We left MPS right on time and got to Atlanta with no problem. It was the flight from Atlanta to San Jose, Costa Rica that caused some problems. We arrived after the 3 and a half hour flight to find a thunderstorm over the San Jose airport. The captian decided
Alas, I made it here and am trying to get settled into this crazy life. The Spanish is a little hard to get used to hearing 100% of the time, but I think that will pass. I really like the family I am with and the other students here are great. I will write more later when I have more time and sleep.........
Holly (who is in the same program as me at Hamline) and I went for a walking tour with her host mom. It was really fun, even though I don´t understand what is going on half of the time. We went to some stores and picked up things that I needed. When we got back to Flor´s house (Holly´s host mom) for lunch, my legs and arms started swelling up with huge bite marks....I´m talking enormous. Flor was very nervous so she decided we should go to the hospital, which is in San Jose--the capital of Costa Rica.
Today was my first day of work. It takes 30 minutes to walk there and by the time we arrived, I had rubbed all the skin off the back of my heels. It was terrible. Everything else at school was wonderful--I work with all the third graders at the school....around 90 students.
I took the bus alone again after work. It turns out that it doesn´t always stop at the same stops, so I missed mine and had to walk twice as far home from the bus stop. Oh and did I mention that it was a HUGE thunderstorm? By the time I got home, I was drenched and laughing very hard. All the people were staring at me from the little shops and from their house windows like I was crazy to be walking in the pouring rain. I´ll just chalk up another point for myself.....
Tonight we went to Pirates of the Carribean 3. It was in English with Spanish subtitles. The theater was great...we went to the most expensive one ($4 tonight because it was student night) which has large reclining seats (with foot rests!) and waiters that serve you anything.....popcorn, food, even beer! So needless to say I had a beer and watch a movie that I have not seen the two pervious ones, but it was fun all and all.
The weather here is very rainy because it is their winter (which they call their rainy season). It rains almost everyday in the afternoon and sometimes continues through the night. It is only one more month until it starts getting nice....I can´t wait!
Thanks for the emails and updates....it helps me feel in the loop!
On Saturday, we woke up early (which happens every here, 7:30 a.m. is late) and went with Emilia to the farmer´s market. It was very interesting to go and compare it to the ones at home. It was much bigger and they had all sorts of interesting things.
Last night, Emilia´s children threw a huge surprise birthday party for her (about 90 people)--she turns 55 on Monday. It was seriously like a wedding--at a hotel, there was a band, photographer...it was amazing. We had no idea what was going on half of the
Today is my Dad´s birthday (Feliz Cumpleanos Dad!) so I am sad that I will miss out on a BBQ and time in the boat. It will probably just be a relaxing day today, going to Hiper Más (like Wal Mart) to get some stuff because we are cooking supper on Monday so Emilia doesn´t have to cook on her birthday. It should be very interesting, as I am not even sure what we are going to make and if we can find the stuff to make anything we know how to....aw well, another adventure. Also, we are going to start figuring out where we are going next weekend, as traveling to the beach every weekend will start then. Emily and Heather, who have been here for 2 months, have been giving us advice on places to go and things to see so at least we have that to go from!
I hope everyone had a great weekend, especially Sadie and Ryan, who got married yesterday...sad I couldn´t be there! Well back to work tomorrow, but I am very excited and looking forward to spending more time with my kids and my cooperating teachers.
In other happy news, I talked to Barb (the coordinator from the U.S, who is here right now observing some of the other students) and she said that since I don´t work on Thursdays, I can visit other schools to see how they differ from the school I am working in. I am excited for the experience but that is not the only thing I am excited about--it also means that I will be home a week early (August 11th)! I figured that if I am here I might as well be efficent with my time, instead of wasting my Thursdays, and get done a bit early! How that for some excitement!
Hope all is well at home! Keep the comments and emails coming. More pictures when I get a block of time on the computer (they take FOREVER to upload here)!
Tomorrow is back to work though....sometimes I forget I am here to be working! I am going to start teaching more this week so that will hopefully make the day go by faster....it's hard for me to just sit and watch someone else teach so this should keep me busy. Not sure where next weekend will take us but I'm very excited for it! Hope you all had great weekends as well!!
We got into San Jose to get tickets for the bus to Manuel Antonio at 6 but when we got there the ticket window was closed. I guess that they can just close whenever they feel like it, and unluckily for us it was before we got there. So we found the bus and tried to figure out what to do next. The way it´s done I guess is that you wait until everyone gets on the bus and then they see if they have room. So we waited, freaked out because it was the last bus of the day. Well we got on BUT we had to stand the entire way.....4 hours. Yes, that's right....we stood in the aisle of a bus speeding through the mountains, in the dark for 4 hours. Ahhh, nothing is ever easy but it seems to all work out in the end. And am I glad that it did.......
We spent the whole morning before we left laying on the beach and playing in the water. It was wonerful, but I now look a little pink OR as my kids called me today 'cara
·When you use a bathroom in Costa Rica, you cannot flush the toilet paper down the
·They do not use clothes dryers (or an actual washing machine at my house--all done by hand). So all of the clothes we buy that are used to getting shrunk back into shape in the dryer are just kinda loose and not fitting so well at this point.
·To cut the lawn, you may think a lawn mower woudl be a quick fix, but in Costa Rica they get down on all fours and chop the grass with a machete. Their lawns are definitely small enough to do this but it is just a curious site to see someone chopping grass with a huge knife, then picking it up and putting it into a garbage bag.
That is all I can think of for now. I know there are more, but those are the major ones. More to come though I am sure......
If any of you are interested, here is the website of the school I have been working at:www.saintclarecr.com
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