Almost vacation

This past weekend I was in Granada for a couple reasons.  I wanted to meet my sobrinito (nephew--my host sister's son) and my boyfriend (yes, it's official) was going to an exposition for a friend.  Frank and I met up Friday afternoon and checked into a hostel which had a pool--definite plus!  Then, we went swimming to get all the sweat and bus grime off before going out to dinner.  My sitemate Steven, his girlfriend, and his sister were also in Granada so we met up with them for happy hour. 

Saturday was the day of the exposition, which was in the central park.  Frank's friend is a JICA volunteer, which is similar to Peace Corps but from Japan.  She and other JICA volunteers were doing an exposition on atomic bombs.  It was interesting, but also a little awkward to be Americans while they were talking about Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Anyway, it was nice to visit with Yuriko (Frank's friend) and meet her friends there.  That day we also got to go visit my sister Ruth and finally meet Dylan Osmani :)

He was sleeping, but Ruth let me wake him up to say hello :)  He is so big!  He's just 1 month old now and he has TONS of hair! 

It was so fun to see little Dylan and get to hold him :)  I also hadn't seen Ruth since before she had had Dylan, so it was nice to see her and catch up on things.  I think she'll be coming to Boaco next month to stay for a little while.  I love having her at the house.

Since that day was so hot, we decided to go swimming again, but this time Steven and Jenny invited us to swim at their hotel (which was the hotel we stayed at during our first 3 days in Nicaragua for our orientation).  This pool is much bigger than the one in our hostel so it was fun to hang out there for awhile.  We went out for dinner later and met up with Yuriko and her friends.  Then we walked around a little and headed back to the hostel to watch a movie.

On Sunday we went to a highly recommended breakfast place, Garden Cafe, and were pleasantly surprised by the service, ambiance, and quality of food.  This place was great!!

After a wonderful breakfast, we strolled around Granada to take in the last bit of our "almost vacation".  It definitely was a nice little retreat from the busyness back in our sites and we barely mentioned Peace Corps over the weekend.  Don't get me wrong, I love what I'm doing here, but it's nice to have a little break every now and then :)