Guanacaste!

Yesterday Hillary’s brother Juan Manuel, and his friend drove Hillary, Ashli and myself to Guanacaste, about 3 hours from San Ramon, to go to a beach called Pirate Beach. It was soo beautiful! We’ve seen a lot of beaches here that look and feel like the Oregon Coast (only a little warmer usually) but this beach was exactly the kind of beach you would expect to see in Costa Rica. The water was light blue and there were little islands in the water that you could swim or walk to depending on the tide. I sat out for a little while but eventually went in the water (go me!) and floated around with Hillary and Ashli, the tide kept sucking us in and then pushing us back to shore. We were about to leave the beach when it started down pouring so we decided to put everything in the car and we all got in the ocean until the rain passed. Hillary, Juan Manuel and I decided to swim to the closest island since the waves were calm. It was really cool because there was a bat cave that you could look at and all sorts of little animals swimming around. There were rocks surrounding the island that made it kind of hard to climb on and off of and once I was on I really didn’t want to jump back off! Juan Manuel showed us when the perfect time was to jump so a small wave would pull you out without having to kick very hard so you wouldn’t hit the rocks. I swam back pretty fast because I was starting to have paranoia about the fish!

We went to the town near the beach called Tamarindo and did a little bit of shopping. Hillary’s brother took us to a yummy smoothie place and afterwards Hillary, Ashli and I shared a Nutella and Banana crepe from the store next door. It was so yummy!!!! I really appreciate it when people are friendly with us, because sometimes people notice we’re tourists and can be kind of rude. The old man working at the crepe place was super nice and it helped make our experience that much better! It also helped that we were with Juan and his friend because people don’t mess with us as much if we’re with other Tico’s.

After such a great day and only a minor sunburn I didn’t think the day could get any better but we ended up meeting up with Juan Manuel’s uncle/cousin person thingy who took us to the beach when it got dark to see turtles! We only ended up seeing one but it was so amazing! It was a mama turtle who wanted to lay her eggs, but there was another group of rude tourists who kept shining their light on the turtle and touching it so she left her hole that she dug and started waddling (or whatever the verb is) towards the water. I took lots of pictures of her from behind so I wouldn’t hurt her eyes. The tracks she left behind were so deep- I couldn’t believe how strong she was. We waited on the beach for a while, while the uncle/cousin dude looked for more turtles and we watched the lightning from far away, which looked beautiful, and I got to see two shooting stars! Oh. Also, the waves kept crashing and lighting up like they were glow in the dark, and we asked the guide who said the plankton in the ocean light up the waves and he showed us that when we walk the sand lights up behind us. It felt like magic! Hillary and I kept joking that we were lighting up the sand since we still had some electricity in us from getting shocked by lightning J

Manuel Antonio

This weekend we finally had a free weekend so 11 of us decided to go to Manuel Antonio for the weekend. It was definitely one of my favorite weekends and I wish we could have spent more time there! Friday night we celebrated Mariah’s birthday and went out to a yummy dinner (I had a hamburger, I was nervous it was going to be unrecognizable but it was actually pretty good!) and I tried a Mai Tai to drink, which I think is my new favorite! I’m gonna come back nice and chubby with all the yummy food I’ve been fed here! My mom is always trying to get me to try new food or eat “just one small serving” as she always says. Anyways, then Mariah wanted to go dancing so we went to a club for “ladies night” which was super fun too, we all danced together and enjoyed our free time! There weren’t many people there so they let us go in the reserved room behind ropes (so fancy!) and we kind of just closed the curtains and had fun without creeper guys approaching us all the time.  I am so glad we got to celebrate Mariah’s birthday together because her actual birthday was this past Thursday and we had a Spanish exam which is no way to celebrate!

Saturday we got up early and headed for the Manuel Antonio Park and we hung out on the beach for a few hours. I even went up to my knees in the ocean J A few of us headed out ahead of the group so we could go to the store, and we saw a sloth up close! It was about 3 feet from us and he was the cutest thing ever! I have been wanting to see a sloth up close since I got here and I can’t believe I finally got to see one. They only come down from the trees about once a week to use the bathroom so we were super lucky. I took so many pictures my camera died on me. We haven’t had much down time since we’ve been here so we decided to order pizza, and hang out all evening at the hostel. My “thing” here has become doing highs and lows whenever we’re together (when you go around the circle and say the best part of your day and the lowest part of your day) and I was happy that we got to do them as one big group. It has become my favorite part of our trips because we all get to spend time together talking about what we did that day. It’s become so popular that sometimes people have to remind me that we haven’t done our highs and lows yet!

Sunday we got up and everyone split up into little groups, one group went horseback riding, one went parasailing (which I really want to do!) and a few of us just walked around Manuel Antonio and did some souvenir shopping which I really enjoyed. Two of my friends and I spent almost 2 hours in a store walking around and bargaining for gifts…I was glad I had my friend Ashli with me because I’m too shy to bargain with the store owners! It was so nice to walk around the town and not have to stop every 10 feet to hear our professors history and ecology lectures, I have the hardest time concentrating with all the things going around me.

I keep thinking how hard it’s going to be when we return to the United States and I won’t be able to see everyone everyday. We spend so much time together and I’m going to miss it! Our trip will be half way over in just a few weeks, but it feels like I’ve only been here for a few weeks. We’ve done so much but there’s still so much left I want to do, but at this rate the semester will be over before I even make a dent in my list!

El Caribe

Okay y’all, I had a super eventful weekend that I’m gonna try and sum up but I’m warning you-this could be a long one! So Thursday morning we left for Limon, the Caribbean side of Costa Rica and I got to see the ocean for the first time in a month! I got a little homesick seeing it at first because I’m so used to seeing it all the time on the island, but once we saw the beaches I was pretty excited ☺ The first beach we went to had black sand which I’ve never seen before, it was so pretty and it even felt a little different. We were all laughing though because Friday we went to another beach and it was pretty cloudy so the beach looked just like the Oregon coast (except the water was way warmer). 

So I already gave my parents one heart attack with the earthquake, and I’m pretty sure I gave both of them another one on Friday. Kristin, Sydney, Hillary, and I all went to the beach in the evening in this cute little town called Puerto Viejo. Hillary and I didn’t want to swim in the ocean (duh, fish) but we were being moms under our umbrellas keeping us nice and dry while watching Kristin and Sydney have the time of their lives in the water. All of a sudden this huge lightning bolt comes out of nowhere! I first heard Kristin screaming and running for her life when I realized I was holding an umbrella but before I could let go I get the weirdest shock going up my arm and into my elbow area, so I look over at Hillary and she’s just watching her hand completely mesmerized as her whole hand is lighting up. Thankfully we weren’t struck by lightning but the lightning bolt was so close that we shocked (I don’t really know the proper term) our arms were tingling for quite a while afterwards! And I thought Hillary and I were being the safe ones by staying out of the ocean. We met up with some friends after that and did some shopping in the cutest stores and had the yummiest pizza at an Italian restaurant, it was a nice little break because everyone in Puerto Viejo speaks English- I loved understanding all the menus! 

We also got to see a banana plantation and pineapple plantation, which was so fascinating to me. I don’t know why but I love watching the way things are made or processed-like at the Tilamook Cheese Factory! I wanted to take pictures at the banana plantation, but they wouldn’t let us use our cameras in case we were some banana-competition-people working against Dole. It was interesting seeing how different things are from the United States there, I saw men doing insane manual labor and everything was outside, so it was a lot less sanitary than we’re used to seeing. They send the big bananas to the United States and keep the smaller ones for Costa Rica, which I’m so glad about because I really don’t like the small bananas they eat here! So they pick the bananas from the tree and have them processed through the plantation in less than 5 hours and they are sent to the United States in 48 hours. Why can they send bananas all over the United States in 2 days but it takes 2 weeks to send a postcard? 

We stayed in some cute hotels but Friday night we stayed in a bungalow. I saw the sign as we were entering and I knew we were in for an interesting night. So of course Kristin, Hillary, Sydney, and I get this bungalow that’s in the way back practically inside of the jungle and as far away as we could possibly be from the rest of the group. Even when the lady showed us to our room she was kinda like “oh…you’re in that one…okay” so then I was really stressing. We get into our room and I pull back my sheets to find 3 little spiders crawling and a bunch of dirt in my bed. Appetizing, right? So I decide I’m sleeping with Kristin until I see a spider on her pillow, too. Thank goodness for good friends because Kristin and I hopped in bed with Hillary and the three of us slept together in a full sized bed. I slept like a baby because I had no fear of the spiders being between the two of them! The next morning I walk in the bathroom and see this huge spider looking thing that was squished on the ground. We think Hillary might have stepped on it because she was the only one wearing shoes. We show our ecology professor (who literally knows everything there is to know in this world, I am surprised every time he opens his mouth because he knows every little thing about any given topic) anyways, he tells us that it’s actually half spider half scorpion and points out all the characteristics of each. Who knew there was such a thing? Wanna see? 

I am facing all of my fears here. First it was the bugs at the biological reserve, then it was the birds flying on me in San Jose, and Sunday it was snorkeling with fish. For those of you who don’t know, fish are my biggest fear in the whole world. I hate them. One time we had a fish and then once I became afraid of them I made my mom move the fish into her bathroom so I didn’t ever have to see it again. So we’re on the boat going to the middle of nowhere Atlantic Ocean to snorkel over a coral reef and my heart is pounding out of my chest. I didn’t think I was going to make it. I even asked my professor if I could sit out and he said I could, and I probably would have if Hillary hadn’t been there encouraging me. Hillary and I held hands literally the entire time, I wouldn’t let her let go until I got back to the boat to get back in. I will admit I was the last one out of the boat and the first one back in, but I was in the water for at least 30 minutes. I’m proud of myself for doing it, but I think I’m going to have nightmares for a while. I stayed really calm in the water but I kept talking to myself through my snorkel saying “I can’t believe I’m doing this” over and over ☺ After we went snorkeling we went on a walk through the jungle back to Cahuita, the town we were staying in, and it was one of the most amazing experiences! We saw so many animals! We saw 3 different types of monkeys, one monkey we saw was a mama with her baby on her back, we saw a 2 toed sloth and a 3 toed sloth, and we saw all types of lizards and hermit crabs which was cool too! We saw a spider (I forget the name) that makes the largest webs in the world- and I can see why because the spider was the size of my thumb. I snapped my picture and ran by. 

Now I’m just recovering from tiredness and a little bit of a tummy ache before we go on our adventure next weekend. I’m starting to feel stressed out from school since we haven’t had any time to study on the weekends so I’m hoping to catch up this week, wish me luck! 

Pura vida ☺

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!