Hola mi amigos and familia! We have now finished a week of travel and are loving every minute of it. Below is my journal log since I´m clearly my mother´s daughter. Read at your leisure... July 5-7 After a relaxing fourth of July with friends at my pool, I boarded a plane on Thursday to head to Salt Lake for my friend Courtney´s wedding. It was great to reconnect with my swedish basketball friends and catch up on all their lives. it is unfortunate that it takes a wedding for all of us to get together and unfortunately, those weddings are becoming less and less. i guess some friends will just need to start getting divorced and remarried. ha. btw, i have given up on trying to capitalize on this keyboard. it is ridiculously sticky. domingo July 7 t viernes July 13 (Happy Birthday Debbie!) My aunt sandy graciously picked me up at the crack of dawn to head to the airport with chace. both he and i did not sleep much the night before thanks to last minute packing by chace and wedding craziness by me. we had a 6hour layover in houston where we were met by my friend Julia, her husband, and their three kids. the layover worked out perfectly as i had yet to even meet her youngest two. they treated us to real texas bbq and we were able to catch up. chace and ian were kind enough to let julia and i gab on while they watched the kids. 15 hours from our departure, we arrived at san juan del sur and miraculously found a hostel with two beds available. we crashed for a few hours on the inch thick matresses and were promptly woken at 6 by chickens fighting on the tin roof above us. clearly, we needed to find a better hostel. we paid the 9 dollars for a few hours of sleep and left to find a better resting ground. as we started walking, i noticed two bite marks on my thumb and realized something must have been biting away at my thumb during the night. we found a better place to stay with our own private room, shared bathroom, and kitchen. on monday, all taxis in the village went on strike on account of the larger hostels offering cheaper transportation to the beaches. not to fear, we found a boat and a couple people willing to split the price so we could sail to the nearest beach. quite an experience as the boat dropped us off about a mile from the beach...everyone else had surfboards while chace and i had to swim quite a distance to get to the shore. after a long day of beach time, we had to swim back to the boat and pull ourselves up. quite a site as i attempted, rather ungracefull,y to pull my exhausted self up this boat...glad there is not a picture of this. i do, however, have a nice bruise on the back of my thigh from throwing my leg over the boat. for the next couple days, we lived off homemade egg burritos and peanut butter sandwiches while trying out the handful of beaches nearby. while chace surfed, i read in hammocks. ideal situation for both of us. i was able to read through all three books in the fifty shades of grey series. i had no idea just how trashy they are and found myself blushing quite frequently. one night we signed up for turtle tour to go to a beach reserve for turtles to lay their eggs. the night before, the group saw four turtles lay their eggs, so we assumed we had a pretty good chance. four hours later of walking along the beach at night with an armed guard, we still had found no turtles. oh well, it was a true test of patience and we met a girl named alex to chat with. chace smartly replied to her as we left that night, ´´it will be nice to see what you look like in the day time.´´ sure enough, the next day she was at the same beach and had to come close to us to hear us talk before she could confirm that we were the same two from the night before. we spent the evening with her and mateo, another traveler, playing pool at a local bar. a local guy, carlos, was nice enough to let us play and i learned a great deal from him about the ´nica rules´ to pool. another highlight of san juan was zip lining at the top of the mountain overlooking this surf town. to ease my nerves, i started joking with the guides and asked one if he enjoyed strapping girls into harnesses. he smartly replied that it was the highlight of his day as he tugged my thigh strap tight. tripp would say this was flirting. i think it was just being nice. about halfway through the zipline tour, i did not break soon enough and almost knocked a couple people off the platform. luckily i screamed ´´hola´´ and one of the guides was able to brake my line. he then turned to chace and said ´´she´s crazy!´´ in spanish. although my initial plan was to go to san juan to take spanish classes, my plans have taken a bit of turn. i blame chace even though every morning he would point out the spanish school directly across from our place. i figure ill just pick up a spanish 1 book when i get back to work and teach myself some basics. i have been quite surprised by how good my spanish has actually gotten in recent years. the tax cab drivers really appreciate it or so it seems. Sabado y Domingo yesterday we left san juan with two aussies we met in san juan and headed to ometepe where two volcanoes have formed the largest inland island in the world. having two additional traveling partners has really helped with costs and makes dinner conversations much more entertaining. we spent yesterday traveling around the island and visiting aqua de oro. it is a natural spring with freshwater and cures all things. we were told this many times. it surely did not cure our mosquito bites, cuts, or bruises. this morning we took the ferry back from ometepe and travelled to granada. we initially planned to stay in a treehouse outside of granada. our cab driver literally drove us down some random side road for about a mile and dropped us off at a sign that said reception with an arrow pointed up stone steps and leading into the jungle. sarah, one of the aussies, and i smartly declared we would watch the bags while the boys hiked up the mountainous jungle steps to find out if we were in the right place. as we waved the cab goodbye, there was definitely a moment of ´ok, this is a good way to die.´ about a half hour later, the boys come stumbling down the mountain and declare that there are a total of three people staying at the jungle hostel and that there are drop toilets. i think david, the other aussie, didn´t want to stay there because he declared that us girls would not like it. i was about to open my mouth but decided to relent. instead, we strapped on our backpacks and trekked back to the main road about a mile back. as we walked, we were greeted with some awkward stares from locals, stopped to take pictures of cows, and interrupted a lively game of baseball. we got to the main road and assumed it would take about thirty minutes to find a taxi to take us into the main road. instead, our thumbs attracted the first large truck to stop and we jump aboard the back of truck with a couple of localers coming back from church. we unloaded in the middle of granada and asked the driver if we could pay him. he was refused by chace luckily stuck 20 cordobas (about a dollar) in his hand. we walked around granada today and toured a church in session. on the way back from lunch, i stumbled upon an art gallery and have purchased two new prints to add to my collection. after first being quoted 800 because they were having a special ´half off´ sale, i was able to get the price all the way down to 225 for two paintings. i then told the man i was going to now shop for pottery. i picked up two hand etched plates and four small plates that were priced at about 100 total. i told him to throw them all in he had a deal for 225. he smirked...yes, i like to bargain. he relented and then i pulled out my wallet. oops, i only have 220. insert smiley face. quite a deal. tomorrow chace, the aussies, and i are heading to a lagoon for the day. so far, it has been a perfect vacation. Jesicah Rolapp