Livin the Vida Loca!

Wow I have a lot to catch up on. First of all i have been procrastinating on soooo many levels with this blog. There has been a lot of stuff going on every night, and my new spanish class has a ton of homework that has been forcing me to study hundreds of vocab words every week. So not last weekend, but the weekend BEFORE we went to this town called Tamarindo. (yeah its been a while.) Tamarindo was amazing! It was my favorite spot so far. The waves here were perfect for beginner surfing so we took a surfing class and it was so much fun. Unfortunately we didn't get any pics because we were all in the water. But i promise it happened. Here are the some highlights of the trip...(we hardly left the beach) ++++SPANISH!! Finally..

Just another weekend :)

Boogy Board! My favorite thing when the water is warm :)

This was just one if the Iguanas roaming around outside of our hotel

There were these adorable puppies just roaming around the beach. I wanted to take one home..

The Group

PANAMA!!!

Our next weekend trip was to Panama, which was planned Thursday and we left Friday. That Monday I started to come down with a cold and by Friday it was full blown. I was super miserable but i didn't want to miss my one chance to go to Panama. The bus ride was 5 hours to the border then one more hour to Bocas del Toro. The already miserable bus ride was worse with plugged up ears going over the mountain. I thought i was going to have to find a hospital by the time i got to the islands. Instead i took some decongestant and went to bed early. In order to save money we decided to stay in a hostel, with a bar attached. That first night they stopped playing their music at 3:30 which is when i finally drifted off. This was of only two bad parts of Panama. The other was the bugs..they have these tiny mosquito things that are called "noseeums" because you cant see them at all. They reminded me of blood sucking fruit flies that are totally resistant to any kind of bug spray. Needless to say we all got eaten alive. Other than that the trip was amazing! After snorkeling and dolphin watching, we pretty much just relaxed and explored the islands. Our hostel was on one small island and EVERYTHING else was on the other one so we had to take a taxi boat back and forth, which was actually kinda cool. The other day we went to this tiny beach and played in the crystal clear water :) Its really a rough life here..

The beginning of the loooooong ride to Panama. (The toilet paper is for my nose)

Our hostel, complete with a diving board and swings

Jellyfish = not so great for snorkeling.

Two Dolphins just chillin by our boat

Alisha's leg..today..a week after we got back from Panama.

After Panama we are not having another excursion for a while. This weekend we just explored San José and tried to figure out the public bus. I will try to keep you updated but i'm afraid its going to get really boring after this..My mom and sister are coming in 15 days so that might be the next interesting thing that happens here. Otherwise you guys are going to be hearing a lot about my daily life :) Thank you so much for reading this and being patient. Have a wonderful Halloween!

Quería ser la mejor hablante de español antes de escribir por todos. Obviamente, yo no soy. Al principio tenía miedo pero ahora estoy más cómodo con mi español. Mi clase nueva de español se llama, conversación intermedio, es perfecta para mi. Aprendimos como hablar más fluido y por eso, yo tengo muchísimo tarea de vocabulario. No hay gramática en este clase, vamos a practicar sólo la gramática que ya sabemos. También solamente hay cinco chicas en la clase y yo no tengo nada miedo. Me encanta el programa de español aquí y mi maestra, espero que yo hable español con soltura pronto.

4 weeks in

WOW! I cannot believe that it has been four weeks already. Only 8 more..

Today was the last day of my first spanish course. I cannot believe that time has gone by so fast. Next week i will start a spanish conversation class which should help me to converse, right? I had the most amazing teacher for this course, im not sure anyone can top her. Im in the library right now waiting to leave for Panama at 11. I have had no time this week to do anything because i had two presentations and my final. Next week, for sure, i will put up pictures from Tamarindo and Panama. I have also had a cold of death this week that has made me feel for Ingeborg..

I will be sure to think about everyone while i am in Boca del Toro... :)

Catching up!

It has been a long time since I had anything exciting to share. I have such a routine here that everyday is exactly alike and time flies! So last weekend we went to Puerto Viejo which was a cool beach but we didn't do much.

The maps of our trip to Puerto Viejo

This was a lizard in our hotel room

The ocean was so warm! That was my favorite part of Puerto Viejo. Unfortunately our snorkeling trip got cancelled, so we just swam around all day.

On Thursday my spanish class took a field trip to a cloud forest. In a lot of ways it just reminded me of Oregon, very wet and green. It was really fun and much better than four hours in a classroom. We stopped at this church on our way, it reminded me of the Hunchback of Notre Dame .

Its hard to capture the cloudiness of the forest, here is my attempt.

These are the conditions we were hiking in..very messy

I am having so much fun here but the time is going by so fast! I can't believe its already been a month. I miss everyone at home so much, including my car and American candy. :)

El Fin de Semana-The weekend

This weekend was absolutely amazing. I took an excursion through the school with all of my friends to Monteverde and the volcano Arenal. Here is the map of our weekend...

We started out after school on Friday at 1:00 and drove until dinnertime before we got to Arenal. Arenal is up in the mountains so it is a little bit colder with a lot less humidity. As soon as we got there we put our swim suits on and headed to the Baldi Hot Springs. The hot springs was so beautiful, even in the dark, it had probably a dozen hot pools with varying temperatures and three big water slides. I absolutely love water slides, so i stayed there for most of the time. Unfortunately we only had an hour and a half there before we had to eat dinner and return to the hotel. Everyone loved it so much we are trying to figure out a way to come back during a free weekend. After sitting in the hot pools and driving all day we were all exhausted and fell asleep early..

Our Hotel

The next morning we had breakfast at 7 and left at 8 for the waterfall. It was just a short ride to the waterfalls where we were able to swim for a few hours. The water was COLD! but felt amazing after the hike down. After getting soaked we returned to the hotel to change and have lunch before heading off to Monteverde. Im not sure if it was necessary or if it was for fun but we took a ferry across a huge lake to get to our next stop but we were all tired and it was pouring rain. After a few more hours of driving we finally made it to our hotel in Monteverde around dinner time on Saturday night. Once again we were all so tired we went to bed really early. 6:30 the next morning we had a quick breakfast and left for our canopy tour. A few girls had already been on a canopy tour so they had an idea of what to expect. I had no idea. I am kinda afraid of heights so i was getting very nervous on the ride up there. It ended up being so amazing that i am hoping to go back with my Mom and Sister when they come down. There were 11 ziplines set up all across the forest. Most of them were normal ones but there were three special ones. First there was just the repel down. straight down. It was probably two stories of free fall, just enough to make your stomach drop. The next crazy one was the tarzan swing, this was the scariest of them all. It was exactly how it sounded..you started out on a ledge and there was a rope that you were hooked to and you just swung, like on a vine, back and forth until you stopped. I have a video of me doing it that will come up someday. The last one was the superman one. This one was scary but there was no drops. You were hooked up to the zipline on your back and your butt and you pretty much just flew to the other side.

Video coming soon..

Museo De Oro y Fiesta de Crash-Thursday, September 30th

I am falling behind on my blogging which is really stressing me out so i am hoping to catch up in the next two hours. I have been so busy! I barely had time to realize it is the 4th of October!

1. Museum

For my spanish class we had to visit the museum about the indigenous Costa Ricans and their gold. I was exhausted and bored. I went with my friend Lisa in my class, i think we were in and out in half hour. They did have really cool sculptures but hardly any gold. Pictures...

2. Fiesta!

Thursday night the school had this party called "Crash" for the exchange students to meet the other students. I cant help but feel like an asian exchange student in these situations. We all huddle together in our American groups and speak english. It was fun, besides the fact that their idea of BBQ and mine were way different. On all the fliers they specifically used the word "BBQ" which to me means a meal. It ended up being a tortilla about the size of my fist and one piece of meat. Other than that there was a dance team that came and performed for us with a percussion band. Me and Alisha were joking that it was the first piece of Costa Rican culture we saw. Although its really different here, it is definitely Americanized especially in San José. There are McDonalds on every corner and any other fast food you could want just a short taxi ride away.

Thursday? Already?

So these past couple days have been so busy! I barely have time to finish my homework before i fall asleep at 10. Sitting in a spanish class for 4 hours a day is so exhausting. Yesterday i had class until 12 then went to a very very very fancy mall. My roommate (Alisha) and i didnt know exactly how far away it was, but it ended up being about a 30 dollar cab ride. The mall was in a very rich suburb of San José with a ton of very american expensive stores. It was about double the size of the Town Center and three stories.

At first i was put into advanced spanish and i tried it out on Monday but it was so hard! Yesterday they moved my down to intermediate 2 and i am loving it. My teacher is so relaxed and nice. Although she gives out the most homework. I am also taking an intercultural communication class as an elective. Luckily that is in English because my brain could explode. I have that class with Alisha and its really fun so far. I cant believe that it has almost been a week already! Tomorrow right after class i am going on a weekend excursion (Many pictures to come!). We are going to this volcano and hot springs called monteverde. The rumor is that there is some flooding up there so we will see how far up we get. In about ten minutes i am leaving for a party that the school is throwing for all the new students.

Today i also went the Mueso de Oro today but i will have to post about it tonight or Monday.

Day 2! First day of school.

First here are some random pics from the trip down here..first my fam. i miss them all so much. then the view from the air.

So somehow this morning my alarm clock'stime zone button got clicked and it was set an hour early. So i was ready and downstairs at 6:30 instead of 7:30. Not a great start to my first day of school but a free hour is a great time to update you guys on everything thats been going on. First of all i want to share my favorite picture so far... I like to be prepared :)

So the flights went great, super long but i survived and made my way here. When i got here i was exhausted and pretty much ate and went to sleep. The next morning (Monday) we had to be at the school at 8 for orientation. We had a ton of our questions answered and it was very nice to hear all the information finally. The school is not the most organized but i got placed into an advanced spanish class, we'll see how that works out. Spanish is SO much easier to learn here. I feel like i have learned more in 2 days here than weeks of school. After orientation we went to a mexican restaurant for lunch. Here was the outcome..

The burrito was amazing but the french fries were way salty. After lunch we went on a tour of downtown San Jose. I was riding backwards in a van for an hour (Barf Central) so i was not up to taking a bunch of pictures.

This whole week is a big blur of confusion. I am so lucky to have a group of girls that are all confused as i am.

The girl on the far left is my housemate (Alesha) the other two live down the street. It appears to be sunny..but that was for about ten minutes before the big thunder and lightening storm. I just realized i didnt bring any sunglasses!! good thing its hardly ever sunny. Well thats all my pictures for now. ¡Hasta Luego!