Tuesday's Journal Entry

regular font = Sol, italics = Mikey

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

It looks like I am going to be about a day behind on my journaling for this whole trip! What happened to us yesterday? Hmm…

We got up on Monday at a reasonable hour and took our time showering and getting ready to face the world. For breakfast, we headed down to the hotel Café. I’m quite proud of myself because I ordered the whole meal in Spanish. The waiter didn’t laugh at me, either - although I could see that he wanted to. It is a good thing that I trust this hotel, because as soon as I had finished my meal of Tomate Mozarela Cuernito y ensalada, Solee realized that she had been told not to get salads (“ensaladas”) because they are often rinsed in tap water instead of purified water. So far all is well though! And we ended up both having salads at lunner (also at the hotel).

Anyway, after breakfast, we chatted with Norbert, one of the hotel’s owners, and asked him what to do around here. He went on for days and days with lists of things, so we just started walking up the Malecón to see things. There are tons of little shops and restaurants, and one pier with a missing board you have to jump over. It’s for the brave. We must have walked for miles…or at least it seemed that way. We found lots of mercados, restaurants for future meals, a casa de cambio (money exchange), the bus station, and many interesting things to look at.

When we returned to our room after several hours of walking and sun, it was time for una siesta. The rest of the afternoon was spent at the hotel, checking e-mail, lounging on the sun terrace, enjoying dinner and watching a DVD on the computer. There is a television with cable in our room, but we haven’t turned it on yet. I would enjoy listening to Spanish TV, I think, but I am afraid I will learn there is English TV too. We’ve worked hard to get American TV out of our systems lately. It would be a shame to give in now.

This morning, I got to sleep until almost 9. Ah. I miss the kitties, but not their insistence that they be fed at 6 am! We are going to do some more exploring in town today. I think we’re going to end up renting a car for a few days so we can check out the out of town areas (and the beach) tomorrow.