Sexy airplane zombies

-climbed Half Dome
-met my new nephew Owen
-moved from Portland to Oakland
-started a doctoral program in clinical psychology
-had an identity crisis
-learned to navigate an entirely new living environment
-began working with homeless adults in Richmond
-made a whole new group of friends
-dyed my hair pink, then red, then blue
-completed three trimesters of grad school

In the last year, Amy:
-survived her family's house burning down (she was the only one who was home)
-figured out how to deal with the fact that all of her worldly possessions were destroyed
-dealt with my identity crisis
-moved to Berkeley
-started taking classes at a new school
-developed 3 new allergies, one of which landed her in the hospital (yay anaphalaxis)
-learned an inordinate amount of psychobabble for someone who is not studying psychology (sorry, honey)
-learned as much, if not more than me, about being a therapist, due to me coming home at the end of every day and needing a therapist of my own

In the last year, Amy and I:
-adopted a dog
-danced our faces off in the Castro one Sunday a month
-moved in together (and still like each other despite the fact that our preferences for everything from color schemes to mattress firmness is different)
-bought tickets to Costa Rica!

Now we are in Costa Rica for a month. I like to think that it is a well-deserved vacation. :) So far, we haven't done much besides sleep and explore San Jose a bit in the pouring rain (it is the rainy season here, and guess who didn't bring an umbrella, lol). I realized that all of my Spanish fell out of my head between 2010 and 2012, and spent a good deal of today asking people how to get places using incomplete, often incoherent sentences (for instance, when wanting to know where the bus picks one up, I stuttered, "por favor, el bus *points to ground* aqui?"). I also discovered that the 100 capsule bottle of Dramamine that I picked up from my pharmacy at home is actually Benadryl, meaning that it will do NOTHING to calm my weany physical self when I am overtaken by the inevitable and terrible force that is motion sickness--see my trip to Peru for more gruesome details. Fortunately, I was able to acquire some Dramamine at the local Farmacia by making vomiting gestures and sound effects until the poor women who worked there brought me an 8 pack of little orange pills. But we have many adventures lined up for the days to come, including hiking up an active volcano, horseback riding, ziplining through the canopies of the Monteverde Cloud Forest, and much more. Stay tuned.

One more thing--Spanish is not the only thing that has fallen out of my head since 2010. The currency here is approximately 500 colones for 1 dollar...do you have any idea how hard it is to do this math when someone (in Spanish) asks you for 13,400 colones and you have no idea how many dollars that comes to? You freeze and try to think of a response--is it a tolerable amount to pay for lunch, or do you do the asshole thing and say, "Nevermind!" and run away into the rain--but instead you hand the cashier a wad of paper and coin colones and hope that they can sort things out for you, only then you remember that that's probably not the best idea, and you open your mouth to say something and remember you can't speak Spanish, and all of a sudden you are saying, "Lo siento...*cough*...colones" and grabbing your more proficient Spanish-speaking girlfriend, throwing her at the cashier to handle your dilemma, and running off into the rain anyhow. I've forgotten how much I love traveling. If I ever travel outside of Latin America, poor Amy will have to learn Russian or Thai or Swahili or something obscure like that.

written by  kfox on June 29, 2012 from San Jose, Costa Rica
from the travel blog: Costa Rica!
Send a Compliment

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i really Admire your courage , you both are great i am saluted you.

written by  dhdvikas on July 5, 2012

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Ah, thank you so much!

written by  kfox on July 8, 2012

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