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!