A Costa Rican guide to umbrellas

So I cannot believe I have not mentioned anything about umbrellas, their rules, their names and the homeless men that attack with them...

Women: have sombrillas, which are meant really to act as shade (sombra in spanish is shandow) they are normally very bright colors or patterns and are dainty. Mine is black.

Men: have paraguas, which are meant to block the rain... and should be black. only. Chris has a bright yellow raincoat. Guess how many days it took him to buy a black umbrella...

Anyways, last week we were walking to school; Chris, Kevin, Kate and I, and we crossed a very busy street and had to run for the last stretch because the light turned green. As we reached the other side of the street, which was also the front gate of the University, a drunken-looking man with very matted and balding hair, a long black trench coat, fingerless gloves AND a black umbrella began flailing his arms and yelling at us. Not sure why he was so angry, but as we got closer, he took a huge whack at Chris with his umbrella. He missed and nailed the iron gate of the University entrance breaking the handle off of his umbrella, unfortunate thing in the rainy season. Unfortunate yet well-deserved. 

Anyways, we have now seen this man numerous times EVERYWHERE. And Kate and some others later found the afore-mentioned umbrella handle. So that is a fun little inside joke/terror of ours. 

Went and saw a movie today in the theater. Duplicity. It was in english with spanish subtitles. Very very good movie. Too bad if you see it in the states you wont be able to get admission for four, popcorn for four, drinks for four and some candy for the equivalent of...17 bucks!! I love Costa Rican prices. It looked like this though 10.600 colones. So we always feel like we are spending tons and tons of money but really the amounts are so small. The US should make their's the same, people would maybe spend less. A candy bar costs $.79 or 360 colones. which are you going to buy. me too. 

I can't believe tomorrow is already Thursday, time is flying and i love it and hate it all at the same time. 

Gave my presentation today, it went surprisingly well. I bought candy to pass out as rewards for correct answers for a Q&A session after the presentation and therefore, everyone loved my presentation :) However, being that they answered my questions correctly means they listened. everyone won. 

Well i'm off to bed!

much love

Molly

Sloths and Tucans and Bees, Oh my!

HOLA!

So i decided to wait until Tuesday to write so that my terrible Monday attitude didn't come through to all of you... or the few of you, whichever. 

This weekend was quite eventful and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Friday we didn't do much got out of school and walked around a bit, I think, I can't even remember. I stayed in that night and early Saturday morning a few of us went into the center of San Jose to explore. 

We took a bus there from the Outlet Mall, which has become our group meeting place. How American. Anyways, we took the bus to San Jose and got out and walked to the Museums, or Los museos. $5 entrance fee to see 3 museums, the coolest on was this one of all the money and gold history in Costa Rica. Very interesting. Pictures will explain better. We were there for awhile and then left to have lunch in a tiny little cafe where we once again had very cheap and very delicious food. After this we set out in search of el Teatro Nacional... or the national theater. a.k.a the place where my wedding will take place. It was the most beautiful place i've ever seen. I'll post pictures when my camera is back in commission. We got a tour in spanish and thankfully understood it. The place was amazing and was apparently where JFK was a week before he was assassinated and you can see from one of the balconies the Catholic church he attended when he was in San Jose. I didnt quite catch all of it but apparently there is some new theory about a conspiracy related to his death that took place in San Jose, google it for more details because I don't know them in english. 

Saturday evening we went to a Mexican restaurant (ha) to watch the Costa Rica vs. Trinidad/Tobago soccer game. good time, good food, good friends, 2-4-1 beers. Costa Rica won, all around successful day. 

Didn't go out Saturday night either because we had to get up very early Sunday for a 3 hour van ride to La Fortuna to go to the Arenal Volcano or Volcan Arenal. Along the way, we stopped at the house of the mother of one of our directors so that she could get her swimming suit... This was over 2 hours into the drive and we all wanted to stretch our legs. An ongoing obsession on our trip has been sloths. We all want to see a sloth. So, Zaida, our director, told us that back in the backyard of her mom's place was a tree that a sloth is usually in. So we wandered back there in hopes of seeing a sloth. So there I was scanning the tree for the little guy when all of a sudden i hear a bunch of commotion and turn around to see everyone going nuts. I didn't know what was wrong, even the dog was rolling around on the ground going crazy, then everyone started to run, so I started to run, what ever it was i didn't want to be in the back... Then i heard the zzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Taking in to consideration that never in my life have i ever been stung by a bee or wasp and the fact that mosquitos don't prefer me, i decided to walk along with about four others. guess who didn't get stung, definitely not the flailing targets. I guess i'm not sweet enough after all. Well the ones who felt the wrath felt it good. Ross got stung next to his eye and on his arm, Jessica in the middle of her chest and on her hand, which is now  comparable to an inflated plastic glove... and the others got them in misc. places, including Zaida who said she had never before been stung so badly or so many times. Needless to say we didn't see the sloth...

Battle wounds iced up, we got back in the van and completed the journey.

We arrived after the bumpiest car ride of my life to the most fantastic buffet of my life. I ate entirely too much. Who cares. I waddled down to the locker rooms but my stuff away and we went to explore the 18 natural hot springs at the resort. They ranged from 86 to 103 degrees. Can you say heaven? And we saw tucans! We spent hours and hours going from pool to pool, spending a lot of time in one with a jacuzzi on the side and on one with a slide! Exhausted we gathered and boarded the van for the ride back. On our way out of the resort they stopped the van because Zaida had called down to the guards to ask them to look for sloths and to let us know if they saw one. They did! It was waaaay up in a tree but we saw it! And hooray for zoom! Finally content well, maybe some still bitter about the bees, we headed home. We exchanged stories on the bus basically of all the things our parents wouldn't be proud of, BUT that we've learned great lessons from... 

Got back into Sabanilla at 8 and came home and had no room for dinner after the buffet. Then, the power went out. That was interesting, but really no different than in Kansas. Things just get a lot more boring. They came back on within the hour and I passed out.

Monday was rough. Back to school. I discovered that maybe the waterproof digital camera didn't quite have the strength to endure the hot springs... it's in a bag of rice right now in attempt to dry out whatever got too wet... fingers crossed please. 

Got homework, did it, bought some plantain chips, ants infested them, ate finally, stomach didn't like it, tried to sleep, couldn't, tried to do more homework, slept. Set an alarm, ignored it. slept for 9 hours. Woke up, showered. Went back to bed, alarm went off. Happy Tuesday. 

Today was much better. sorry for the dreary paragraph. Bought more plantain chips, ate them all at once so that the ants couldn't. Got some homework done, discovered skype so i can now video chat. Mom, good luck. ask Ben. 

I'm currently typing a presentation for tomorrow over my favorite book, The Center of Everything by Laura Moriarty, turns out its better than i thought for such presentation since she is from Kansas and the story takes place in Kansas. How perfect. I can talk for 5 minutes over that easily. 

Well that's all for now, pictures later when camera is free from the rice.

Molly

bailamos el swing criollo

Buenas

The discoteca adventure was a success. Nearly the complete opposite of a night out in Lawrence I must say. There were 8 of us who went so we took two taxis. The taxi drivers here would win every racing video game you could throw at them. In addition to a lack of street signs, I have yet to see a speed limit sign. There is no police jurisdiction over the traffic... Very thrilling, very scary. 

We arrived, walked in and the layout was interesting. There was a staircase leading upstairs to a very chill, dark and smoky bar with karaoke...costa ricans singing Journey...yeah. Inside the door to the left was where we stayed. There was a bar then a lot of tables with place settings and then a huge dance floor. We sat at a table and had a waitor who collected money after every drink. No such thing as a tab here. Had a couple imperials, which is the beer of Costa Rica. Good, tastes like Bud. It was Andrea's birthday and I wanted to buy her a shot... straight liquor or nothing here. No mixed shots. And what was the cheapest? tequila. She hated me, and then wanted another. ha. 

Chris finally managed to get us girls one by one onto the dance floor and it was a blast. We just tried to watch and copy everyone else. We had fun, so who cares how ridiculous we looked. 

We left around 11:15, which is so early, but we went out at 8:30, and we all had class this morning early early. It was a lot of fun...and once again, NO TIPPING. its fantastic. 

Ironically, today in class we learned all about the type of dance invented in Costa Rica; el swing criollo. It is an imitation of American swing to cuban music. Not similar to swing at all though, but they were inspired by it. We watched a video of it, very interesting. 

At the end of class at 1 it started to rain... and didn't stop till 8:30 and it was coming down in sheets. obviously i didn't wait until 8:30 to come home... all of us were soaked to the bone. It was fun though, rain here is so much more pleasant than rain in Kansas. 

I'm staying in tonight because the guys are having a "guys night" with their host brothers and therefore we are male-less to go out. And we're all to scared since we all live separately and would have to be alone inevitably at some point in the night. Got my homework done however and learned me some verbs. 

Tomorrow we are going to down town San Jose to visit some museums and shop then return to Sabanilla in the afternoon to go to a bar to watch the futbol game. I don't know who they're playing but we have jerseys!  

Had chicken soup for dinner. It had pears in it! and a whole drumstick that you basically either just let soak and then pick up and eat, or stab at it with your spoon till the meat falls off. I'm terrible at eating here, I make a mess every time. Especially with rice. Oh well, at least I eat everything that she puts in front of me, which makes her so happy because the last kid wanted chicken and papas and rice, separate, never mixed, and only apples and store bought juice. what an idiot. 

That's all the excitement (and not so exciting) for now.

OLE OLE OLE TICO TICO

Day 3 of class complete! 

On a more exciting front, three other kids and I went to the USA v. Costa Rica game. It was amazing. We took a taxi from Sabanilla to the stadium and bought jerseys for the equivalent of 9 bucks and then got tickets for like 22 bucks each and pizza and pop for 4 total. SOOOOO much cheaper than if we went to the same game in the US. 

The crowd was insane. So into it. The solid concrete bleachers were shaking hard enough to throw someone off. The US played horribly in comparison to Costa Rica so we were pleased we were wearing the Costa Rica jerseys. Call me a traitor, whatever. It was fun. Took a taxi back, again cheap. 

A little about the taxi systems. Only ride the nice looking red ones with yellow triangles on them. There are taxi piratas that take you to God knows where for God knows what. Therefore we were quite picky in our taxi choices. 

Tonight is one of the girls' birthdays and we are going to Castro's which is a discoteca. we will see how that goes. I dont know the protocol for attire or anything... 

I actually have lost interest in typing. more later.

Day 2

Buenas!

I just got home from my first day of class. We had class from 9-1 with a 30 min break for lunch. Today was a little different because we were all in one room with one teacher with no true set curriculum because there were a few complications setting up which students are in which classes, but it was all figured out today. So tomorrow and everyday until the end will be a day of 2, two-hour long classes from 9-11 and 11-1 with a a break in there somewhere. 

The class room is about the same size as KU's regular classrooms but each desk was a little station with side walls and an audio recorder thing. I do not know if we will be using them but they're there and are in the way of putting a notebook down in any normal fashion. The teacher's name is Ericka and she is very nice and very funny. 

We wandered around today after class in the area surrounding the campus, which, by the way makes KU look TINY! It is huge and there are no street names here. And if there are, no one knows them. And the people are terrible at giving directions. Anyway, we managed to find our way from the Kansas office to the "letras" building that our classes are in. We went into the outlet mall... tacky tacky tacky. We quickly left and went to a restaurant called el Buffalo. very different from Buffalo Bobs. thank the lord. There were 9 of us and our total for every one was 16,000 callones which is the equivalent to $32! CHEAP!! we all had full meals too. I had arroz con pollo which was delicious, spare that is strangely came with french fries... I do not know if it is the same everywhere, but at this restaurant, the waitress took our order and then brought the ticket and we each paid even before we got our food. I guess better safe than sorry! 

Then we all were perplexed by the issue of the tip... do we leave one? is it rude? is it optional? how much? i think we ended up leaving 700 callones which is like ~2 dollars, so... it was either a terrible tip or a spectacular one... i shall google it. or ask my family.

Then two boys in the group, Kevin and Chris, who live very close to me, and I  rode the bus back to our town and went to Mas por Menos, which is the grocery store and wandered around and i bought some of the fantasic salsa that is soooooo fantasic here. i put it on everything. Then the three of us walked to their house (they are one of two houses with two KU students) and checked it out then went to the internet cafe across the street from their casa. 

Chris walked me home, and now i'm sitting in my bed on the internet, which seems to only exist at certain times so if I am every chatting with any of you and suddenly disappear... that is why. 

So ironically, the internet just left me. And i am finishing this out but will have to save it until later when the internet returns...

Bienvenidos a Costa Rica!

5.31

I am officially sitting on my bed in what will be my home for the next 5 weeks. However the bed I’m sitting on is only temporary because the family I’m staying with is hosting another kid from somewhere (would know where if I would have asked him or if the host mom knew, but he doesn’t speak any Spanish…) so he is in what will be my room until Thursday. I’m writing this on Word right now because as expected, there is no wireless internet, so I’ll just have to zip drive this little blurp over to the internet tomorrow.

The second leg of the trip was a little bit more annoying than the first. Another girl from the program, Amber, and I were on the same plane both legs and had a 4-hour layover in Dallas. We ate, and then ate some more and sat and sat some more because our backpacks were too heavy to lug around wandering. Our flight was delayed some 45 minutes or so and we arrived to San Jose a little over an hour late. The flight wasn’t too bad; they served dinner; chicken with pasta and salad and a perfectly spherical roll. Watched Marley and Me, which, now that I think about it, may be the last American movie I see for awhile?

I sat next to a guy, Matt, that was from California headed to Costa Rica to surf for two months. He writes iPhone apps for a living, interesting guy he was. He was canceling his cell phone service as the plane was taxing onto the runway. That was entertaining because he had to put his phone down every time the flight attendant walked by resulting in several “I’m sorry I did not understand your request, please choose from the following options”, which made the process only so much longer. I thought I was last minute setting my plan up two days ago.

We landed, made it through customs, got our baggage, wandered outside, encountered the director waiting with a sign with a jayhawk on her sign, got on a bus with 6 other kids in the program and drove around dropping everyone off one by one all over San Jose and the surrounding areas.

I am Sabanilla. My host mom here is Laura, and she and I had a 30-minute conversation, which, much to my amazement went very smoothly. I sensed a lot of relief from her as well. And if it went as well as I would like to think, what I understand is that breakfast is at 7:30 in the morning and we need to be on the UCR campus at 8:30. To do what? I have no idea. So I am going to bed, in a twin bed with Noah’s Arc sheets :). The walls are painted green in both this room and my permanent room, which makes me quite happy. My window is open, sans screen, and I’ve got lots of winged visitors… better get used to it I suppose.

Adios