Thanks and Pura Vida

I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving! It didn’t really hit me that it was Thanksgiving until the day of and even then it was a little odd. I got to FaceTime both my family and Jeremiah’s. My family was in the middle of dinner so I got to (sort of) feel like I was right at the dinner table with them! It was really nice, but also really hard to not actually be there. When I FaceTimed Jeremiah’s family they were playing games like always so that was another great tradition that I got to pretend I was experiencing! Obviously they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving here, but since my school has such a large international program they hosted a dinner for international students! It was really cute. They had great decorations and a photo booth set up and even traditional food for us including turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, and pumpkin pie. The only bad thing about it was I think they underestimated how much Americans can eat on Thanksgiving because they ran out of food pretty quickly and a lot of people were still hungry afterward! I was fine luckily, and enjoyed my meal. It was also really nice to be with all of my friends who were also missing home and to enjoy each other’s company and experience Thanksgiving a little bit differently this year. I am thankful for so many things including Jeremiah, my family, his family, my friends old and new, my education, my opportunities to travel, experiencing Costa Rica, and of course God’s grace!! Thanks to all of you who are a part of my life! 

Another thing I did this week was I tried a couple of classes at my gym! If you know me, you know that this was pretty exciting for me. They were in Spanish but just like any gym class back at home, so I’m definitely planning on keeping up those classes until I go home.

On Friday my host sisters, Valentina and Dilanna, finished up their school for the semester and so they had a class party at a place called Parque Diversiones. It’s an Amusement Park! That’s literally what “Parque Diversiones” translates to as well actually. So my host abuela and I took them to school where we all got on a bus to the park. The first couple of hours we were in a big room where the kids played games and ate. Then the rest of the day everyone could go around the park freely. So for the majority of the day I just followed them around and watched them ride things. The park is definitely geared toward little kids, so it was fine. Also my host parents and Marcello came around noon so then my whole host family was there! Toward the end of the day my host dad and I went on some of the bigger rides that the girls couldn’t go on so that was really fun! They had a couple of roller coasters that I really enjoyed, and overall I enjoyed the whole day because it was totally unique and unexpected to experience an amusement park here! 

One of their friend's who spent the day with us is on the left.

My host mom and me!

Saturday my friend Stephanie and I went Downtown again to finish up our souvenir shopping. So yes, I have finished my souvenir shopping! Yay! I’m pretty excited about what I got everyone too! We ended up spending most of the day Downtown, then after dinner Stephanie came over to my house and we watched a movie. So that was a really nice (and successful) day.  

Sunday, Ashlyn and Stephanie and I met up in the morning and started by walking to the fruit market in Zapote, our neighborhood. I had wanted to see it and I’m glad we went! So much fruit for really cheap! My host mom typically gets all of her fruit for the week there and I can see why! After that market we went Downtown where we came across a random parade going on. So we watched that and found our way to a pop-up market that they have Downtown every Sunday with everything from the usual souvenirs to shoes to food to jewelry. Then we found the bus station for Cartago, which is about 45 minutes outside the city. Cartago is a small town that my host dad recommended and we had heard other good things about. So we got lunch there and then explored the ruins of one church (I believe the oldest church in Costa Rica), which were actually quite beautiful and went in and around some of the other cool buildings in the town. 

So much fruit!!

Part of the parade.

The church ruins.

Another nice building, an art museum I believe!

With my free mornings throughout the week I have actually been quite productive, reading, applying for jobs, and even started some test prep for the GRE I’ll take next semester! I’m also sleeping in a bit later and having good conversations over a longer breakfast with my host family. So far I’m really enjoying the extra time! 

 Only three weeks left here in this beautiful country but I have some fun things planned for the next two weekends! Stay tuned! 

Pura Vida

Quieres Bailar?

Well, I'm not actually doing that well today. Usually when I write these posts I'm really excited about the week... And while most of the week was great, I am currently sick. I was very sick to my stomach this morning but am doing better now. I think my stomach had just finally had enough of the food that I'm not totally accustomed to. Especially in the last few days my host family has fed me a lot, so I guess my stomach decided it wasn't having it! So that's unfortunate. But enough of the bad stuff, what about the rest of my week? 

I finished up my Spanish class with a 98% overall, so I'd call that successful! I am now officially done with Spanish classes and will have four extra hours every day! On Thursday we took a class field trip to the Hospital Clinica Biblica. It's a private hospital and it's actually beautiful! Also, it's just great to have these experiences of visiting different clinics to get an idea of what healthcare is like here. My other classes were also fine this week. My two elective classes barely have any homework so I am going to have a lot of time on my hands starting Monday! 

One of the prettiest parts of the hospital.

The view from the helicopter landing on the roof of the hospital. 

One thing I'm going to do to fill up the time is read! I got the first Harry Potter book in Spanish from my school's library and I'm thirty pages in and understanding most everything! Side note, I haven't read the Harry Potter books since my dad used to read them to me in Elementary school. That's one of my favorite memories with my Dad; he would always do the best voices for the characters (especially Dobby). 

I've also been spending a lot of time drawing quotes. Here's a look! I really enjoy trying different hand writing. 

In my free time I also plan on exploring Zapote (my neighborhood) more on my own since most of my friends have another Spanish class unfortunately. So don't worry, I won't be stuck inside reading and drawing all day! I'm here to explore the culture!

Friday night we were supposed to leave for Turrialba, Costa Rica which is about an hour and a half from our house where my "host abuela" lives! Unfortunately we had some car trouble so we couldn't leave until Saturday morning. Therefore, my Friday night was pretty lame because I didn't do much! Most of my friends went to Jaco Friday afternoon so I was on my own! But we made it to Turrialba Saturday morning and it was really pretty! I loved it! She is surrounded by forest and has a big river just behind her backyard so I enjoyed exploring. During the day I also played some soccer with my host sisters which was really fun. However, Saturday night was the best experience of the week for sure. I went out dancing with my host abuela and some of her friends! I was actually really nervous. We went to a Discotech where I was literally the only non-Latina. Talk about intimidating!! But such an awesome experience. When will I ever again get to be the only American dancing traditional Latin dances in the middle of Costa Rica?? Oh, with a live band too! On top of being the only American, I am okay at dancing but these people were clearly practiced, I am only okay at Spanish and anyway I could barely hear with the music. I have been out dancing a couple of other times but it's been to places where there are a lot of Americans and usually have more American music. I was smiling the whole night because it was just such a unique experience. I danced actually quite a bit! The first two people who asked me to dance I told "No estoy muy bien", but then I thought, they don't need to know that, I'll just go for it. So that's what I did the rest of the night, just kept my mouth shut and went for it! I danced mostly Merengue and Cumbia. I really appreciated that the people I danced with were all very respectful. They ask you for a dance, you dance, they say "Gracias" at the end and you both go sit back down. I was concerned that people might be rude or too forward, but I was pleasantly surprised. I do have to say though, that I missed my dance partner, Jeremiah, last night for sure! I was really tired at the end of the night, but my host abuela seemed like she could've gone all night! She and her friends were around 50 years old and had more energy than me! 

So that's pretty much been my week! It was a little bit slower, but still had some really unique opportunities. Let's just hope I get over this sickness quickly so I can enjoy the beginning of this next week more!

There is a river just behind my host abuela's house.

Bad lighting, but finally have a picture with Marcello!

Pura Vida and a very Happy Thanksgiving to everyone this week! Stay safe if you are traveling and enjoy the time off with friends and family! 

Living like a Little Kid

Writing this post from the beach! This weekend I was expecting to just stay in San Jose... But alas, here I am on the beach! More on that in a minute.

My classes went well this week. A very normal week really until my field trip for Spanish class this Friday. We went to the Musee de Los Niños, or the Children's museum! We spent about three hours there, first doing a fun scavenger hunt and then just exploring. My team came in second place for the scavenger hunt so that was fun!  The museum was actually really cool and very impressive. It was huge and even had a mini Walmart like the mini Wegmans in the Strong Museum in Rochester! We had a great time just looking around and being a little goofy! 

Mini Walmart! 

Outside of class this week... on Wednesday it was my friend Hannah's birthday so we went to a delicious Chinese restaurant for dinner and then another place for drinks and dessert afterward. It was a really fun girls night! Thursday I went to dance class and had fun hopefully improving my Salsa skills. Unfortunately early this week I was sick. It's going through our house, the girls were sick at the same time as me and now my host parents are both sick! It was something like the flu, but nothing too bad. So thankfully it ran its course in about three days. 

Friday after class my friend Stephanie and I went to a place right by school called Le Rendez Vouz. It's a French place with sandwiches and pastries. I got a Chicken Pesto sandwich that was delicious. Afterward we walked quite a ways until we reached a mall called the Multiplaza. It's really nice and very American, but we had to go while we were here since everyone goes! So we spent awhile just browsing and ran into some of our other friends while we were there! The rest of Friday I spent just hanging out with my host family pretty much!

Saturday morning was I think the first time I could sleep in and I woke up at 6:45 right when I wake up during the weekdays! But that was fine. I had a leisurely morning and then at 11 I met up with Stephanie again and we took the bus Downtown. We decided to just take our time exploring the city more! We first went to the Central Market, had lunch and explored the market and ended up each buying a couple things. I bought a pair of leather sandals that I am really excited about! After then we made our way to the Artisan Market where we bought a couple more things each! So it was a successful day  of souvenir shopping (though I'm still struggling with some gifts for others) and to end the day of walking we stopped at POPS, a chain ice cream place that's all over here. It was very good! So Friday and Saturday I really felt like I got to know the city a bit better because I got out and just took my time exploring.

POPS Ice Cream

I had intended to stay in San Jose again on Sunday, but Saturday night my host mom came over to my room and said they were thinking of going to the beach on Sunday and asked if I wanted to go! So I said sure, why not! So Sunday morning we got all ready to go and I hit the road with my host family! We drove about an hour and a half to Jaco, the closest beach to San Jose. It was more crowded than the other beaches I'd been to and not as pretty but it was close and it was really fun spending the day with them! I built sand castles and jumped over and ran away from waves with Valentina and Dilanna and sat on the beach and enjoyed the time with all of them! It was completely unexpected, but I'm really glad they decided to go! Now I can check off Jaco and I didn't really have to pay anything which is always nice! I've said it already, but I really got lucky with my host family! They are so great about including me and making me comfortable here. That was probably one of my biggest fears about studying abroad here was getting paired with a bad host, but that definitely didn't happen! Looking forward to another week here.

By the way, the name of the post is because the bulk of what I talked about in this post was playing at a Children's Museum and playing on the beach so I was living like a little kid this week!

Finally got a picture of my host parents!! 

Pura Vida!

Making Memories in Monteverde

Well I have officially passed my halfway mark! I've done so much in my six weeks here and I'm looking forward to my last six just as much! Though there won't be quite as much traveling and exploring, it will certainly still be full of memorable experiences. 

This week I had a very good week of classes before yet another weekend away. In my PT class this week I learned how to give massages! We were on a massage therapy unit so we had actual massage tables out in class to practice! It was awesome! Also I am loving my Spanish class. But I'm already halfway done with my second class! How crazy! 

Tuesday after classes I went to a birthday party with my host family! It was my host dad's mom's birthday. So my host dad's entire side of the family was there! It was such a cool experience! My host dad's dad is from Canada so it was really funny to hear someone saying "eh" periodically in their Spanish. He also talked to me a lot in English, because he spoke perfect English. Also one of my host dad's cousins speaks perfect English and even has a second home in Prescott, AZ! What are the odds! He does some work with NAU too I guess so that was cool to talk to someone who knew exactly where I'm from! At the party we all sat around and talked (I mostly listened) and they brought rounds and rounds of food. I'm not kidding, the food just kept coming. Some sort of chili type thing, tacos, arroz con pollo, beans, and cake. It was all great, but they kept bringing around rounds of food! The only downside to the party was that I dropped my phone and it cracked my screen... I was so upset with myself, but luckily it isn't super noticeable. Only at certain angles.

Wednesday my ISA program had an optional cooking class! So I went to that with one of my friends and there were a lot of people their so the learning part didn't go that well. But I observed some of the steps and had a delicious meal in the end! Arroz con pollo, beans, and this coconut fudge thing. All very good and a fun experience! So it was a good week of some sort of fun activity pretty much every day!

Arroz con Pollo, one of my favorite dishes here!

Friday at about 1:00 I met my friends at school and we caught taxis to the bus station for another trip! This time was to Monteverde, Costa Rica! And this may have been my favorite trip so far! That's hard to say though... Monteverde is about four hours north of San Jose, it's very close to Arenal which we went to my second week here. I must seem kind of crazy going somewhere every weekend, but it's very easy to get around here! The bus ticket to Monteverde was literally $5. For a four hour ride! So I'm taking advantage of the opportunities. Though I have now hit all of the places I wanted to go so my traveling is going to slow down. Anyway, when we got to Monteverde it was dark so we went right to our hostel which was actually a B&B I guess. There were seven of us and we were out in this cute little house with a whole kitchen to ourselves! So that was a very nice place to stay. Once we dropped our things off we found a small soda for dinner (soda is what they call restaurants a lot of times). The restaurant had delicious smoothies that we all thoroughly enjoyed.

Saturday we were up early and off on a ziplining tour! It was so much fun!! There were about ten lines. One of the lines was the longest in Latin America at 1 mile long! It was over this big canyon and it was beautiful. Also, the last three lines were superman style! It's exactly how it sounds. I was strapped at the chest and at the hips and was facing the ground as I went down the line! I think I liked superman even more than normal because I got to really enjoy the views and not focus on keeping myself facing forward. There was also one small rappel and a hanging bridge in between some of the zip lines which were fun. But the last one was by far the best (and scariest) part. A Tarzan Swing!! So cool!! I was the first to go, so I walked out on this bridge, two guides hooked me up, instructed me to hang on with both hands and they would open the gate. Once the gate opened I had to bend my knees and step off the bridge! It was a crazy feeling! It was a 3 second free fall and then the rope caught you and swung like Tarzan! I already want to do it again, I loved it! I also need to do it again because I annoyingly left my gopro on and drained the battery so it died before I could film the swing. But besides that unfortunate part, it was an awesome day of adventure!

The rest of the day we spent in the town of Monteverde, souvenir shopping and then just relaxing. One of my friends, Hannah, went bungee jumping in the afternoon! Her video is pretty crazy! It was $60 and I couldn't justify spending that much for 5 seconds. Plus I'm sure it would've been pretty freaky! It was the largest bungee in Latin America. Saturday night we ordered a pizza for dinner and got ice cream from the grocery store so it felt like a fun girls night in our little house in Monteverde! Also, today is my friend Stephanie's birthday! So we were celebrating that with the ice cream too!

Sunday, we got up early again for a guided hike through the cloud forest reserve of Monteverde! The cloud forest is how it sounds, very cloudy all the time. But within the forest there are so many animals. We took the guided hike so that we could actually see the animals better because the guides have these telescopes that they bring along. We saw a bunch of birds mostly, including an apparently very rare Quetzal, the national bird of Guatemala! It was a beautiful hike, and a couple of people in our group were from Phoenix too! Our guide was very knowledgeable and told us a lot about the plants, animals, and insects that we saw. 

The Quetzal that we got to see!

After our hike there we gathered our stuff, and stopped at a crepe place for lunch before heading back to San Jose! It was a really awesome weekend. The girls that I've been traveling with have been really great and made every weekend especially memorable for me! 

Thank you to those of you who have read my blogs throughout the first six weeks! I am definitely long-winded in these, but there is so much to tell! I hope you'll enjoy reading about my last six weeks as well!

Pura Vida

Taking on Tortuguero

I've really been running out of creativity with these post names. Jeremiah is usually the clever one as far as that goes, so sorry about the lack of creative names! I've resorted to alliteration.

So far my first week in my new Spanish class has been good! My professor definitely speaks faster and is expecting a lot from us, but it's a good challenge! She also gets us talking a lot; she's really trying to make us more conversational which I appreciate! This week I also went to the free dance class at school both Tuesday and Thursday. It was really fun, especially on Thursday! We were doing some tricky moves and switching partners while dancing which was pretty crazy, but really fun!
Also on Thursday I had my first field trip for my "Conflict Resolution and Healthcare" class! We went to an elementary school where we held a workshop on self-esteem and encouraging others. The class seems to loosely follow its name, but that's okay, I had a great time and learned quite a bit! We had prepared an agenda for the workshop, which lasted about 2 hours. The tricky part was... The workshop was held in Spanish! I was really nervous about helping lead a class of 25 students in Spanish! But I tried to be confident and I think it went well. The students had a lot of energy and seemed to enjoy our activities! When our directions didn't make sense luckily our professor was right there to help explain in her fluent Spanish. One of our activities was sending a paper with our name on it around the classroom for other people to write positive qualities and comments on it. The results were very sweet even though the students didn't really know me!

Some of the kids! 

The positive qualities the students wrote about me! 

On Friday after class at about 2:00 I met some friends at the bus stop and we went Downtown to find the Artisan Market. The Artisan Market is basically a long strip of shops selling every kind of souvenir you can think of! I bought only one thing, but I'll be going back before I leave so it was a good chance to see what they had! Also, it was nice to spend a little bit more time in downtown San Jose! After we got back I had dinner with my host family and my friend Stephanie came over and we watched a movie on my laptop. It was a nice Friday night, the first one I've spent here in San Jose!

Saturday I was up bright and early to head to Tortuguero, Costa Rica. Tortuguero is on the Northern Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. We had planned our trip through ISA so we took a private shuttle bus to the coast. On the way we also stopped for a buffet breakfast that was provided and were on our way. We got as far as we could via bus and then had to take an hour boat ride out to our hotel! The boat ride was through the canals of Tortuguero, and I felt like I was on the Jungle Cruise ride at Disneyland. It was so cool and totally different from any experience so far. I can't explain exactly what it was like, so you can see the pictures. The hotel was only accessible by this boat... How cool is that? Right when we arrived at the hotel they had coconuts sitting out for us as a welcome drink! We felt very welcomed and our rooms were pretty nice as well. There was only one other group at the hotel while we were there so they were very attentive to us, which was nice. We had lunch at the hotel and then took another short boat ride to the rest of the town of Tortuguero. It was pretty small, but we had a nice time wandering through it, through souvenir shops, stopped at the beach for a bit, and had way too much fun taking pictures with the many murals around the town!

"The Jungle Cruise" to the hotel.

Coconut waiting for us! Don't even like coconut, but it was a nice thought!

Too much fun with the murals.

Sunday we were up and out by 6 am! We took a two-hour tour of the canals looking at all of the wildlife! It was really nice! We saw a bunch of different birds, iguanas, monkeys, and frogs! Plus I just loved being in the boat and exploring! After we had breakfast, packed up, and left! So it sounds like it was a short trip, but it was great. I loved how I got to see yet another unique part of Costa Rica!  Also there was a group of nine girls this trip and it still went really well and everyone got along which is great!

A frog we got to hold!

This week I want to find a book to read in Spanish and to start watching the news or some sort of Spanish TV show daily. I'm determined to keep improving rapidly! I'm loving the challenge of learning Spanish!

Pura Vida