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.