Navidad! Navidad!

I like Christmas here. It's wonderful to be walking around in the warm weather, sitting in the park, sitting on my roof... They have a Christmas song here that I enjoy. Yes, I said I actually enjoy a Christmas song. I'm in a good mood and the Christmas songs here are to a latin beat. There's a funny one that just says 'nav i dad, nav i dad!' to the beat of jingle bells. But it also sounds like it is about to break into a salsa song.

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I have been kind of lazy in the last day, I went to an awesome Mexican place last night that is named after Frida Kahlo. Best enchilada verde sauce.. I could have licked my plate and thought about it. I sat and people watched, enjoyed the music, talked to some more canadians, talked a little bit to a Guatemalan family, baby Felix pictured above. Yes, I'm proud that I haven't gone back to burger king yet for the numero tres. But don't think I haven't thought about it. The coffee here is really good too. There is no starbucks and even the two fast food places in town are disguised to look like colonial buildings, which I appreciate.

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Last night people let off firecrackers for hours, increasing every hour until midnight. I had a beer at my corner bar and talked to a hippie, drunk guy from Austin who was on his honeymoon. His new wife was asleep and he was out getting drunk by himself. I wonder how long that will last... But he had some good stories about living in Alaska and we travel talked. There was also an extremely sour and annoying Egyptian guy with a huge chip on his shoulder who was trying to pick verbal fights with me. Ugh. Then I went up to my roof and met my English neighbors, who are very nice. They are going to tell me more about Nicaragua.

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I decided to let the last 10 days or so of this trip be left up in the air. Originally I swore I would go to Honduras but it's just not grabbing me. I keep hearing Nicaragua hissing 'pssss! yo, come down here!' A lot of people are talking up Rio dulce/Livingston and I keep hearing good things about the corn islands in Nicaragua. The Maize islands. Then I can have an entry titled 'Maize hoy, Maize manana!' haha. Ok, that might have been funny to about three people.

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Yesterday I also got a massage from a woman named Olga. I was pretty excited to hear that her name was Olga, because with that name, you can be assured a nice rough, painful massage. And that was exactly what I got from Olga. There were a few 'are you kidding me' moments during the massage, like when she smacked me and pounded me around with oil and saw more of me that most people have..or should... but you know by now that I get massages in each country I visit, and they are all different and interesting! I felt like Olga was stripping paint off a building or tenderizing some meat. But for less than 20 dollars an hour, I got the Paramount and Lincoln Mercury buys pounded right out of me. Nice.

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here's some bonus video footage for you, consider it my christmas present.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZDJSxdQK5k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1CjtYmfibQ

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check out the kid in the giant black hat in the first video. He makes me laugh!!

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I'm off to the park because I feel like I should study. I don't have a text book or anything, so I use the spanish Glamour magazine, haha. I've also been making a huge effort to talk to the locals. Sometimes I feel like a total poser idiot, but it's fun. I can buy things in the store, ask for what I want, order off the menu, ask someone to help me get something off a high shelf, tell my teacher that I only have one sweater so she will see it a lot ...yeah it's mas frio here than I ever thought... at night and in the shade I really need hoodie negro. She laughed when I told her that but the important thing is that I can get my thoughts across. Even if they are always in the present tense.