He llegado!!

Hello friends! I've arrived in Granada, and everything went smoothly. I somehow lucked out and got into first class for the Miami-Managua flight, and sat next to a woman who works for a development consulting company. She has been all over the world, and did a year long backpacking trip around the world with her husband. We both ended up in 1st class by accident. When I arrived in Managua, a young kid named Jose brought me to a red pickup, where the driver, Omar, his wife, Auciliadora (it took me about 8 repetitions to get her name right) and her daughter Omaira were waiting. Jose is 17 and was very chatty. He has lived at Casa Xalteva, where I'm taking Spanish classes for 5 years. CX takes in street kids in a kind of transitional home setting. He loves hip hop, is a DJ and a breakdancer (until he broke his collarbone 2 years ago).

I'm staying with Auciliadora, her mom Miriam (my hebrew name!!) and her brother Oscar. All are very nice. They have students in and out all the time. It reminded me of my great-grandparents taking in boarders in their tiny tenements for extra cash in NYC 100 years ago. So I set up my room and everything is very comfortable. The room is really big- room to do push ups and yoga and whatever else.

This morning I've been walking around Granada. It pours every couple of hours. There's lots of crumbling brightly colored buildings- purple, canary yellow, magenta, lime green...I'll send pictures later on. In the center of town is a church- bright yellow!- in the main square, and some colonial-looking buildings that look completely boarded up. Since I was out early, there weren't too many people out yet. People didn't bother me at all- not like in Dakar, or even Santo Domingo. As they say here, muy tranquillo.

Hasta pronto!!!