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.