Hamburgers.

This weekend we had another field trip! We did so many things and it was WAY better than our first field trip to the rainforest!!! Friday we left bright and early for San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica. We visited the national theater, the national museum, the San Jose market, and had authentic Costa Rican fast food Wendy’s for lunch ;) The national theater was gorgeous, everything outside was made of gold and there were old paintings on the ceiling like you would see in a church. The actual theater itself was beautiful too, we got to sit in the presidential box- I could have sat there all day! While we were there an orchestra was practicing and we found out later that the main guitarist was an award-winning musician. The national museum was nice too although I am not much of a museum girl. At the very beginning of the museum there was a butterfly exhibit which was my favorite part. We also went to the market- was a little different because usually markets are full of hand crafted items but this was more like a giant souvenir mall with different booths that carried many of the same items. I love shopping though, so I was a happy camper. My favorite part of Friday was spending time in our hotel room getting to talk to other girls from the group. We shared stories about our families and our adventures in Costa Rica and got to know each other a little better J

Saturday morning we again got up super early (way too early after chatting all night) and we left for Cartago. It’s a city that is known for being very conservative and traditional in Costa Rica, although that was not my opinion of the city! I am used to being catcalled, whistled, yelled and grabbed at in San Ramon but it’s usually just one guy at a time!!! In Cartago my friends and I entered the market and instantly 20 men started yelling at us and using piropos (pick up lines) to catch our attention. We left pretty fast, it was so uncomfortable! Once we got into the other part of the market it got a little better, but there were still so many people trying to get our attention. I tried three new foods and I actually liked all of them, but we also saw mondongo (cow stomach) chicken feet, and cow tongue. Ew. Ew. Ew. About 7 of us went out to dinner to this cute little country restaurant and I had really yummy chicken fingers…they mostly had American food, but these chicken fingers were way better than ones I’ve had at home. There was lots of laughter at dinner, I’m so thankful I get to spend time with a group of great girls J

Sunday we went to the Tapantí rainforest and I absolutely loved it. The walk was short, the river was beautiful and I got to spend time with my lovelys! Oh yeah, and I learned stuff that I have to write a paper on, too…

I really enjoy the weekends we travel outside of San Ramon, even though I love the city and I love being with my family other parts of Costa Rica are so different from where we are living and I learn so much just from looking out the window on the bus. I really think school should always be like this.

So I was starting to feel more confident with my Spanish last week as my family and I are communicating more clearly and I’m understanding more in my classes, but then we went to Wendy’s in San Jose. I wanted a number one (my favorite thing at Wendy’s!) which by the way isn’t called a number one in Costa Rica so I was struggling from the start…anyways I realized I didn’t know how to say pickles so I was kind of bummed because I like a plain cheeseburger with pickles. So I get up to the lady and I ask for my “sencilla burger” as they call it here, and I said cheese only please. Then she asked if there was anything else I wanted on there and I started naming off the things I didn’t want hoping she was going to ask me if I wanted pickles. She eventually did and I figured out she was talking about pickles because the word was similar to cucumbers and I was very excitedly saying “yes please! I want pickles!” Then I get my burger and it has everything on it EXCEPT PICKLES. These are the little miscommunications that drive me crazy because they’re not always about cheeseburgers at Wendy’s. Sometimes they’re about what time I need to be home because I get “doce” and “dos” confused sometimes or sometimes they’re about trying to say “I’m embarrassed” and accidentally saying “I’m pregnant” because the translation of pregnant is “embarazada” which is so much closer to embarrassed than pregnant!!  Thankfully I am getting more confident in being embarrassed here because it happens so many times everyday. I’ve even stopped blushing as bad as I usually do at home.

Crazy Busy

This weekend turned out a lot differently than I had expected but it ended up being a great weekend! We don’t have many free weekends where we’re not on a school trip so we all made lots of plans for this weekend, but nothing ever quite works out easily when you have a group of 15 people. Friday evening we had to attend a parade for class, which was pretty fun- there were lots of little kids with “faroles” (the torches) and they were all super cute. I wish we would have seen some of the kids from the classroom that we helped in though. Then we went out to a little bar/restaurant called Bocaditos, which was really fun. We spent a few hours talking and we all got pina coladas, Hillary’s brother joined us after a while and he told us about places we should visit during our stay (and places not to visit!) Then Saturday we had to go to another parade for class, it was Costa Rica’s independence day the parade had tons of music and dancing. I think I’ve seen enough parades though. Saturday night Kristin’s brother Guillermo invited us to go out…Kristin and I took a taxi and when we got there we realized it was Night Fever and we kind of wanted to turn around… Night Fever is like the main club here and we’ve already heard some crazy stories among our group so I was kind of intimidated to go in! It ended being fine though, we sat down at a table downstairs (the dance floor is upstairs) and met some of Guillermo’s friends. I felt bad because I couldn’t understand a word they said in Spanish and I’m pretty sure Guillermo’s friends thought we were dumb. It was so loud though and a lot of the music was in English so of course my ears picked that up first. We went from not going out at all to going out twice in one weekend…

Sunday morning Kristin and I went with her Tita (grandma) to a San Ramon soccer game. Her Tita is so cute! She would cover her ears and eyes whenever something got too intense because she couldn’t handle watching. Then at the last minute Hillary’s  brother offered to take us to San Jose so we could see the city. I love how friendly all of our families are! We went to a mall and did some shopping and then he took us to a super yummy gelato place. I’d never had gelato before and I decided to go with strawberry to remind me of my mama, it’s her favorite flavor J It was getting dark by then (the sunset is usually around 5pm here) so Juan drove us around the city and showed us a lot of historical places as well as modern places that we can visit when we return this weekend with our group. It was a really great weekend and I’m glad we didn’t have too much homework because I didn’t think about it once! This middle of the day lunch break is really great for doing last minute homework!

This morning Kristin and I got up at 5:45 so we could be in San Juan around 7am for our first morning of volunteering. We are volunteering at a CEN center, which is an educational and nutritional facility for disadvantaged kids. I loved every minute of it! Normally I am very comfortable sitting down right away with kids and interacting with them but I felt a little more intimidated with the language barrier. They were so welcoming though that by the end of the day I already felt at home J Everything in the classroom was extremely different from the United States and at some points I was a little surprised by what was going on... I know I am going to learn so much from these children though, I already love all of them! 

Cookies!

I’ve developed an addiction to cookies. I seriously just want to eat cookies all day long! Kristin has to make special trips out to the store with me so I can buy myself some Chips Ahoy or try a new brand of Costa Rican cookies! Yummm. Homemade cookies aren't really a normal thing here so Kristin and I are going to make some today for our families! 

This week has been a little scary, my tía (aunt) came out of her room on Monday night shaking uncontrollably and vomiting. We didn’t know what was wrong so my mom rushed her to the hospital. My whole family was running around and yelling and I couldn’t really understand a word that was being said, so I tried to stay in the background with the little girls. She returned just a few hours later, but I woke up the next morning at 4am hearing a bunch of noise outside my room and I immediately knew Tía Isa had another “attack” so I came outside and comforted the girls again. This time we called an ambulance because we wanted to get her into the hospital as soon as possible. I was at school when she came home, but after having a third attack and laying in bed for two days she seems to be doing much better. I wish I knew what was wrong but I don’t know any medical terms in Spanish!

On Wednesday we went to a pre-school/kindergarten to help the kids make faroles (torches) made of paper and half a plastic bottle. The kids were so sweet!! I was really nervous at first because sometimes kids can speak very quickly but the little girl I was helping didn’t speak too fast for me to understand. Plus we talked about Winnie the Pooh, her stuffed animal bunny named Conejo (rabbit in Spanish), and the color pink! The faroles are for a parade on Friday representing the decision of independence in Costa Rica. Tonight I helped my niece, Valentina, make her farole with my host mom. I love interacting with my family because I always learn so much from listening! This morning I was eating breakfast with Gilberto (my host sisters husband) and normally we don’t talk but this morning we ended up chatting during all of breakfast. He said I was really good at Spanish and he could tell I was picking up the language quickly, I was feeling pretty proud this morning! Haha. He also said that my friend whose name starts with “K” (Kristin) speaks Spanish well. J Kristin and I make a great team together when it comes to Spanish, we can always finish each others sentences or fill in words that one of us is struggling with.

On a completely different note, please keep both of my parents in mind! My mom is having eye surgery next Thursday and she needs surgery on the other eye in January and my dad has a broken kneecap and has been stuck in bed for the past week! 

La Reserva Biologica

On Friday night Kristin, Hillary and I were seeking out an adventure-which ended up not really happening at all because everything in town was closed for some reason. Well, God listens to everything because this weekend was one of the biggest adventures I’ve ever had. I’m not sure I can even begin to explain everything but here is my best attempt. It’s really long, but read it!

Saturday morning we meet at the school and get in these vans that were going to take us to the gate of the Biological Reserve we were going to stay the night at. (You heard me right- Biological Reserve…you can tell how much I’m already just loving this since I hate biology and we’re going to the middle-of-no-where-Costa-Rica just to look at bugs). Anyways, we get in these vans and people here just drive really crazy- we’re going all over the road, semi-trucks are like a centimeter away from us, we’re running stop signs, pretty much all of my worst nightmares about driving. So we pull up to this restaurant and the driver starts telling us how he won’t drive us up the mountain to the gate of the reserve because he’s scared it will be muddy from the earthquake and he doesn’t want to get his tires dirty. Ugh. And now I understand why people get frustrated with my tendencies to be clean. Our professor can’t get ahold of the people at the reserve so we start walking up the mountain. And I mean up, up. With our luggage. Up a mountain. For 5 MILES. My friends Hillary and Mariah were walking with me and we were trying to list off all the positive things that were happening to us. I’m pretty sure we couldn’t think of anything after number 3. We get to this point where the three of us just sit on these rocks in the middle of the path trying to cool down for a minute, although we didn’t have any water left since we hadn’t been anticipating climbing a mountain. I’m about to cry because I know we still have 6 miles left to go and I know I can’t walk 11 miles uphill with a heavy duffle bag on my shoulder. We decide to continue for a couple more minutes before taking another rest when I look at Hillary and we hear the most amazing sound I’ve ever heard…a truck driving around the corner. I am really, REALLY glad it was the driver from the reserve because when he slowed down the three of us hopped in his car without even asking if he was from the reserve. That didn’t hit me until I got in the car though...slight panic moment. Ronald is my new bff. Kristin had slowed down with us at that point and here we are in the back seat of Ronald’s truck, happier than anyone will ever know!!

We finally arrived and I was extremely happy, we spent most of the afternoon just relaxing but once nighttime came around our professor started talking about all the bugs. I was pretty overwhelmed and I’ve learned that I’m more scared of big bugs than I thought. We’re standing outside in the dark looking at this white sheet type thing that bugs are attracted to and there’s at least 20 different types of insects in front of me. Kristin has really become my savior from bugs-one flew on my hood and while she was trying to knock it off for me, it flew inside of her hood…then today Mariah knocked a stinging fly/bee type thing off of me when it landed on Kristin and stung her instead…love you Kristin J Our professor was going on and on about all these diseases you can get from insects and I’m imagining all of these scenarios in my head of the bugs attacking me. Our professor told us a story about how he woke up one morning with a cockroach in his mouth, and I literally started crying. It was too much, the bugs are so huge here. We go inside and I’m starting to feel a little better when someone who works at the reserve tells us we need to shake out our sheets because there could be scorpions or cockroaches in them. Turns out there was a cockroach in one of the beds in our room L needless to say I was awake all night. I’m pretty sure I only slept 2 hours because the whole night I was just picturing cockroaches in my mouth, scorpions in my bed, snakes slithering through and flying who knows what in our room. P.S. we saw at least 4 scorpions that night in the station we were staying at. In fact, one of the men that works at the reserve showed it to a girl in our group and pretended to touch her with it, and it scared her so badly she flew out of her chair and broke it!

Okay, last part of my story, promise! We went to a waterfall which was beautiful, but the hike was super long and I have pretty bad blisters from it! Today we are leaving and the reserve people felt so bad that we had to walk so far yesterday that they offered to drive us all the way to the restaurant where our other driver would meet us. I was jumping for joy! We get maybe a mile or two away from the reserve when I hear this awful noise….we got a flat tire. Thank goodness for Jose (the only guy in our group) because he ran all the way back to the reserve to get the tools we needed. We waited for probably an hour or two playing games, but I didn’t care as long as I didn’t have to hike all the way back.  Overall, it wasn’t my favorite fieldtrip I’ve ever been on, but I loved getting closer to everyone in our group. I also get to say climbed a mountain in Costa Rica, which is pretty cool!  

Earthquake!!

Well yesterday was an exciting day! I was sitting next to Kristin in class and I thought she was tapping her foot and shaking the table, so as I was asking her to stop I realized it wasn’t Kristin tapping her foot and the whole floor was shaking. I immediately looked at her and said “What is that?! What is that?!” that’s when the earthquake really got big and the whole floor was rolling. My first thought was to get underneath the desk but our professor (who is only like 22-25 maybe) yelled “Run! Run!” so we kind of stupidly left the classroom, only to see everyone else was underneath their desk in the other classroom. Thankfully nobody was hurt and by the time we left our classroom the earthquake was over. It was probably 45 seconds long but I thought it felt a lot longer. I knew Dona Mayra was going to call our parents right away and let them know what was going on so I wanted to call my parents to let them know I was fine, but we lost power, cellphone service, and internet. I didn’t get to talk to my parents until about 5pm, 7 hours after the earthquake! Everything is pretty slow here-if there is a thunderstorm (which happens almost daily) most houses lose internet connection for a few hours, which can be kind of irritating when you’re trying to do homework. I guess there was another aftershock earthquake last night because everything on my dresser was knocked over, but I don’t think it was very big because I didn’t even wake up for it. Speaking of waking up, my wall is connected to the neighbors garage-who apparently has some type of hobby that includes drilling and using hammers at 6am every morning. This morning it scared me so bad I jumped out of bed! Sleeping in isn’t really a thing here-my whole family is up by 5:30 running around and yelling and laughing. I put my pillow over my head until 7:15 though J

Anyways, after school yesterday we had salsa dance lessons! It was so fun and now when we go out on the weekends I will finally know how to do a basic salsa step haha. First we learned the step and practiced on our own, and then we got to practice with partners…There’s 13 girls and 1 boy on our trip (and Jose wasn’t even there yesterday) so lucky me, I got to be the boy the whole time since I’m so tall. We are getting dance lessons once a week for the entire month of September, I think next week we learn merengue (sp?)

Kristin’s house didn’t have any power after the earthquake so we decided to go be adventurous and try some new food in the city…we ended up at a pizza place J it was sooo good though!! That was probably the best part of my day, the guy pizzeria turned on some American music as soon as we walked in, so we got to eat pizza and listen to country music, two of my favorite things ever. J

Just when I think I’m finally about to have a normal day!

Thanks for all your concern about the earthquake! ¡Adios!