Día del Padre, Fiesta de Pijamas, Cumpleaños, y Más

Fiesta de Pijamas!

Coffeeeee :)

So it looks like once again, I'm failing at keeping this up-to-date, and I'm going to have to crunch a bunch of stuff into this post. For Father's Day, my host mom and I went to her son's house for a wonderful lunch and spent the afternoon with them. She has two grandkids--one that's five and one that's only a few months old. Both were VERY adorable. That night, all the girls that I'm friends with here had a slumber party. We had tons of ice cream, Pringles, smores (in the microwave), oreos, popcorn, and wine. We sang karoke (or attempted to since we didn't know the songs) and watched movies. It was so much fun! Then in the morning, we went to tour Cafe Britt's plantation. It was really interesting to see how they grow the coffee and learn about how to make a good cup of coffee and how to properly taste, describe, and critique the coffee. Then, we got to sample all the kinds they have, and I bought a bunch to bring back!

Me and mom on her birthday

This past week I got a cell phone! I wish I had gotten one earlier because now I don't feel as isolated from the rest of the students here. It makes life much simpler and was really cheap because my mom had an extra old phone (from 2005, but it works!). Thursday was my mom's birthday and Friday was my neighbor's birthday so we went out for dinner and drinks Thursday night. It was a lot of fun.

Other birthday boy

Ok, so I guess I really haven't done that much to write about, because I've just been trying to spend time with the people here and work on my Spanish. I'm really going to miss it though. I only have a week left, and I can tell I'm going to be extremely upset when I leave. I'm going to miss my friends from the States, my host mom, tico time, the smell of clothes that have been hung up to dry in the sun, having like 6 servings of fruit every day, seeing palm trees everywhere, brightly colored houses, hugs and kisses to greet people instead of handshakes, and just things about the culture that I can't put into words. Things I'm looking forward to about going home: seeing family and friends, hot showers, not having rice and beans three times a day, church, driving my car, and convincing everyone to move to Costa Rica with me in the near future :)

Forgive Me!

Manuel Antonio National Park

This wave almost killed us!

I realized I haven't updated this in ages, so there's lots to say. Last weekend, we went to Manuel Antonio. It's on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, and it was my favorite place so far!  We hiked pretty far in the national park, but the view was definitely worth it! We also got to see tons of monkeys. They were adorable and cute at first, but after we had to spend some time chasing them down for various things they stole from us at the beach, they weren't so cute anymore. You'll also be happy to know that I avoided sunburn for once! Other than that, it was just a very relaxing weekend in one of the most beautiful places in the world.


Monday I went into San Jose and bought souvenirs for myself and trinkets for people back home. It made me realize how little time I have left here--only 2 more weeks! I'm definitely not ready to leave yet. I think we're all starting to feel that way, so we're packing in lots of fun things into the days we still have.

Me and one of the kids

Classes are going fine. They're a lot more work than I was expecting. For my final project for medical Spanish, I have to write a 4 page paper, perform a 20 minute drama, and interview locals about health topics and present it for 15 minutes. I only have a week! ahhh. For grammar, we had to write a song in Spanish, and my group wrote one to the tune of "Baby" by Justin Bieber. It was pretty epic. For medical Spanish, we visited Clinica Catolica, which is a private hospital with a hotel. It's really expensive--I think just a bed there for the night is around $1500, excluding any healthcare. Apparently, it's very popular for people that come here to get plastic surgery done for cheaper. It was founded by nuns, so the money goes to support their mission work, but it was still very strange. This week we visited Obras del Espiritu Santo, which is a huge complex that feeds homeless, provides daycare and before and afterschoolcare for kids whose parents have to work during the day. It's also an orphanage, clinic, and a church. Everyone was very welcoming, and the children were so excited to see us.

So it's not from salsa night,
but it's us learning salsa :)

The only picture I have
on my camera from salsa night--
the jackets are so attractive,
right!?

Friday, we got all dressed up and went out to a salsa club. Everyone was so good, so we were a little intimidated. But it was fun nonetheless, and there was a live band, which was cool. We were out late though and had to be up early this morning to do some volunteer work to "give back" to Costa Rica. We cleaned a beach for a couple hours.

Volcan Arenal

So apparently it's looking like I'm going to be blogging only about once a week. I didn't think I would be as busy as I have been. Last week I had a few papers and like four presentations to do, and tomorrow I have a grammar exam on practically everything I've ever learned in Spanish except subjunctive. I haven't studied grammar since high school, so it's been an intense review. Luckily, all I have to do is pass for credits to transfer :)

The amazing view from my hotel room

We also visited another clinic last week, called Clinica Biblica. It's private, so it seemed just like a hospital in the States. Some students got to watch surgeries, but I was placed in admissions and vaccinations (fairly boring, but oh well).

A pretty cool spider

After class, we left for Volcan Arenal. It was gorgeous, but we were slightly disappointed that we didn't get to see any lava or really get close to the volcano at all. We did learn a lot about different plants and animals here. For my fellow bio nerds: one fern, called a mimosa, closes its leaves when you touch it. It was pretty cool. We also saw toucans, spiders, and lizards. AND get ready for this: ate termites! Later, a couple of us hiked to a really pretty waterfall, but we were NOT prepared for how rigorous the hike would be. We definitely looked foolish in our flip flops, but nonetheless, it was worth the adventure. That night, we went to some hot springs. It was really a waterpark but with warm water. Definitely not what I was expecting, but it was very relaxing and had a great view of the volcano.

The next morning, we went ziplining in the canopy of the rainforest. BEST EXPERIENCE SO FAR. It was so beautiful and fun. I'm getting pictures from another student soon, so those will be coming. There was a minor mishap. I didn't want to take my camera up with me, so one of the guides put it in his locker so it'd be safe. Problem: he didn't come down with us, so when we got back, no one had a key for us to get to our cameras and the bus was leaving. We had to leave and two students that stayed had to get them for us. A little nerve-wracking, but it worked out just fine, thankfully.

Ziplining!!

As close as we could get
to the volcano :(

Other than these big things, I've just been hanging out with my host mom or other students' families. My mom and I went to San Jose one day to explore the market and for her to get her hair done, so I got to practice Spanish quite a bit with all of her friends there. We also played cards with another girl's sister, so we learned some games she plays and taught her some of ours. It was fun. Then last night, we played Bingo with another girl's family. This weekend I'll be gone again to Manuel Antonio for more beach time!

Puerto Viejo and More!

Puerto Viejo at night

Me in Puerto Viejo

Hey everybody! I haven't been able to post for a while because I was gone all weekend to Puerto Viejo, a beach on the Carribean side of Costa Rica and now have a LOT of homework to catch up on unfortunately. Last week I was getting pretty good at Spanish. I even went an entire day without speaking any English because I didn't see my fellow students. My mamatica and I went shopping at the mall. It was really fun, but just like a mall in the US, complete with every single fast food restaurant imaginable. I bought a Bible in Spanish and a Spanish translation of The Wedding by Nicholas Sparks to read, and I've enjoyed both tremendously so far.

Sorry, no pictures of the
clinic yet, so another
beach pic :)

I also visited a medical clinic on Friday. It was very old (they were using typewriters!) but everyone was very friendly. One thing that was interesting is they have a campaign to vaccinate all the children. Since some parents won't take their children to the clinic, even though it's free, we followed nurses around door to door in the community trying to find children that needed vaccinations. It seemed somewhat inefficient, but it was interesting to interact with all the different families.

Rocking J's

Right after that, we left for a 4.5 hour bus ride (pretty miserable) to Puerto Viejo. We stayed at a place called Rocking J's, where we slept in hammocks, which was pretty awesome. The town was interesting and very relaxed. It really felt like Boone, but in Spanish and at the beach instead of the mountains, if that makes any sense. The beach by the place we stayed wasn't that great, so the next day we rented bikes and rode further south to a different beach. This one was gorgeous, and hardly anyone was there. We even found a wild monkey! It was a really fun trip, but I completely forgot Spanish since it was such a touristy place and everyone there spoke English.

The monkey we found!

Other than that, I'm also taking dance classes twice a week, which I love! It's really fun, and I get some much needed physical activity. Other than that, nothing much new is going on except I'm sick of the rain! Yesterday, all my books got soaked. My mamatica ironed my spanish dictionary, but it still looks a mess. I guess I'm gonna have to start putting all my stuff in plastic bags inside my bookbag. But, I've got to get back to my homework! Hasta luego!