Friday, June 10, 2011

Looking Around in Granada

Octavio gave us a ride to town in his pickup so we could look around. Granada is the oldest city in Nicaragua. How old you say? Don't get me started here, it is really, really old. It was founded in 1524 by a Spanish dude named Cordoba. (This may be where we get the name for cordovan shoe polish.) It has been razed and even burned to the ground several times, but has always been rebuilt. Most of the buildings had to be rebuilt from the ground up after the sieges. However, we stopped in a bar/restaurant just off the square called "Drilos" which, they claimed, was in a building built in 1525 and the walls were original. They said only the roof had to be replaced each time. It was a beautiful place with an old cannon and some kind of monument, celebrating something in the median of the street out front. More importantly, they served "Tofia" beer, which is the local light beer. It is very good and, they say, it is light so it makes you want to drink another. Not being ones to disappoint, we had two. With the second one, we had an order of onion rings. They breaded and fried the onions in a light batter with jalapeno pepper slices. It was incredible! The kids hang around after school close by and a couple of the posts on the covered sidewalk out front had "I love Justin Bieber" scribbled on them. Some things are the same all over!

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