Worst Airport Evah!

So I land in Miami, not too excited to be back at this airport. After a long taxi we stop. After waiting several minutes the captain informs us that we are just waiting for a plane to taxi out of the way so we can get into our gate. We wait more. Then the captain tells us that the plane we are waiting for needs to be towed out, and they are waiting for a tow to come and get it. Waiting, waiting, waiting, 35 minutes after touchdown we are able to taxi to our gate.

Welcome to Miami, I knew you would be good to me!

As I am trying to make my way to immigration there are two women who work for the airport pushing two men in wheelchairs, walking side by side, chatting and taking their time. No one can pass them because they are walking side by side. Finally a way around in sight! One of those speed walker things, but in Miami I guess they move a little slower, the thing was packed, people we walking slow and the thing seemed to be moving slow. Now the ladies pushing the wheelchairs are moving faster than us! So still stuck behind the wheelchairs by the time I get off!

Luckily the lines at immigration are not too long. I get up to the stand and the border patrol officer has a low, raspy voice, kinda like Moto Moto, the hippo in Madagascar 2, but not sexy at all.

BP Officer: "So you live in Managua?"
Me: "Yes"
BP Officer: "What would you do there?"
Me: "I am a teacher"
BP Officer: "What do you teach?"
Me: "Social Studies"
BP Officer: "Oh so you speak Spanish?"
Me: "Yes, but I teach in English"
BP Officer: "Oh so you speak English?"
Me: "Ummm...yesss"
BP Officer: "So you were born in Hawaii?"
Me: "Yes"
BP Officer: "How was that?"
Me: "Goood??"

I have never been asked about being born in Hawaii, ever, until I came through Miami. Last month when I came in through Miami they were questioning me about that too. He asked, if my middle name is Hawaiian? And then did I know what my middle name means? And then he asked me, "ok, what does it mean?" He then told me he used to live in Hawaii. It was a strange conversation, come to think of it maybe it was the same officer....

Anyway, it was kinda fun looking around when going through customs, there were all sorts of people getting searched and questioned and taken into back rooms and waiting in strange unmarked lines, I feel like I don’t see that anywhere else. So that part was exciting!

I make it through immigration and got my luggage and dropped it off, which was much better then when I did this a month ago and the place to drop off my luggage was just two people standing in a corridor with a sign saying drop luggage here. I felt lucky when my suitcase made it to Toronto, I had walked away thinking I was tricked into giving random people my luggage.

Unlike my last visit, there was actually a screen to check my gate. And the security entrance and terminal were clearly marked! Yes! Except for the 35 minute tarmac delay and the weird immigration encounter, this may not be so bad!

So walking to my gate, D57. Wow, it is far, all the way at the end of the D concourse, took me a good 15 minutes to get there, well kinda, so I get to D55 and then there is a sign to go down the stairs to D60, I think maybe D56-60 are all down there, but no, it is just D60, but with several gates, going to different places.

Confuse me!

So I go back upstairs and confirm that several destinations are flying out of one gate D60 and so where is my gate, D57? Yes it is D57. But it just skips D56-59. So I retrace my steps and go back to see if there was some strange turn or arrow, or up or down stairs area to these mysterious gates. Nope. Again feeling lost in the retched airport! I look at their nearest screen, Boston D8. What...D8? Desde cuando? I checked like 3 times and it was D57. And certainly I couldn’t have confused an 8 for a 57, maybe 51 or 75, but not 8!

Alright, so I guess I am going to have to walk all the way back down this looong-ass concourse. Only the terminal didn’t start with D1, so in order to get to D8, I have to walk upstairs and board the freaking sky train in order to get there! As I board the sky train I hear a familiar accent and see some big Irish boys wearing old-school Patriots hats and I know I must be on the right track.

So, to recap: my plane landed at 11:40am, and I arrive at my gate at 2:30pm. So much for getting lots of paper correcting done! Thank god I didn’t have a close connection! And as I sit here at the gate, every other announcement is a gate change. Way to be Miami airport, living up to your sucky reputation like nobody’s business.

Addendum: After I wrote this and boarded the plane, my flight got delayed an hour and a half (ok not the airport's fault). The guy next to me is on the phone going on about how much Miami airport sucks, and how there has got to be a better way to get into and out of Florida, and how he must have walked over a mile in the airport! I feel you buddy! You were looking for D57 too, huh?!

How Have I Been Here for Almost Two Years and Not Known About...

ZAPOTE?!

I went to visit my drive-up fruit guy today to buy pitahaya (dragon fruit), it just came into season and I am so happy about it. In addition to the pitahaya and limes that I bought he asked if I wanted some zapote. I said I didnt know what it was. He seemed surprised and went to get one. Leaning into the passenger's side window he showed me this round fruit with a rough brown exterior. He cut out a slice to reveal a bright, dark, rich, orange flesh, with a beautiful dark brown seed, much like that of an avocado. I tasted the slice and then quickly told him I would buy it!


The texture of the fruit reminds me of a cross between an avocado, banana, papaya and a yam. The taste, I cant quite describe. I keep eating more and more of it to try to put my finger on at least one thing it tastes like. It is sweet, mild and kinda creamy. One website said it has a "berry-like" flavor, which I disagree with because it is in no way sour or tangy, as many berries can be. It has some soft strings, not like a mango, more like an avocado and they have a stronger, more fragrant taste, that tastes some how familiar. Ooooo and I am discovering as I eat more and more of it, that it actually has three pretty seeds in the middle and not just one. I haven't been able to find too much about what health benefits the zapote provides besides the obvious high level of anti-oxidants that many bright colored fruits have, as well as a good source of fiber.

Zapote is now my new obsession, and I am sure will make for some fun new shakes and dessert ideas!

Mass Murder of Ants

Since we have moved to the apartment behind our old apartment we have been invaded by ants. Now ants were always a problem, Sabine used to complain about them in her spotless kitchen! We have the same problem, although our kitchen is not always spotless but, once the lights go out, the ants take over, its gross, but there's not much that can be done.

This time the Leaf-cutter ants attacked my bougainvilleas. It went from a flowering, green leafy plant to a bunch of leafless branches in what seemed like a day or two! We can always see ants walking in their little line, carrying bits of leaves, hard at work. It never really bothered me that much until they took all the leaves of my plant! So I went to the hardware store and got this poison. The guy told me to sprinkle it in their path and they will pick it up and bring it back to the nest (or whatever the place ants live is called) and die. It seemed easy enough. Ivan and I went outside and found the line of ants and sprinkled the little green disks along their path.

We watched as they started picking them up and carrying them along their way back home. I was amazed that it worked so fast, the ants immediately picked them up, but then I started feeling guilty. I was tricking them and they were carrying off poison that would kill them all! I have never liked killing living things. Ask my dad who I would call up into my room when there was a spider, but then ask him to capture it and bring it outside instead of killing it. I would often do that myself, if I was brave enough. Although here the insects are sometimes a little too big and scary to do this and Ivan doesn't go for capturing it and putting it outside. So I have had to get used to the killing of little and big insect alike. And just to be clear, I think cockroaches are the only thing I don't care about killing. I cant decide if they are more gross dead or alive, I certainly dont like killing them because of their gooey insides and but I have no remorse for them when they are gone.

I was surprised that Ivan was saddened by our massive ant murder as well. At first I thought he was just making fun of me, but then he suggested even cleaning up the poison we had left out and said that we were messing with the circle of life. It is true. When we went outside tonight we only saw one ant on the ant road, poor thing doesnt know where all his friends went. I dont know, maybe I have watched too many of those movies, "Antz" or "A Bug's Life", but both Ivan and I were feeling pretty bad about the whole thing.

No Thanks! No Time!

(The title is for you, Cales!)

The past two months have been busy, busy, busy and have flown by! The week after starting school again after Christmas break my Master's classes began. Framingham State College has some sort of international program, I am not sure if it is only for masters of teaching or if they offer other fields of study, but it is a pretty cool program. The professors that have come have taught courses all over the world. It is kinda nice too to have people from Massachusetts come, some of them have accents and it is enjoyable to listen to.

So I started one class last summer, classes were offered in Jan and Feb and then two again in June once classes got out. I didnt do the classes in Jan and Feb last year because I was too stressed out with the day to day pressures of school in general. Now I wish I had at least taken one course. The program takes two years (9 courses). So I will finish next summer. And since I decided to stay another year, I though I should take advantage of this opportunity. Well actually it was one of the reasons I decided to stay another year too. The master's is technically in International Education, which I am not sure will hold up in public schools in the States, but it will at least look good, maybe help with private schools in the States and definitely be great if I come back to teach in Managua again, or anywhere else. The school that hosted the Teacher's Conference I went to in the Dominican Republic in October was really, really nice. Maybe I will become an International teacher and just teach my way around all the places I want to visit in the world!

The first course was Technology in the Classroom, which was an awesome class and I learned lots of new ways to integrate technology in the classroom and learned how to make little movies, which was the best part of the class. There was also a nice atmosphere and classmates were supportive and class was fun and went by quickly. Classes are held from 4-7 M-F and 8-5 Saturdays for two weeks. During the first week of class I was on a cleanse diet. I had seen a lot about them on talk shows around New Years time, saying that people should do them at least once a year and they sounded pretty great. Plus, just the week before I suffered through 2 days of food poisoning from some tacos I bought on the street. Not fun! So I thought it would be a good time to clean out my system and what a perfect place to do it where there is endless fresh fruit and veggies for cheap! But, this diet requires a lot of prep. When you eat only raw fruits and vegetables, you are basically eating constantly, and so each night I was up late chopping and preparing tupperwares full of papaya, pineapple, melon, carrots, celery, etc. The diet was nice, I didnt notice some of the promised effects like brighter, whiter eyes, or luminous skin. But I did feel good every day.

After that class ended we had a one week break to catch our breath and then the next class started with the same schedule. The next class was Special Ed in the Regular Ed classroom. The class was interesting, and I learned a lot, but the class over all just had a really bad feeling to it. We started off class with a debate over inclusion of a downs syndrome student in a regular classroom. It was a great way to learn about the pros and cons of this issue, that is a hot topic, but some people seemed to take the debate personally and had strong feelings about it and there just seemed to be this lingering animosity for the remaining two weeks. The professor wasnt very dynamic and the class seemed to drag on each night.

Also during this time Ivan and I started Salsa Casino classes, which we have been wanting to take since I moved here. Ivan of course has a natural feel for dancing salsa, and I had lessons a few years earlier in Leon, but I dance rigidly, 1, 2, 3, forward, backward, side, side. So our salsa styles werent quite compatible, but it is something we both enjoy doing, so we thought taking a class together would be great! Classes are Tues and Thurs from 730 to 9. So after my masters classes ended at 7, I would go meet Ivan and usually have to change in the car so we could be on time for classes. After class, we would eat a late dinner and I would have to stay up late doing homework or writing a paper.

On top of all of this I found out that I need to apply for the Master Program, duh, seems pretty obvious, but, big surprise, the school never told me and I had asked them about it and they said I just need to take the classes. Well that isnt the case, as I found out from some others in the class. I was supposed to matriculate before taking my third course, but this was impossible as the application needs to be mailed to the school, it cannot be sent digitally. I got an extension until the end of Feb, and luckily Ivan's Uncle was visiting from Miami and so after I ran around and got all the letters of rec I needed and wrote an essay, etc, etc, I sent the package home with Ivan's Uncle, who will mail it along for me.

So now classes are over (YAY!), Ivan and I still have salsa classes, which are nice to be able to go to with more energy. I am playing a bit of correcting catch up and enjoying those extra hours I have each day.