It´s true, I´m officially finished with the classes at the institute! How exciting! The only bad part about that is that I am halfway done with the program and my time in Costa Rica and I´m really not looking forward to leaving here and going back home to the snow and cold weather. Also, I don´t want to go back to writing papers and all of that.
Anyways, this week was a lot better though, because I was moved to the highest group we have here and it was a lot better. I didn´t have to give people vocab words or anything and it was just more challenging. It´s just too bad that this was the last week then.
Also, tomorrow I am headed to Nicaragua! It will be a very long ride, possibly a little over 11 hours, but it will be really nice to see another place and town. Then on tuesday I come back to Costa Rica and then I will leave again on Wednesday to go to Puerto Viejo and stay with Jaime for a few days. I´m really excited for this break because it is just really difficult to spend so much time with everyone from NCC every day. I need to be able to be more independent and just do my own thing, but it´s hard to do that here. I think it will get a lot better once I start working at the school and everything, because I only have to see everyone for a meeting once a week. I´m sure i´ll see peopel more, just bc it is a small town, but it will be nice. Also, i´m just excited to be able to spend a little longer time in Puerto Viejo and just hang out on the beaches and relax. It´s a nice climate there so that will be really nice to experience for more days also!
Okay, well I´ll try to get on a computer when I am traveling for the next week, but if I don´t update I´ll talk to everyone sometime soon!
Friday, October 24, 2008
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Demasiada Lluvia!!
The title of my post means... TOO MUCH RAIN. And it´s completely true. Literally, it has not stopped raining for 5 days! However, I am really lucky because I live in the mountains there isn´t any flooding, but in a lot of areas in CR right now, most people do not have a house to live in. Still, I hope that the rains will stop soon because righ tnow as I am sitting in the internet cafe my shoes and legs are absolutley soaked and freezing. There is no way to prevent it, and I think my umbrella just broke, so I will need to buy a new one right away!
Haha, but really i´m still not having a bad time or anything, it´s just a lot of rain and it makes it really nice to sleep! Today was exciting because I had a meeting at the school I am going to be interning at, in the small town of Cacao. The director seemed really nice and told me i am going to be working with kinder! (the 5 year olds!) So, i´m really excited for this and I met the teacher who is a younger lady and she seemed really nice too. There are two groups of students, like a morning kindergarten and an afternoon, so the first one is from 7 am till 10 am, and then the other one is 12 to 230, so I told him I would come the first day at 7 and then just see if I should leave earlier or stay the whoel time. There is a cafeteria there where he said I coudl eat lunch and there is a cook who makes all the food right there, which of course is very different from cafeteria food in the states! Anyways, I am really exited to start going there everyday, I think I will enjoy my time a lot more when I am able to speak more spanish and actually apply my spanish versus always having to debate about things like in spanish classes at the institute.
However, I only have one more week of classes at the institute and then I am off to Nicaragua and then Puerto Viejo. This weekend I decided to just to stay home and maybe go into San Jose and stay there a night and go out to some clubs or something. Really with all of this rain and all fo the flooding, a lot of highways are hard to cross right now and it´s not fun to go to a place if it´s just going to rain the whole time. So i´m excited for a relaxing weekend at home and just hanging out around the house too... in dry clothes! haha.
Also, a little story about the culture here... it´s like a lot of latin american countries because the culture is centered more around the group versus the individual liek the states is. Anyways, this shows through all the time esp with Fernanda (the 5 yr old). The other day I gave her a reeses, it was one of the bite size ones that Rachel sent me. Anyways, I gave her one to try it but I didn´t want one so it was just her, but I even told her it was a present. Still, she told one bite and said how good it was, but she would NOT eat any more of it. I couldn´t really figure out why until finnaly I said we should split it and then she was really happy with that compromise. But remember that this isn´t even a whole reeses... it´s a bite size one! I just thought it was great to see how much they want to share and have everyone get an equal part. This happened before when Paula, Fernanda and I ended up splitting ONE mini M&M! They had to make sure everyone had a piece, and shannon said the other day that she split a candy bar 7 different ways. I just think it´s really interesting that this idea is even in Fernanda who is onyl five and almost all the kids I know would not resist eating a whoel reeses!
ookay well that´s it for now but hope everything is going well back in the states and let me know whats going on with you!
Haha, but really i´m still not having a bad time or anything, it´s just a lot of rain and it makes it really nice to sleep! Today was exciting because I had a meeting at the school I am going to be interning at, in the small town of Cacao. The director seemed really nice and told me i am going to be working with kinder! (the 5 year olds!) So, i´m really excited for this and I met the teacher who is a younger lady and she seemed really nice too. There are two groups of students, like a morning kindergarten and an afternoon, so the first one is from 7 am till 10 am, and then the other one is 12 to 230, so I told him I would come the first day at 7 and then just see if I should leave earlier or stay the whoel time. There is a cafeteria there where he said I coudl eat lunch and there is a cook who makes all the food right there, which of course is very different from cafeteria food in the states! Anyways, I am really exited to start going there everyday, I think I will enjoy my time a lot more when I am able to speak more spanish and actually apply my spanish versus always having to debate about things like in spanish classes at the institute.
However, I only have one more week of classes at the institute and then I am off to Nicaragua and then Puerto Viejo. This weekend I decided to just to stay home and maybe go into San Jose and stay there a night and go out to some clubs or something. Really with all of this rain and all fo the flooding, a lot of highways are hard to cross right now and it´s not fun to go to a place if it´s just going to rain the whole time. So i´m excited for a relaxing weekend at home and just hanging out around the house too... in dry clothes! haha.
Also, a little story about the culture here... it´s like a lot of latin american countries because the culture is centered more around the group versus the individual liek the states is. Anyways, this shows through all the time esp with Fernanda (the 5 yr old). The other day I gave her a reeses, it was one of the bite size ones that Rachel sent me. Anyways, I gave her one to try it but I didn´t want one so it was just her, but I even told her it was a present. Still, she told one bite and said how good it was, but she would NOT eat any more of it. I couldn´t really figure out why until finnaly I said we should split it and then she was really happy with that compromise. But remember that this isn´t even a whole reeses... it´s a bite size one! I just thought it was great to see how much they want to share and have everyone get an equal part. This happened before when Paula, Fernanda and I ended up splitting ONE mini M&M! They had to make sure everyone had a piece, and shannon said the other day that she split a candy bar 7 different ways. I just think it´s really interesting that this idea is even in Fernanda who is onyl five and almost all the kids I know would not resist eating a whoel reeses!
ookay well that´s it for now but hope everything is going well back in the states and let me know whats going on with you!
Monday, October 13, 2008
Global Creek
Alright, well I didn´t really update last week, but it´s sometimes just hard to get everything done on the internet with the time I have. But, last week was alright, I didn´t like my spanish class very much, but in general I don´t really like those. Last week at first we didn´t get to speak at all and we just kept listening to her talk to us, and also speak in english, which is really frustrating. However, this week will be a lot better because already today all we did was speak and talk about things that are more relevant to talk about and I like my teacher this week which helps a lot.
So this weekend was a little different because we had a class trip to this place called Global creek, located close to Puerto Viejo on the carribean side. It was a class trip that my NCC professor coordinated and planned, so the entire group of 18 of us went. The place Global Creek is really new, only about a year old, but basically it is two guys from Canada that decided they wanted to live without leaving any carbon footprint or anything behind, so very eco-freindly. So they bought some land right in the rainforest and now offer lots of free classes and different learning opportunities to all of the locals, and to anyone who wants to come and stay there. You can go and volunteer and basically live there for free as long as you volunteer for half of the day. I thought it was a eally neat experience to see how you can live fairly easily and still be helping the environment, that it doesn´t have to cost a lot of money or be denying yourself things that we are accostumed to.
However, most of the people who came with me did not enjoy it at all. So there was way too much complaning the entire trip, nothing is every sufficient and I really jsut felt like a lot of people were extremely rude and greedy to the people who work there. We ate all vegetarian food, and mostly vegan food, which reminded me a lot of the food you cook mom! lol. Especially the first night we had spaghetti, and it was jsut liek what you make! haha They had free yoga classes for us to do in the morning too, which was really nice. Really i thought the whoel thign was really cool and relaxing just because we were in the rainforest and all you could hear were birds and monkeys in the morning. It´s nice to be that close to nature.
Then saturday night we all went into town, Puerto Viejo, which was fun. And yesterday we went to the beach in Cahuita, which is my favorite beach so far. I absolutley love that beach because it is simply breathtaking. All you see is water and rainforest, and when you walk into the rainforest just a few feet away there are tons of monkeys and I saw some sloths up close, it´s just fantastic! The sea is really calm and cristal clear which is amazing.
So this weekend was a little different because we had a class trip to this place called Global creek, located close to Puerto Viejo on the carribean side. It was a class trip that my NCC professor coordinated and planned, so the entire group of 18 of us went. The place Global Creek is really new, only about a year old, but basically it is two guys from Canada that decided they wanted to live without leaving any carbon footprint or anything behind, so very eco-freindly. So they bought some land right in the rainforest and now offer lots of free classes and different learning opportunities to all of the locals, and to anyone who wants to come and stay there. You can go and volunteer and basically live there for free as long as you volunteer for half of the day. I thought it was a eally neat experience to see how you can live fairly easily and still be helping the environment, that it doesn´t have to cost a lot of money or be denying yourself things that we are accostumed to.
However, most of the people who came with me did not enjoy it at all. So there was way too much complaning the entire trip, nothing is every sufficient and I really jsut felt like a lot of people were extremely rude and greedy to the people who work there. We ate all vegetarian food, and mostly vegan food, which reminded me a lot of the food you cook mom! lol. Especially the first night we had spaghetti, and it was jsut liek what you make! haha They had free yoga classes for us to do in the morning too, which was really nice. Really i thought the whoel thign was really cool and relaxing just because we were in the rainforest and all you could hear were birds and monkeys in the morning. It´s nice to be that close to nature.
Then saturday night we all went into town, Puerto Viejo, which was fun. And yesterday we went to the beach in Cahuita, which is my favorite beach so far. I absolutley love that beach because it is simply breathtaking. All you see is water and rainforest, and when you walk into the rainforest just a few feet away there are tons of monkeys and I saw some sloths up close, it´s just fantastic! The sea is really calm and cristal clear which is amazing.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Juanes, Volcanoes, and Hot Springs!!
Hey everyone! Right now I am in la fortuna and having a great time! There is free internet at the hotel so I figured I could update my blog enstead of having to wait until I got to an internet cafe. Anyways, la fortuna is the town closest to Volcan Arenal, one of the most active volcanoes and it´s really cool, right now I can look out of the window and see the volcano with smoke coming out!
However, this trip didn´t start out too great because when shannon and I got here on friday night it was pouring down rain and I was completely soaked. Also we stayed at this hostel with shared dorm rooms, meaning that there are 8 people, co-ed, in a tiny room with one bathroom and since everything was wet, the room smelled absolutley terrible!! We thought the trip was going to be really bad and uncomfortable... but we were definatley wrong!
Yesterday ended up being abosultley perfect because it started out by us going to this big waterfall, so we spent the entire morning just hiking, swimming, and enjoying how goregous it is. Then we booked a tour for the ngiht to go hiking, see the volcano and go to the hot springs. We ended up finding the cheapest one, which was $40, and that included dinner, which is a good deal for all of that. Anyways, it was absolutley amazing, on the hike I saw a ton of animals, like a sloth with a baby, toucans, monkeys, and lots of neat looking birds. After the hike, we went to watch the volcano and I saw it erupt and all this red lava come out of it.
However, that wasn´t even the best part... the hot srpings were fantastic! It was at this resort, so everything was pretty elaborate, but thats always nice to experience every now and then. There were a ton of pools (it says 25 on the brochure) and they all have different temperatures, but basically they are all really hot, so it´s liek you get to just relax in this huge hot tub! They have waterfalls, and waterslide, everything... I can´t even describe how relaxing it was and since there were so many pools, you could have a whoel oen to yourself and not even have to talk to people. lol! Okay well I have to check out soon and get on the bus back to san jose but I hope everyone had a good weekend and St Louis was fun too!! Let me know, love you!
However, this trip didn´t start out too great because when shannon and I got here on friday night it was pouring down rain and I was completely soaked. Also we stayed at this hostel with shared dorm rooms, meaning that there are 8 people, co-ed, in a tiny room with one bathroom and since everything was wet, the room smelled absolutley terrible!! We thought the trip was going to be really bad and uncomfortable... but we were definatley wrong!
Yesterday ended up being abosultley perfect because it started out by us going to this big waterfall, so we spent the entire morning just hiking, swimming, and enjoying how goregous it is. Then we booked a tour for the ngiht to go hiking, see the volcano and go to the hot springs. We ended up finding the cheapest one, which was $40, and that included dinner, which is a good deal for all of that. Anyways, it was absolutley amazing, on the hike I saw a ton of animals, like a sloth with a baby, toucans, monkeys, and lots of neat looking birds. After the hike, we went to watch the volcano and I saw it erupt and all this red lava come out of it.
However, that wasn´t even the best part... the hot srpings were fantastic! It was at this resort, so everything was pretty elaborate, but thats always nice to experience every now and then. There were a ton of pools (it says 25 on the brochure) and they all have different temperatures, but basically they are all really hot, so it´s liek you get to just relax in this huge hot tub! They have waterfalls, and waterslide, everything... I can´t even describe how relaxing it was and since there were so many pools, you could have a whoel oen to yourself and not even have to talk to people. lol! Okay well I have to check out soon and get on the bus back to san jose but I hope everyone had a good weekend and St Louis was fun too!! Let me know, love you!
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
JUANES MANANA!
So as the title says, I´m going to see Juanes tomorrow!! He is having a concert in Alajuela, which is the big town right by me. I think it is just shannon and I, but it should be a lot of fun. It is at the futcbol stadium, so hopefully it doesn´t rain too much bc it always pours in the afternoon and night!! So i will have to write again and tell you really how it goes, also my host mom said people will line up at 800 in the morning, so she said we needed to go right after classes.... but the concert doesn´t start until 8 at night, so i think there will be a lto of waiting time.
As far as this weekend goes I think we are going to Volcano Arenal, instead of Monteverde. It should be really cool bc it is a very active volcano that alsmot always peopel see going off at night and it has a ot of hot springs, like little pools that are naturally heated by lava that people swim in.
As far as this weekend goes I think we are going to Volcano Arenal, instead of Monteverde. It should be really cool bc it is a very active volcano that alsmot always peopel see going off at night and it has a ot of hot springs, like little pools that are naturally heated by lava that people swim in.
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