we´ve landed

Travelling is a fascinating and conflicting expeience. Simultaneously it can be fun, guilt'inducing, rich and horribly difficult. Two weeks ago we arrived in Mexico City after biking down the west coast of the U.S. 14 days later we are in San Juan Del Sur on the west coast of Nicaragua (yes, thats it there, on the tiny sliver of land separating gigante Lago Nicaragua from the Pacific Ocean) and are settling in. This will be our home for the next month, at least.

Yesterday, after visiting every school in town and talking with numerous school directors, we decided to enroll in the SSS Spanish school. Like all of the schools, they offer a full immersion program combining four hours a day of spanish instruction with a homestay and afternoon activities. In half an hour we will goo to the school to meet our family and move into our new digs. On Monday we start classes. We are both excited to kick our language skill up a notch to more deeply engage with the places we are visiting.

I also went out for my first surf yesterday. After lugging my board all the way down the isthmus, shoving it in bus luggage compartments, dragging it along dirty cobblestone streets, it is finally paying its due. The water here is WARM, which is a delight in and of itself. I am VERY excited to try to experience this ocean in as many ways as I can. One of the selling points of the school we selected is that they do a lot of beach trips AND send their students out on fishing trips in the panga fleet that fills the bay. I am desperate to get on the water and see what I can learn.

I´ve uploaded just a short video of Christine walking on the beach to give you a bit of the flavor of where we are. Indeed, palm trees, a nice beach, the whole bit. We´ve run into a snafu with photo uploads, haven´t quite figured it out. sorry about the delay. and i continue to intend to edit some of our extensive video collection for upload. just haven´t haad the time. Watch the beach video by pasting this location into your browser http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAqe9p1iJHw

If you are interested in our school, they have a website here http://www.sjdsspanish.com

A quick shout out for my country and my state for doing the right thing with this election. At the risk of alienating our readers of the conservative persuasion, I have to confess my delight. I think the u.s. was journeying in the world in a very poor way and I feel that the democrats winning control of congress might do something to remedy that. Locally, I can´t even begin to express my happiness at the loss of Initiative 933 in Washington. It was an evil initiative, and it lost resoundingly.

hope everyone is well! Ian