La Escuela de Espanol

I love Spanish school, however, 4 hours a day of thinking is not something I was prepared for.  Next week, I am cutting back to 2 hours a day.  No need to exercise the brain that much, right?  After 8 hours of classes, I still contend that if you slightly change your pronunciation, roll your r's and/or add o or an a to the end of most words, you will be understood more than fifty percent of the time.  Mi escuela is on the beach and has daily activities outside the classroom.  I originally chose not to participate in the activities, as extracurricular events have never been my thing. But today, when they loaded my fellow gringos onto benches in the back of a pick up truck and headed to a neighboring beach for a beer, I figured I'd tag along.  It took about 45 minutes to travel about 5 miles on the pothole filled dirt roads and despite the near gale force winds turning the seemingly soft sand into what felt like a continuous mini-paintball attack, it was well worth the trip.

Each day, we go on a field trip.  Yesterday we went to visit some local monkeys, one of which loves men but aggressively attacks women and children.  The teachers called him gay and laughed.  I think it's rather sick and twisted that this monkey is on display at one of the nicer hotels in San Juan Del Sur.  After hearing from my teacher that women don't surf or participate in activities outside of working and caring for their home and children, it made a little more sense that this monkey would be somewhat of a local icon.  Today we went to a local market set up for the cruise ship anchored in the bay.  When the cruise ships stop here, Nicaraguans come from hours away to set up shop and get a piece of the pie.  So far, it is the only place in San Juan Del Sur where items trade on the US dollar and everyone speaks English. 

I have managed to watch the sunset each night.  It is beautiful.  How can one not love a place where time doesn't matter, bananas are five cents, a beer is a dollar, every restaurant serves chicken 'gordon' blue, and the sunsets are this amazing?  Did I mention you can buy Cuban cigars?