Sheep Guarding Llama

Today is Tuesday.  This week is pretty slow but we are planning to travel this weekend, potentially.

This morning we got Luciana set up on the HP Folio 13 to use Minecraft there.  Liesl has been using the laptop for Minecraft for a long time but it is more complicated than using an iPad.  Ciana has only been on the iPads.  Today she decided that she wanted to learn how to do it on the laptop so Liesl took breaks from school now and then to come over to the kitchen and work on teaching Ciana how to play the game on the laptop.  It was very cute all around.

This evening the entire family felt like going out and I had some ideas of places that had looked good from earlier excursions around town.  We walked downtown, through the Parque Central and to the south side and down the street there.  We looked at The Gran Francia Hotel on the corner, and it looked good, but decided to keep looking.

We ended up at La Claraboya which I had found the other night and have been telling Dominica that it looked good.  She looked at the menu, which is nearly all fish, and everyone decided that it looked good.

La Claraboya ended up being an amazing find!  We were the only ones there (one other table joined us later in the evening) and is the first air conditioned restaurant that we have experienced in Nicaragua!  What a treat.

It ended up pouring rain while we were eating dinner as well.  Perfect time to be inside, but we got to watch the storm hitting the downtown streets.

Dinner turned out to be completely amazing.  The food was all just great.  I had a shrimp on pasta with cognac sauce that was just fantastic.  This was our best restaurant experience yet in Nicaragua.  It was not cheap but it was well worth it.  All four of us loved our dinner.  The service was great too.

We will be coming back to La Claraboya again!

Even when I got to bed later than usual, still awake before six.  Today is very warm, bright sun and no cloud cover or shade.  It is Monday morning.

In our fruit delivery today there was pitaya (dragonfruit) so we bought a big one and I ate half of it with just a spoon and it was pretty good.  Then Dominica took the other half of it and put it into a delicious pineapple, banana, pitaya smoothie.  Making fresh smoothies every day is awesome.

Also in today’s fruit haul are sweet lemons, which most people here refer to as oranges, but they are actually lemons.  So many new fruits to try out.  Very fun.

By noon it got pretty hot in the house.  Of course I tend to spend a lot of my time standing by the pool so that I can work at the kitchen counter and that means that I am in the sun for much of that time so I tend to be really cooking.

I went out and picked up lunch to bring home and while I was out Dominica made homemade pina coladas from our fresh fruit and Flor de Cana rum.  Delicious.  This is how to work from home!

We opted for a quiet Sunday at home today.  Dominica’s ankle still hurts from she doesn’t know what, so she is not up for walking or doing anything until that is better.  We can’t rent a car today as things are closed on Sundays.  So we are just home.

We had a nice time just relaxing around the house.  In the early afternoon I went out for a short walk, just a few kilometers, around the city.  I went downtown and took a few pictures.  It was a nice walk and the weather was not too bad.

Luciana had a scare this evening.  She thought that there was a big insect in her room.  I ran in to check on her.  It turns out that it was a gecko up by the ceiling casting a bit, triangular shadow.  She was very glad to learn that it was a little baby gecko watching over her and keeping the insects away.  The girls love all of the lizards that live all over the house.  We are so happy that they think that they are cute and sweet as so many kids would likely be afraid of them.  We probably have a dozen lizards living inside of the house with us.

Since Luciana was asleep and Liesl was busy doing her own thing, we decided that it was time for Back to the Future: The Game.  We set up in our bedroom and began Episode 2.  After a little while, Liesl came in to join us.  She said that she was hoping for a family game night tonight and had been hoping that we would play Back to the Future.  So she was very happy.  She stayed with us all evening.  Eventually Luciana woke up and came in too but was upset because she did not want to play this game.  But she eventually snuggled in the bed with us and had a good time too.  She just likes to be contrary.

By the end of family video game night we completed the second episode of Back to the Future.  I have the third episode set to download during the night.  Hopefully we are able to play that tomorrow.

Got up well before six again today.  So weird.  Came downstairs pretty early and set up in the dining room.

We had been thinking about traveling this weekend, maybe renting a car and heading out somewhere to see some more of the country, but Dominica’s ankle was hurting her this morning and she would not be able to do any walking.  So that idea was out.

We got passion fruit in our fruit delivery this morning!  Pretty exciting.  We ate some then Dominica made smoothies with it.  Fresh passion fruit, now that is something pretty exotic.

We did not do too much today.  Hung around the house and had a bit of family time.  Liesl had requested Kathy’s Waffle House for breakfast today so for breakfast (well, around lunch time) we walked downtown and got a big breakfast there which held us through most of the day.

In the late afternoon I set out for a long walk to the west towards the Laguna de Apoyo.  I went south through the city and west along the cemetery and up the mountain road that runs up from there.  It was quickly a dirt path and I ended up climbing up a mountain through rural farming areas and a lot of very, very poor regions.  I made it past the fork in the road, more than halfway to Apoyo but it was getting late and the light was waning.

Partway up the mountain a group of kids came out and talked to me and asked me to take their picture, which I did.  They thought that it was great fun having someone walking by with a phone.

It was a good, long walk for me.  About ten kilometers with a good change in elevation.  I was totally drenched with sweat by the time that I was done.  Really drenched. It was so humid.

The walk back got a bit tough as towards the end I could not see the “road” I was walking on and it was incredibly uneven (and there was a lot of poo on it.)

This evening Luciana requested that we have pizza for dinner.  She had actually asked for it while I was out on the walk and Dominica had texted me, but the pizza place was not on the way home and I needed to get home and clean up before going out to get pizza.  So I came home showered and relaxed for a little bit.  Then I walked uptown to Pizza Vale to get dinner for everyone.

I ordered the pizza and just sat down to enjoy a pina colada while I waited for the pizza. I did not have the energy to go to La Colonia and go shopping.  I was planning to just relax.

It turns out, completely by chance, that tonight was a huge pay per view boxing fight at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan.  That it was being shown at the pizza place tipped me off that maybe someone from Nicaragua was going to be fighting.

It turned out to be a huge fight for the world championship and I got to watch the undefeated, ranked top boxer pound for pound in the world from Nicaragua beat his American rival.  It was a good fight and the pizza place was completely packed.  There was a lot of cheering and everything shut down while the fight was on.

After the fight, which was a really cool cultural experience, I walked back home and noticed that the streets were completely empty like never before.  The whole country must have been at home or out at a bar watching the fight.  Probably the biggest thing to have happened in a while.

I got home and we put on The Nanny and we ate our pizza.  The girls enjoy our evening family time.

Boy Friday just sneaked up on us here in Granada!  We had been talking about traveling this week and here we are, the week already over and we never even seriously looked into going anywhere.

I was up well before six again and came downstairs and got to writing for over two hours before Johanna our maid came and was cleaning the house.  She works three hours a day, three days a week here.  Our pool and house maintenance guy came too, while she was here, and replaced a lightbulb and some other small things in addition to taking care of the pool.

After they left we rounded up the kids and went for a walk downtown to Kathy’s Waffle House which Liesl had requested last night that we do today.  Luciana fought the idea but was very happy once we got there and the girls enjoyed having pancakes.

It was raining lightly while we were at the restaurant and sprinkling as we walked back to the house.

I had a phone conference for about an hour this afternoon and otherwise just wrote most of the day.  Had a phenomenal day on MangoLassi thanks to our first ever “dual post” with another community.  Got nearly ten to one the posts and interest on ML compared to the other, traditionally busier, community while getting good info and a solution for the person asking the question while the other community just got a tiny bit of light conversation.  Pretty awesome change of pace.  Very excited about that.

I went for a walk in the light rain this evening, leaving around five.  I did eight and a half kilometers going south and then southwest of the city on the main “highway.”  It was a good walk and I discovered where a lot of things are and know much more of the city now.

On the way back, around seven, I stopped at a new panaderia that I discovered while out on the walk and got a bag full of pastries with which to surprise the family.  This was a nice, European-style cafe and bakery with lots of desserts and real espresso and everything.  I think that we are going to be pretty happy that I discovered this new place and so close to the house.  Things tend to be hidden on the strangest little side streets.  So much different than in the US where every business is on a main road.  Here you might find any random business on any little side street.  The idea of a main road with all of the businesses really just does not exist outside of the plaza mejor downtown.

I got home and we watched The Nanny with the girls for a while and ate our pastries.  Then we set up Liesl in our room with Minecraft on my HP Folio 13 laptop and she played that for at least an hour.  She had been playing Minecraft the entire time that I was out walking as well.  She has gotten so good at it.  She does amazing stuff and it is really encouraging her to write new words constantly.