A la Iglesia

I managed to get to church this morning.  Luckily, someone from the U.S. Embassy in Managua is a member of the church and was able to give me a ride, though I think he had quite the time finding my hotel.  Addresses in Nicaragua are very interesting.  They don't use street names or house numbers.  It's all about point of reference.  I heard that it is the same in Venezuela.  But I'll get to that in a minute.

So the lighting was a little off for this picture, but this is the
courtyard of my hotel.  Very pretty.

At church I met a girl who spoke fantastic English.  I didn't detect a bit of an accent, so I asked her where she learned English.  It turns out that she was born in the U.S. and lived there until she was 12.  Her family had to live Nicaragua during the Civil War because of political persecution.  They ended up in the United States.  But they returned to Nicaragua when she was 12.  After she graduated from High School, she went back to the States and has been going back and forth often since then.  Right now she and her mother are trying to take care of some things so they can move back to the U.S.  So, needless to say, her English is excellent.  And what's even crazier is that she has a sister that lives in Vienna, Virginia.  That's very close to me!  It always is a surprise when you can find connections with people from all over the world.
After church, I got a ride from a woman who is from Mexico.  Her husband works for the Japanese Embassy.  I really enjoyed talking with her, and practicing my Spanish.
Now I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the rest of my day.  I am exhausted, I think partly from the heat, and I'm not sure when my colleagues are going to be arriving, or where they will be staying.  It's possibly that some of them have already arrived.  But I don't know where they are.
Anyway, I think I'm going to take a little nap.  Especially since I couldn't sleep past 6:00 this morning.  There were lots of very noisy birds.  But somehow I don't mind being woken up by bird calls.  It lends a peaceful feeling to it all.