A very fun weekend!!

What a great weekend!! Well Friday Jalissa and I searched for a nail salon to get a pedicure, most required an appointment because they were all busy so we scheduled an appointment at a salon near the school for Saturday.

We then went to San Jose with two of her friends and they purchased bus tickets to Puntarenas. I'm not going since I had made other plans.

After that Jalissa's friends left and so the two of us went to eat at "spoons" (a Costa Rican food chain). We sat and talked for a few hours then proceeded to look around San Jose! We found this cute little jewelry stand and bought a few things. Later we ended up buying bootleg DVDs...my Alice in wonderland turned into Jurassic park 1,2,&3! And my other DVD turned into a completely different Spanish movie then on the title. Jalissa's Lion King turned into 40 seconds of some old music!! Hahaha, lesson learned!! We went home after and worried about the robbers along the way! By the way if I haven't mentioned in the previous blogs many students have been getting robbed at gunpoint/knifepoint!

The next day, Saturday we finally got our pedicures!! It was a wayyy different experience! The woman used like a home spa foot tub and a regular sitting chair!! I was like let's leave but we didn't want to be rude! 

Later Jalissa's friends came over and we watched The Princess and the Frog! It was such a cute movie!! I loved it :)

Today I had the opportunity to meet my friend's (from Wareham, Ma) family!! She had connected me with her cousin and it was a great experience. They were super nice and we went to an uncles 84th birthday party in Heredia! The people, the food, everything was great! I'm very happy! I danced a little and chatted with everyone. 

Tomorrow I'm going to hang out with a friend in Cartago! Then back to start new classes on Tuesday!

***I forgot to mention on Thursday Chelsea and I went out to lunch and I decided to surprise her for birthday! I asked a woman if she can sing happy birthday and bring out some cake. I chose a piece of chocolate cake that looked soo good!! I went back to the table and said "mm they have flan and a chocolate cake that looked so good!!" Chelsea said "yeah I tried the chocolate cake, it was so gross!!" I thought oh crap!! After a few minutes I said, "I'm going to go order my flan"! I went inside and saw the chocolate cake piece on a plate decorated with a candle and I was like oh no! I said sorry my friend doesn't like chocolate, can I change that to cheese cake? So the woman took out the flan and cheese cake and the waitress came and grabbed them, I was like noooo why did she take them!! So I told the waiter to go to the table and tell Chelsea, oh I'm so sorry that wasn't for this table! So he did! After a long wait they finally came out with the cheesecake! The woman asked what's her name, I said Chelsea, she said what, I said Chelsea!! Then she says, Jozie? I said, yeah ok so they sang feliz cumpleaños a Jozie!! Hahaha!!!

Puerto Viejo Weekend

Friday my Spanish class went on a field trip to the Costa Rican children's museum. It was a pretty cool building that used to be a prison. The exhibits were interesting and I wish I could of spent more time there but after class was the start of a new adventure!

Finally my first mini vaca in Cost Rica. A group and I went independently. Our bus was in a sort of sketchy area, but we made it! The bus ride was 5 hours long!

After a long time on the bus we finally arrived around 7pm, found our hostel (Lazy Mon) and settled in. We had four rooms between us. There were 7 girls and six guys. I shared one room with four girls, although the 4th girl slept on the couch outside of the room.

I had a great night for the most part, had a few drinks and went out dancing. Some of us decided to jump in the water after and it was sooo nice! I finally settled back into my room around 3am.

The next morning I woke up fairly early so I wasn't able to get much sleep. Jalissa went to breakfast with me and then we decided to rent bikes. When we got back to the hostel everyone was in their bathing suits so we decided to put ours on and get in the water. The water was sooo warm, I was actually hoping for cold water because it was soooo hot out that even with sunscreen (and reapplying) I still got somewhat burnt!! There was a lot of huge rocks in the water so not much room to swim in without getting scraped.

Another group that was around from our university invited us (Jalissa, Chelsea, Amisha, and I) to go to another beach so the rest of them rented bikes and we drove to the beach. There were bike racks there and we locked our bikes on them (bike renting is very popular, few places were already sold out). The beach was sooo nice!! It was a surfing beach and the waves were awesome! We really had an amazing time! After we came home and Chelsea, Jalissa, and I decided to go to the markets around and do some shopping. I bought some cool things. Before that we also stopped by supermarket to buy bread, ham, and cheese for lunch. Now we have breakfast for tomorrow morning too:)

So our hostel has a bar/dance area literally right below the rooms. They also serve food so I decided I wanted to go there for dinner. The three of us went and I ordered nachos, buffalo wings, and fries to share. The food turned out to be amazingly delicious!!!!! 

We came back and the rest of the group was hanging out on the back porch so we joined them and played "heads up", which is an app on iPhone or whatever and its similar to charades.

Chelsea decided to mention ice cream and then I really wanted some...so the three of us went on another adventure for ice cream. While we were walking we saw this pizza place right next to our hostel and the guy was like come get some pizza!! I wasn't hungry but I was like let's try it, so we did. The place was called Coco Nuts and was opened 2 weeks ago. The owner was Italian,and didn't  want to give us his employee tshirts, lol! His worker was crazy too! The whole place was a "nutty" experience! There were people in the outside seating smoking marijuana and video taping themselves. It was quite an experience. So the pizza was 1,000 colones equivalent to $2 and came with a drink. We shared the pizza and the employee said oh your drinks. He went to the store across the street to try to get juice, we don't know what happened (the whole experience was unreal hahaha). Then he  comes back and says we only have watered down juice, so we were like ok? He's like how about I give you shots? We were like water is fine. He comes back with three shot glasses, then goes and gets one for himself! We have no idea what we drank. Then he comes out with two watered down lemonades. It was pretty crazy!

Now we are back in the hostel. I decided not to go out tonight. Jalissa, Chelsea, and I are waking up around 4am to watch the sunset and catch the bus back to San Jose around 7:30am. The rest of the group will probably take the 4pm bus back.

By the way the weather was great, besides way too hot! I'm glad I decided to stay in tonight because now it's pouring!!

One thing I did like about this place was that music was constantly playing everywhere. It's like a vacation resort in the Caribbean. I feel like I'm in Jamaica not Costa Rica, which is the downfall! As relaxed and nice as it is... It doesn't seem like a typical Tico experience. Everyone speaks English and many workers are Anerican...therefore I didn't get to practice my Spanish. Overall I enjoyed myself! It was a nice experience! It feels weird though because I feel like I'm on vacation and like I'm going home to the states tomorrow, but that's not the case!! Back to San Jose, back to school!

Well that was pretty much my weekend!! Xoxoxo:):):)

Security, security!

Tuesday, after dinner with the API group, Jalissa went with me to the post office to pick up my package that Chris sent me. It was in the center of Zapote. When we walked toward the general area it was gated and police officers were standing there, I'm not sure if there was a riot or something going on! 

First we decided to go to the bank, we had to wait for security to open the door then one by one we were scanned with a metal detector. Then we had to get a ticket saying how many transactions we had. It was like waiting at the RMV and being called by number.

After that experience we went to the post office, the guards stopped us and wouldn't let Jalissa go in with me to get my package. When I went in I had to sign  a paper and wait to be called. The second person I saw went through my package and made me sign more papers. Then I still had to wait for a different person to call me sign more papers, pay some type of few, then wait again for a fourth person!! Signed more papers and finally got my package!! What an experience!

At night I went to my dance class and came straight home after! I was just so tired!!

Wednesday I didn't do much! Cooked a delicious pizza for myself and went to yoga with my friend Chelsea. Yoga was hard as usual but it's good for me! :) 

Tomorrow my class is doing a field trip to the children's museum here! We also have to do presentations next week based on specific topics at the museum.  

After that 13 of us are going to Puerto Viejo!! Should be a great weekend, can't wait to see some wildlife!!

Lunes!

Well yesterday turned out to be a decent day. We got our exam grades, I got an 83.5 which I wasn't crazy about but I guess I can't always get A's in Spanish. We started our new section and now there's only two more weeks of this class!! Very intense course 4 hours a day, 5 times a week!

After the class my API group went to the programs office and watched a Spanish movie (forgot the title). We brought snacks to share; most of us were starving because we didn't have lunch. We ended up staying there for a few hours since it was pouring really hard outside.

When we left I ended up going to Mary's Place to eat, no one wanted to go so I went alone. I ended up talking to Mary for hours since I was her only customer at the time. It was great conversation and great practice for my Spanish:) I told her I would bring Chris when he comes to visit me and she was very happy about that!

Soon it was time to go back to school to do a yoga class!

I got to the school and had to print some homework, of course the printer was acting up as usual! Shortly after the yoga class started and there were only three of us (it was still raining). The class was mostly in Spanish and it was hard but it felt good to do some sort of workout again!!

That was pretty much my day, nothing crazy but it was a good day!:):)

El fin de semana...

This weekend was pretty good, although Friday morning/afternoon wasn't the greatest! I went to school to take my exam and have no idea how I did! I got my presentation grade that day too and I wasn't happy, it wasn't the worst but never the less I balled my eyes out.

After the exam I went straight home, only to find that my laptop charger was broken and my iPod charger was on its deathbed:( at this point there was nothing I could do about it, thankfully my iPod still works for now but unfortunately I can't upload pictures until my laptop is up and running!

Friday night turned out better. Jalissa invited me to go see a movie at some university her friend goes to. She also invite two other girls from our school who were really nice. Unfortunately the bus never came so we never made it! It started to pour so we invited the girls over to watch some tv. We ended up watching "United States of Tara", interesting and dumb show lol! I told them I didn't want to start watching a new series because I will be addicted and want to watch the entire series, and of course that is what happened. We ended up watching four episodes together.

After that the two girls and I went to this Irish Pub, Jalissa didn't feel like going. So we walked all the way to the pub and then the girls were taking out their passport copies and I didn't have mine :( so we walked all the way back (approx a 15-20 min walk). The girls decided to not carry there purses and just take what they needed so we all stopped by our houses. We walked all the way to the pub again and one of the girls says "oh crap I left my passport in the purse I just dropped off"! The other girl says "this isn't real"!! So here we go again, this time we took a taxi! Finally we got to the place and luckily soon after got three seats at the bar, the place was extremely crowded!! The service was pretty fast and we got some food. 

After the bar we were going to meet up with some people at La Calle, which is a strip of bars/clubs. We ended up going to different places and dancing a bit. There was about 20 people in the group but we were scattered all over. I had a great time and I actually didn't even end up drinking anything at all, besides a ginger ale at the first bar lol. We got home around 2/3a.m. It was my first late night rendezvous in CR!

The next day I did nothing but sit around and watch tv!

Today (Sunday) is Costa Rica's Independence Day, Jalissa and I didn't end up doing anything for it. Our host family was in Florida and came back this afternoon. We watched more episodes of the "united states of Tara", actually we finished the entire season 1! We also made a delicious lunch today, tortilla wraps with tuna, corn, beans, broccoli, tomatoes, and some other various things. I almost forgot to mention we did Zumba through the Apple TV! Well that was pretty much most of everything! I was able to talk to my love, Chris, whose having fun with his buddies in Nantucket!:) (not that we don't talk everyday) :):) I also was able to call a few friends this weekend!

Well back to school in a few hours, cross my fingers that my test went well!!!

Until next time...

Dear Costa Rica,

The weekend went by quite quickly. On Saturday, my room mate and I went to San Jose, we were all prepared in our long jeans and rainboots and it was the one day that it barely even rained!! We went to the souvenir market and bought a few pretty cool things, then we went to eat at "Spoons", yum!

On Sunday, our "tica sister", (the wife), Naty held a party for her brothers birthday at the house. My room mate and I got to meet her family and they were very nice! We had a lot of yummy food and pastries. We watched her brothers wedding video which was absolutely beautiful (he got married 2 months ago)! Jalissa (my room mate) and I got to practice our Spanish with the family, so that was a plus!

 That really was pretty much our weekend! Monday a group of us went to a club/restaurant called El Cuartel, there was a live band and they were really good! The only problem was that there was sooo many people; it was completely packed! We literally couldn't move much (imagine a concert)! We stayed there for a couple hours and finally left because it was getting really late and we had class the next morning!

Today I felt soo tired in class! I don't think I want to go out on school nights anymore! Today we had a quiz which I did fine on since it was based on a reading. Thursday we have a presentation and Friday an exam!! So much work to do!

Tomorrow we are going to something called Art City Tour with our program, it should be interesting!

Until next time!!

Nueva Casa, Nueva Vida!

Today in Spanish class we watched a pretty cool movie called "Gestacion", it was based in Costa Rica and was about an adolescent who got pregnant. It was cool to see the familiar places, buses, taxis, etc...of Costa Rica in the movie.

After school we got a call that we were moving houses today. So after classes my room mate and I went to have lunch and went to the school to talk to the housing people. We were given some options of families and we chose a husband and wife who just had a dog. We didn't know how to tell the woman we were living with that we were leaving. It was hard for me and I felt a tinge of sadness. The woman seemed quite disappointed and I felt really bad.

We left and waited for our new host parents at the university! Turned out to be a young 26 year old married couple! It should be an interesting experience and I'm sure they can tell us many places to go! I watched a little part of the big soccer game (Costa Rica VS USA!) Should be an interesting journey from this point . . .Ready for my first weekend off in Costa Rica. I can't believe it's only been a week since I've been here!

Different Cultural Aspects that I noticed!

These are some things I've noticed so far:

-The buses have counters and if you don't move fast enough it'll count you more than once and the driver will have to cover the costs at the end of their shift.
-Never put toilet paper in the toilet, or anything for that matter. Every bathroom has a trashcan right next to the toilet.
-The place I live in (Zapote, San Jose) has atleast two gates before you can enter the house! (More locks than my grandma!!)
-People seem to have different concepts of personal space (aka) there is none.
-"Pura Vida" is the expression in Costa Rica, meaning Pure Life and also there way to greet someone.
-You say "Buenas" instead of Buenos dias, Buenas tardes, or Buenas Noche.
-Taxi's don't expect tips, and watch out for the "piratas" aka illegal taxis.
-Make sure you ask the legal taxi drivers to turn on the meters "Tienes Maria?", if not they will try to rip you off (some may continuously drive in circles).
-"Tranquila" = Relax (we are on tico time).
-Crossing streets: The pedestrian has no right of way, if the cars are driving and someone's crossing, the car will continue to drive, especially if you are American.
-Lunch is the "big meal".

Busy, Busy, Busy!

Life in Costa Rica has been busy, busy, busy! The first week of school is almost over!! My Spanish teacher is a very lively and a nice lady. The class is four hours long and a lot of work. Since I chose the early start program, I am only taking a Spanish course THIS month. Next month my schedule will be full of other classes!
On Tuesdays my group from the program has mandatory lunch meetings with the directors, I forgot what the name of the restaurant was but will let you know next week ;) The plate I had, I really didn't like at all but hopefully I will find something I do like. On the plus side since I didn't like my plate, I went to this other restaurant after and was sooo happy. I found something I really really really loved in Costa Rica! It was a plate called "casado" and it tasted just like my favorite plate from this Cuban restaurant in Massachusetts; I was sooo happy that I found it! I cannot wait to go back! Other than that not too much going on other then the usual...Some students are going to Puerto Viejo this weekend but I chose not to for various reasons! Hopefully I will have some excursions coming up in the near future, I just need to plan them!!

Pura Vida!

Pictures from Orosi!

Buenos Dias!!

Hello everyone! Day 4! The second day we met our host families. My room mate and I found out we live with other American students in a joint house, and that we don't even get to eat meals with the family or even really interact with them , but I won't even start my rant on that. The program directors and the group took a nice tour of San Jose. The city is very nice and different, but a lot of trash all over the ground. At some points we saw people walking in front of us and secretly trying to throw their trash on the floor. The group and I had a nice lunch at a chain called Spoon, it wasn't bad. It was fairly healthy with typical Costa Rican cuisine. 
After meeting our host family we sat and talked with the mother, we never met the older brothers since they didn't care to meet us. It was a long day. We unpacked, talked, and went to sleep.

The next day we went on a day trip with the group and the directors to Volcan Irazu and Orosi which were very pretty. I took a lot of pictures! We had a nice lunch at a buffet in Orosi! We toured the city and then we went to our houses. My room mate and I took the bus to her old host families home (she came here when she was 16 years old for a 6 week school program). They were nice people and cooked delicious food! The buses were an interesting experience!

Until next time....have to run to my school orientation!! :):)