¿Mejor?

Indeed I left the house on Monday! I just still haven't done very much since break started. After resting a few days, I figured I'd feel ready to take on the world and speak Spanish (!), but that was definitely not the case. So, I have started taking melatonin, so see if it will counter the affects of having extremely noisy and likely restless sleep, and am planning to go to bed earlier and wake up earlier, to have more time asleep in semi-darkness (the streets are always lit, and one wall and a half walls of my room are windows). So far, so good, and I figure Karen will be 'helping' me get up earlier, as she gets up around 5 or 6 every morning. ;) It's just hard when friends and family are online late or extremely late into the night and I start up a conversation, and when my entire life going to bed before 11 felt like I was wasting time...But, no more! This is a different world here, time to get used to it.

On Monday I met up with Karen to go on a walk, and we ended up walking to her aunt's store to visit (and get the address of her house in Limon, which we are visiting tomorrow). The store is like a Sweet Celebrations, with mainly candy but also random birthday supplies. Also, cerviche, but I think that is just a side-attraction. Then, we ran into her uncle, and went to his house for ice cream. It's so neat that their families live so close. I went home to go to bed early, and my plans were foiled by romantic movies (see? the Internet is really very distracting) and a long-lost friend (in a sense) who only decides to appear at random times, once in a blue moon, appearing Monday extremely late at night. You know who you are.

Yesterday I was planning to, once again, sit around all day and rest, do some yoga, and finish with e-mails when a friend from the program called me. She needed to buy a bus ticket, and didn't want to go alone, so I went with her. It was neat walking around downtown, as I was able to see all the special tourist spots we visited with our culture teacher, which I had promptly forgotten, and loads of shops and people. At one point, we were passing by a market-area and things were a little sketchy, but I wasn't too afraid because of the sheer number of people, including moms with little kids. We made it just fine to buy the ticket, and then took a different (shorter, go figure) route on the way back. According to my friend, the area we walked through was like downtown LA, which I assume is because of all the cheap shopping.

And that was that! Things are definitely less exciting without school, but I'm also glad for the break. Today has been fairly lame, as I thought Karen and I would be able to go on a hike and it seems that we can't, but today is just preparation for tomorrow. Tonight I'm going to sleep over at her house, and then tomorrow we're taking the bus to Limon. Apparently we will have access to a pool, which is a super big deal here (I'm guessing because pools are expensive and it's hot). I'm definitely feeling better rested than I have in a while, and I'm hoping the added activity will only make me feel better.

Until after the break, pura vida, and I hope everyone enjoys their Easter and/or nondenominational activities this Sunday.

Un día de nada

I just spent a few minutes trying to remember what I did yesterday; I can’t keep the days straight! I went with Karen, her sister, her sister’s boyfriend and her sister’s son to La Sabana, the park we visited to go on a walk (the one reminiscent of the reservoir) that is now hosting Festival Internacional de los Artes (FIA). The boyfriend, Alfredo, intended to teach the son, Johan, how to ride a bike, and that’s just what he did. We had a little picnic, and Karen and I either wandered around chatting or sat on the blanket watching the bicycle-learning endeavor (which was incredibly touching). We ended up just lying there at the end, listening to music, and I dozed off for the quietest sleep I’ve had in a long time. Yes, even with a bunch of people running around and a nearby concert, it was still quieter than my room ^^;


The plan was to meet up with some friends and watch the 7:00 concert, which was first a singer from Costa Rica with the band name ‘Gandhi’ and then a really famous group from Argentina which had a name I can’t remember. Cool plan, though it didn’t exactly work out. The place where the concert was to be held was PACKED with hard-core fans before 6, so we decided to get a dessert and then sit off to the side instead of try to stay crammed in with friends. We had granizados, which are shaved ice, cherry (maybe? It was red) syrup, powdered milk and condensed milk all layered in a cup. Surprisingly good, especially for not having chocolate (though practically nothing has chocolate here, it’s too expensive). We then waited on the ground for over an hour for the concert’s intended start time, only to realize that they were keeping in the true tico spirit and starting an hour late. After being there for two hours, with inconsiderate people chain-smoking and sore butts, we figured we should leave before the second concert. I’m glad that we did, because it was past 10 by the time I got home and we missed the extreme traffic of everyone leaving the concert, but it was really too bad because they’re a good group (hence the sardine-style people) and one of Karen’s favorites.

Part of why we left early was because I was planning to do an ecoactivity of helping to plant trees that would have started at 7:00 am and ended at 5:30 pm, and I still had homework (my first and only homework assignment, that I still managed to procrastinate) to finish. Our program director sent us an e-mail about the activity long ago, and I had decided I wanted to go. Then, I had a fieldtrip for a class planned on that day, so I knew I couldn’t go. Then the fieldtrip was cancelled, so I happy to be able to go once more. Then someone from the program suggested taking a short trip together, so I figured I couldn’t go. By the time I realized I could go, the night before, I saw that I needed to have made reservations. I think I knew that deep down, but it had gotten entirely lost in my scheduling.

…which leads me to today. Today I did absolutely nothing. I meant to at least do yoga today, but no such luck. My brain has been completely fried by Spanglish and my whole body feels weighted down. I didn’t leave the house (though in retrospect going to the Feria Agricultura would have been a good idea, because I love snacking on fruit) and I went through my neglected e-mails. I also did my homework, which was fairly fun (yay biology!). And, of course, I ate, my tica mom always makes sure of that. I would have loved to go volunteer, but I think today I really needed time to relax, so my bad planning was, in a way, good.

Tomorrow is another day, and I am definitely leaving the house.

Patinémos!

Yesterday I probably shouldn't have gone to choir, especially because most of what we sang was songs I had never heard and for which I did not have the music (or practically anyone else, for that matter, though all the old-timers knew it by heart). Then, I tried to sing a song I did kinda know, but failed when all the experienced altos ran off somewhere and I was next to someone who had never heard the song, and was therefore rather off in singing it. I need to get better and not listening to the people around me, but I'm still learning the songs :(

I even had bad omens that told me not to be there, which are now really cool in my opinion. I felt someone hit me fairly hard on my shoulder while I was waiting for the choir teacher (also my choir professor) to show up, and I look up to see no one, and look down to see a black bird eyeing me quizzically. It seemed intelligent enough for me to want to say, 'dude, YOU ran into ME, I was just sitting here on the bench reading' before he hopped away. I was still trying to figure out what that was all about when I felt something hit my hand. A black beetle clung on for dear life as I tried to shake it off, before realizing it was just a beetle. But it holding on that tightly made me want it to go away more, and eventually I won. Weirdness o_0;

Today was wonderful :) I am so lucky to know Karen, I love all the time I get to spend with her. We went for a cafecito (I got a mocha for the first time since being here, yum!) and to chat, but later ended up going skating as well. Her sister called to invite us, so we went back to her house. Her mom gave us tres leches, which is now my favorite cake besides extreme chocolate truffley-ness and raspberries due to it's moistness, which apparently includes rum as well as the three types of milk. Then her sister's boyfriend picked us up (us being Karen, her sister, her sister's son) and off we went to patinar :)

The rink reminded me of a tiny Golden Skate (80's music and disco ball!), just with less food, and I attempted roller skates, and not roller blades, for the second time in my life. This is because there was someone selling entrance tickets as a fundraiser for a church, but the tickets weren't available for in-line skates. I figured, why not, roller skates were pretty awesome last time I tried them. Things went fairly smoothly, especially with Karen catching me several times, and I managed to only fall once I was already stopped (and right into Alfredo's, the boyfriend's, lap! whoops). The crazy people cutting around me and bumping into me was really the hardest part, so I'd like to think I'd be fairly decent with a more empty rink. Apparently, people go on Saturdays to meet people to date, and they have partner skates every night to give boys the opportunity to partner up with girls. Karen was my partner, so I never did find out which guys were looking to skate with a lonesome single girl, but I was super curious to know who was there for what purpose. Imagine, people going somewhere other than a bar to meet people, I love it!

Speaking of meeting people, I love having the tourist edge to start up conversations. People ask me questions, and when I answer in my special brand of Spanish, it usually starts the 'oh, you're not a tica' conversation. It makes me feel social, and I always learn interesting things. I should adopt my southern accent from time to time in California and see what happens. Unfortunately, I think it's just the culture here to be friendly, so I don't know that my magic social skills, even as a pretend foreigner, would transfer over.

Cambios en todo

What an incredible and tiring day so far! But first, the last two days.

My birthday wasn't anything too special, just a really great day, and I was thankful for that. My tica mom got me a present and a card, and the next day my tica sister brought me one as well :) It made me feel more like part of their familia tica. The day started off with my bailes populares class where we learned merengue. I couldn't figure out the hip movement at ALL, considering it's entirely different from the movements of salsa and cha-cha (which already took me forever to get). Everyone else has known it since they were babies, so the professor didn't even touch on technique, but the students helped me out. I'd like to say I got it by the end, but I'm still not sure. I felt better because I met a very nice girl who told me while I was struggling 'no puedo hacerlo tampoco, y soy tica!'. Maybe dancing isn't just in the blood, and we both tried our best with our untrained 'caderas'.

Just after that, I went to audit the awesome organic agriculture class, which was even better when it was aimed towards the students. I asked someone where it was, and he told me he was waiting for the professor as well so we chatted a while and became semi-friends. Only later did I realize I had passed him earlier in the Agronomy building and said 'hola' out of habit, and he had to point that out to me because I didn't remember him at all! So many faces...Anyways, that may have been why he was so friendly to me, which was good because I felt welcome right away and was able to learn a lot from him. The class was amazing, and I understood practically everything, so I wondered aloud to my classmate why on earth I wouldn't be able to do well in the class (I originally tried to enroll, but the director of the Agronomy Department told me that I didn't have the prerequisites and would fail from lack of comprehension). He told me that he had already taken a course with the professor, and that I wouldn't have problems, so I went to beg the professor one last time.

Turns out, he wouldn't mind at all if I joined the class, and he never had a problem with it. Students in my program have taken it in the past and done very well. Curious...Anywho, I spoke with the director again, who blamed the professor for not letting me take the course (which is very obviously not the case) and demanded proof that the professor would let me in the class. Now I just have to wait on the professor...so nothing's official, besides me letting the computer malfunction that didn't enroll me in the environmental education class be (it seemed to be an appropriate sign that I was doing the right thing) and missing that class today and what would have been my first quiz.

That's pretty much what happened all day Wednesday, I ran around trying to enroll in his course and drop the most boring course ever: Environmental Education. It should have been named The Theory of Education and its History from an Environmental Standpoint, as there is no biology nor environmental science whatsoever :( On the bright side, I'm looking into volunteering for an environmental education program, and that seems to be more to my interests.

Back to Tuesday, just to wrap that up, my natural history class was cancelled, so instead I went with my friend from bailes populares to her English class, as I mentioned before. It was pretty fun, a little awkward, and interesting to see how people go about learning English (after all this time of trying to learn Spanish). She is so sweet: she brought me a little snack for break time and her mom dropped me off at home. The English teacher wants me to come back and try to get some people from the program to come, but I'm not sure if I can make that happen. I doubt class will be cancelled again, but I'm planning to ask the other students, just in case.

Wednesday was more bailes populares, and the Wednesday class is much more like PE where we play games and such. Man, PE was embarrassing, and it's not much better now that I'm older and can't speak the language...At least everyone is nice about it. I met another person whose dad is from the states, and we chatted a while and exchanged snobby stories from France. He speaks English, French and Spanish all fluently because he went to a French school, I'm so jealous! I wish the US would get on language education for children :( Then I did classes stuff, and then was too tired to go to the art festival with some friends and just went home and felt lame (yet excited about the schedule changes) instead.

Today I went to work on the farm with the other organic agriculture students. I'm not sure if I'm going to be in the group on Tuesdays or on Thursdays, but I was hoping that the professor would be there to sign my enrollment form. No such luck. I did, however, have a great time. I guess I say 'farm' lightly because when we arrived we were shown a big chunk of land with trees, bushes, and weeds everywhere. We basically walked into a mini forest with machetes, shovels and hoes and were told 'okay, here's the plot, clear it all, good luck'. If anyone has started a game of Harvest Moon, and seen what your field looks like when you start out, bingo. So, I got to work like Jack, the character, and felt awesome, just much, much slower. At the end of four hours, we had completely transformed the area. I couldn't believe it! To be a part of that was really cool, even if I wasn't as strong or as effective as the males or the people with experience. Sadly, many weedy plants and shrubs/bushes/not really sure had to die, but they're going to become part of our organic compost, so I don't feel as badly. Seriously, great class.

Now all I have left tonight is choir, and I have been eating these banana chips (yes, bananas are everywhere here, even in soup, and I'm starting to really like them) with salt and lime to get up enough strength to not only go but be social. And not fall asleep. Farm work is hard :)

Mi cumpleaños

And now I am 20! I only realized that when I went with the girl I met last week from my dance class to her class in which they are learning to speak English. The teacher had me sit in front for people to practice asking questions and listening to my answers. One person asked me how old I was, and that's when it hit me. It still hasn't sunk in, though, I'm going to give myself a little more time for that.

While I expected a fairly lonely birthday, I actually ended up meeting several people and having a great time completely outside the 'birthday' context. Not to mention all the birthday wishes I got from home (thank you everyone!). I wish I could elaborate more, but I may have had some birthday luck and therefore have to get up early to scheme tomorrow. If it all works out, UCR will have given me an awesome present.

Empanadas, galletas Maria y relámpago

Well, it seems that I have fallen behind. Technology hasn’t been behaving very well for me lately, and it seems that everything I brought with me to Costa Rica has broken or picked up a virus (that would be my computer…). At times like these, I miss my dad and Chris even more (and wish I had taken a computer class or two).


Saturday I went with my tica friend, Karen, to ‘tiendas de ropa americana’, also known as thrift stores. Personally, I think that’s an amusing name, especially considering that most of the shirts I’ve seen here have little sayings in English and are probably the true ropa americana. Karen told me that people wear such clothing and have no idea what they say, and since she speaks English we were both able to derive amusement from this. Our shopping was a true success for me, as I needed some clothing. After ripping my absolute favorite pair of jeans and only having really dark jeans to wear (unfortunate in the afternoon sun), I found two pair of light jeans at the thrift stores along with a sweater. Yes, I needed a warmer sweater here in Costa Rica. I probably won’t use it much, but when I do I’ll be thankful. Afterwards, we went to her house for a wonderful lunch (her family is awesome) and a mango batido (juice made from blending the fruit, to which milk and/or sugar are sometimes added). The batido had the mango skin in it for extra fiber, with the big chunks strained out at the very end, and was really good. I never thought I’d willingly eat mango skin, go figure.

We visited the Festival Internacional de los Artes that night and we tried chocolate made by a group of indigenous people that came to sell their products and watched a fire dancing/ hula mini-parade. I found a stall that was selling earrings made from seeds and feathers, and loved every bit of it. I’m really impressed by the nature-based crafts here!

Yesterday I visited the Feria Agriucultura, which is basically the farmer’s market of Costa Rica. Everyone goes there on the weekend to get fruit and vegetables, as well as meat, cheese and bread to a lesser degree. There is also always the random merchandise, like bootlegged DVDs, but I am much more interested in the produce! There are so many new things for me there, such as pejibaye (the fruit from the palm trees that produce heart of palm) and bananos rosa, tiny bananas about the length of a pointer finger. There is this one fruit that has a purpley outside and huge black seeds on the inside, and a huge green, bumpy fruit called a guanabana that looks like a white pineapple on the inside (it’s my favorite batido con leche flavor). This is not to be confused with a guyaba, which is a smaller, round fruit. Crazy! Then there are all the more normal exotic fruits, such as papaya, mango, passionfruit and coconut (or immature coconuts, pipas, which are usually just used for the water inside and not the flesh, though I really like both). I will have to post pictures at some point.

My friend Karen came and visited, so my tica mom and I made her empanadas arregladas (empanadas with a salad on top) and a dessert referred to as ‘postre con galletas Maria’ for the layer of Maria cookies between a mixture of evaporated milk, condensed milk and lime juice. The Costa Rican empanadas are made from corn meal, and are very heavy, whereas the empanadas I’ve always seen are light and spacious inside. She and my tica mom got along great, and my tica mom wants her to visit whenever she can just as Karen’s mom has welcomed me into their home. That all worked out very nicely ^_^

My tica sister’s birthday was Sunday, so I chose a gift from my stockpile of US gifts I brought along just for occasions like these and brought it to her in her room in the back of the house. Just as I was handing it to her, lighting struck right next to the house, and I screamed and jumped as I watched it through the window. That’s definitely the closest I’ve been to lighting, and it was enough to shake up both my tica sisters, my tica mom and Karen, so I didn’t feel as silly for being frightened.

The rain stopped after a while, but then started up again tonight. I love the sound it makes on the roof, which must be metal. If only it could drown out the noise of the cars driving by, it would be perfect.

Lately I’m exhausted, and I can’t seem to make friends with the people in my choir. I think it’s just hard because they all already know each other, and I don’t want to jump into a conversation I already don’t understand. I’m not a completely hopeless case, though, because I semi-befriended another person I met on the bus after asking him if I was at the right stop (rain makes things confusing, and I really didn’t want to take the wrong bus and end up on an accidental adventure) and then finding out that we were the only two people to get off at the stop in front of my house. There should really be a class on ‘Spanish small-talk skills’ for us shy, foreign students, but considering I got a ‘nos vemos’ after chatting while it rained on us, I can’t have done so badly.

Todo cansado

I am very tired lately, which I think might be due to my great attempts to be social ;) But really, the more Spanish speakers there are in a room the less I can understand what's happening, and eventually my brain just starts daydreaming or going into 'emergency shut-down mode' and making me start to fall asleep. I need to work on that...

I went with my tica friend to the house of one of her work friends for what I thought was just a get-together of everyone at her work but turned out to be a mini-celebration for their boss, who is moving in with his girlfriend. I was the only one without a housewarming gift, but I guess that couldn't be helped. Everyone ate lunch and chatted, and I found out that portion sizes are bigger here EVERYWHERE.

I just thought my tica mom was weird, because I told her I ate a lot of really small meals (which she didn't understand, because apparently merienda doesn't mean snack here?) and she kept giving me HUGE portions and telling me 'I only gave you a little because you told me you don't eat very much'. A little is a heaping plateful, in tico talk, so I guess a lot would be seconds or thirds of the same size. Anyways, the 'papas fritas grandes' that my friend ordered were really grande, meaning they took up an entire standard-sized styrofoam container. We maybe got through half, if I round up. I thought Americans were bad, but many ticos pride themselves in taking after the US (or so says my culture book) so maybe that's why they have such dispropotionate ideas of food. Or maybe I'm just always around people who think the same way, I'll have to keep my eyes out for variations.

Today I was also reminded of how fanatic ticas are about their houses. We were warned by the program director that our tica moms would be neat freaks, but I am continually surprised to the level at which this is true. My tica mom remade my bed, and I moved the top cover a little bit so I could crawl in and read my book (taking special care not to mess up the newly made bed), and at lunch she ran up to my room, did goodness knows what and returned to gravely tell me that my bed was 'muy desorganizada' so she fixed it. I'm not sure if she has ever seen desorganizada, but that certainly isn't me.

I'm generally very clean and fairly organized, keeping everything in piles at the very least, and here I'm making a special effort to keep tidy. Still, it's not enough. She folds my PJs, so I have to make sure to do that every morning, and stacks and restacks my vitamins. If any of my clothes, like what I will wear tomorrow, are folded on top of my dresser, she hides them away in the closet. The clothes wouldn't even be out, except that the drawers stick and take a huge effort to open...She has also gone through my luggage that I had stored under the bed to zip everything up and thrown away my soap when it got to be too small for her liking (I suppose? she never even spoke to me about it). She even pre-cleaned for me once when she told me I needed to have my room cleaned by the next day, because when I came back from a movie everything was shoved in the closet o_0 I just can't win, she always finds one more thing to fix, and insists on taking my towel off the hanger to throw over the shower.

So, when my friend comes to visit on Sunday, and might potentially want to see my room, I have been politely yet sternly reminded to tidy everything up, especially the bed, so that she won't see my 'messy' room. Oh boy. How on earth did she handle naturally messy students?? For you, tica mom, I'll do it, just not if you keep insisting on waking me up early every morning when I don't have classes or obligations. That's where my patience will grow thin.

¿Cúal día es hoy?

Today (which is now yesterday) was either very much my day, or not my day at all depending on how you look at it.

Every time I have waited at the bus stop, the bus has been at least 10 minutes late, but that's just how tico time works. And, buses in general. This morning, I complained to my tica mom how the bus is always late, and how I would just sit at the table a little longer instead of heading over to the bus stop. I figured it only takes about two minutes to get to the bus stop, no harm in being on time instead of early for a change. I was heading out the door the same time as my 12-year-old tico brother, and my tica mom was seeing him off. One my way to the bus stop (20 seconds after walking out the gate) I watch as a school bus passes, and think about how Alonso is perfectly on time. Then my brain does a double take, and realizes that the bus is the same color as the one I take, and heading the same direction to the University my bus would take. Apparently my tica mom and brother were calling my name during this time, pointing out as my bus drove by, and the bus thankfully stopped and let me run on. Well, THAT was embarrassing.

As I'm getting off the bus, and trying to convey my gratitude to the bus driver, who recognized me as the lost gringa who keeps asking him questions, I trip on myself and catch the pole just in time to hop off the bus fairly decently yet clumsily. Later, upon boarding again to go home between classes (I figured after the morning events, I should take a nap), I tried handing the driver my money and almost dropped it before getting ahold of myself and actually putting it in his hand. The nap was a better idea than I had thought!

Oh Curridabat bus driver, you have witnessed in one day more embarrassing things than I have done in the last month (or so I like to tell myself...), but didn't look at me in such a way that made me want to crawl into a hole and never come out. Thank you, now I have the unwritten duty to prefer you over the one other driver that ventures into Curridabat.

As a side note, the term gring@ is used in Costa Rica commonly, and even in an endearing way. It doesn't necessarily have the bad connotations attached to it like it would in other countries, and we all refer to ourselves as gring@s now. I have heard of ticas wanting a gringo boyfriend several times ('los hombres en Costa Rica son muy perros, andan con otras mujeres' o 'toman mucho, siempre se emborrachan'...basically the same meaning in English for a man who is a dog), so obviously they aren't saying that in a negative way. Also, everyone from Asia is called chin@, no matter where they're from.

By the time choir rolled around, I only had 10 minutes of being social left in me, and I feel that I used them well. I met someone who started speaking perfect English to me, and really threw me off for a second. Her dad is an American, and her mom is a tica, so after I learned that everything made sense. We sing songs in Spanish, mostly, but also one in Italian and one in English, and possibly another in Latin? It's all very fast-paced, and I can't keep track of which language which religious song is in because they all have fairly similar lyrics. The song selection is just like that of my high school choir, but everyone is much more relaxed and the professor hardly puts pressure on us. It's wonderful, and filled with incredibly talented singers.

I just realized that today (yesterday) really was my day, because I finally received my package of goodies from my mom (thank you!!) and what appear to be two birthday cards :) It was an incredibly lucky day, with some awkward thrown in to remind me I need to sleep more. Lesson learned.

Felicitaciones

When will I ever learn that waking up before the sun rises is especially not fun when I don’t sleep?! Yet here I am, the night before my 7 am class (now, my only 7 am class ^_^). This certainly didn’t happen when I didn’t have Internet…

So, this will be quick. Today was St. Patrick’s Day, though you wouldn’t know it here in Costa Rica. The other student in my house and I were both wearing green, so our tica mom pointed it out as a coincidence. When we told her it was a tradition for St. Patrick’s Day, she hadn’t heard of it before. I hadn’t even thought of it until the student pointed it out to me yesterday. Funny that a guy from England is bringing up some Irish spirit :)

I went to another dance class today, same class on the courses guide just a different day and professor, and it certainly was a whole new experience. We played some PE-esque games as a warmup (just like the good old days, right, kids?) and then danced in partners. It was really fun, just in a different ways. Learning random PE/relay games in another language is tricky, but even some of the natives weren’t entirely sure what to do so it was okay.

The two highlights of my day happened one after the other. The first was when I decided to shop for snacks (I always want to eat here, so I figured I may as well try some native food instead of depleting my small supply from home) and had to sneeze while browsing the cookie aisle. I almost always sneeze into the crook of my elbow, but I had things in my hands so I sneezed into my shoulder instead. Right afterwards I hear a voice, and see a little old lady speaking to me (she turned out to be quite adorable). At first I figured she’d seen my not-so-perfect manner of preventing the spread of germs and been offended, but when she repeated herself she said ‘bien educada’, which basically means I’m well mannered. I gave her a quizzical look, and she told me that I was the first person she’d seen sneeze the right way, and told me ‘felicitaciones’. I told her that people in the US rarely do it, either, and thanked her. We smiled, it was adorable.

The I walked to the yoga studio and bought myself an organic yoga mat. I recognized the girl behind the counter I had met before and she recognized me, which was nice. I told her I’d be back next month to start, and lugged that thing home (it’s much more heavy than my non-organic foam/plastic one).

I almost forgot! I tried opening a coconut today using the hitting it with a blunt object in the right place trick and failed. Eventually, I let my tica mom get out her hammer and hand the coconut over to her ex-husband (he’s around a lot because they’re still friends and he plays with his grandkids and visits his daughters) to make quick work of it. He told me about a place I can buy coconut pieces, as opposed to the whole fruit, but I saw that the coconut split where I had been working on it once he hit it with the hammer. Maybe I’ll try again, or maybe I’ll just go find the coconut piece vendor.

After dinner I went with the student to see Shutter Island, which was fairly trippy and overdramatic. It’s also the book someone in my group is reading, and I made fun of him after reading the back cover…I would say I feel sorry about that, but it was silly for most of it. The end made up for the beginning, I think.

And that was my day! A wonderful day, filled of lots of exercise (I decided to walk instead of taking the bus, as well as try out my yoga mat after dance). Hopefully I can keep it up, even when I have homework and fieldtrips, at the very least so I can eat all of the awesome fruit here.

Bailes populares

Today I met a really nice girl in my dance class, and she ate lunch with me (my first lunch where I wasn’t alone at the university ^_^). In my dance class, which is only a gym class when it really comes down to it, I had to fill out a form for research and get measured and weighed. Now I know that it will be an extra rigorous class so that research can show people who exercise lose weight ;)


Not much else extremely interesting happened today, besides a group of 50+-year-olds making me extremely frustrated. The class for organic agriculture that I’m auditing has an ‘automayores’ section, which is apparently just adult education. The adults that want to take the class pay a small fee for the semester and in turn learn something in which they’re interested. My frustration came from them talking while the professor was trying to lecture and asking incessant questions about the material before the professor had a chance to explain it, as well as asking question after question of related items (for example, the compostability of 15 different types of leaves). School is oh so different here, I don’t even know what to think anymore. I have decided not to adjust to the type of learning the automayores expect, and am going to start auditing the student class. I don’t like getting up before 7, to have the bus not show up so I have to catch a cab (THAT was an interesting experience), so that I can learn what composting is…again. The student class is in the afternoon, and apparently the pace of the class is a lot faster, so that is a double bonus. The triple bonus is that now my classes won’t be spread so far apart on Tuesdays (hurrah!). Also, I feel mean for being frustrated with a bunch of people just because class is social for them, and meant to teach them how to have a garden more than anything else. Shame on me, the uptight American.

There is another student now living in the house, so my quiet little upstairs is no longer just for me. He’s a little younger than me and from England, and is a great excuse for my tica mom to have meat in the house again. Sharing a bathroom with him is a bit weird…I haven’t had to share a bathroom with a guy since Eva kicked me out of our shared bathroom and had to use the tiny one my parents were sharing. Good times.

Tomorrow, back to the dance class (the one I’m actually enrolled in), this time with appropriate sportswear.

Un fin de semana refrescante

This weekend was absolutely wonderful, and probably the best I’ve had here so far. Before I go any further, I have to be amazed by the timing of San Jose once again. Just as I was at the end of my rope and practically suffocating at a concert in the park, because everyone was smoking and I’m already getting over a cough, I walked away and watched as a single butterfly made its way through the smog of the city and fly up into the clouds. It was absolutely beautiful. Darn San Jose, torturing me and then making me love it nonetheless. I guess love is a strong word, because cities just aren’t my thing, but still.


This weekend was spent almost entirely with a new tica friend. Here, Costa Ricans are ‘ticos’ and ‘ticas’ , with one explanation being that there is a sense of brotherhood, and they all are ‘hermaniticos’ (the diminutive of brothers). I met her whole family and had, what they pointed out to me, my first experience with ‘una familia latina’. Everyone on one side of the family lives close together, so they are all very close. I met uncles, aunts, cousins, brothers, sisters…My head was spinning from all the names, not to mention trying to keep up with their conversations. It is proportionally more difficult to understand what is going on the more ticos are involved, especially when they use ‘dichas’ which are Costa Rican sayings that mean something completely different than they seem to mean. We have those, too, but I’m used to those 

Her family was so nice to me, and there was definitely no lack of food. We walked around a park that reminded me of our reservoir in Lafayette, visited the Transitarte festival (with little performances, artisans, food, concerts and loads of people), watched movies and visited the newly opened shop of her aunt. The next day, we returned to the festival with three other friends, and there was still a lot to entertain us. The activities stretched across the three main parks in downtown San Jose, and each one had something different. I tried a ‘melcocha’, and though I still don’t understand their explanation of what it is, even after trying it, I do know that it’s a super sweet and sticky candy, in the form of a wooden pencil but slightly thicker, with pieces of coconut inside the sugary goo. It’s so sticky, I was afraid to chew it because I felt like it would rip out my teeth. Yay tico candies!

Even after this fantastic weekend, I was relieved to finally get home around 6. I was more relieved to find out that there is no day-lights savings in Costa Rica, and I didn’t have to lose an hour after all. Apparently, way back in history they changed their clocks because it was really dark, but even my tica mom seemed fuzzy on that, so I most definitely didn’t understand. Maybe it was just so random that she didn’t understand, either. Now I have one hour less time difference with California, which is good because life starts early here.

Finally!

I was walking back from a promising yoga studio I had found in the suffocating heat (my tica mom has been telling me how hot it is for the last several days, and only today did I agree with her) when, all of a sudden, I felt rain. It was so unexpected that I began to laugh, and I smiled all the way home as I was drenched, and even when my tica mom looked horrified on my behalf for having gotten so wet. This event, to me, summed up a lot of my trip, and thereby (finally) inspired my first blog entry.


I have been meaning to keep a blog, as I promised I would, but my first hurdle was having to name it. That stopped me dead in my tracks from setting it up before leaving. Once I finally got here, I was really excited to tell everyone about my living situation, the only catch was I didn’t have Internet. I honestly have no idea what people did before Internet in order to socialize when they had to move to a new place, especially if they weren’t in school or it was summer, and I ended up furiously writing cards for a few days, then e-mails (saved to Word document), and then just listening to music and doing every possibly exercise I could think of that fit in my room. Of course I had all my coursework to entertain me, as we took a history, culture, literature and grammar class before the semester started, but I’m not sure how much that really helped. Being only a second year, with only one university Spanish class to my name, I struggled a bit more than the rest, who all couldn’t get over how easy the classes were for them. I say ‘for them’ because I swore off literature and history classes for a reason…At any rate, thank goodness those are over and done with and only lasted a month. That dark time, with no Internet and intensive classes I didn’t want to be taking, is now over, and I ended up learning a lot from the experience.

I have gotten ahead of myself…I am in Costa Rica for a language immersion program that began at the end of January and ends after the semester is over in early July, or possibly later with an internship. All of us in the program are UC students, and we took part of an ‘intensive language program’ for the month of July, which included the four classes I previously mentioned (which combine to equal 2 classes on my transcript), living with a host family and going on mini-vacations (paseos) to get to know Costa Rica. We are all studying in the University of Costa Rica in San José for a semester, which began on Monday the 8th. So much has happened during this time, but it seems like things are just getting started.

What happened today seems to happen a lot to me: random, unexpected things happen, and really make me happy to be here. Usually, those events are proceeded by me hating San José with all of my being and counting the days until I escape, so it was nice that today was already a good day.

Adjusting has been hard, and I know I’m still not fully adjusted. Everything is different: I can’t find any of the buildings I need to find or the things I need to buy, having a different mom with her not always so amusing quirks is tiring, living in the city is making my asthma flare up, figuring out the bus system is sometimes harder than just walking the whole way, being forced into a group of people (just like in high school) is still challenging for me, and eating food that is only flavored with massive amounts of sugar or salt makes me sick. But, sometimes different is also good. Here, I am more outgoing than I have ever been at home, as I feel slightly safe behind the language barrier as opposed to insecure, and the people are so much more friendly. I got a vacation invitation from someone I haven’t even known a month, and everyone kisses (cheek to cheek) to say hello and goodbye. I feel awkward now NOT kissing someone, and I love that everyone can be so physically close! The dancing is also wonderful, and concerts here are extremely cheap or free.

So, San José has been quite the experience so far. I’ve loved practically every minute outside the city, but I’m still figuring out how to love this city. That’s okay, though, because every time I’m really angry about being stuck in the city, it gives me a little something, like a nearby yoga studio, a new friend just from riding the bus, a friendly choir or rain on an extremely hot day, to remind me that it’s not that bad after all, at least not today.