Today was a chill day. I woke up around like
7:30 AM to get ready to be at the school at 8:30 because the group was heading
to el Volcan Masaya (Masaya Volcano). Last night I had played around with the
EWH phone that I have and found out that the phone has a very bright light on
it and that I can change the idioma (language) of the phone to English. I also
found that the phone has extensive multimedia options such as playing MP3s and
watching movies as well as a radio tuner on the phone! Anyways Dan and I went
to the school and got there before everyone else. Cuando los otras llegaron,
nosotoros fuimos al volcan (when the others arrived we went to the volcano).
The bus ride there was about 40 minutes long and it took us past a new series
of buildings and places that were not as nice as Granada (but this is to be
expected for such and area as this area is not the tourist destination that
Granada is). Once we arrived at Volcan Masaya, we had to drive an additional 4
km to the top of the volcano where the parking area and the large crater are
located. The volcano is an active volcano and as such the trip bears some
interesting precautions. For example the ranger service tells you to park your
car facing backwards so that in the unlikely event of falling debris or
eruption, you can quickly leave. We when arrived at the volcano it was
releasing gases that gave the appearance that the entire crater was on fire
(white sulfur gases were everywhere). Sadly, we couldn’t see the entire crater
because the gases were so thick. Luckily, some wind would blow the gases away
for a bit so we could glimpse the outline of the front of the crater and the
lower crater. The crater was probably about 800 or more feet deep and maybe
about 1000 feet wide. Located on the top on the nearby peak is a wooden cross
that dates back to the 1500s. Usually we would be able to walk the nearby
staircase to the top, but due to recent seismic activity, we could not. We also
were not allowed to walk up the nearby road for some reason. The volcano was
still quite impressive; despite the fact we couldn’t see it or see any lava.
On
the ride back to the city, I spoke to a member of the group that I didn’t know.
For the life of me, I cannot recall his name, but he was a BME junior looking
to go to med school to become a surgeon. I got talking about WPI and our term
system and robotics at WPI. He was saying they had a unique program in their
senior year where they work with a group to complete a senior project. I got
talking about WPI’s projects and then eventually got talking about robotics
since he was interested. I then spent probably a good 25 minutes talking
extensively about FIRST robotics and MOE and FLL and FRC and St. Louis and FTC
and everything. It was quite intense (in English) and he had never heard of
FIRST but wished he had. After getting back to Granada, Dan and I went back to
the homestay to have some lunch which had rice and a spaghetti-like main
course. It was like spaghetti in vodka sauce with white rice (buttered rice
that was wicked good) and fried plantains (basically potatoes that resemble
bananas). We also had red Fanta which was really sugary. A las uno the big
soccer match started. It was a championship match between two German teams. Dan
and I watched the first 55 minutes at the homestay and only one team scored a
goal in that time. We wanted to go join the group in a bar to watch the second
half, but it was dumping rain outside at halftime and we waited until the rain
let up a bit. By the time we arrived at the bar, the other team had tied up the
score. Con nuestro grupo vimos el fin del partido. The first team to score made
a second goal at 88 minutes (the match was 90 long) and they won. During the
second half, I sat down at the bar next to a guy named Graham in our group, and
not tool ong after a man put his hand on my shoulder and said I had taken his
seat (in English). At this point I wanted to freak out as he said I had taken
his seat next to his girlfriend. Luckily he said it was okay and just stood
there for about five of the most awkward minutes of my life. He eventually sat
down to the left of his girl. After we left the bar some of us decided to walk
down to the dock and look at the beach. On the way we passed a house where they
had an interesting piece of furniture: a (plastic) torso of a man chained
against a wall. It was quite interesting. The beach looked nice from far away,
but we quickly learned that this was deceiving, as the beach was polluted and
was dark grey sand.
We then headed back to chill at the Euro cafe. We tried to
play a little ping pong, but the ball was so badly cracked that it wouldn’t
bounce reliably. A small group of us decided to explore a bit of the city east
of the school. We found the cinema and a store that sold all sorts of DVDs,
videogames, videogame systems, phones and iPods. They even sold NES games!
Anyways we met a guy that wanted to just shake our hands and a guy that tried
to sell us weed (that spoke in English). We also had a guy that punk’d Matt.
The same guy then started dancing and doing back handsprings and handstands. He
then started grunting/moaning and made handgestures that we should return to el
calle Calzado a las siete par aver mas personas bailando (and having a rager
probably). We decided to meet at the Magarita bar at 830 and went to eat
dinner. I arrived at the Magarita bar at around 840 because I was typing this
journal and showing little Adrianna Elena my camera and some photos on my
computer. When I arrived at the bar, I didn’t initially see the others because
they were sitting at a table outside, but I found them and bought a coke (for
25 cordobas for a 500 mL plastic bottle when Salvador vende un botella de coca
cola en 355 mL por siete cordobas) and sat down to enjoy. My walk to the bar
had been rather uneventful save for one instance where a security guard freaked
me out when he was standing inside the courtyard of an abandoned home. Before I
left Salvador told me to take a taxi back because last week there were 3 guys
with knives out at midnight down the block (and we would be coming back late).
I felt so bad because at the bar dije “un coke por favor” y el hombre de la
barra me dio un Toña (una cerveza). I then had to ask for a coca cola and then
when he asked if I wanted the beer I said no and he seemed a bit sad, but
slightly jovial too. Anyways I got to meet another guy named Travis that was in
Nicaragua to help with a local lagoon and trying to develop a marketing
strategy for them to attract more tourists because apparently this lagoon is a
nice landscape feature, but no one knows about it. Later on in the night (about
10 PM) I played a couple games of pool with Kasper and even got to be on a team
with Charlotte and despite me being
awful at pool and her being slightly intoxicated, we did alright and only lost
by one ball. Anyways I had a good time playing pool with Charlotte and chatting
with her a very miniscule bit unfortunately. Anyways we got to see some break
dancers and Akshay got punk’d again into buying two Mariachi songs from roaming
guitar players for 100 cordobas. The first time he got punk’d was earlier where
he went to buy a hammock from a hammock kid. The kid said that usually the
hammocks go for 200 cordobas (like $8) and Akshay “bartered” him down to 165
cordobas ($6). The funny part was that after we were walking away and Akshay
was in the front of the group, the kid told Charlotte, Hannah and I that the
hammocks were only 150 cordobas.
At about like 1130 PM Dan and I took a taxi
back to the house and had to wake Salvador unfortunately because the house
estaba cerrada. One other thing about the day was that Kasper asked if I had
thought about what I would do for my comedy routine and I said that I had
thought a bit on it. I need to think more about it though. Perhaps I could talk
about frustrations of being a gringo aquí, the flight down here, buying things,
drinking things, talking to people (both those with EWH and those here in
Granada), types of sketchy encounters that we have, walking from my homestay to
the school (seems to take forever), expectations vs. reality of the dock and
“beach,” the torso thing in the one home, the whole culture shock (which I am
still feeling a bit of), buying things for cheap with cordobas and fixing
things for an EE. Anyways tomorrow we see the islands and have Mass! Night
y’all!
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