A Day in the Life.

Just so you can get an idea of a kind of typical day in Costa Rica...

Today was a pretty relaxed today, just how I like it J We start class at 8, but luckily for me, who is always late, we don’t always start exactly on time (this is a cultural thing, we call it ‘tico time’).   Class this month is pretty relaxed.  Classes here seem to be less about grades and pressure and more focused on things that are relevant to us…like cultural things that we don’t understand, slang, etc.  Today we had an assignment where we had to describe how to play a type of card game…and then we got to play it! (this really had legitimate learning value too haha…grammar) The games got a little intense, at one point someone got my finger and it was bleeding. But being the little competitive one that I am, I wanted to keep playing (not that I was winning anyway, ha). But after getting blood on a few cards and the table, I decided to go and hunt down a band-aid, lol.  About halfway through the four hour class, we get a little break which is a nice chance to catch up with people.  In class today, we also listened to a student’s presentation and practiced numbers (which sounds dumb, but number quantities can be really big here…for example, 10,000 mil = $20, so it can be hard…plus ticos just talk so fast!).  So it’s a really practical class, and I love how our profesora laughs ALL the time, it just makes everything seem so much funnier. 

After class, a couple of us went to a restaurant, which is pretty typical.  I keep trying to convince myself to save money and eat at home more often, buut I figure I’m only here three months, so why not.  It’s a fun chance to hang out with people, and the food is always great.  Today, I got a Panini de pollo, something I can’t remember, and bluecheese (my grandpa would be proud J), some awesome potato wedges, and a chocolate chip muffin with ice cream. YUM.

After, I came back for a few minutes to my house and then went to work out with a couple friends in the park.  One of the guys made a ‘circuit’ and it was definitely a good workout.  Came back home, worked on a little homework, dinner in a few, and then a dance class.  (I did sign up for yoga, but I decided that I really do not like yoga and don’t want to torture myself anymore.  I respect people that do it, it’s hard, but no para mi, graciasJ 

That’s kind of a typical afternoon here (minus the working out part, haha), and normally a little bit of hanging out with my host mom’s grandson, Julian, he’s a cutie J And some days I have photography class.  But I like that it leaves quite a bit of time to hang out, chill, do homework, go to the store, movies, mall, whatever.

Last night, we went to a restaurant/bar that had a live band that played salsa music.  The couples all dance salsa, and at least at this place, they were all SO good! It is so fun to watch.  It inspired me to start going back to dance class ha.  None of danced last night though, our dance skills are not quite up to Costa Rica par, and the ‘gringos’ do not need to stick out more than we already do haha.  Maybe one of these days J  I’m going back to that same place Thursday, because one of my friends from the states is playing in a band there with her Tico brother! 

Hasta luego…(oh—a little vocabulary: gringo=person from the U.S.; tico=person from Costa Rica :) 

Halfway Point

Today marks the halfway point for my time in Costa Rica! On one hand, it has gone by so fast, but on the other, it feels normal to be here, like I've been here a long time. This was another quick weekend--

Started with class Friday morning. We all did short presentations on a certain country and got to leave early. yay!  I went to lunch with some friends at "The Veggie House" and got a wrap which had a soybean torta (cake) in it. It was a little outside my food comfort zone ha, but it was good-ish. After, we went to the mall for a bit and later to a "circus" in downtown San Jose. It was really just some clowns doing acts, but you could really see the cultural differences.  Some things were funny to the Ticos (the Costa Ricans) but not to us lol. And time is much more slow and laid back here, and you could definitely tell during the acts...our short-American-attention spans got a little bored at times ha. But it was fun to see!

Later, I went with a group of girls to a restaurant one of their mama tica's is the head chef at...Tin Jo's! It was probably one of the best, if not the best, dinner I have had since I've been here. 6 of us split 4 entrees and 3 desserts so we got to try everything..Kung Pao Chicken, Pad Thai, Chicken Teriyaki, Coffee Chocolate Cake, cheesecake, and fried Banana tempura with ice cream. It was AMAZING. Since her mom was the chef, we got a nice little discount too :)

YUMM =)

Saturday, we headed to Puntarenas for the beach! The beach was nice and really long.  This was my first trip on a bus that wasn't from either our tour group or just a public bus in San Jose, so that was a good experience.  There was also a carnival going on in Puntarenas, so we there were lots of food places, vendors, and concerts.  There was also a parade, so we lined the streets with all the other people, only to find out that the parade was allll horses.  They were pretty and were doing a kind of high step that was fun to watch, but it was by far the most horses I have ever seen in one place in my entire life. lol.

Still can't believe we are halfway done; halfway with my time in Costa Rica and halfway with my second month of classes. wow! Goes by fast.

Monteverde...part 2!

This weekend, I had my last excursion -and the best part about it was that everything on the trip was FREE!  My ecological photography class takes two trips during the semester, and this was the first, to Monteverde. But it was more like a vacation than a school trip...our professor is really young and laid back. If he was from the US, I think he would be from California during the 70s, ha, at least that's what I picture.

my class--only 6 students; the other 5ish people in the class had a different field trip this weekend. 

We left from school Saturday morning at 7am, and arrived after a 4 hour bus ride. The ride to Monteverde is BUMPY. Really, really bumpy.  The roads go up some big hills, are not paved, have some huge potholes, and some sharp curves with some steep drops. But the mountainous views from the road are gorgeous. The first day in Monteverde, we all just relaxed and looked at some shops and walked around and of course ate.  One of my favorites was a little place where we got smoothies and finally, some chocolate chip cookies! (I've been missing those..) Costa Rica doesn't really have desserts the same as the States...a 'dessert' here might be some sweet-ish bread with sugar on top...doesn't quite cut it lol. But at this place, we got to eat while hanging out in a hammock and looking out over a pretty cool view. And there just happened to be a rainbow at the same time, pretty cool :)

one of the artisan stores

best cookies EVER (atleast in costa rica that is)

a river-forest trail we discovered

hammocks at the cafe place...with a rainbow in the background...ahhh :)

Later that night, when we were out we saw a sloth climbing on a power line near our hotel! They are so cute. He was not slow at all though..we named him Speedy Gonzales, haha.

The next day, we got up early for a guided bridge tour through the jungle.  This was the part of the trip where we actually did something for our class, aka take pictures lol. It was fun, but a little long..two and a half hours I think.  I am not exactly a biology person and I can only look at so many types of plants and trees and grass before they all start to look about the same. I think I fulfilled my plant appreciation quota for the year.  But it was a fun trip, my favorite part of the bridge tour was at the end when we got to climb up inside a tree woo!

the tree we got to climb up through!

jurassic park?

tour guide

my artistic attempt for the day, haha

the tree on the right is the one we got to climb up

And, on the trip home, we saw a beautiful wild white horse (well, somebody might own it, but they just roam free) near the station. Definitely beats those lovely US rest stops, ha. :)

One little problem though..after my first weekend at Monteverde, I got really sick for a few days, probably from drinking the water (we can only safely drink the water in San Jose). But I made the great decision of drinking the water again this past weekend (I know, I know, not smart, but somehow my though process was that I had become more immune to the bad bacteria in the water) and I am a little sick. Not as bad as last time though, so maybe I did get a little immunity after all :)

Monteverde

It’s been a little bit of an unlucky week here! But first..Monteverde!  We went to Monteverde this past weekend...which was almost a week ago…wow, I’m behind!  It was our last group excursion.  Although they have been so fun, it will be nice to have some weekends to relax a little bit (which will actually not be this weekend yet, because I am going to Monteverde again tomorrow with my ecological photography class). 

Monteverde is a cloud forest, and it basically seems like the jungle! It is so pretty.  We had a busy weekend there; Friday we got to relax in some hot springs at a resort-type place which was very nice.  The hot springs also had some crazy waterslides.  There was a sign that said caution, speeds up to 40 kph! And it wasn’t kidding. On the fastest of the fast slides, you literally get air in the dark tunnel. And lots of it. It is crazy!  Some lucky people also hit the sides (like me).  But I don’t remember that, it was so quick.  The hot springs was really cool too because it rained while we were there. It was fun to be in a hot spring with cold rain pouring down on you, especially with the steam coming up off the water. 

not like the charter buses of the last few weeks..we were like sardines!

The next day we did lots of hiking.  The hike up those steep stairs was worth it, as we ended up at a gorgeous waterfall!  We even braved the frigid waters to swim down by the waterfall. There was a little cove thing that we went back to which was cool.  Except the part where a little skinny black and yellow striped snake crawled over my foot. AH!  I am very content with viewing some of Costa Rica’s wildlife only from a distance, haha.  We eventually made it back to the rocky shore-we went through some little rapid things to get back, and even though they were shallow, they were strong!  After all of us got back, we found out that the whistle that had been blowing the last 10 minutes or so was for all of us to get out because it was raining and I guess dangerous? Oops.  We got to watch the sunset from our very nice hotel later that night. 

La Fortuna waterfall

sunset from our hotel, "Hotel Don Taco"

The next morning was bright and early for ziplining through the canopy! There were 11 ziplines in all, and some of the last ones were long and really high up, we had to take two people to make it all the way across.  It was an AMAZING view.  They saved the best for last, though.  The last one was called a Tarzan Swing, and basically the zipline is shaped like a ‘U.’  Imagine yourself at a platform on the top right of the U and then you jump off!  It was a huge drop, so it was kind of like bungee jumping except not attached to your feet and you get to swing up to the other side. I was slightly terrified beforehand but it was SO fun.  And the best part is I get to go again, this weekend, for my field trip, for free! Woo!

the platform we jumped from! i am told i did a 'frog hop' off of it, haha.

Another thing--the views on this trip were incredible! For the trip, we went by Jeep-Boat-Jeep (which really means van, ferry, then van...but of course that doesn't sound as cool).  On the water, it was awesome because we were on the water, surrounded by mountains, and the sun was shining through the clouds and illuminating only some patches of land, it was gorgeous.  In the vans, we were next to some very steep cliffs, but we could see vast stretches of mountains and in some parts, it was like a scene out of a movie...icy blue rivers cutting through green mountains with horses running through them, again amazing. Beautiful. 

This week started out a little strange, because this is the start of a new month, and so a new Spanish class, too, which means we got Monday off! Unfortunately though, I was pretty sick Tuesday and a little the rest of the week, but I feel great now J My mama tica took super good care of me, so sweet, especially since she was sick too!  Mama tica had a rough week actually.  Sunday night, she came in with pain in her eye and had a big raised bump thing inside her eye…we had to go to the clinic and turns out it was kind of a freak accident…some bacteria from the trash got in her eye as she was taking it out and caused it, ow! Looked very painful.  Then, Monday she fell and scraped up her knee and arms.  Then Tuesday, she started to get sick, which she had until today.  And Wednesday, she fell again! Pobresita. Her pinky finger looked fractured, it was all swollen and purple.  So it was a rough week, but she is doing great now, happy and healthy!! Gracias a Dios! 

accidente!

Today was an eventful day in the household (although not for me, thankfully!).  My two tico brothers went to a big pool today which was kind of like the equivalent of an American water park, I think.  Families here check in a lot with each other, so our mama tica had called them a couple times during the morning/early afternoon to make sure they had gotten there ok, were doing ok, etc.  Around 2, mama tica received a call from one of the brothers that said "We're at the hospital. But don't worry, Luis is fine" and poor mama tica was so worried all day! She couldn't go get them because the hospital is too far away so her daughter did, and she was so worried because she couldn't go and kept imagining the worst. They came back a couple hours ago and one of the boys had to get a couple stitches, but luckily he's completely fine.

To add to our poor mama tica's day, both Julian and my roomate are a little, little bit sick, but enough to worry mama. And, when she had finished making dinner, she looked in the pot of arroz con pollo and amidst the white rice and chicken saw a little bitty black speck...a fly. So she had to throw the whole thing out and make it again (I can imagine that stuff like this happens occasionally..I have had to fish a couple ants out of my lemonade on a couple occasions...haha, I do miss some things about America). I didn't have the heart to tell her that the mouse was back in my room. Poor mama! Anyways, it was an eventful day in San Jose.

Oh, and another funny (sort of) animal story: one of my friends came home to her room yesterday and there were feathers all over her floor and bird poop on one of her books.  She found out later that somehow a bird had gotten into her room and the maid had killed it there...and I guess it just never got cleaned up? haha. I thought it was funny..but then again it wasn't my room lol. Interesting happenings these days...

finals week..

This week is finals week! Our Spanish classes are Intensive courses so they fit 80 hours of class time into one month.  Today I had a 15 minute presentation and tomorrow I have the final exam. Because it's a new class session, we get Monday off.  This also means that I have been here a month! Wow, it does not feel like that long. Time here has definitely gone by fast. This weekend, we are heading to Monteverde, where I will get to zipline through the jungle :) Can't wait.

P.s. My mouse 'friend' came back to visit today. I saw him in my room...except the door was shut so I don't know where he came from and couldn't find him afterwards. And, my mama tica said she had already caught a mouse..so that means it has friends. yuck.

white water rafting

Sunday, we got the chance to go WHITE WATER RAFTING!!  It was awesome. I loved it.  It was gorgeous-there were lots of waterfalls on the cliffs next to the river and we were basically in the midst of a jungle.  There were six people to a raft with one instructor. Our tour guide was named "Ricky" and he was really funny.  At the beginning I was paddling the wrong way and he asked me if I was trying to swat mosquitos, haha..eventually got the hang of it :) They said it has "class 4" rapids which, according to wikipedia, are "very difficult," but it really wasn't that bad, hardly any of us had ever been white water rafting before and we all made it out okay :)  Rivers here tend to be more shallow and have more rocks than ones in the United States, according to people who had been before (aka not me lol).  About 25 of us went from my school and we all had a blast...and only two people fell out the whole day (also not me haha). We did get to swim alongside the raft in some of the calm parts though.  It was so fun. If you've never been rafting, it's something you should put on your bucket list :)

our raft with Ricky, our guide