Tura de San Jose y Viajando a Puerto Viejo

San Jose City Tour
Wednesday we got to spend the day touring San Jose (Costa Rica's capital) and it was everything and nothing I expected. It was captivating and exotic but also the spitting image of the slums of any capital city. We had been warned before to not take anything valuable and to keep our cameras put away to prevent theft.  Although, to be fair, it would have been foolish of any thief to try to nab from us because we moved as an over-sized wolfpack.
The architecture was interesting though. A mustard yellow hotel on the corner had it's claim to fame in many celebrities (and a couple US presidents) staying there. There was a beautiful white and blue mansion across from the Museo Nacional with a huge double stairway... I took a dozen pictures of both of these buildings.
But the Museo Nacional was easily my favorite. Right out front there is this huge metal sphere with glass windows you can walk into and within this sphere is a huge stone sphere. The stone sphere is one of several that has been found around Costa Rica. Think Stonehenge-like mystery: they're all perfectly round with no tool or scratch marks and all varying sizes. When the first Spanish explorers saw them, they believed they were full of precious gold so they split a few open and then gave up on the whole thing when they found out it was just boring ol' rock.
Once you enter the museum, your first exhibit is el jardin de mariposa, a whole room full of exotic beautiful butterflies. My favorite was definitely the huge blue ones from the rainforest (I can't remember their names). They all just flew around us and landed in our hair and whatnot.
On the grounds of the museum is also the old bunker for the Costa Rican soldiers. On one side is the general's quarters and on the other is the barracks rooms and dungeon. In between is a huge beautiful garden with more of those crazy spheres and exhibits on prehistoric Costa Ricans. Rumor has it that the old dungeons are haunted and you can hear the people who used to be imprisoned there... a load of codswallop in my opinion but seeing all of the writings and drawings on the wall from the prisoners was a bit chilling: some was pornographic, some was in remembrance of fallen friends, some prayers to end the suffering.
After the museum, we wandered around at the mercado haggling for souvenirs. That was pretty fun and I practiced a lot of Spanish. But that was about the total of our San Jose trip because they wouldn{t let us explore the city on our own.

In other news, Spanish class is getting a lot easier. La profesora is having a hard time because 1/2 of us are at the beginner level and 1/2 of us are actually at the intermediate level and she can't teach to both. When we take our break from class I sit and chat with her (yes, in Spanish) and she told me she knows I can speak more Spanish than I give myself credit for and that if she could just teach for the intermediate level, she'd have me pretty close to fluent by the end of this trip. Now if she could actually teach to our level though... =X

Puerto Viejo
Esta fin de semana libre! July 25th is the Costa Rican holiday for the annexation of Guanacaste (one of Costa Rica's 6 provinces). Don't be fooled when I say holiday though; it's on par celebration-wise with MLK day - it's observed, but except for a festival in Guanacaste, it's just a quick 3 day break from the daily grind. But that's good news for us because it means a long weekend to travel as we please. Everyone else in our group had decided to go to the Pacific side of the country but we were feeling more inclined to check out the Caribbean side. There's a little port town in the southern-most corner near the border with Panama called Puerto Viejo. it's like it fell straight out of Jamaica with it's red, yellow and green themes and laid-back attitude. So Jennifer, Jonathon and I set our sights there and began our voyage. With more than 5 beaches in the near proximity, it was an easy choice.
But as with any good story, it started with a bang. Jonathon's mama tica and hermano offered to drive us to the bus station (at 5:30 in the morning!) but Jonathon misinformed them as to which station we were leaving from. Long story short, we ended up on the way wrong side of town and had to speed-demon it to the right station so we wouldn't miss our ride. When we got there, Jon's mama tica ran in front of the bus as it was leaving.  She stopped it though and we were able to board. When we got on though, we discovered there was standing room only and all of the seats were already taken. (We wouldn't learn until later that our tickets were for assigned seats so someone had taken ours thinking we missed the bus.) So we stood for the 4 1/2 hour bumpy bus ride there.
We did finally arrive though and our vacation began. Everyone says puerto viejo is a "party" town and everyone just drinks and smokes and lives the good life (pura vida!) but we saw the more tranquil side of the town. Lunch in a restaurant with a beautiful view of the ocean and then drinks at a local bar before calling it an early night at a sleepy little inn.
The next day we got up early, had breakfast and decided to rent some bikes and head down to the other beaches. We spent the day biking at a slow, relaxed pace down to the numerous turn offs along the shoreline and checked out several beachfronts. We hung out at Punta Uva (one of the beaches - it's exact translation means "grape point" but I don't understand why) for a while and then decided to head back. We dropped back off the bikes, ate dinner and headed to the room with some rum and coke for some Cuba Libres as they call them here. We spent the evening poolside, sipping our drinks and challenging each other to every card game we could think up and remember. Yes, we coulda hit a crazy bar and gotten trashed on the beach but I like our version better.
One thing about Puerto Viejo though is that they take tico time to a different level. It's kind of a running joke that ticos are perpetually behind schedule and if they're lack of urgency is mentioned, they coolly reply with "tranquilo". In Puerto Viejo, tico time was a way of life. We expected to be able to grab a QUICK bite to eat but it turned into a 2 hour dinner event before food was brought to us. Don't get me wrong, I'm definitely not complaining, but when you're hungry and wanting your pizza, theres little appreciation for tico time.
All in all, though, I enjoyed the vacation. In an attempt to make sure we see and do as much as possible, our program can totally jampack our days. It's always fun but it was nice to spend the weekend at our own pace, slowly discovering the city for ourselves.

for now that's all but there will definitely be more to come (as well as photos).  Love and miss you all!
pura vida - cfg

Manuel Antonio y Bailando a Tipico Latino

The internet here has been solid up until now.  It's extra sketchy so I'm updating this from the school computer (which means no pictures =[).  However, I do have some posts to make, so enjoy anyways.

A quick point of clarification as well - in Costa Rica the locals are referred to as "ticas" and "ticos".  It's like saying I'm an Austinite... same idea.  So I'll probably talk about them like that.  Also, there's a running joke about "tico time" which basically just means Costa Ricans are ALWAYS late to arrive somewhere and events are planned around that.

Manuel AntonioI know I use this word to describe everything about Costa Rica but the only thing I can say about Manuel Antonio is that it was BEAUTIFUL. Stunning and breath-taking, it was like magically appearing in some tropically-based movie. The beaches were covered in dazzling white sand and surrounded by thick tropical forest; the water was clear and when you swam out just far enough to ride the waves, in every direction all you could see were bright open skies and a horizon dotted with small islands teeming with untouched wildlife. I really feel like I mistakenly ended up in paradise and we just call it Costa Rica.
We hiked through the park, around a 3 mile trail. Everything was wet and muddy and although we were all thoroughly drenched and sweating bullets, the views from the tops of the mountains and various outlooks absolutely made up for it. In the evening we all went to a fancy restaurant for grub and an excuse to look nice. We went to a couple of bars afterwards to find some good dancing, but we ended the night with spiked cappuccinos and some creme brulle. The next day was way more low-key, everyone just being beach bums and wasting time until our bus left. It was well worth the adventure. =]

Tipico Latino
After class on Monday, we went to our dance classes. We learned salsa and merengue and cumbio... but boy was it fast-paced! I felt like we were in jazzercise or something! After the lesson, we all went home to eat and get ready and then we went out to a legitimate Tico dance club called Tipico Latino to practice our new skills. It was so hard! It was a blast and lots of practice but oh my goodness, definitely not easy. The last Monday we're here, the whole group is planning to go and embarrass ourselves again. =P
Our director just about broke my heart at the end of the night though. Her name is Jessenia and she's a tica who's been assigned by the Sol Education program to be with us on all of our outings, etc. Well we completely love her and don't see her as a director but more as a part of our group. She told us after Manuel Antonio that it doesn't feel like she's working when she's with us. So at the end of the night of dancing, I went to hug her and say ciao and she had tears in her eyes. I asked her what was wrong and she told me she realized tonight that we'll be leaving soon and she'll have to say good bye even though she wants us all to stay longer.... (yes, time for a collective awwwwwww). I feel like I'm at summer camp with all of these kids and she's our badass camp counselor and that it'll end too soon - I'm gonna miss this. But there's still plenty of time left so we'll make the best of it. =]

(Photos coming soon, I promise!)
Pura Vida!
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Cocina Clase y Intercambio

A lot has been happening and this is just further proof that I suck at blogging.  However, I'm truly making an effort, so today I shall post a few pictures and will DEFINITELY do more of them very soon.  =]

On Wednesday, I stuffed myself to the gills at cooking class. Literally. It was DELICIOUS. So delicious. I tried to write down as much of the directions as I could so I could make it for myself later but dang, it was really hard. We made gallo pinto (the bean mix in the picture), tortillas con queso, empanadas and so much other stuff. I wanna try making some of it when I get home, you folks are missing out. The woman in the pictures is Flor, and we were cooking in her backyard in her massive outdoor kitchen. It was quiet and beautiful out there and all morning there was a light, misty rain all over the place. We had some legitimate cafe and it was so good... I would have breakfast there every morning if I could!

On Friday morning, we met with our intercambio group. Basically, they're local ticos who are learning English, so we all hang out and talk and play games to make their English better and give us a chance to practice our Spanish a little too. =] It was a lot of fun - we're scheduled to do it every week and I'm legitimately looking forward to it! Gives me a chance to make an attempt at speaking their language a little.

And that's the total of my first week in Costa Rica!  (Or at least the parts I have pictures of.)  I'm awful at this blogging stuff, but oh well.  The next post will be about our weekend adventure to Manuel Antonio Nacional Parque - get ready to have your minds blown by beauty.  =]

PURA VIDA!
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Tour de Heredia y Mercado Central, Primero Clase de Espanol, y Partido de Futbol

Today felt like such a long day. We woke up at 6:30 and have been going non-stop since then. In the morning, padre dropped us off at the Catholic Church in Heredia's Central Park where we broke down into groups and took a tour of the city.

We saw the church and toured the park and then headed to the mercado. They gave us a scavenger hunt to find certain fruits for as cheap as we possibly could and then we went to a local cafe and tried them all. Most of them were very good, but I don't think I'd try some of them again haha. They weren't bad, but not my taste. =P

But el mercado was magnifico! There were so many sights and sounds and smells and we had to seriously struggle and work through speaking Spanish to the vendors. I couldn't find my fruit (anando) so I just got something else and they were ok with it.

After lunch we went on a tour of the campus and met our profesora for the spanish class we're taking. It meets everyday from 12-4:30 and it's ALL in spanish... it was a little hard at first, but now I feel like it's finally starting to click and is going much better. It was pouring rain when we got done for the day, so my roommate, Kaitlin, and I walked home and got ready to go to the soccer game.

I think that was the best part of the day, honestly. It was our whole group, no familias or anything, just us cheering for Costa Rica and having some Imperials (the local ticos' favorite cerveza). More or less, it gave us all a chance to really bond and get to know each other.

Chicas de grupo: Jennifer, Ashley, Kaitlin, me and Skylar

Today was great, honestly. And tomorrow will be much slower paced, so Kaitlin and I are gonna give ourselves a tour of the city and universidad - after we sleep in, of course!

More tomorrow night! Ciao!
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La Casa Bonita y Volcan Poas

Oh my gosh... blogspot thinks I'm Spanish and changed all of my editing options to Spanish.  =X  Well let's see how this goes.

Last night on the way into San Jose, there were thunderstorms our pilot tried to navigate around and we ended up being delayed in the air for about an hour.  When I reached my host home, it was too dark to really see anything and too late to chat with my family so I just unpacked and went to sleep.  This morning, though, I got up early and walked around... their home is beautiful!  They have an orchid nursery that padre maintains (that weird looking gray dome is where it's at) and it's literally like a secret garden.  I would love to spend all day just sitting in the front yard listening to the birds and smelling the flowers.  My host dad was telling me about the national bird and we talked for a little bit about how Texas is around this time of year.  It was lovely.  And I found a cactus tucked away on the side of the house... you're never far from home.  =]

Then madre walked us to la universidad which is about 20-30 minutes away on foot.  From there, we met the rest of our group (19 of us in all) and hopped on the bus to head up to Volcan Poas y Lagoon Botos.  Let me tell you what, it was AMAZING.  Sincerely.  It's located in the cloud forest in the central valley around San Jose so it took about an hour and a half on a super curvy road up the mountain to get there.  It's an active volcano still so when the clouds cleared everyone cheered because it was a perfect, beautiful view.  After we spent some time there, we hiked around the different trails and visited the lake and spent some time getting to know each other.  We had  a lot of fun and on the way back down the mountain, we stopped to have lunch at a local soda (a restaraunt with a cafeteria-like line of delicious Costa Rican food) and just kinda putzed around for a while.

  

This is Jesenia, one of our program directors.  She's wonderful and in this picture she's telling us about "los sombrillas de pobre" (the poor man's umbrella).  Apparently, back in the day when people were first inhabiting the land, they would encounter some rain showers during the day in the rainy season and would just pick these huge leaves and use them as umbrellas.  They're very large and it's hard to tell in this picture, but Jesenia is smaller than me and these leaves are massive in comparison to her.

My brain kind of fried when I got home though.  My host family speaks only spanish and I speak only english... see where this is going?  My roommate is like Wonder Woman or something though, because she knows spanish well enough to talk to them and translate for us.  I need to step up my game though and learn this language so it's not all on her.  =P  (Easier said than done, though.)  Anyways, I need to get some rest, tomorrow will be a long day and it's starting EARLY.

So as the ticos say... ciao!

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*Note: this was supposed to post last night but I was having MAJOR problems with it.  So two posts tonight if you're reading them in order.  =]*

and my bags are packed.

So I spent the past few days packing and getting vaccinated and just all around preparing everything.  Yesterday I took over mom's sunroom and hung all of my clothes so I could spray them down with bug repellent... it looked kinda funny but I was sweating to death and it took longer than I thought.  Thankfully I got everything done and packed!  Now that it's time to get underway, I'm nervous though.  It's mostly excited nerves, but there's also a tinge of scared nerves.  This will be the longest I've ever spent out of Texas and the first time I'll be out of country.  And in the past I've always travelled with someone or had someone I knew waiting for me at the airport... this time I'm meeting a lady with a sign haha.  I know in the end I'm gonna have a major blast, but I can't help but have some cold feet right now.

On the flip-side, I'm pretty proud of how my host gift turned out.  I decided to be a little corny and bring a glass tea pitcher and some tea and make sun-brewed tea when I get there for the family.  I don't know if they'll like it, but at least I'll enjoy some good ol' Texas style tea.  =]  The little card was harder but my mom helped me get crafty so they can remove the photo from the card when I leave.  I packed it all up before I took pictures but you'll see, it's pretty stinkin cute if I do say so myself.  I hope they like it.  (And I hope they like me!)

I'm sitting in the San Antonio airport now, two hours early for my flight.  I'm the only one around right now so that's nice but I can't wait to get to DFW and find the people also on my flight to Costa Rica so I won't be the only non-Spanish-speaker who's shitting themselves on the way.  =P

And so it begins.

With love,

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