Last class

Friday, June 26, 2009
My last Spanish class was today. It started off with a test. We checked most of it, but I’m still not sure what grade I made. After that, we had to do our presentations in front of the whole group. I was pretty nervous, until I started talking and then I was fine, which is unusual for me. I’m usually a mess the entire time I’m presenting anything, even in English. I talked about the kids at work; how each one has their own unique characteristic. Banks always repeats himself. Henry holds his pants when he runs because they never fit. Colin insists on wearing his sunglasses everyday. Ana only walks on the balls of her feet, so she always falls. Quincy tells the funniest stories. Noa always asks me what I’m doing. And Miles uses anything and everything as a musical instrument.
I think mine was shorter than everyone else’s, but I was almost the only one that didn’t read their paper, so that was pretty cool. Everyone else talked about Costa Rica. Some people had pictures, and we even got to try “Monos Chinos” or Chinese Monkeys. But don’t freak out because they’re a fruit, not a real monkey. The look like red spikey balls. You just suck it. I didn’t really care for them. I mean, they weren’t horrible, but I didn’t fancy them.
Nothing really eventful has happened here today or last night, except….My dad came down the stairs to eat last night saying that Michael Jackson died! I totally thought he was joking with me because maybe that was one of the only American names that sounded familiar to him or something. So I told them all about Michael Jackson, in Spanish of course. Then later on, I watched so many different channels that were talking about him. There were at least 7 channels on Michael.


So every morning, either my grandma or my cousin makes fresh squeezed juice. I have fresh orange juice every morning and later on for dinner I sometimes have mango juice or papaya juice. Mango is the best, with orange following right behind. I really wish I could bring food home, but it’s kinda not allowed. Avocados and bananas would definitely be in my suitcase. I could smuggle them, but I would end up smothering them because I’m bringing back so much stuff.


By the way, my computer is officially broken. I guess I'm not even going to turn it on anymore because it has no battery left.

Escrabble.

Thursday, June 25, 2009
So I forgot to mention a couple things earlier. The Monday before the overnight trip to Arenal, the volcano erupted and it erupted again yesterday. My mom said there were over 40 small avalanches yesterday. We caught the end of the story on the news last night. It wasn't red lava pouring out of the volcano like I expected, but steam. Also, it's super late, but I forgot to mention that on the way to the rainforest, the breakpads on the van wore down, so we had to stop at a mechanic place on the way. Roberto had to go into town to buy new ones and they told him it'd take 45 minutes, which we all know in the US would take an hour and a half. So, since we were going to be stranded on the side of the road with nothing to do, we walked to a town called San Mateo. We bought helado (ice cream) since it was so hot and walked around the park. Walking back to the shop, a very recognizable van showed up. I checked my watch: 43 minutes! They had to go into town, pick out new breakpads, drive back, put them on and put them on and it took so little time. There's no way someone could even joke about that happening in the US. It was riducously fast.
Anyhow, yesterday after class, we went to Jim and Laura's house. They weren't kidding about the place having a killer view or being absolutely gorgeous. You'll see in my pictures, but the wall on their pool just ended, like if you looked over the edge, you were looking down into the mountain's valley. It's kind of hard to explain, but once you see the pictures, you'll understand. Their cooker/housekeeper, Susana made some awesome food and again, the guacamole was awesome, although this time Mary Grey didn't make it. Roberto had to take Patrick to the hospital because he's had this really bad rash for about a week now. It was nothing major, but he just wanted to make sure everything was okay, and find out what could have caused it. Most everyone left early, but Koren, Jennifer and I stayed longer, so we played Escrabble. It was really hard to come up with Spanish words. The game was actually in Spanish, so it had Spanish letters, too, like ll, ch, and ñ. We broke all the rules. We ran off the board, helped each other, traded letters and everything, but it was so much fun!

Skipping school to see the volcano

Tuesday, June 23, 2009
It's hard to believe it's our last week in Costa Rica. I wish I could stay longer. It's so peaceful here. Some of the others were asked what they missed most about the states. Most of them, if not all of them said nothing. Besides family, I miss potatoes. They don't really do potatoes here. I don't miss the traffic or the fast paced life. I like tico time - it's so much slower and you get to sleep a lot! It's still like I'm on Charlotte time though, because they go to bed around 8 here, which is 10 in Charlotte. And we get up 5 or 6 something, which is 7 or 8 in Charlotte. It took a lot of getting used to being here, but it'll take time getting used to back home, too. If I run into someone, I know I'll say, "perdon, lo siento," a couple times and get dirty looks out of it. It's weird because we speak Spanish so much here and I'm used to it. I still slip a thank you in there sometimes, but back home I'll be saying gracias to a cashier who thinks I'm crazy.
Last night, my mom and I talked forever. Turns out she didn't want to be a host mom anymore, but Odie begged her. She'd had bad experiences with her other "kids." She said she'd try it out for two more weeks and see how it went. But it's not like I have a lot to do to make up for the others because from her stories, I'm doing a lot better! I forgot to write it, but when I came home Friday, there was a gift bag waiting for me on my bed. The tag read, "Para: Sarita, con mucho carino de su familia tica." Sarita is my name here. It's like a loving name, almost like a pet name I guess. I'm sure you can figure out what it says, "For: Sarah, with much love from your host family." Inside was a cute little change purse. I was lucky because I came home that day with sunflowers for them that I bought at the market. And last night, my grandma handed me a bag with a cute t-shirt and a super cute keychain with a frog on it.
Today Jim, Laura, Jennifer and I went to see Volcan Poas. The four-monthers saw it a couple weeks ago. We had to leave early because if you get there late, you probably won't see the volcano because of all the clouds or even the steam. When we walked up there and saw the crater of the volcano, I just couldn't believe it. It was really pretty. There was so much steam spilling out of it. We took lots and lots of pictures of it. After we visited the volcano, we took a new trail leading to the lagoon, where the old crater was. Hiking back to the parking lot was a pain and took a really long time. We had to keeping taking small breaks because we couldn't breathe with us being up so high. After going to the souvenir shop, we went out to eat at this really fancy place. Jennifer said it would be perfect for a wedding because it was so pretty. It was at a like, trout farm. They catch the trout and then cook it up for you. This place was also another place to zip-line. There was a really bad earthquake in this town on January 6 and it ruined a lot of things, so they couldn't catch fresh trout for another 15 days. After leaving the restaurant, we headed back home. We had already missed all of class, so we all just went to our houses.
Oh yeah, did I ever tell you it rains here daily? Well it does. At least during the winter. And they only have two seasons. I'll let you guess which ones. Just a couple facts I forgot to include.

Wonderful weekend!

Sunday, June 21, 2009
This weekend was pretty awesome. We went on an overnight trip to Arenal. It was so much fun. We started our trip off with an actual bus, instead of the teeny tiny little van we usually take. It seated 29 people, so there was plenty of room all 13 of us. We saw lots of really pretty churches on the way, but we didn't have time to stop because we had to be at the place at a certain time. Zip-lining was first. I was kind of nervous because even though someone had explained what it was, I'd never seen it before, so I didn't really know what I was getting myself into. We took a tractor up most of the mountain and stopped for a little while to see a howler monkey, which was pretty neat. After we put our harnesses on, we walked up the rest of the mountain. Man, I was worn out after that. I was covered in sweat by the time we reached the first platform. Coqui went before most of us and got stuck because he breaked the whole time. I ended up dropping the line and spun around a couple of times before I actually made it to the platform. The second one was a lot better because the view was awesome and I didn't spin. I messed up on the third one though. I didn't realize I was breaking and got stuck about five feet away from the next platform, which wasn't that bad. The next one was the second longest. They said I was too light and wouldn't make it without getting stuck, so I had to go at the same time as two other people. I saw Coqui get stuck again and he had to pull himself up the rest of the cable. I went by myself on the next one and made it all the way. Coqui, on the other hand, didn't. He got stuck before he got to the middle and the guy had to go out there to rescue him. Poor Coqui. A lot of people actually got stuck on this one. The next one - Coqui got stuck. Starting to notice a pattern here? He actually managed to make it twice out of ten times. Go Coqui! On one of them, almost everyone got stuck and before I even took off, the guy said I'd get stuck. I told him how much I appreciated his confidence in me. Guess what. I didn't make it. The guy had to come rescue me. I enjoyed all of the cables except the last one. It was the fastest one, which was really cool, except I let go of the line and spun around, so I ended up backwards and totally got some whiplash when I landed and the noise was super loud so it gave me a headache immediately.
After we all congratulated Coqui for sticking it up to the end, we rode the tractor to an Indian place. They talked to us and let us look around. They had some really cool masks that would have been neat for the kids at work to see, but they were crazy expensive. After we left, we went to the horses. Pretty much as soon as we got there, it started raining. So we got on our horses, some of us for our first time and our intructions were "it's raining, but let's go." No "here, pull the rein this way" or anything. So the first-timers were pretty nervous. I'd never been either up or down a hill, much less a rocky hill, on a horse before. After a while, it started pouring. Our horses were going so fast (okay not really, but for me!) and my horse was pretty girly because he refused to step in the mud. I named him Diego...if he was a him. So by the time we got back, we were all soaked and had to get back on the bus. It was a blast, all of it. It wouldn't have been as fun without the miserable moments such as the rain or the lack of instructions. Nastasia and Corey had never ridden before, and Kimberly had only ridden once. Nastasia thought she was falling off of her horse before she even got going. Oh and none of the horses had any patience at all. They were all leaders.
We checked into the hotel and went out for some grub. The restaurant was called Lava Lounge. Kimberly and I split guacamole and chips and I ordered fajitas with a banana mango smoothie. Everything was pretty good, but I couldn't finish the fajitas. After a while, we went to the volcano to look for falling lava. That failed and we headed back to the hotel. After a wonderful night of sleep, (ask me about that story one day) we had a really good breakfast. Jim, Laura and Roberto went birdwatching early in the morning and saw lots of cool birds. We went to the hot springs later on. Someone handed me lava rocks so "Sarah's boyfriend could have some for his lava lamp," as Corey said. I'd never even been near a hot spring, so I didn't know anything about them. Turns out, they're uh...hot. It was really pretty there. We had the hardest time trying to get in the perfect spot because the current was "muy fuerte" (very strong) and if your butt wasn't planted in a good seat, you ended up being carried away by the water. The water was so hot and very comfortable, but after a while it was too hot. We were there for about an hour, then we headed back to the hotel to pack up.
After leaving the hotel, we went out to eat again and I went to some souvenir shops. I tried looking for a Father's Day card for my host dad, but the only thing close to a card was a postcard and I wasn't doing that. On the way home, we stopped a couple of times to take pictures of some of those churches I told you about. And that was my weekend.

Karoke, dancing & more!

Wednesday was supposed to be our first dance class, but we got so busy, we never actually had it. We went to Odie & Eduardo's house for a party. Their house is so pretty and they have the best view. I swam in the pool and ate lots of Mary Gray's guacamole, which is delicious. They were making fun of me because I was trying to get the last little bit. While some of us swam, others karaoked and danced. It was pretty fun. Koren's really good at singing, but we were all wondering if that was a result of the wine.

Thursday, we went to the rain forest. Guess what. It's called RAIN forest for a reason. It rained the whole time we were there, and we didn't get to see anything except one frog. It was black and green. It was pretty cool. I wanted to take it home, but didn't think I'd make it through customs. But other than that, we saw lots of trees and plants. We did actually get to hear a howler monkey, but we didn't see it.

Today is Kim & her hubby's five year anniversary. His flight landed yesterday and we had a small party this morning with carrot cake before class. Also before class, we had to go the the varia (which is like a market that is set up in the park on certain days) to do like a scavenger hunt. We had to find one fruit and one vegetable and ask the sellers some questions about each. It was pretty hard because I couldn't understand them and one girl didn't even know what I was asking. I got 2 avocados and 2 tomatoes for more of Mary Gray's delicious guacamole, along with some bananas and sunflowers for my family.

In class today, I actually understood a lot more that Rita, my teacher was saying. I didn't understand it all, but I caught more than I usually do. I was pretty proud of myself. We're supposed to have conversation class right now, but we're running a little late. That's it for now!

My first days

Saturday, June 13, 2009

So far, Costa Rica has been great. I decided to start my trip the right way and sat in First Class on my first flight ever. For some reason, another lady and I had to switch seats. The guy beside me said since I got to sit there on my first flight, I was very lucky and should buy a lottery ticket. He explained some of the benefits of the First Class seats while I glared out the window like a little kid. I got a delicious chicken sandwich, a brownie, a choice in snacks, all the drinks I wanted, a less bumpy ride, a recliner chair, blankets, pillows, our own bathroom, and a hot towel at the end of the ride. All for free!
At the end of the flight, Laura, Jim and I headed to customs and on the way, I noticed someone that looked extremely familiar. As I got a closer look, I realized it was a guy that used to play in the band with me my freshman year. I would have said hi, but we don't know each other personally and I highly doubt he would have recognized me. After all, he was a senior when I was only a freshman. After customs, we switched our money to colones.
When we met with our group, we went straight to the school. The ride there was a lot different than I expected. First of all, cars here honk their horns a lot. They'll honk their horn for any reason at all, even if it's just to say hi. Another thing is that if a car wants to pass you, that's what it will do. Solid lines, curves and limited space mean nothing to drivers waiting to pass. The roads to Atenas were very curvy. As soon as we went around a curve to the right, we went around a curve to the left. People pull out in front of cars all the time, too.
When I met my family, I was very nervous about the language. I had no idea what to say and if I could come up with anything at all, I didn't know how to say it in Spanish. Luckily, my mom speaks English, but I wish I could understand when she speaks Spanish more. I get so frustrated with myself because I have to ask "que" 3 times before I give up and get the comment in English. So basically right now, we're just sitting around staring at each other without talking much. It's pretty awkward. I haven't spent a lot of time with them, but they are really nice. My mom did all my laundry, hung up some pictures, had supplies, cooked, and even made me lunch to go to the beach with. I feel bad because it seems like she's not getting anything back in return. I have a mom, dad, grandmother and a one-year-old brother.
Today, we went to the beach. We were there for hours and except for getting burnt, I had a lot of fun. I didn't swim, but I did get in the water. Koren and I found a lot of really neat shells and we got some pictures with this mermaid statue. Later on, Corin, Patrick, Aaron, Corey, Kimberly and I went to eat. The ride back wasn't so great because we were all sandy and stinky. We stopped in a town and did a little shopping. I got cute t-shirts for all my kids at the preschool. I've got so much more shopping to do. I want to get so many people souvenirs and myself some clothes. Tomorrow, I'm going shopping in San Jose with Nastasia and Kimberly. I'm pretty excited about that.

Monday, June 15, 2009

I'm starting to get used to talking in Spanish now. I still struggle and talk very slow, but I'm getting better. The hardest part is definitely understanding what people are saying in Spanish. I have ask people to repeat themselves a lot. Last night, I talked with my family in Spanish for maybe an hour and a half nonstop. Tonight, it was longer. Coming up with sentences that make sense that I want to say is hard and I look up a lot of words in the dictionary, but at least I'm getting somewhere. My vocabulary and grammar are getting a little bit better too.
Yesterday, Nastasia, Kimberly and I went shopping in San Jose. I bought a bunch of key chains for anyone I need to get gifts for. I also bought a really neat feather with a bird painted on it. I got a t-shirt that has Pura Vida written on it and a pair of earring with Costa Rican coins on them for me. We shopped for hours and tried on a lot of clothes. I got tired of trying on so many because each time I tried on something, it killed my sunburn, so I gave up on finding clothes.
I had my first class and test today. I think I did pretty well on the test, but we'll find out tomorrow for sure. We didn't have too much homework assigned to us, but I have a lot of reviewing to do, so I have more than everyone. After class, we had our first cooking class with Kim's mom. She made some delicious banana stuff with refried beans and this fish stuff, but I don't remember the name of anything. Kim's house is really pretty.
Other things I find different from the USA are things like the toilet paper rule. You don't flush the toilet paper in Costa Rica. Apparently it takes a lot of water to flush it and Costa Rica doesn't waste the water to do so, so it goes in the trash can. It's pretty gross. I found out that even though it's so hot here, it's winter! I couldn't believe it when I heard that. Oh and Costa Rica doesn't use much air conditioning, which stinks, literally.


Tuesday, June 16, 2009

So I made a 92 on my first Spanish test, which was pretty cool considering I just started the class yesterday. Things in class are going well, but I still have trouble understanding what people are actually saying in Spanish because they talk so fast. It takes me longer to translate. After class, we went to a coffee farm. We went on a tour of the farm and there were a lot of plants. I took lots of pictures. The tour was long and we learned all about how coffee is made. Afterwards, we sat down to have some. I had three cups! I don't usually drink coffee, but it was so good. When we got back to the school, I tried uploading pictures, but the power went out and I wasn't able to. Aaron and I played ping pong and I lost both times, which was no surprise.
Aaron and I walked back to our houses and I had chicken, rice, cauliflower, avocados and tomatoes for dinner. After dinner, I started on my homework. I got home later tonight and I had more homework, so I thought I should start on it early. During my homework, my dad and my brother went to bed. My mom and I talked while we had some ice cream. We shared our driver's license with each other. She was shocked that there's so much information on ours and I was shocked about the lack of information on hers. After that, I took a shower because I felt nasty. I'm not a person to sweat in the USA, but I definitely sweat in Costa Rica. I was all muddy from the farm and sweaty from the heat, so I wasn't about to lay in the bed all icky.
My sunburn has been driving me crazy lately because it is itching. Tonight, I have like blistery things all over where it's starting to peel. I'm going to try my best not to touch it. I like how right when I said that, I consiously did so. Great. Now it's going to peel like crazy.
I feel like I definitely got the right family. They're so nice and understanding. They don't make me feel uncomfortable about saying the wrong thing and they have more patience with my speaking than anyone could imagine. They go out of their way to make me feel like I'm at home. My clothes are washed, my dress was ironed today, my pictures were hung up in my room for me, my food is prepared, including snacks. I just can't believe how lucky I got. And my dad wants to show me off! He asked what time I was going to get home today because he wanted me to meet his family, but I wasn't sure what time I was getting home because we had to go to the farm, but it was cool knowing he wanted me to meet them.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

I can't believe how fast the days are going by. Today is Jim and Laura's 3 year anniversary, so we had a small party for them. We had tres leches queque, or 3 milk cake. It was pretty good. I hate that since I've been here, I'm not usually hungry. It has nothing to do with the food. The food could be amazing, but I'm just not hungry here. I mean, I've passed up ice cream a couple of times. Tonight, we have dance class and then a party at Odie's house. Hopefully we'll get to cool down because Odie has a pool. I can't get over how hot it is here. I walked home today, my mistake being wearing flip flops. It's only a 25 minute walk, but with a bookbag full of stuff, flip flops and the heat, it takes a lot out of you.
I realize a lot of my stories are random, but it's hard to remember everything when you're writing about a trip like this. Something I have a hard time with here is the money. About 500 colones is equal to a dollar. It's weird and it takes you a while to get used to it. I'll be the one standing in the store counting on my fingers before I pay for something. When we went to the restaurant at the beach Saturday, we had six different orders on our bill, and the lady couldn't divide it, so we all had to figure out how much each person owed. We were adding everything up on a napkin. It took a while, but we finally got it.
This may sound funny, but when I type this, sometimes I accidentally throw in Spanish words. I guess it's because we're doing so much with Spanish in school. But I don't even know I do it until I'm reading a paragraph again. Oh, I forgot! My first night, my mom asked me, "Tienes hambre?" I was so confused because I thought she said, "Tienes hombre?" "Tienes hambre" means "are you hungry", or "do you have hunger," while "tienes hombre" means "do you have a man". It was kind of embarassing. I make a lot of stupid mistakes, but hey, I never said I was fluent.