feel like I´ve been on vacation for two weeks...and two weeks is about the length of time I like to be on vacation for. It´ll be good for me to start working and put my energy into something. Í´m not leaving for Leon for another two weeks, but the other woman I´ve been taking lessons with is volunteering here in town for her stay. She´ll be teaching english to advanced english students at the university nearby, as well as the teachers who teach them, and I´m going to be her assistant. I think she wants me to be a bridge between her and the students, because I have a little better grasp of spanish. If they don´t understand something in english hopefully I can help out there, and just help out in other little ways. She´s taken a course in teaching english as a second language, and reading over her lesson plans and hearing her ideas has given me a few ideas for my school as well. Granted I´ll be teaching in a different environment but I think the next two weeks will be sort of like training wheels for me, where I´ll be able to observe her in a classroom before being thrown into one myself.

Anyways, that´s about it...I miss everyone!