Gamalewhale

It's been raining so hard this week! Every night it's poured. Tonight we played card games at my apt. with a bunch of people but it gets so hot in here that it's unbearable. When it started to rain Julia and I frolicked down to the ocean and played in the rain. We were completely soaked but at least we weren't hot anymore.

On seasame street they changed the names of the characters. Instead of Kermit his name is Rene...?

Mi corazon esta golpeando como un tambor de la selva

Yesterday we went to the mall in San Pedro to eat lunch. They have all the american fast food places like McDonalds, Wendy's, Quiznos, Pizza Hut and Cinnabon. We got lots of food then had McFlurries. The mall is huge, it has four floors, an arcade and a movie theater. We spent most of the day just sitting eating and wandering around it. After we finally left we went to el centro to find this amazing coffee place. Instead we found a cute little market with a live band playing. El centro is this long street paved with stone and old street lights thats full of cool shops and placed to eat. There's lots of street vendors with their stuff set up on the ground and I was distracted when I walked onto one. I was so embarassed!

We Took picture with the fat lady for good luck and with the cute police men. We finally made to it El Tostador, this amazing coffee shop with mochaccinos. When we got our drinks mine has a chocolate heart in the chantilly and no one else did. Everyone put up a stink and made them give them chocolate too. The guy that made them turned bright red because the other people working made fun of him for giving me the heart. It was really sweet though.

We decided that we weren't ready to go home get so we stayed at Efren's another night. We watched Titanic in spanish and got pizza. Aleah Megan and I weren't tired so we went back to Castro's and sang Karaoke.

We had to leave on the 6 am bus to get back to la puerta in time for class at 8. We got back around 9 so I wasn't going to go but I ran into my professor at the pulperia buying stuff for ice cream floats so I went to class. They were watching Shrek and eating food.

Yo tire un pedo de mariposas

Today we were supposed to have a reunion in San Jose for all the people who went to Palmares back in January. The only people that ended up being able to go were Megan, Aleah and Me. We took the bus to San Jose and spent most of the day in el centro wandering through the hundreds of shoe shops. We spent 3 hours eating lunch at this cute little soda that had these older men playing music. They played the chicken dance and we did it in front of everyone. We found a discount shoe store and bought 3 dollar heels to wear tonight salsa dancing. The shoes say they're from Aldo but only one shoes says it, the other says a different brand haha.

We stayed at Megan's host brother's house, as we were calling him to get directions we ran into him on the street which is a miracle since San Jose is HUGE!

We got ready and went to one of Efren's favorite places called Rio. There were a ton of people there but there wasn't really a dance floor so we just hung out with Efren's friends. Aleah and I wandered into a private party and made friends with the Costa Rica rugby team. They were drinking beer out of shoes. gross.

After Rio got boring we went to Castro's, which has a Karoke bar on one floor and salsa on another. We danced for a while but my eyes hurt so Deilyn and I went home before everyone else. My feet hurt so bad but it was definitely worth it !

No way Jose

Friday: Megan and I took the bus out to San Ramon and while we were waiting for the next bus to La Fortuna we found this cute little soda that had the best bebidas natural, like mango smoothies. We got to La Fortuna around 7 and we went to the farm that she worked on for three months last year. She went through this program called Eco-teach, which is this program that you can do in almost any country. You pick and country that you want to work in and they help you find a farm to work on. You work for as a volunteer but they give you a place to live and feed you. The farm she worked on is absolutely beautiful and everything about the farm is organic and eco-friendly. They had lots of different smaller gardens but they mainly grow yucca and sugar cane. They have groups of people come through everyday and they give tours and feed them with the food they grow.

The family was so hospitable to us. They fed us and let us sleep a bed upstairs that's basically like camping because there aren't windows anywhere, the house is all open. That's probably how the bat got into our room and scared the poop out of us.

You can see volcan Arenal from the farm and the whole weekend is was so clear, which is really unusual. It usually rains quite a bit and the volcano always has clouds around it.

When it got dark we went into town and ate pizza at La Parada and Megan tought me about American Revolutions and I got freaked out because I feel like I know nothing about any of this stuff that our country has done to other countries.

Saturday: We did homework for a few hours after breakfast and then headed to the waterfall. It's the biggest waterfall in Costa Rica and it's breath taking. We swam in the river that runs off of the waterfall, it's full of fish ( trout I think) and they aren't really afraid of people so Megan got real close to them. She looked like a fish whisperer because they were all just facing her and getting closer and closer.

After the waterfall we were freezing so we went into town and fuond a coffee shop where we got some crazy coffee drinks and bread. Megan and I are Costa Rican food taste testers. We've made it our job to find the best pastries, coffee drinks, ice cream and any other Costa Rican specialties. Yamalith, the wife of Don Juan who owns the farm she worked on, is definitely in the top chefs we've tried. She also has a mole on her lip just like mine!

We ate our amazing food then headed back to the farm on this busy little road that we thought we were going to die on. Costa Rican drivers are scary enough without on lane bridges and no place to walk. At one point we saw a guy about 50 meters in front of us with a machette that he was sharpening on the ground as he walked towards us. We lived though, unlike the giant toad we saw in the street that had his guts squeezed out of him.

Sunday: After more homework and breakfast we took the bus to San Ramon and got ate McFlurries with guayaba chocolate chunks. Amazing.

No me matas!

Today is Kike's birthday so in honor of him Miel and I made t-shirts. On the front they say "want eat soap cat" and on the back they say "mmm... sabe bien". Since there aren't copywrite laws here you can go get a name brand shirt made at a t-shirt store. They had templates for hollister, bilabong, roxy everything.

I realized that I've gained some weight while i've been here from all the beans, rice and dulces I've been eating. I don't really care except that I may not fit into my bridesmaid dress for Rainer's wedding! So I started running almost everyday because I HAVE to fit into that dress. I must love her a lot because it's dreadfully hot all the time here and after I run my skin stays hot for at least an hour, even if i take a cold shower.

My hair's been getting a little long and crazy so I got a hair cut today for two dollars! She took off a ton, which I'm not too excited about but it's healthier now.

Garabatos

I slept in as late as I could (8:30) and ate peanut butter for breakfast! It was fantastic. Later we went to get groceries from the market. We found a mango tree that had yellow ones so we threw rocks and knocked them down. Free mangos! After grocery shopping I went for a run , since I live 100 meters from the beach now. Then we cooked dinner, patacones and noodles and we used some mora and orange that we bought to make a natural drink with water and sugar. It tasted like wine though, but not as bitter. I could probably make a lot of money off selling some crazy fruit apretados. That's my back up plan if I decide to live here forever.

My legs look they have the chicken pox , I think it's just sand fleas but it's gross.

Home Sweet Cabina

Today I was really sick, I was throwing up all morning but I had a final in Spanish so I dragged myself down there. My host family has been making fish a lot and I think that's what it was because Carmen was sick too. I had to take a break every ten minutes during the test to go to the bathroom even after there was nothing in my tummy. You probably don't want to hear this, sorry. After class I took a nap on the floor in the computer lab because it has a/c and there was no way I could walk home yet. Gerardo and Arturo made fun of me so I went home. Guess what was for lunch at my house.....seabass.

There's a surf competition in Santa Teresa this weekend and everyone went to when I felt better I wandered down to the beach where my friend informed me that we got an apt! I went home and packed and wrote my parents a letter because they make me so nervous when I talk to them that I would have never gotten the words out. They didn't say anything about it.

The apt isnt really an apt, it's more like a big room with a kitchenette in one corner and a giant closet that is like a mobil wall. I'm happy though because now all my friends are now my neighbors and I'm a hop skip and a leap away from school

Hey remember that time when I would only read the backs of cereal boxes

Today my Spanish teacher took us on a field trip to get breakfast, which was awesome because my family forgot to feed me this morning. He put us in some taxis and we went to the pastel de carne place. Pasteles de carne are like fried meat patties that are in a sort of crispy sort of doughy thin envelope. They're incredible despite how they sound.

While I was waiting for lunch Maria Pia, my host cousin, did my make up for me, which I haven't really done in months because the heat takes it right off.

I got a 99 % on my Spanish midterm and I have my final tomorrow. Wish me luck!

We had a movie night at my friends house last night and her mom made us fresh mango juice and we had recreos and danced to Tomas uuuuuu Tomas uuuuu Tomas que feo estas!!!

This is a picture of the lifeguard stand that I like to go read in.

Que Feo

I came home after my run to find that the water had been turned off everywhere in the punt. My family knew and didn't tell me so I had to be stinky for a loooong time.

Holy Week

Wednesday we woke up early to get to the border early because it always takes forever. We had to take a mini bus to this town where we would have to take a boat taxi to Bocas because it's all islands. There's about 8 little islands in a cluster called Bocas del Toro. You can take a water taxi between all the islands. It was real cloudy the whole time we were here so the water wasn't as clear as it normally was so we didn't see many animals. After we checked into our hostel we just walked around the small town before going to bed because we were so tired. Our hostel was rela nice and you could see the ocean from the deck.

Thursday we slept in and spent most of the day just hanging out at different islands. First we went to bastimientos where a little village was. We hing out with the little kids for a while and Zak played baseball with the older boys. Michelle found a barber that cut her hair in this old salon that was basically an old chair under someone's house. Andrew and I went exploring and we found an old graveyard. We hiked to the other side of the island to Wizard beach where we sat for a while. Eventually we got on another taxi and went to Carenera island and hung out at Aqualounge which had a "swimming pool". The swimming pool was basically a hole cut in the deck soyou could see the ocean. They had a high dive though.

We met a spanish teacher from New Jersey that we hung out with until dark who talked to us about jersey shore and reno 911.

Kate was sick the whole trip and spent the whole day in bed so we went back and got her ice cream and made her brother made a big pot of chili. We got invited to a secret party at some rich guy's beach house on another island. It was fun but got boring fast so we went back and went to sleep early.

Friday we booked a tour for four islands that we could snorkle on and see some rare birds and starfish. Instead the boat driver only took us to two islands where we couldn't really snorkle because there were no reefs close by. We went to starfish beach which had hundreds of starfish that we put in a big pile and played with. I guess starfish can die if you take them out of the water for more than a couple seconds so we might have caused a starfish genocide. After we got back we were too tired to do anything else and the boys were really sunburned so we went to bed around 9.

Saturday we had a plan to get home before 7 because we had already bought all our return tickets. Since the atms were all broken and the banks we closed we couldn't get money out to pay for our hostel which made us late to the bus. The bus had left and hour and a half early anyway because it filled up so fast so we had to take a taxi to the border. Then we had to wait for a bus going to Limon where we could take a different bus to San Jose. We didn't get back to the punt until almost 10. We spent about 13 hours traveling today.