Friday. The dogs slept in fifteen minutes. Then we went on a 2.2 mile walk. It was pretty nice out this morning, but I jogged for part of the way so was sweaty anyway. I could not be out for very long because I have so many meetings this morning that my whole day is just jam packed with them.
My first meeting of the morning was with a customer at seven thirty. Yes, getting the day started for real. That one went super awesome and was my cause for concern yesterday because I did not know what they wanted but rather than being bad news, it was exceptionally good news. And it took up most of my early morning.
Then I had my Spanish language memory training lesson at nine. After than the marketing team had a meeting at ten thirty. Then a sales meeting at eleven. It was getting close to noon before I had more than a few minutes to get away from all of the meetings. In between some of the meetings this morning I did manage to get breakfast tacos in the restaurant, at least.
We had our second person, thousands of miles away from the first one, get diagnosed with dengue fever this morning! He’s been sick for several days already, so he might be a week into it at this point.
Major construction going on at the hotel today. We have to replace the septic system or, more accurately, we have to add another one. So today the “trash area” as we call it is being torn out and very sadly, the palm tree that lives there is being cut down. Then a new septic tank is being installed. And a new ground floor put in on top of that. A pad for our two generators (we only own one so far) is going in there so that they will have a permanent home someplace safe and quiet away from most of the hotel. Then a roof is being built over it all so that when it rains the water does not just go directly into the septic system causing it to overflow. It is a major project.
For lunch today the new head chef made chicken cordon bleu for the staff (and Paul.) She is stepping up the game around here.
With the tree being removed, I am now very, very inclined to build up over top of the laundry and trash area and extend at least partially over the entrance walkway and make a room back there. Whether it is a hotel room or just one of our private rooms, I am not sure. But the street is very interesting where we are and having a room back there with a view of the hotels, a little view of the ocean, and all the visibility into the late night bar and street scene. Would certainly make me a lot more connected to the village.
Tonight is our team night out. It turns out that we are going out to celebrate everyone being so happy because the one mean team member who was making everyones’ lives awful got herself fired and everyone is just so relieved.
Around six Paul had some friends over and I hung out with them until about seven. We just sat out on the beach having beers and tequila. Our staff started straggling in around six thirty to be at the hotel ready to go out tonight. I skipped dinner because there was no time to play host and to get to the showers before it was time to go.
I showered at seven thirty and got actually dressed up for only like the third time in three months. Since I wrapped up all of my customs stuff in Managua nearly three months ago I have only left Las Peñitas once in all of this time and that was to go to León to deal with the bank and that was just for one to two hours and I did not even manage to eat anywhere. So this is my actual first time getting to go out and actually do something since moving to Nicaragua!
Leo and one of his driver friends were at the hotel at eight and we were ten of us heading out: Paul, Dominica, Ivonne, Juan Carlos, Ingrid, Jaho, Hernan, Erika, Wilbur, and, of course, me. We went into León downtown and started the night at the Gecko Bar. We were there for quite a while. We got several rounds of drinks (that were not very good) and an order of variados which is basically a big tray of typical Nicaragua bar food samplers. A very popular thing here.
Food and drinks took forever. We moved on to 23 Bar which was the originally planned destination. There it was more drinks but nearly everyone went dancing. Paul, Wilbur, and Ivonne had all already gone back to Las Peñitas making it an early night. We stayed out until after midnight but could not be out super late as some of the staff have to work tomorrow and some have classes. Leo came and got us and we were on our way back and were home before one in the morning. Ingrid was the only one to stay behind and checked in that she was home safe at two thirty.
Overall today was pretty great. Really positive news from work on all sides with several fully confirmed new customers and a couple of “not completely official” but rapidly moving forward “final stage” customer components. Super productive overall just getting loads of stuff done which makes me feel great in general. Then a nice evening of hanging out with the locals before an awesome night out with about half of the team on the town for my first time out dancing since I last went with Rachel in the first weeks of 2020!