tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21837384542161852722024-02-21T03:23:26.824-08:00Mis Aventuras en Costa Rica!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02141075455954663973noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2183738454216185272.post-9928214341642807932015-04-12T18:19:00.002-07:002015-04-12T18:19:25.499-07:00La semana antes de Semana Santa<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Marzo 22</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Sunday is the day of rest, as is everyday, but I was feeling especially lazy from dancing the night before. Sin embargo, I gathered the uumph to play some soccer! Which always turns out to be a good idea in hindsight. Two locals that we usually play with joined us.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Finished the game with a piece of chocolate cake shared with May and Hannah from Santa Clara, as per usual <span style="font-size: x-small;">(hey, exercise = earned chocolate cake)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Marzo 23</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Crimson-fronted parakeet audited our spanish class, gorgeous but noisy little buggers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Almost forgot about our meeting with Luis for a discussion about holy week and queque for May's birthday. After happy birthday was sung and cake was served, Luis warned us about "beaches, jesus, alcohol, and sex" - those are exactly what comes to mind when I think of Holy Week, jajaja.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Marzo 24</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Beautiful day, enjoyed lunch outside.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Saw my nephew's smile for the first time...can he be any stinkin' cuter???</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Marzo 25</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Spanish class ended early, went to a soccer game after with ICDS folks between UCR and Limon. Even for a college games, fans were pretty crazy. There was one guy standing in front of us that would go berserk if Limon did something wrong, dedicated.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We were joined by the students in the other Spring Program, and I photobombed their selfie...this is Bri and Hunter, and me awkwardly eating my Milkyway...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Much to the dedicated fan's dismay, as well as all the other Limon fans, they lost pretty bad. They gave a good fight in the second half though!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Cute Niece and Nephew photo update: most precious little beings ever.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Marzo 26</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> "Poetry slam" in Helen's class, t'was awesome. Ilana and I did a song, others did poems, or songs as well. If you want to view lanz and my song, <a href="https://vimeo.com/123275626" target="_blank">click here</a>! <span style="font-size: x-small;">(keep in mind I am not musically inclined)</span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> Danielle and Stecy beat-boxed, favorite part of the whole thing, would be lying if I said I didn't break out in tears laughing. Then Helen shared a poem she had written about observations she's made around San Jose, very beautiful.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Marzo 27</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Left early for community service to buy bus tickets for Manuel Antonio - tag teamed it since we had to go to two different bus stations. Hit up Tracopa first for Manuel Antonio, then San Carlos so May could get the tickets for her group to go to La Fortuna.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Finallyyy arrived promptly at our service site, only to find that they were not expecting us...t</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">he school had off for semana santa already, so Jose was not there either, and we were supposed to interview him for our Community Engagement Final Paper<span style="font-size: x-small;"> (oops).</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">After working on some more beds, caught the bus back to San Jose and walked to post office to mail a few more postcards. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Smelled pizza hut and decided to be "those Americans" who bought pizza hut while in a foreign country.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Sat our booties in the park nearby and people watched, all sorts of things happening: </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">tight rope, yoga, breakdancing, art displays, and other people just enjoying the day. The guy on the tight rope would flip and bounce and do all sorts of tricks that seemed impossible to me. Then I started thinking about what all these people were doing hanging out in San Jose park in the middle of the day on a Friday - quite the community.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Marzo 28</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Woke up early for the organic green market with Chloe & Jean, this time I was determined to get the grilled cheese I had skipped out on last time. We all split the grilled cheese, along with a hummus sandwich. Then splurged a bit more and got this fruit pizza type thing <span style="font-size: x-small;">(that I spilled all over myself and almost dropped like 5 times)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And of course we couldn't leave without getting some more ice-lollies...mora y banano all around.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In preparation for Holy Week, I decided I would get my first bikini wax <span style="font-size: x-small;">(being a girl is rough sometimes people, and having to shave is the biggest pain in the rump)</span>. So after the market I set off on that mission. Terina and Sam had both gone to Planet Hair near UCR, so I started walking in that direction. When I finally found it, it was crazy busy, packed with people, I went up to the counter and realized I had forgot to look up how to say wax...so I tried as best I could and she knew what I wanted right away. Immediately I was shuffled to this little alley-like side room, started waxing away. Not quite as awkward as I imagined it was going to be, the more awkward thing was walking out of the room into the crowd of people that knew what I just got done, jaja. Paid my quite inexpensive bill, and went on my way.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Once I got home I realized something though, and a little advice for those who have yet to get waxed...make sure they get all the wax off! After trying to wipe off the leftovers with a towel unsuccessfully, I looked up that any type of oil helps, so I used the lavender body spray oil I had bought at the market the week before and I was all set.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The rest of the night was spent packing for semana santa!! There was no way I was going to fit a week's worth of clothing in my backpack, so I asked to borrow a little duffel from my host parents, and they happily obliged.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Details about Semana Santa to come!</span></h3>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02141075455954663973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2183738454216185272.post-50487336505613954642015-04-12T17:02:00.001-07:002015-04-12T17:02:34.999-07:00Montezuma, Feliz Cumpleanos a Maylin!<div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Not quite sure how this keeps happening, but another bazillion days to catch up on for blogging! My goodness, time can slow down any day now, jaja.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Marzo 12</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Volcan Turrialba erupted - no big deal here apparently. Pretty crazy to me though!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Airports shut down, of course the weekend that everyone's friends and families are visiting. Katie's family was here already, but Ilana's friend Sam was supposed to come and couldn't, then Samantha's boyfriend was supposed to come and didn't make it until this past Sunday, Jean and Meira's parents were flying in, luckily later on in the weekend though so they made it after the airports were reopened.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">In Rural and Urban, we had a seminar on micro finance and cooperatives. Break between classes then environmental issues, where we discussed the blue agenda, freshwater resources <span style="font-size: x-small;">(had quite a tough time staying awake, felt bad)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Then, I had my first bad experience here...I owed Ilana money from the Nicaragua trip because I forgot to bring cash, and I owed Maylin money for the hostel we were going to stay at in Montezuma, so I decided to go to the ATM before dinner to take out enough to cover my "I owe You's". However, I was taking out such a large amount that I had to use the "enter other amount" option, and I got freaked out because it was like 70,000 mil that I had to type in, and I thought I would mess it up and accidentally take out $600 dollars or something crazy. So, since there was no back button, I decided to just leave it as 0.00 and press continue. Tan pronto como I pressed the button, actually not even, like a second before as my finger was in motion towards it, I knew it was a bad idea, but my finger kept going and then the screen just stalled at "we are processing your request". Panic began to set in as a minute went by, then another, and another. Thank goodness Ellie was with me, because my tico phone had died a few days before and when I went to turn it back on after recharging it, it required a PIN that I had no idea what to type, so my tico phone was currently out of order. BUT Ellie had hers, so I called the customer service line, with not much help other than telling me I can come pick it up tomorrow after 11am at their main branch. It took me a while to convince myself that it would not spit back out and someone would use it before I was able to get home and cancel the card. As I stood with Ellie, trying to decide what to do, a line was building up outside because the other ATM was out of order as well.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">One afte one, the people tried to use and then realized it was broken. A lady who had been waiting came up to Ellie and I and was talking about bus fare, my mind immediately thought she was asking us for bus fare, I figured that was why she was at the ATM, but then we realized she was offering us bus fare because she thought we were stuck. It was so kind, and totally diffused my stress in the moment. After that, Ellie and I shuffled back to my house so that I could use her free wifi calling to cancel my card. But of course the adventure was not over, the wifi in my house was not as adequate as the phone would have liked, so I had to stand like a statue and hope that the service would not fail after 30 minutes of "press 1 for this, type in your card number, press 4 for customer service, blah blah blah". Thankfully, I finally got a hold of the correct people and shut down access to my account.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">**Lesson Learned: Do not go to an ATM where there isn't a main branch attached, and especially after hours when the branch would have been closed anyway. Also, do not just type in 0.00, if you freak out, put in at least one number, even if you get charged a $5 service fee for one colone, jaja.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Following the whole ATM fiasco, I decided to go to the movies with MayLin and Hannah. Picked up some yummy FROYO beforehand <span style="font-size: x-small;">(although the chocolate flavor tasted a bit different, couldn't put my finger on it the what it tasted like)</span> and enjoyed the view from the mall balcony. Saw Codigo Enigma: The Imitation Game with Cumberbatch and Knightley, pretty great film.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">In celebration of May's birthday, we hit up Chicago for some drinks <span style="font-size: x-small;">(tequila sunrises all around)</span>, and then took some shots at Midnight...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Marzo 13</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Cumpleanos de May! Started out the day as per usual for a Friday, basking in basil at our </span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Community Service site. Worked on sifting bunches of finished compost. Then we were off to the bus station to meet everyone going to </span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Montezuma for the weekend!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Since we were all coming from our different service sites, it was a bit stressful making sure everyone got there on time, Meira arrived like 5 minutes prior to departure, phew! Enjoyed some falafel that Ilana brought us for lunch, and a short<span style="font-size: x-small;">(ish)</span> bus ride later we were ready to take the ferry to the Nicoya Peninsula. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Great views of the sunset and some Tona, we were happy campers. Lots of transportation swaps, after the ferry, waited for our bus to offload, then continued on for another hour or so. Once we were there, had to hop off and wait for a bus to take us to our final destination: Montezuma. I spotted the Luz en el Cielo, our hostel, on our way into town, so we knew exactly where to go once we made it. Swung by the little supermarket for some dinner supplies, then hiked back up the hill and checked in. Everyone got settled, started cooking dinner, then I borrowed Meira's shabbat candles <span style="font-size: x-small;">(that were a bit warped from the journey in the heat)</span> and we sung happy birthday to May. A few shots of rum later, and we were off to the beach to do some exploring. Downtown, immediately understood why Montezuma is nicknamed Montefuma, hippies filled the streets. As for the beach, the sky was so very clear, I think it was the most stars I have seen in a while, and the ocean was like bathtub water. Swam around, Terina taught us all how to salsa on the beach, met some new people, went to a bonfire...mas o menos. Overall, great first night in Montezuma.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Marzo 14</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">The next morning, a few of us woke up a bit woozy. Ate breakfast, provided by the hostel, then decided what to do for the day. A Danish guy, Peter, that we met at the hostel offered to walk with us to Montezuma Falls, so that was the adventure for the day. I was quite unsure of how that was going to go with how I was feeling, but I toughed out the hike, and was very happy I did. Spent the day scaling hillsides, hanging out in the pools under the waterfalls, and jumping off cliffs and ropeswings <span style="font-size: x-small;">(I opted out of the 40 foot jump, which ironically a video surfaced of Tom Brady doing like a week after we went)</span>. We even ran into a few people we had met at the bonfire the night before.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Ilana and I headed back to the hostel in the late afternoon, ran into everyone else who had left already, some headed to the beach and others as hungry as we were. More supplies for an early dinner <span style="font-size: x-small;">(since all we had for lunch were pringles and cereal that Blaise was nice enough to share with us)</span>. Stuffed our faces with pasta, cleaned up, then spent the night hanging out at the hostel and Peter sharing his rum with us. Meet some other people who were staying there from Ireland.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Marzo 15</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">The night before, May and I thought about waking up for sunrise, but this is as far as I got...both our alarms went off, immediately agreed "nope", snapped a little picture of the view from my bed, then went back to sleep for a few more hours.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Ate breakfast, packed up our stuff, checked out of Luz and went to the bus stop to catch the bus to Santa Teresa, which is on the other side of the peninsula. We were under the impression this would be a quick trip, ended up taking 1.5 hours, which ate up most of the time we had allocated to being at the beach before we had to be back bus back to the ferry.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">In any case, we finally made, plopped ourselves down amidst the palms, and soaked up waves, sun, and sand. The only catch were randomly placed, huge rocks that you ran into as you walked out past the surf. Collected some seashells, got some tanning time in, then back to the main road to flag down the bus back into town. While we were waiting, a police car pulled up and we thought we were being checked by immigration, but all they wanted to tell us was to watch our things carefully in case of theft.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Another gorgeous ferry sunset and a bus ride and we were back in San Jose.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Marzo 16</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">In Community Engagement, we were quite critical of Nicaragua trip. I w</span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">as not feeling super awesome, went to ICDS for lunch and to do my Spanish homework. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Profesora Silvana also wasn't feeling too hot, had a bad headache, so we reviewed pluscuamperfecto then called it a day. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Still a bit hungry, ate a PB&J, then came home and started watching Easy A, got distracted during the 80's movie flashback. Since I had not seen Can't Buy Me Love with Patrick Dempsey, I stopped Easy A and watched that up until dinner. Super corny, but 'twas entertaining. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">News about cocaine being smuggled to New York via yucas during dinner, crazy stuff.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">P.S. look at how adorable Rhett is, and how gorgeous my sister is! Gah. I want to be snuggling with them right now.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Marzo 17</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Happy St. Patricks Day, a bit of a blur! In r</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">ural and urban, had a seminar on payment for ecosystem services and talked Helen into doing slam poetry <span style="font-size: x-small;">(aka creative written word piece) </span>instead of quiz, score! During my </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">break - got some yummy pina bread from Santa Clara and c</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">ried at leprechaun picture Sara sent of Rhett & Peyton.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I definitely think the birth of Rhett has brought out my homesickness...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Marzo 18</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">No community engagement, whoop whoop. However, in </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Spanish we had a quiz, felt so-so about it, studied pluscuamperfecto <span style="font-size: x-small;">(I had lived...)</span> and preterito perfecto <span style="font-size: x-small;">(I have been thinking...)</span> so much, and was only a bit of the quiz, whereas pronombres was a lotttt of it, and I barely studied them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This was my, "one month until I leave, whaaaa!?!?" face..</span></div>
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Procrastinated like crazy <span style="font-size: x-small;">(and like usual)</span> for my mind maps, watched a bunch of videos from ellen, youtube, and jimmy kimmel. Sorry these are such short and un-detailed entries, I just want to catch up!</div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Marzo 19</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Ordered Peyton's birthday present, can't believe she will be 6 years old so soon.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">& little guy is already 10 days old, what?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Marzo 20</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Trees with flowers are my favorite. Started the day with </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Community Service, learned how to make a compost pile! Although it smelled quite disgusting when we harvested plants from the pound for the pile, it was rewarding. Even got to use a machete for the first time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Spent the rest of the time weeding and taking pictures of the grounds.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Swung by the </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">post office to mail some more postcards <span style="font-size: x-small;">(even though the ones I sent in February still had not reached their destinations)</span>. H</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">it up the ATM with my new authorized card - so nervous cause had to type in 250,000.00...luckily May was with me and helped ease my PTSD from my last interaction with the ATM. Afterwards, s</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">howered, accidentally walked out of my bathroom naked and had forgot to shut the door to my room, luckily no one was in the kitchen or laundry room...could have been awkward. Then decided to do some b</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">athing suit shopping with May!</span></div>
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<h3 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Marzo 21</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Met up at the Beer Factory where Chloe lives to go to La Feria Verde Organica with Chloe, Ellie, May, Hannah, Ilana and Kip. SO COOL, down huge staircase and you were immersed in music, amazing food, and crafts of all sorts.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Spent a good amount of time exploring every booth and debating what to buy and not to buy. Ended up getting some lavender body spray, pesto bread, a handcrafted mug, yummy granola mix, tomato pesto sauce and some snacks, including an ice-lolly as Chloe would say.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Had to talk myself out of buying a lot more...from here we </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">walked to downtown San Jose, which was not as far as I thought. Admired the graffiti <span style="font-size: x-small;">(San Jose is filled with it!)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Took a stroll</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> through the touristy market, got some little gifts for people at home. Met up with Ilana's host mom for </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Falafel lunch. W</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">alked around a bit more then headed back home - got nervous cause bus went a different way than I was used to. After some rest, went to </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Ilana's house to work on our song for Rural & Urban SD <span style="font-size: x-small;">(pre-gamed with an episode of Friends and our pesto bread we bought at the market)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Changed for surprise birthday party thrown for Ilana's tia tica. Before the party started, went to the chinese market to get some rum with Chloe and Ilana for the festivities. When we went to pay, they </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">gave us bigger bottle from the back that was slightly more expensive, but obviously a better deal. When we returned to the party, introductions galore, and then served food immediately. The aunt's would bring the dishes to us, encouraging us to take some. Ilana's host mom brought only me arroz con pollo since she and Chloe are vegetarians, but the only problem was the arroz con pollo was not up my ally...spent a good five minutes thinking about how I would get rid of it. Asked Ilana where the trash was so I could sneak it in there, but she said I would be seen, jaja. So I decided I would just casually leave the rice somewhere and no one would know it was mine cause so many people were there, literally</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> as soon as I put it down, Elsie looks over at me from across the room and a sea of people and yells for me not to let it get cold. Ilana and Chloe got a kick out of that, it was pretty funny <span style="font-size: x-small;">(but I was able to ditch it on the kitchen table a bit later, success!)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Talked with cousin about how he and his wife met <span style="font-size: x-small;">(she was American)</span>. Met on a study abroad trip, were only friends, then he came to visit years later, ended up together, moved around, then finally ended up in Costa Rica and have three beautiful children. So cool, children speak both english and spanish fluently because mom only speaks in english to them and dad only speaks in spanish with them. They had a newborn with them, and I can only imagine the little baby must have been so overwhelmed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The daughter of the aunt being celebrated was dating this dutch dude, almost couldn't fit in the house, we were all shocked when we saw him, jaja, and had a momentary awkward interaction trying to figure out if he spoke spanish or english or neither.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Cake was served, a heartwarming speech was done by the honoree, and Ellie and Ilana played the uke in front of everyone. Elsie insisted I was up next, but I got myself out of it. Another win for Jenna.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Later that night, Chloe, Ellie, Ilana and I had planned to meet up with Chloe's friend from salsa class. Luckily, the aunt was leaving the same time we were and saved us a cab fare by dropping us off. Felt so bad, Chloe's friend waited for like an hour for us and when we arrived there was a bucket of beers awaiting. Peppers, the name of the club, was so great. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Everyone was sooooo good. I said it once, I will say it again, why do we not dance like this in the US</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">??? The club was for all ages, everyone was there to enjoy themselves. Spent a long time admiring this 60+ year old couple dancing the night away <span style="font-size: x-small;">(pictured below)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Jefe took us each for a swirl, or two, but mostly danced with Chloe, wink wink. Danced with Ilana and Ellie, and I don't think we were too shabby in comparison to everyone else, jaja! </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Time flew by, arrived back at home around 2:15am, oops!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">More to come in a bit...wanted to break the posts up so it wasn't one large one!</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02141075455954663973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2183738454216185272.post-15818920819834805072015-03-17T13:35:00.002-07:002015-03-17T13:35:37.846-07:00Knicker-rag-ooh-ah y un Bebe!<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Marzo 4</span></b></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">The only thing that was standing between us and Nicaragua was our midterm in Community Engagement! Went well </span><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(from what I could tell while I was doing it)</span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">, Spanish class, then soccer with some ICDS folks to let off some steam. I sat in the grass enjoying the breeze with May and Terina, but the breeze got a bit too chilly when the sun disappeared so I decided to head home to start packing for Nicaragua.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Packing went well for having to shove four days worth of clothes for all sorts of events in one backpack! I had heard Ellie talking about holding a moon ritual earlier that day and decided to join the festivities after dinner. Only thing is, I sort of forgot to mention that I was leaving at 7:30pm to my host parents, so I came out to dinner at 7:05pm to two huge hamburger patties, a mountain of rice, a bowl of some sort of squash dish, and a salad...I had been training for this moment. Tried to eat as fast as I could <span style="font-size: x-small;">(luckily my host sister offered to finish off the squash dish because I was running out of space and time)</span>. Washed my dishes then ran out to meet my ride to the moon ritual.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">The ritual, and the night in general, were very special and memorable. Meditation, sharing, music, laughter, wine, new friends. Very personal goals and stories were shared, and I felt honored that those who shared felt comfortable to do so in my presence.</span></div>
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVlmj8ZGVQkmbgPsVxgmRx75CKyOrr203leM64LVcux6c8NJpguvUSchKjxWFhBAT3BBSMhJ4m-yQ3rOgJk8TiioCrqOpjr335fLXm6OnheXrcSyYu-Bt1uECaaNMKFVpPKzMNZs5dvL0/s1600/10393990_1668277373399701_6572417957195383569_n.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVlmj8ZGVQkmbgPsVxgmRx75CKyOrr203leM64LVcux6c8NJpguvUSchKjxWFhBAT3BBSMhJ4m-yQ3rOgJk8TiioCrqOpjr335fLXm6OnheXrcSyYu-Bt1uECaaNMKFVpPKzMNZs5dvL0/s1600/10393990_1668277373399701_6572417957195383569_n.jpeg" height="320" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;">Ellie's drawing of the day from the ritual.</td></tr>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Around 11:00pm, went back to la casa de Ilana to hang out with Meira, Kip, Ellie, and her until the bus picked us up for our trip at 2:30am<span style="font-size: x-small;"> (no me gusta, folks)</span>. Always a good time with these peeps. Even tested out the stacknap, which I had never heard of before, in preparation for the painfully long bus ride </span><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: x-small;">(thought Ilana's bed was going to break)</span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">!</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUZbbskYD7lFJux5EadaOXRe9b_UwETXM5gZaODO0uRBTJ2xNAA7KlN0ctI63eKUQYh3eFZY6UweQdqi9mlGBfpZkrNUCVHHuqQ96QTRp517TCUGc16XEFbwkhUIcP_YIpjAMDtZRifD0/s1600/11025201_10152753878395003_3465729956289818944_n.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUZbbskYD7lFJux5EadaOXRe9b_UwETXM5gZaODO0uRBTJ2xNAA7KlN0ctI63eKUQYh3eFZY6UweQdqi9mlGBfpZkrNUCVHHuqQ96QTRp517TCUGc16XEFbwkhUIcP_YIpjAMDtZRifD0/s1600/11025201_10152753878395003_3465729956289818944_n.jpeg" height="239" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Around 1:30pm, I was getting a wee bit hungry, so Ilana and I planned on making these Indian ramen noodles, Maggi, that we love <span style="font-size: x-small;">(her momma brought from the states on her visit)</span>. However, we had a tough time figuring out how to use the stove..after waiting 20 minutes for the burners to get warm with no success, we realized there was an electrical switch we had to push. But after doing so, when I stuck my finger in the water to see if it was getting warm, the water shocked me! The first time I did it I thought my finger was just asleep, but then I did it again and almost peed laughing. Entonces, we turned off the switch and gave up on the prospect of cooking Maggi <span style="font-size: x-small;">(sadly)</span>.</span></div>
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<h3 style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Marzo 5</span></b></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">I guess the switch to the 5th occurred at 2:45am. Way too prepared, we waited outside with disco jesus at 2:45pm for the bus to pick us up. Soon regretted this move when we realized it would probably not be right on time and it was cold(ish) out. Bus marked Turismo rolled up soon enough and we joined out sleepy classmates.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">For it being 3:00am, the whole ordeal was fairly organized. Arrived at the main bus station, filled out our immigration papers, obtained our tickets, and boarded in a decent amount of time. Departed at 4:00am, Nicaragua bound! **Side Note: the reason the title of this post is "Knicker-rag-ooh-ah" is because our one british professor Helen pronounces it that way and it sort of is a running joke in our ICDS group <span style="font-size: x-small;">(but apparently was not exclusive to our group because Joaquin was in on it, and also not exclusive to Helen because our british friend Chloe also pronounces it that way)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Anyways, I had a </span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">terrible time sleeping <span style="font-size: x-small;">(as expected)</span> but at least seats reclined way way way back and I had a window seat so I can't complain! </span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Luis had warned us that the bus would be beyond freezing, I prepared by wearing a sweater but also found myself using the towel I brought for the beach as a blanket. Stopped for breakfast around 6:30am. With everyone going in and out of sleep, the border crossing was quite abrupt.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Wake up, gather all your stuff, and exit in the bus in a jiffy - safe to say I was at the end of the customs line. After exiting Costa Rica, we had to enter Nicaragua, so back on the bus we went for about 5 minutes, back off to do money exchange and baggage check, translated to men holding stacks of cash swarming you as you exited the bus asking to exchange colones to cordobas <span style="font-size: x-small;">(overwhelming to say the least)</span>. "No gracias, no gracias, no gracias" is all I said until I could figure out the correct exchange rate and who was trustworthy. Once I figured out it was 47 cordobas to 1 mil, the guy did the calculations right in front of me and gave me my cordobas. The baggage check was simply placing your bags on these wooden pallets in the middle of the little trinket and snack market for the guys to glance through and handing them your customs paper.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Following all this, we waited around this area for over an hour <span style="font-size: x-small;">(maybe two)</span> in the burning hot sun while Nicaraguan customs looked over our passports. However, I am</span><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> convinced it was cause they knew we would buy more things if they made us wait around for two hours. I plopped myself down on the pavement and tried to hide in the shade provided by the bus, but as noon approached, shade quickly disappeared and I resorted to using my towel as a little canopy. Finalllly, they began calling our names to board the bus and we were off again. This time with an extremely loud <span style="font-size: x-small;">(and bad)</span> Keanu Reeves movie playing. Within the first five minutes his </span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">cute little beagle puppy was murdered, Katie and I were in tears, and I knew I wasn't interested in watching the rest of it, jaja.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">The movie ended as soon as we arrived at our stop in Granada, where two tour guides picked us up to accompany us for the rest of the trip! First stop was Hotel Granada to drop our things, freshen up, then head to lunch. The town had a much more colonial feel to in that San Jose. Very pretty, but also very "touristy" area.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Everyone was hungry and ready for lunch at Telepizza. There was a bit of a hassle with the lunchs we had ordered in advanced, everyone was under the impression that all the options were vegetarian, so half of the vegetarians ordered the eggplant fettucini dish, which turned out to have ham in it. Apparently the concept's of vegetarianism and especially veganism have not infiltrated the culture yet. Nonetheless, eventually it was sorted out and everyone was stuffed from this neat little pizza place.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">From there we were supposed to begin our tour of the city, but we took a mid-day break to swim back at the hotel or siesta. Along the way, May, Chloe and I stopped in the leather shop and </span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">jewelry stands, but I wanted to save my money for the Masaya Market the next day. Also swung by the smoothie shop and spoke with a nice local for a bit before heading back to the hotel.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Rushed to get the key from Sam, took like 5 minutes to get from our room to the pool because the property was so large, but I made it for a dip in the pool. So refreshing, played a pretty unsuccessful but fun game of categories.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">3:30pm, time for tours, beginning with exploring San Francisco Church and Museum. When we arrived, a walking band came up behind us and entered the church, still not quite sure what the gathering was about but it was an pleasant surprise.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">From here we walked through the Central Park, where little girls came running up to us. At first I thought they were just friendly, quickly realized they were begging for money. It was heartbreaking and unsettling. In a sort of shock, they realized I was not a good prospect and moved on to other gringos.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Our group soon arrived at La Merced Church, where we went up in the bell tower for a gorgeous view of Granada.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">From there, we visited just one part of an NGO called <a href="http://www.tioantonio.org/" target="_blank">Tio Antonio Centro Social</a>. The portion we visited was <a href="http://athomeabroad.hubpages.com/hub/Hammocks-with-a-Purpose" target="_blank">Hamacas Tio Antonio</a>, where blind, mute, deaf, or other mentally handicapped individuals are employed to make hammocks <span style="font-size: x-small;">(there was a hammock large enough to fit 30 people, insane)</span>. This NGO was definitely at the top of everyone's list of favorite places we visited while in Nicaragua.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Once the tours were done, we were given free time to explore Granada as we pleased. I had my eye on some gelato we passed a while back, so after looking around the market a bit a group of us headed there. Settled on tiramisu flavor - good choice.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Met back at hotel for dinner, walked to a little restaurant for some </span>q<span style="font-family: Georgia;">uinoa and lentil salad, also a good choice. After everyone was stuffed, went b</span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">ack to hotel for more pool time, of course stopping along the way to try some free samples of chocolate.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Had some lap competitions, where I quickly realized how out of shape I am <span style="font-size: x-small;">(kip swam right into the side of the pool, oops). </span>Also played some chicken, Kip and I were the reigning champs. A few hours later, got a hot shower then </span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">explored the hotel property with Sam and Ellie. Climbed on a little portion of the roof to continue the moon ritual. Then wandered around with Sam's flashlight to other hidden parts of the property.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;">Ellie's Daily Doodle</td></tr>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Marzo 6</span></b></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Checked out of Hotel Granada after a big breakfast buffet <span style="font-size: x-small;">(sadly)</span>, and </span>head<span style="font-family: Georgia;">ed in the direction of Volcan Masaya.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Little tour at the visitor center before heading up to the crater <span style="font-size: x-small;">(live bats flying around in the fake bat cave)</span>.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;">Pretty cool mural and diorama of volcanoes in Nicaragua.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The crater was super cloudy, so we were unable to see the lava pool, but still gorgeous views surrounding us. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Hiked up the hill a bit to get an even better view. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Also, it was crazy the stark contrast of the smell of sulphur if you stuck your head just a bit over the stone wall, smell was overpowering in a difference of a few inches.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Back down the hill and off to Masaya Market. Turned out I did not need to save my money for it, was not my cup of tea <span style="font-size: x-small;">(aside from the chicken baskets that Meira, May and I snapped a pic with)</span>. Shop people hounding you to buy stuff, found myself a hammock seat that I just lounged in until everyone was ready to roll.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">We had lunch on the go - chicken wrap and french fries - on our way to the ferry to Ometepe Island. Quick bathroom break once we arrived at the port for 20 cents. Started out</span><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> on top of the boat for the ride, but then a crazy storm encapsulated us, so I sat inside. Everyone else had the same idea, so I was left to chill on the floor with this little guy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Thankfully the storm didn't last the entire ride, so </span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">after it was over I was able to go back up top and enjoy the view. B</span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">us to Hotel Finca Venecia, where we would be staying the next two nights <span style="font-size: x-small;">(gorgeous)</span>. Lakefront villa with Ellie and Isabelle.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Immediately changed into my bathing suit, walked out to cement island, swam around, and watched the beautiful sunset <span style="font-size: x-small;">(meanwhile being continually scared I was going to be eaten by bull sharks)</span> it was a nice evening!</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Changed for dinner quick </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">(thought I might swim again later so I didn't shower, bad idea)</span>. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Had another food mishap, everyone who ordered the vegetable salad was not so happy about the result. Before Nicaragua, I decided I am going to not order meals with meat outside of my homestay, and so far it had not been working out in my favor <span style="font-size: x-small;">(first with the eggplant dish that ended up having meat, and then the salad that was not substantial enough for dinner)</span>. Our end of the table got a little rambunctious, Natalia ended up sucking plantano up her nose from laughing so hard, but all worked out. We just had to come to understand that Nicaraguans vision of vegetable salad is different than ours and the difference between vegetales and verduras in espanol.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Afterwards, we had a class with Joaquin on culture shock. Things such as cat-calling, poop, the dinner, how Costa Rica is not as different from our home culture as we thought, all came up in conversation.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Freaking out I was going to miss the birth of my nephew still, went to front of hotel to find wifi to check in with Sara. Ellie came with and we chatted while overlooking the volcano in the moonlight - very surreal. After a bit, we </span>r<span style="font-family: Georgia;">elocated to the lakefront, talked a bit more, joined by Chloe, Hannah, May and Kip before heading to bed.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Marzo 7</span></b></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Yummy breakfast split with Hannah, pancake and gallo pinto dishes, then had a 10 minute period to </span>prep our t<span style="font-family: Georgia;">eaching supplies for the english classes at a local school. I was part of the group assigned food, so we made two posters with fruits & vegetables and other major foods and drinks.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">The volunteer experience was far from what everyone envisioned. We were given 20 minute periods with 5 different groups, and half the time the kids knew what we were teaching them already. When we finished our lesson early, our group went around and talked with the students one on one, but definitely did not feel we made much of an impact on the community there. In one of the classes, this kid was video recording the lesson on his phone, but it didn't seem to come from a place of "I want to remember what they are teaching", more of "tontas gringas on display" - strange feeling. After the classes were over, we had lunch. But our entire ICDS group gathered in this secluded area to eat instead of intermingling with the students - I opted to sit on the periphery and found this kid named Rifino to chat with over some juice, a donut, and oranges. I felt bad when I left for the baseball game we had planned with the children because he said he couldn't play cause he had to work.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">In any case, we walked a while until we reached the baseball and soccer field. Set up a baisbol game, which at first it was going to be us against the kids, luckily we mixed up the teams a bit last minute, made it a lot more fun. These kids were so so good. I hit the ball both times I was up to bat, so that made me feel a bit better, but still felt very incompetent in comparison to their skills. The baseball game was also one of my favorite parts of the trip to Nicaragua.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">An hour or so later, we said farewell to the children and left for lunch at Finca de Santo Domingo.</span> <span style="font-family: Georgia;">Changed in tiny little bathrooms for Ojo de Agua, really gorgeous natural pools where we spent the afternoon swimming. Rope </span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">swing, peaceful, treading water competition with Kip <span style="font-size: x-small;">(turned out to a be a bad idea because we both didn't give up)</span>. Kept treading until we had to leave, oy vey.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Went back to Santo Domingo for beach time and dinner. There was a gorgeous tree right beside the restaurant that </span>I <span style="font-family: Georgia;">climbed with Blaise, Sam and Jean. I was mid climb when Ellie invited me to walk the beach with her, Chloe, Ilana, Meira and Kip, so once I got down I tried to catch up with them. Was walking for quite a ways before I found them, started to worry I was following a random group of people. Lovely view of the volcano and played with some sea clay.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Came across Luis heading back to basecamp, so we decided to head back as well. Climbed some more, danced and sung in the tree with Sam to Tarzan songs and bruno mars</span>, p<span style="font-family: Georgia;">layed some Ninja after sunset, then ate dinner. Dinner consisted of a </span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Madonna sing along, aerobics class taught by Wendy, and amazingggg food <span style="font-size: x-small;">(f</span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">ish, french fries, rice, grilled veggies, fanta, and topped off with strawberry ice cream for dessert)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Fat and happy, back on the bus to return to Hotel Finca Venecia for the night. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Short class with Joaquin on social exclusion, then s</span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">ome beers around the bonfire made by some other people staying at the hotel before f</span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">inally showering and packing up in prep for 5:00am departure.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Marzo 8</span></b></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Travel Day - departure from Ometepe. I was not a happy camper when I found out we would be leaving at 5:00am, but then I realized we would be on the ferry for the sunrise, and all was well again <span style="font-size: x-small;">(especially when it turned out to be so so beautiful)</span>. Plugged in my headphones and enjoyed the ride.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Tourism bus dropped us at the public bus stop, puppy infected with bot flies was hanging around us. So sad :( TransNica bus in site, boarded, watched Taken in espanol until we reached the border crossing. Stopped at the Nicaraguan border first, got some ice cream. Everyone was buying chocolate at the duty free shop, so I gave in last minute and bought some to take home with me, waited a bit too long and almost got left behind! Bus was doing last call as we ran to get on. Costa Rica crossing, sweaty sweaty in the customs line, had an x-ray machine, but no one was even reviewing it as our bags passed through. Load back up for a loud music video filled ride back to San Jose!</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Marzo 9 </span></b></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">BIG NEWS, I am an auntie to a beautiful baby boy, Everett Orion Eagle.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;">Peyton is the best big sister, and I am a lucky Auntie.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The 9th was so emotional for me. I was so happy to be able to be there in some way <span style="font-size: x-small;">(via FaceTime)</span>, but also so so sad that I could not be there in person. Tears were flowing a good bit <span style="font-size: x-small;">(a lot)</span> throughout the day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Since we had two community engagement classes while in Nicaragua, we did not have any this week. So, I had planned on going to get Italian food with Ilana and Ellie, but I decided I should stay in where I knew I would have wifi and could get in on the baby birthing action! Everett was due on the 6th, but didn't want to come out, so Sara was induced at 6:00am. Around 12:00pm <span style="font-size: x-small;">(my time, 2:00pm in the states)</span>, my beautiful baby nephew was born.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">While I was FaceTiming, right before Sara was going to start pushing, my host mama walked by my room and I told her mi sobrino was being born. I was not thinking that she would take that as an invitation to come say hi, but she did! jaja. Plopped her little butt on my bed all excited<span style="font-size: x-small;"> (granted she did not know my sister's legs were wide open)</span>. She quickly realized she probably should not be witnessing it, a little <span style="font-size: x-small;">(super)</span> awkward, jaja.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">After Everett made his appearance, I had to shower and go to Spanish class. Of course we had a joint class with all the different spanish levels to watch La Misma Luna, so I was blubbering like crazy in front of everyone. Once the movie ended, went to </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Ilana's house for celebratory Maggi <span style="font-size: x-small;">(Indian ramen noodles) </span>since I forgot to eat lunch and also, it was a day for celebrating! Meira and Ellie joined, we chatted a bit then I went home for dinner and more </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">FaceTiming beautiful baby boy.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Marzo 10</span></b></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Woke up quite late, mama knocked on my door at 7:30am, "Jenna, despierta?" - I reluctantly rolled out a bed. Rural & Urban, discussed Nicaragua trip. Voiced our complaints to Helen, and she proposed we make some suggestions and she would help implement them for the next group's trip. I think our main issue was we thought the trip would be based around us working in the community, but it was actually like 2 hours of community work (barely), and the rest very "pampered". Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed every minute of the pampering, and Nicaragua was beautiful, but we did not feel we made the impact we thought we were going to. Entonces, we proposed better planning between the school we are teaching at and ICDS so we can prepare lesson plans that are conducive to what the students want to learn and their level of English, sticking with one group for the entire 1.5 hr period rather than 20 min periods with 5 different groups, trading some of the time we spent doing things such as hanging out at the beach and ojo de agua for more community engagement, visiting more NGOs like Hamacas Tio Antonio, etc. Little tweaks that would give the trip a better balance and a better outcome.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Later that night, since it was welcome week at UCR (Universidad de Costa Rica), they were hosting a bunch of concerts and events. A group of us decided to go for the salsa concert and dancing. May, Hannah, Chloe, Ellie & I grabbed some beers quick then went over to join the massive crowd around UCR. Such a cool experience, everyone <span style="font-size: x-small;">(mostly) </span>dancing in partners, so professional looking. I wish they taught us how to dance like that in the states, rather than just grinding on one another like a bunch of horn dogs. Some of the ticos were nice enough to help us gringas out and teach us a few basic steps.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: small; font-weight: normal;">After the concerts ended, Chloe, Ellie and I went to a local bar and met some locals, chatted for a while. Once we realized it was approaching 1:00am, had to scoot on home so our host parents didn't worry.</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Marzo 11</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Since I do not recall much about Wednesday, I am just going to put up another heart-melting photo of Everett, hehe.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small; font-weight: normal;">Mas por venir sobre Montezuma el fin de semana pasado!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Buenas Tardes!<br />xoxo</span></h3>
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<!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02141075455954663973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2183738454216185272.post-3038592955209452232015-03-12T12:38:00.001-07:002015-03-12T12:38:33.429-07:00Me encanta Monteverde!<br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">WOWZA I cannot believe I have not blogged since February 22nd...more than two weeks! Oops.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Febrero 22 continued...</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I was very happy to find that dinner was only a sandwich. I realized I was not that hungry, but I still need to tell my mama to give me less for dinner. I forgot it was Oscar night, so watched that a bit after dinner with mi familia, then moved the party into mi habitacion. T'was the first time I turned on the little television in my room, very interesting to watch the Oscars in Spanish <span style="font-size: x-small;">(even if it was more background noise for doing homework!)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">P.S. Go Patricia Arquette!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Febrero 23</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Woke up at 8:00am, showered, desayuno, the usual. Started working on my spanish homework. The weather here has been unusually chilly for this time of year, so I was happy I remembered to bring a scarf to class to use as a blanket.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In Community Engagement, we discussed poverty and the lengths people are willing to go to project a facade to society about their lives. The fact that we are driven by desire and once one desire is filled, we have a need to find a new one which leads to a vicious cycle. On another note, our professor, Joaquin, also commented on people texting during class, which can be summed up in one statement, "Nobody looks at their crotch and smiles"...so great.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">After Community Engagement, ate some yummy goodies from the market for lunch while reviewing a climate change article we had to read for Spanish quiz. I did well - only three questions. We received our grades for the oral presentations we had done the previous week, my grammar killed me - but I did relatively well! <span style="font-size: x-small;">(Thank goodness I went 7 minutes over the minimum time limit because I got bonus points! woo woo.) </span>After the quiz, we reviewed pronouns <span style="font-size: x-small;">(direct, indirect and reflexive)</span> quick and then got out early for once!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Shimmied on home to start studying for my Rural and Urban SD midterm (which I didn't end up starting until way later).</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;">procrastination selfie.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">No idea what I do with myself while procrastinating<span style="font-size: x-small;"> (snapchatting pey)</span>, but after a tasty dinner of chickpeas, papas, and pollo, I got to work finally. I settled on the questions concerning growth vs. degrowth and my position in the debate for the following class, deep ecology <span style="font-size: x-small;">(kill two birds with one stone)</span>. When I went out into the kitchen and discovered there were no more Soda Crackers <span style="font-size: x-small;">(my late night study snack)</span>, I called it quits and went to bed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Febrero 24</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Two midterms day!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In preparation for Rural and Urban, I outlined a bit from the notes I organized the night prior and headed out the door for the exam. It consisted of our choosing two open-ended essay questions from a list of ten and answering them in class. Luckily Helen decided last minute to give us the entire period <span style="font-size: x-small;">(2 hours)</span> rather than just one like she had done previously. I ended up taking 1 hour and 45 minutes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I came home <span style="font-size: x-small;">(flushed with a cramping hand from writing so vigorously)</span> intending to study for my Environmental Issues exam in a few hours, but opted to listen to my "relax and unwind" playlist on Spotify and curl up in a ball on my bed. Around 1:00pm I began to get hungry so I took my granadilla and went to the ICDS office for lunch. Wendy was super nice and let me make a PB&J with her Goober and Bread supplies.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Our exam was proctored by Jorge, the director of ICDS, because Yanina had broken her ankle and needed surgery. The exam was very straightforward, just so much to answer in such a short time period! It was open book and could be typed and emailed to Yanina once we were finished, but even with typing, I was freaking out about how I could answer all the questions sufficiently. There were five open-ended essays with multiple questions within each essay. It is safe to say, the first question was the most detailed and then I quickly realized I needed to be more succinct in answering the others if I wanted to get through all of them in time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As a reward for getting through my first two midterms, May, Hannah, Katie and I went to POPS. I got a scoop of galleta <span style="font-size: x-small;">(cookies and cream)</span> and a scoop of birthday queque <span style="font-size: x-small;">(ice cream always puts me in a good mood)</span>. Then it was time to study for my Spanish midterm, but I felt worse for Katie and the others in the lower level because they were somehow already on the future tense, as well as needing to know the present and preterite tenses!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Some fish for din din with some cheesy squash <span style="font-size: x-small;">(drool)</span>, and booked tours Monteverde!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Febrero 25</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Obnoxiously texting and snapchatting Sara for Bebe Updates! So began my morning ritual with that. So scared he was going to be born while I was in Nicaragua with so-so wifi access.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Not really sure what I did with the rest of my day other than attending Community Engagement and completing my Spanish midterm <span style="font-size: x-small;">(which turned out to be much much better than I anticipated, got a 97%)</span>. Also, it seems I have a pattern of getting a chicken empanada right before a big Spanish test or presentation, maybe tis goodluck!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Febrero 26</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Had a debate in Rural and Urban SD, which created a really great platform for the students to teach the material instead of Helen <span style="font-size: x-small;">(not that I dislike Helen's lectures, it was just a nice change of pace for class)</span>. Hannah and I were assigned Deep Ecology, while others defined and defended Marxist Ecology, Ecofeminism, Strong Sustainability, and Ecological Modernity. A lot of the theories overlapped, except for ecological modernity, so I wish we would have brought more diverse ideas into the discussion.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Normal break between Rural and Urban and Environmental Issues, decided I would take a quick power nap half hour before Env. Issues started <span style="font-size: x-small;">(not a good idea)</span>, almost missed the beginning of class! But, since I live like a hop skip and jump away from the ICDS office, I was still the first one there, jaja. Yanina was still recovering from her surgery, so Jorge sat in on our class as we watched the Cove. I had watched this documentary years ago with my friend Alannah and her momma, but I forgot just how awful it was. Dolphins slaughtered in masses in a secret cove in Japan. A very sad truth, but everyone should see it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Afterwards, I found out Ilana was awarded the CLS <span style="font-size: x-small;">(Critical Language Scholarship) </span>she applied for way back in the fall, where she gets to study Hindi in India for the summer for free! So a big group of us went to get french fries to celebrate. Around sunset, walked back home and started packing for Monteverde.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Febrero 27</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Started the day with community service! May and I FINALLY got the buses down, so happy!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Seems so minuscule but it was such a big accomplishment to get dropped off and picked up right outside IPICIM. Since we had completed the borders for the new vegetable beds, our task was to take inventory of the plants and label the beds.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It was great because I learned a lot of vegetable names and got to bask in the smell of romero and albaca <span style="font-size: x-small;">(rosemary and basil)</span> all. day. long. <span style="font-size: x-small;">(literally, stuck my head in the plants non-stop)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We left from our volunteer site for the bus station, but not before making a quick stop at a panaderia for some pizza pastries. Once we arrived at the bus station, in Barrio Mexico - a few blocks from the school we had painted the mural at - we met up with Katie and Ellie and decided to get some pre-departure drinks.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Everyone else arrived in pairs from their volunteer sites and soon we were boarding the bus for the 5 hour ride to the cloud forest! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We stopped about half way for bathroom and snack break, super sweaty.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">About 20 km from Monteverde the sun set, so it was dark and we were heading up this insane mountainside in a coach bus 2 ft from the cliffside. It was incredible <span style="font-size: x-small;">(and a bit scary)</span>, the wind was howling, dust was flying everywhere, and the moon lit up the mountains rolling in the distance.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The bus arrived in a surprisingly developed little town and a guy from our hostel was there to greet us and escort us to the right place. Quick check in and then we were off to find dinner somewhere in town. The first place we came across was the Tree House Restaurant: live music + a tree in the middle of the place = we were sold <span style="font-size: x-small;">(at least a few of us were)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Sam, Danielle, Jean, Hannah, May and I stayed and enjoyed some great tunes with our quesadillas. When we got back to the hostel, it was time for some shots, Jenga, and fireworks!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We may have gotten too rowdy and yelled at for disturbing others staying at the hostel, but it was a good time. Meira, Kip, Ellie and I went on a walk about to explore the area, even had a dog escort that reminded me of my Aunt Carly's pup Jinxy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Meira and Kip decided to wander down an unknown trail while Ellie and I backtracked back to the hostel <span style="font-size: x-small;">(was not thrilled with their decision, but they survived)</span>. When we got back, some of the crew was still awake so we chatted, gave and received back rubs, then called it a night.</span></div>
<h3 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Febrero 28</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The group that was going on the Canopy and Suspension Bridge Tour signed up for breakfast at 8:40am, we woke up to wind and rain, scared our tour would be cancelled.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Luckily by the time we finished our eggs and fruit it had calmed a bit. Since our bus wasn't picking us up until 10:30am, we decided to hit up the grocery store for some wine, snacks and water <span style="font-size: x-small;">(since I drank all of Ellie's water the night before)</span>. Chloe and Stecy arrived right before we were about to leave for the tour so Chloe joined in on the adventure while Stecy joined the other group who were going to hike!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">First up was the Suspension Bridges, saw some howler monkeys in the beginning, beautiful views and moss covered trees throughout.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I do wish we could have seen more wildlife, but the tour was amazing anyway. Then we had our Canopy Tour, which was incredible. I lost track of how many cables there were, but the views were beyond gorgeous and the guides were very friendly.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">At the end there was a tarzan swing that was as equally terrifying as it was exciting <span style="font-size: x-small;">(I was so nervous I was going to pee on everyone since I was the last to go and had a full bladder)</span>.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;">note my facial expression...</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">After the Tarzan swing was the last cable, super duper long and exhilarating. We needed to do this one in tandem because more weight was required to get all the way to the end of the cable, so Ellie and I flew over the cloud forest together.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As if all of that wasn't enough, then we explored the hummingbird garden...AMAZINGGGG. At one point I had five little guys on my hands. I cannot describe how happy I was, they were so beautiful and delicate.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">About an hour later, we began to realize none of us had eaten anything other than chocolate covered raisins and cashews since breakfast, so we told the Selvatura Tour people to call up a bus to take us back to town. It was past 4:00pm, but we thought we would try to get our bus tickets before heading back to the hostel, so we had them drop us there. Much to our dismay, it was already closed, so we walked back in the direction of the hostel - ended up at Taco Taco for some much needed delicious food. Fajita Burrito, nom nom.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Back to the hostel to clean up, really hot shower which was a great surprise, but my stomach was a bit upset so took some Pepto and laid in bed for a bit while others gathered in the common room to hang out. I began to feel better so I joined them for some wine and Madagascar watching <span style="font-size: x-small;">(made myself a bed out of stools and brought my pillow out)</span>. Once everyone returned from dinner and grocery runs, we played a heated game of spoons, followed by a cockroach crawling on Chloe and me, then some more Jenga. The group that had gone ziplining and such were invited to meet up with our guides for some drinks, so Chloe, Danielle, Ellie, Meira and I went out to meet them. However, Jenga got the best of us so we were an hour late and they were no where to be found. So, we decided to find a place to dance and gave up on meeting up with them. We came across a place called Taberna, great music and no cover charge - we were in. The only thing was no one was dancing except for this one really awesome couple. Consequently, it was us five gringas and one really awesome local couple on the dance floor.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A french guy came out and joined us after a bit, and a local sort of challenged Danielle to a break dance-off...I guess she won cause he ended up breaking his toe on a chair while doing some sort of trick? oops <span style="font-size: x-small;">(I hope he is okay)</span>. In any case, it was a great night - especially since we knew we would never see these people again so we could act as silly as we wanted, I wonder what all the locals were thinking...gringas tontas.</span></div>
<h3 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Marzo 1</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The morning began similar to the day before, very rainy and windy - but it didn't let up. I started out the morning clogging the hostel toilet and hunting down the front desk lady to get the plunger <span style="font-size: x-small;">(por supuesto)</span>. The group that went hiking the day before told us about some ficus trees that they climbed, so after pancakes and fruit, Chloe, Hannah, Ellie, May and I set out for those. First we had to make a stop at the bus station for our return tickets later that day - success. We got a bit lost going off the directions we had gathered the night before, and ended up stumbling upon some capuchins hanging out at a hostel nearby.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">After admiring those little guys for a bit, we went back to Taco Taco to get Ellie some breakfast and ask for proper directions <span style="font-size: x-small;">(got a map and all, so nice)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Up and up and up some pretty steep hills, and we finally came across a trail that looked like what the guy who gave us the map described. We found one big enough to climb. Once everyone else gave it a go, I decided to go in last. But Ellie was still in there and I wanted to go to the top, so we switched mid-tree, which was quite tricky but worked out <span style="font-size: x-small;">(surprisingly)</span>!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Such a cool experience. I later found out that we missed the big big ficus tree that would have been even sweeeeter, but I am happy that we found the one we did :)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We backtracked down the hill after following a little trail in the forest, and went back to the hostel to hang out before our bus at 2:40pm.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Even though we had to check out, the hostel was nice enough to let us store our bags there while venturing out in the morning, and also even let us use the kitchen to cook some ramen noodles for lunch. Power went out at the hostel so we just napped and lounged around, very cold and damp, luckily Ellie lended me a dry sweater.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;">headlamp to use the bathroom with no electricity!</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Decided we needed some hot chocolate, tea or coffee pre-departure so we hit up this cute little coffee shop. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The hot chocolate was much different than I was expecting - but then I added a packet of sugar and all was great, jaja.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Stopped at Taco Taco for a quesadilla for the road then jogged to the bus stop, worried that we were cutting it close. The bus ride back to San Jose wasn't too shabby, I was a bit sad I was not on the side of the bus that was best to view the ride down the mountain, but tis okay <span style="font-size: x-small;">(still got some views in there)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">There was some taxi chaos when we got back to the bus terminal, but Hannah, May and I shared one to downtown San Jose to catch the other bus back to San Pedro, no problema.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I had called my host parents and told them that I would be back for dinner - but once we got back to San Pedro I realized I was very full and not really wanting food. Then, my host mom was so nice and left me some chicken tortilla soup with avocado and stringy tortilla-crisps that it was too hard to pass up. I went to bed exhausted with a full belly.</span></div>
<h3 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Marzo 2</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Monday shock to the system <span style="font-size: x-small;">(I imagine)</span>. Not much jotted down for this day. In Community Engagement we reviewed for our midterm on Wednesday. In Spanish we reviewed pronouns more extensively! Then we had a meeting about Nicaragua departure with Luis, got us all super excited for the weekend ahead!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For some reason, I was super full that night at dinner <span style="font-size: x-small;">(I think all the food I had eaten the past few days caught up with me and my body was just like, "no more")</span> so I asked my mama if I could save most of my dinner for lunch tomorrow. She didn't seem too thrilled at the idea, hopefully she did not take offense, but she grilled me a bit about what I had for lunch and didn't seem convinced that fruit salad was all I had...jaja. In any case, I pulled out my "Jenna esta llena" joke and she laughed for a while, saying "que comico" :p</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Marzo 3</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Rural and Urban, reviewed our quiz from a few weeks ago and the SD spectrum theories. Worked on some research for Environmental Issues - individuals and/or NGOs that have had an impact in a certain field. Also looked around the WWOOF websites, thinking of possible adventures for this summer <span style="font-size: x-small;">(I've got the travel bug)</span>. Leftovers for lunch <span style="font-size: x-small;">(mashed yuca casserole with a layer of cheese and cooked vegetables, que rico)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Since I am a bit behind on posting, I will stop here for now so it will not be a HUGE post...but another one talking about Nicaragua and mi sobrino coming soon!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Buenas Tardes a Todos!</span></h3>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02141075455954663973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2183738454216185272.post-51625473504308440492015-02-22T18:53:00.000-08:002015-02-22T18:54:28.346-08:00Mural, Ferias Verdes & Mas!<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As I sit here eating one of the many manzanas de agua that I bought at the farmers market, with sunshine flowing into my room from the backyard and the sound of birds tweeting accompanying some soft tunes, I feel extremely fortunate. It is crazy to think that this whole experience could have very easily not happened. But it has, and I am here, and I am loving every second of it.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My Backyard view from my bed.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Febrero 14 (continued)...</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Everyone always compares how to pronounce my name to llena <span style="font-size: x-small;">(meaning "full")</span>, which is very fitting because I eat A LOT folks. I was especially feeling it on this day, my host mom made some sort of chicken enchilada casserole out of the leftovers from the night before, PLUS a <span style="font-size: x-small;">(large)</span> bowl of french onion soup and salad.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Had a very lazy V-day, watched "On the Road" and relaxed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Febrero 15</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Woke up around 9:00am. Ate a quick breakfast, worked on some Spanish, and took a shower. My mama told me they were going to go to her sisters' house to have a little birthday celebration for Cali, so I told her I would like to join. Around 12:45pm, she let me know that her and my papa were heading down but that Nati and I were going to run to the store first and then meet them there. This was my first outing with Natalia alone! Went well, chatted about her job and I asked her about places I should visit while I am here. I also learned that she was not a fan of slow drivers!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I was a bit confused on why we were going so far to get to the supermarket, but then I realized she had to go especially to Walmart to pick up concert tickets she had reserved via telephone or online <span style="font-size: x-small;">(not sure which)</span>. An added perk, she took a sort of back way so I was able to see more of the part of town I had yet to see or explore. Anyways, I was interested in going to the Walmart here just to see how it compared to Walmart back home > basically same look, just in spanish, jaja. Picked up some charcoal (which is "carbon"), she kept trying to explain to me, "bolas negras" - my mind was thinking she was looking for some sort of food, not a means to cooking the food - so, I was no help in locating it until I saw the big bags of charcoal labelled "CARBON" right in front of me. We got some sponges and beers as well then we were out.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Dropped the car back off at home then shimmied down the hill to I guess would be la casa de mis tias. Walked in to a kitchen full of older folks sitting in a circle, carrying on, and BBQ smoke rollin' in from the backyard. Immediately I was introduced, sat down, and fed! Hilda started to brag to everyone that I am not picky and I eat everything - no lie, I am a fatty <span style="font-size: x-small;">(llena Jenna)</span>. Had some yummy onion dip, cucumber sandwiches, refried black bean dip, things that looked like meatballs but I was told made out of some sort of banana? <span style="font-size: x-small;">(not sure if I heard that right)</span>. Then the meat came, sausage, chicken and pork slices.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">After the main course, I took a bathroom break <span style="font-size: x-small;">(t</span><span style="font-size: x-small;">he aunties live with their 85 year old uncle, who I accidentally walked in on in the bathroom, 'twas an awkward first meeting)</span> and then it was time for some music. One of the relatives, an older guy named Alofon <span style="font-size: x-small;">(sp?)</span> had a bag full of various percussion instruments, so each family member chose an instrument and we started jamming. Maracas, castanets, tambourine, guitaras, claves, guiro, and one of those party horns that make a really annoying sound were all going crazy. At first I was assigned maracas, but about five minutes in Sofia handed off her guitar to me. She thought since I had a ukulele I would be fine, but I was feeling a bit self-conscious. Luckily, my host papa had his guitar so I decided I would just see which note he played the most and try to copy it whenever he played it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Once the jam sesh was over, it was time for some dessert. They were making spears with 3 marshmallows on them to roast over the grill for everyone - I of course wanted in on that. So, I put in my order with Sofia and soon after had three crispy, droopy marshmallows handed to me, hehe. And to take a step further, these weren't just regular white marshmallows, they were flavored ones - so obviously one skewer wasn't enough. Round two happened. And then, there was an extra skewer made that no one was claiming, so I volunteered as tribute. Sofia offered it to me at first, and everyone was looking at me like "damnnn, girl already had two" so I said "I could, but I am not going to!"...Sofia sat next to me holding the skewer out until I gave in, which took a whopping 5 seconds. My host mama looked at me and said "nada dulce para usted manana! <span style="font-size: x-small;">(nothing sweet for you tomorrow)</span>, I guess 9 marshmallows was quite a lot - oops. On top of the fluffy balls of deliciousness, one of the auntie's had made an upside down pineapple cake, yumm! Sang Feliz Cumpleanos to my papa and then stuffed our faces some more.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Something interesting I noticed, I do not think a man went up to the table to get his own food once. It is weird how the women wait on the men, it is the same at meals at home as well. If Cali ever wants more to drink or eat, he asks Hilda to go get it for him. Just something I observed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Bellies full to the brim, the aunts showed me some of their embroidery and knitting projects, then I said goodbyes and went back home with Nati. Along the way we passed some Angel's Trumpets and she told me they smell good but are used as a hallucinogenic.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">No formal dinner cause we ate so much at the party, so I just skimmed over the reading for my Community Engagement class and called it a night!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Febrero 16</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Following a pop quiz in Community Engagement <span style="font-size: x-small;">(so happy I got the jist of the reading)</span> and an excruciatingly "bleh" Spanish class <span style="font-size: x-small;">(nothing personal to my teacher, it was just bleh cause we reviewed homework the whole time. Which was important, but took forever since it was like 8 pages of preterite vs. imperfect verb conjugation and lots of corrections)</span>, the 16th was exciting because Mama Ora and Michael arrived <span style="font-size: x-small;">(Ilana's mom and brother)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">ICDS had a meeting introducing us to Nicaragua for our upcoming service trip in two weeks and also as a sort of session to air comments about our service projects in San Jose. Afterwards, Ilana and her family, Kip and I went up to the field to play a bit of soccer - joined by two ticos. Super fun <span style="font-size: x-small;">(as per usual)</span>!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Febrero 17</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Another quiz day <span style="font-size: x-small;">(luckily not pop though)</span> in Rural and Urban Sustainable Development with Helen. Everything was straight forward and taken from the guide she gave us, except for the last question which threw everyone off. So aside from that, I think I did quite well <span style="font-size: x-small;">(hopefully we talked her into counting the last one as extra credit if anyone got it right- which I am pretty sure was only Maylin because it was from the portion of the seminar that she taught, jaja)</span>. Break, then Environmental Issues. We shared the news - my article was about the air pollution crisis in Dehli, India <span style="font-size: x-small;">(basically I would not go there if I were you)</span>. We were also supposed to watch Food Inc., but due to technical difficulties were let out early and just assigned to watch it outside of class <span style="font-size: x-small;">(which worked out for me since I have already seen it twice)</span>. Entonces, a group of us from that class went to get some chai tea and work on some tarea at a local vegetarian cafe - Neshuma.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Natalia found her latin lover, we skyped with Katie's boyfriend, and ran into two friends of Ellie's that moved here to have their baby.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The sun began to set, and we ventured back home for the night.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Febrero 18</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Spanish Oral Presentation Day. Oy vey. Had some breakfast with my papa - he made it since my mama was sick, asked him to look over the write up I did of what I was going to say. Two nights before I asked if I could practice with them the night before, but I didn't quite get that far in time. So, after he made a few corrections <span style="font-size: x-small;">(luckily not too many)</span>, I went to the ICDS office to organize it on some notecards. Lost track of time and was almost late for my Community Engagement class.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We talked about cultural differences in the work place <span style="font-size: x-small;">(group therapy session)</span>, and supposedly there was an earthquake in the middle of class that I somehow did not notice<span style="font-size: x-small;"> (don't know where my head was at...probably frantically going over my spanish presentation)</span>. Many thoughts were thrown around in relation to our personal experiences at our different sites, and basically the consensus was do the best with what you have and you have the power to make the best of your experience, which are very wise words.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo from our first day at Full Tierra.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Class ended, and the panic set in about Spanish. Jean and I got some smoothies and chicken empanadas, then went back to the classroom instead of the ICDS office to practice our speeches. A quick hour later, and it was actually happening. I feel like at some points, when I was stumbling over some conjugations, I just made something up that sounded right, and I definitely was sweating up a storm, but our professor said that everyone did really well. We will find out what "well" means tomorrow <span style="font-size: x-small;">(yikes! fingers crossed)</span>. Following the test, our class soon realized we were the only ones who were still in class doing things after the presentations were over, and all became a bit hostile about that <span style="font-size: x-small;">(jaja)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But afterwards, everyone went up to the soccer field to let off some steam. My brain was feeling a bit mushy and I was exhausted, so I joined the group on the sidelines to enjoy the sunshine and lay down in the grass. The game was the largest yet, a bunch of people from ICDS, some German students that Terina befriended, Esteban <span style="font-size: x-small;">(a local who is in some of the ICDS classes)</span>, and some other ticos all played while all the other ICDS peeps cheered and laughed on the sidelines.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Once the final goal was scored, everyone went back to their homestays for dinner and some of us made plans to meet back up later at the Beer Factory.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Esteban joined us, and we definitely freaked him out with some of our conversation topics <span style="font-size: x-small;">(paranormal activities, religion, the vastness of the universe, sexuality, queefing, etc.)</span>, but it was a good time had by all - will most definitely be returning there to hang out. Had a Costa Rican "bitch beer" as Ellie would call it <span style="font-size: x-small;">(jaja), </span>Rock Limon, and then for my second got a Blue Moon <span style="font-size: x-small;">(mhmm)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Febrero 19</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Thursday was nice, had class with Helen, then went home for a nice break with the breeze rollin' through my room from the backyard.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Environmental Issues we discussed the news and Agriculture - one interesting article that Tommy presented on was preventative measures being taken to stop poaching of Rhinoceros horns. People are injecting a poison in the the horn so that poachers will not want to take it for consumption...interesting way of combatting the issue, let's just hope it doesn't have negative effects for the rhinos.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Ilana and her family had returned from their trips to Jaco and Tortuguero, so we ordered dinner to go from Aroma & Sabor <span style="font-size: x-small;">(pizza & burrito for me)</span>, and went back to their hotel to eat. It was so nice to see them and catch up :) Ilana braided my hair super awesomely and then her and Misha walked me home.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Febrero 20</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Group community service activity!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Started the day quite early, plan to meet at the ICDS office at 7:00am. Since I forgot to tell my host parents that I had to leave so early (usually I leave at 8:30am on Fridays), I wrote a note quick and went out to grab some breakfast - none other than the chicken empanada from Aroma y Sabor. I was the first to arrive at the office, enjoyed the brisk morning. Soon Luis arrived and one by one everyone else did too. Made a PB&J sandwich for lunch, then we were off to <span style="background-color: white;">Escuela República de Argentina.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The day was filled with painting, happy children, futbol, and sunshine. Ellie designed the re-vamp of the pre-existing mural, and it turned out gorgeous!</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Before</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBGkiQw8-Fvjsn05qFiLdJgyeHuw62W7vB4YM51kgbde7HaZADO_BJuoPbHztSooWff7TReMXvP5irLX6RWKjLUdTDTlEQNE77OuACbwfSw6HF3QIybujvvN7-X_n9AptFrONipkkkFgY/s1600/10917365_919315134774886_4029081036300455691_n.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBGkiQw8-Fvjsn05qFiLdJgyeHuw62W7vB4YM51kgbde7HaZADO_BJuoPbHztSooWff7TReMXvP5irLX6RWKjLUdTDTlEQNE77OuACbwfSw6HF3QIybujvvN7-X_n9AptFrONipkkkFgY/s1600/10917365_919315134774886_4029081036300455691_n.jpeg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ellie's Design</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">During their recesses, the kids were so eager to help painting the gold figurines Ellie outlined on the bottom of the mural. Those moments were definitely my favorite part of the day. This one little boy named Marco would come find me each break. He was so helpful, went to wash brushes so that more kids could paint. At first, I was strung out about them painting, wanting to keep the mural "pristine", but then I soon realized that the kids is what the mural is all about and I just let them go at it, adding as much swirls, and hearts, and dots, and splatters as they wanted. It was great to see them so excited.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Around lunch time, the bottom part of the mural was pretty much complete, so those not helping with the higher up portions went to watch an assembly.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Argentinian Ambassador was there. The assembly was kicked off by this beyond adorable dance number to "Happy". Four little girls and three boys in red shuffled onto the stage and danced their little booties off - Sam and I were dying, "que lindooo".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">After, there was supposed to be a futbol match with ICDS and the students, but it turned out their were two children's teams so we sat it out. The mural was completed, cleaned up, admired, then we said farewell to the school!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Waited for bus for about 20 minutes until we realized it was right there all along. Exhausted and smelly, I showered. Ate some yummy dinner with the familia, then planned to go to the movies with some folks. Maylin, Hannah and I shared a cab, got our tickets, and with some time to spare walked around the mall a bit. They introduced me to churros, I can't believe I haven't tried them until now!! What delicious little fried sticks of dough, especially with some vanilla ice cream, que rico.. We joined Chloe, Katie, Jean, Danielle, Kip, and Stecy to watch Mortdecai - not as bad as I thought it was going to be, but I went in with pretty low expectations<span style="font-size: x-small;"> (but hey, movie tickets on a Friday night are only $4 here, so I'm not complaining)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We had also planned to go to bar afterwards but everyone was so sleepy - as Danielle put it when she texted Ellie who wanted to meet up with us at the bar, "we r all dead". Lol, not good as a stand alone text when people are out and about in a foreign country. When I got back home, I was sleepy but not ready for bed, so I was just sitting listening to some spotify. Turns out my body was ready for sleep, woke up at 4:35am very disoriented, turned off my light and brushed my teeth.</span></div>
<h3 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Febrero 21</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Quick breakfast, then went to meet everyone at bus stop outside ULatina to head over to La Feria Verde. I was running low on the cash monay, so I popped in the ATM quick for the first time - so far no crazy international withdrawal charges have shown up on my bank account, so I am hoping it will stay that way!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The market was super awesome, I ate and bought so many different fruits that I had never tried before.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My spiffy pocket knife that my Aunt Carly got me came in handy when we were given sample fruits to try for free, cut it up amongst the nine of us. Some more wandering and we found ourselves getting some grub - tortilla con queso, two pupusas y cafe to split, yum.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">On our way there and back, we encountered lots of puppies, two of my favorites being a super chubby chihuahua stumbling around at the market and a glorious chow running in the park nearby.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The group split after the market, and inevitably, Hannah, Maylin and I had some difficulty getting home again. We realized we probably should have just walked the entire way with the rest of the group but found ourselves walking in circles, bus stop hopping until we found one that was going to UCR. From UCR, it was still quite an adventure, came to a dead end and finally made our way back to the portion of the campus that we are familiar with. Luckily, the campus is very pretty, so aside from the enormous amounts of sweating, it was enjoyable!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Finally made it home, greeted by my host mama and I showed her all the stuff I got - manzanas de agua, pineapple tomatillos, what I thought was passion fruit <span style="font-size: x-small;">(granadilla)</span>, caimitos, what I thought was guava <span style="font-size: x-small;">(turns out it was chayote - squash)</span>, and some homeade pina-jengibre <span style="font-size: x-small;">(pineapple-ginger)</span> jam.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Since I didn't know the "correct" name of half of the items, she thought I was just buying whatever looked interesting, but I assured her I had tried everything I bought and that I liked them <span style="font-size: x-small;">(aside from the chayote, that was an accident)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Because I forgot to ask about that market, I asked my host family if they wanted anything from market tomorrow and from there we had a bonding session over fruit and pupusas. Nati requested mangas - which is different from a mango - and a pupusa. What is thought of as mangos back home is what mangas are here. However, the mangos here are small and green. And the my mama requested some more caimitos to make fresca.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Rested a bit, then went back out to explore San Pedro a bit with Hannah and Maylin. We began walking with the intention of going to Mall San Pedro, but made many pit stops along the way, meanwhile enjoying the constant mountain views.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Little boutiques, Office Depot, and my favorite, TeaLand. I had been eyeing up this teashop ever since we got here because the bus we take often passes by there, so I finally got the chance to go check it out.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> Ordered some Green Passion, enjoyed the breeze, had a cup there and then saw that they were ready to close so I got the other half of my pot in a to go cup. When I went to leave, I forgot that I hadn't paid yet, so it was a bit embarrassing when the waitress came running after me..jaja.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Paid the bill, then meandered over to Mall San Pedro to get Maylin's watch battery switched, look at some bathing suits, and get more churros. One thing I was not a fan of, went into a store and was followed around by a sales attendent holding up pieces of clothing every fives seconds trying to get me to buy it, I just wanted to shop in peace! But tis okay, churros heal all.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Later I went roller skating at a local skate rink with Danielle, Stecy, and Jean. Since we arrived a bit late, they gave us a discount <span style="font-size: x-small;">(whoop whoop)</span>. SO much fun, managed to only fall twice.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">All the locals were freaking amazing though - at one point they had everyone who was not that good get off the rink, and the locals were all doing dance moves and routines - pretty impressive.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">At 10:00pm, they were closing so we decided to walk up to Mundoloco for some music and drinks. When we got there, tenia mucho sed, and so I got really irritated when the waiter did not bring us our waters, nor come back to check on us the entire time we were there. Finally Stecy and Danielle just went up to get them, but the service put a little damper on the night for me. Aside from that, a really interesting jazz band was playing so that kept me distracted a bit.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Not sure what their name was, but definitely enjoyed the show! Some water and a margarita later, then we headed home to get some sleep for today's adventures!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Confirmed - we are booked for our adventure next weekend - MONTEVERDE! woo. Staying at Cabinas Vista Al Golfo, can't wait.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Febrero 22</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Today we wanted to explore another market in Zapote.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Since this weekend was a no travel weekend, we decided it was best to do everything we wanted to do that was offered on the weekends in San Pedro that we normally are gone for. Hannah had gone to the Zapote market before with her host family, so she led the way with Chloe, Maylin and me. The walk was a bit on the further side, but well worth it once we reached the market.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Up and down the endless rows, bought a lot of green things, got some coconuts and then went to get some brunch - pupusas of course.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Except this time, not to split, jaja! Brought mangas, caimitos, and pupusas back for my host family - they were thrilllled :) Then showed them the other things I bought, mint, green beans, spinach, a sweet lemon and sugar snap peas. My mama couldn't believe I ate green beans and sugar snap peas raw, but when I went to bite into a sugar snap peas, I realized why, the pod is a bit tougher here, but I think it is still edible!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Relaxed, had some lunch with the familia, watched Your Sister's Sister <span style="font-size: x-small;">(which had a terrible ending)</span>, and now I am avoiding studying for some midterms this week by writing about this past week! Shucks, I guess that means it is time to start homework...dinner and a shower first though!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Buenas Noches a Todos!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">xoxo</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02141075455954663973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2183738454216185272.post-50122367902277875772015-02-14T17:59:00.001-08:002015-02-14T18:05:42.503-08:00Un Mes, Donde se Fue el Tiempo?<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Oh man, my blog posts are getting further and further a part!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Guys - I have been in Costa Rica for a whole month - whaaaaa?!?! How did that happen?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This past month has been filled with more wonderful moments than I can count. I am nervous for when the wonderfulness will come to a screeching halt and the first bad experience happens, but so far it has yet to come my way and I am determined to keep it that way.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Picking up from where I left off last post...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Febrero 3</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">'Twas a normal weekday. Attended my first class, Rural and Urban Sustainable Development with Helen. Meira walks in, Helen greets her with a "Good Morning" and without mocking intentions, Meira says "Good Morning" in her worst british accent. Safe to say there was no one in the classroom who wasn't laughing <span style="font-size: x-small;">(Helen is british)</span>. It might have been a "you had to be there sort of moment" but nonetheless, it was hilarious to us. We were all in a giggly mood already, you know those days where everything is funny? Yeah, it was one of those, so the laughing continued throughout class. To add to it all, our professor thought Terina's name was Tyranny, so we bursted out laughing again when she called on her for a question <span style="font-size: x-small;">(when we probably definitely should have just politely corrected her, which we eventually did)</span>, but poor Helen - I hope she didn't take it personally.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Since I was done for the day <span style="font-size: x-small;">(Environmental Issues cancelled)</span>, I went home. Was greeted by a lovely green and red hummingbird by the birds of paradise in my front yard, and found an empty casa, so I decided to go out and buy some things on my "want/need" list. First stop, Yamuni <span style="font-size: x-small;">(a department store)</span> to get this "Klean Kanteen" I had been eyeing up. Next stop, True Value for some gardening gloves <span style="font-size: x-small;">(no more ant bites for me!)</span>. Could not remember the word for gloves in Spanish so I decided to wander down every aisle until I found them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Third stop, office supply store for some notecards to review for Spanish test <span style="font-size: x-small;">(& some postcards that I have to figure out how to mail)</span>. And finally, went by the bakery to pick up some cake for el aniversario de mis padres! 44 anos, increible. When I got back to the house, I could hear them inside, so I hid the cake in my purse and darted to my room. It was getting close to lunch time <span style="font-size: x-small;">(said my growling belly)</span>, so I made them a little card and set it up on my desk with the cake. As I was walking out the door for the ICDS office to eat some lunch, I told mi papa there was a gift waiting for them in my room<span style="font-size: x-small;"> (sneaky, sneaky)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">After some <span style="font-size: x-small;">(too much)</span> hummus, apples, and yogurt, I reviewed for Spanish test. Trying to remember all the irregular conjugations in the preterite is no fun. The rest of the day is a mystery, as I did not write them down and nothing is ringing any bells!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Febrero 4</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Came out to the kitchen for breakfast and the card I made them for their anniversary was on the fridge, hehe. My host papa guided me out to the backyard to show me some orchids that were blooming <span style="font-size: x-small;">(that I had already spotted a few nights before)</span>. But then he also showed me a bunch of Guaria Morada's <span style="font-size: x-small;">(which are the national flower of Costa Rica)</span> that I had not spotted! So pretty.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Went to Community Engagement and Spanish. Community Engagement we talked about the Human Development Index. Spanish was the dreaded exam. No fill in the blanks, all written - as in you need a good vocabulary bank <span style="font-size: x-small;">(something I lack)</span>. The first section was describing what the four seasons are like in our hometowns using ser, estar, hacer, haber, and tener at least once and correctly <span style="font-size: x-small;">(of course)</span>. Second part was describing the routine of a girl that was illustrated in little boxes on the page - using at least 15 different verbs <span style="font-size: x-small;">(present tense)</span>. Third part was describing what a guy did over the weekend, also using illustrations in little boxes and at least 15 different verbs<span style="font-size: x-small;"> (preterite)</span>. Originally, Silvana told us she expected us to finish within an hour - it took us an hour and half. Oy vey.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Everyone else seemed on the same level of uneasiness as me - so I survived. To let of some nervous steam off afterwards, a group of us played soccer in a field up the hill from my house and the ICDS office.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">One of the local guys joined us. I may have been in a dress and barefoot, but it didn't stop me from joining in! Once the sun started to set, and everyone's gas tanks were at E, we ended the game. Hannah, Maylin and I decided we had worked hard enough - we deserved a visit to the panaderia <span style="font-size: x-small;">(almost got run over by the train on the way there - crazy how fast it comes and you have no idea until it's 50 ft away and honking it's horn as it swirls around the corner)</span>. Chocolate cake, que rico.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Back to mi casa, neglected to take a shower<span style="font-size: x-small;"> (my mama was horrified that I played in my bare feet)</span>, and ate a yummy dinner with fish, veggies & rice. On days that I have Spanish class, I find myself more confident in talking with my family - so, after dinner we hung out in the kitchen a while. We got into talking about gardens, and I was telling my host mother than I love the smell of basil, she kept repeating basil over and over and said "muy dificil" <span style="font-size: x-small;">(I was thinking, "you are telling me lady - that is only one word, try speaking a whole new language," but I didn't say anything...mostly because I probably would not have been able to, jaja)</span>. But at least she doesn't have as difficult a time as Ilana's host mom with pronouncing things. Her host mom's son lives in the States in a town called Melville, and the first time she told me I thought she was saying Melbourne <span style="font-size: x-small;">(lotta different letters in there than Melville)</span>. Anywho, after our chat, I headed to bed for some zZz's <span style="font-size: x-small;">(and probably an episode or two of Grey's)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Febrero 5</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Quick snippets of the day <span style="font-size: x-small;">(aka, the only things I wrote down)</span>:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Rolled out of bed at 7:10am, heard the house phone ring quite early so I knew something was up. Turns out there was a fire nearby, and subsequently the telly was not getting signal. So at breakfast we ate as mis padres stared a blue screen waiting for signal to return so they could watch the morning news.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Homework for my Rural and Urban Sustainable Development class: Mediate and reconnect with the forest. Check!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Another funny note from that class, Helen commented how she "loved my participation" - and I think it was because it was the first class I wasn't yawning the entire time. I feel so bad, I don't yawn because her class is boring, just cause I mornings are definitely not my thing! But the fact that she said that means she noticed my yawning all the other days :( oops. <span style="font-size: x-small;">**Note to self ** Figure out how to function in the morning!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Febrero 6</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">First day at Maylin and my community service site in San Rafael with Molinos Verdes de Moringa! I woke up before my alarm, so I was freaking out that I had overslept. Getting there was a bit of a struggle. Ani helped us navigate there. First bus went smoothly, but then when we got to downtown San Jose to catch the second bus, wasn't so easy. We went to the first stop that we thought was it - but no one seemed to confirm that the bus was going to where we needed it to <span style="font-size: x-small;">(apparently they had recently shuffled the bus stops around so no one was sure where the new bus stops were)</span>. After asking about six different people, we made it to a bus stop <span style="font-size: x-small;">(not the one we needed)</span>, but the bus driver said he could make a special stop for us and get us close to where we needed to go <span style="font-size: x-small;">(so nice!)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Once we were dropped in the general area, two calls to our supervisor, Jose, before we finally arrived at IPI <span style="font-size: x-small;">(<span style="color: #660099; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="http://www.ipicim.ed.cr/" style="color: #660099; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap;" target="_blank">Colegio Isaac Martin: Instituto de PsicopedagogÃa Integral</a> </span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">- the school we are working at)</span>. Jose took us on a tour of the garden, es muy muy muy bonita.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Everything is so well-maintained and there are butterflies fluttering about everywhere you look <span style="font-size: x-small;">(will have a post with more pictures)</span>. We even got to see some monarch caterpillars. After the tour, we were assigned our first task, turning these cute little flower-shaped beds into larger rectangular beds. We dug out the borders and lined them with plastic bottles filled with recycled rain water.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Ani decided to take some goPro footage for ICDS <span style="font-size: x-small;">(which May and I were quite reluctant about because our dripping sweaty selves would now be documented, but it was enjoyable hard work!)</span> Getting home was still a challenge, hah. We were on the wrong side of the street to catch the bus home, but finally waved the right one down. I got home and just sat on my floor and ate the rest of the sour cream & onion Pringles I had bought the day before <span style="font-size: x-small;">(yes I ate a whole can in a day)</span>. Finally got the motivation to shower and afterwards met up with Maylin at the ICDS office to get some eats. Ended up waiting around for Ilana to finish making her mac n' cheese so we could eat all of it, and then went to get empanadas and smoothies at Aroma y Sabor. We brought the food back to ICDS to eat and hang out, which was followed by everyone trying to get homework done before our big weekend plans and me just chillen like a villan..</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Febrero 7</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Tortuguero trip set up by ICDS!!! Set to depart from the ICDS office at 6am - which meant waking up at 5:40am...no me gusta, folks. I was planning on sleeping on the way there, but of course I was too captured by the beauty of the landscape that I didn't sleep a wink. The first hour of the drive, we were winding through the mountains, clouds covering the tops, and hidden waterfalls along the road that would make me gasp out of excitement every time I spotted one.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">About an hour/hour and a half into our drive, we stopped for breakfast. Gallo Pinto, plantains, eggs, cheese and hot chocolate - super yummy. Also discovered the amazing powers of Lizano sauce <span style="font-size: x-small;">(which may or may not be named after my Community Engagement Professor Joaquin Lizano)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A little bit further on the bus and we stopped for snacks <span style="font-size: x-small;">(last opportunity to buy anything before going to middle of nowhere on a canal)</span>, naturally I loaded up on chocolate and water. I got so excited because a pack of milka chocolate bars were labelled as like 600 colones, which is around a dollar...turns out they were five dollars. Swapped for the cheaper six pack version, just as satisfying <span style="font-size: x-small;">(hehe)</span>. The rest of the ride was bUmPy. Took some pretty beatin' up roads to get to the canal, past fields and fields of banana plantations. We even made a pit stop at a tree alongside the road to see our first howler monkeys of the trip!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Once the jiggly ride was over with, we unloaded the bus and moved to a boat which would take us the rest of the way. Being in mangroves, it was time to load up on the bug spray - and was a greasy mess for the remainder of the weekend <span style="font-size: x-small;">(but hey, well worth it cause I escaped with out 2 bites, whereas others got eaten aliveee)</span>. The boat ride there was very leisurely because they allowed us to do some wildlife spotting - saw turtles propped up on logs, basilisks, howler monkeys, spider monkeys, herons, and...drum roll....a SLOTH!!! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small;">(some photo credits to Hannah, Maylin, Jean and Katie)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">'Twas incredible. As if seeing all this wildlife wasn't enough, the boat pulled up to this amazing little piece of land along the canal that was our home for the next two days - </span><a href="http://www.liriolodge.com/es/" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;" target="_blank">Lirio Lodge</a><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Greeted by smiling faces and coconuts, we were assigned our tents <span style="font-size: x-small;">(yes, tents)</span> and left to explore for a bit before lunch! Katie and Ellie were my bunk mates, so we dropped off our stuff quick, got what we needed for lunch and volunteering afterwards, and then explored the grounds. Inevitably I went straight for the hammocks along the water.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Lunch was served <span style="font-size: x-small;">(pasta with mushroom sauce)</span> and then we were back on the boat to ride about 5 minutes across and up the canal to the police station, from which we walked back to a school where we volunteered at for about 4 hours.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This school is run by one man who grew up in the area and now commutes everyday to teach. Alone, he teaches under 20 students every year <span style="font-size: x-small;">(this year he will have 11 students)</span>, all age groups. The students have to travel quite a ways to get to school, and in the rainy season are soaking wet by the time they get there because the school cannot afford a boat with a top to shuttle them. They used to have to walk in mud to get back to the school from the police station, but two years ago the group of ICDS students that came worked on building a path out of coconuts and sand bags so that this was no longer an issue. Even with the coconuts, it was a bit mushy, so I cannot even imagine what the conditions were like before the path existed. After introductions and gifting the school a world map (which was a big deal because most of the students do not know where they live in relation to the rest of the world), we were split up in three group's and would rotate cleaning up the grounds, cleaning up the schoolhouse, and painting in preparation for the first day of school on Monday!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">First I was assigned cleaning the classroom. Apparently bats like to go inside the room, so there was bat feces everywhere, which is very toxic. So, we brought all the desks and chairs outside to thoroughly scrub and swept/mopped the classroom. Next, I was put on cleaning up the grounds duty. We collected coconuts and branches in wheelbarrows, and then threw them in parts of the landscape that were low in order to even it out. Last, which everyone ended up doing the most, was painting! They were working on constructing a second building for classes, so we painted the interior and exterior, as well as put a fresh coat on the exterior of the main classroom building. Once everything was cleaned up and we completed all the tasks, everyone went out to the beach to get our first look at the Atlantic. The work we did was so rewarding, I wish we could have seen the kids faces on their first day.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">After Cleaning! Wish I would have taken a Before picture.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Back down the coconut path to the boat, but not before playing with the police station's adorableeeee black lab puppy! What a pleasant surprise after a hard day's work.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Once we were back at the lodge, a bunch of us had our eyes on taking the canoes out for a swirl. Kip and I took one; Jean, Ilana and Meira in another; and Maylin and Hannah in the kayak. Another group came as well, but their canoe was filling up with water so they went back inland. So relaxing, canoed until sunset, and we even spotted a howler monkey!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Back on land, everyone was now deciding whether or not to take a shower - I, of course, opted not to <span style="font-size: x-small;">(I knew I would just re-spraying myself with greasy bug spray after, so why even bother)</span>. Everyone ended up hanging out at the hammocks before dinner, singing disney and broadways songs and laughing to our hearts' content. After dinner, there was more hammock time, a bonfire that was interrupted by a downpour, some more hammock time, some card playing, and then it was to the tent's for the night.</span></div>
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<h3 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Febrero 8</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The next morning there was a yoga class offered by a guy who was staying at Lirio, and most people went to it, but I had a morning canoe on the brain. So Ellie, Wendy and I took a canoe out unti breakfast. Again, so relaxing - I can't believe I haven't canoed before this trip. <span style="font-size: x-small;">(Ellie noted that I really enjoy everything water oriented, I think it is confirmed I have to have a house on some sort of water front, whether that be lake or river or ocean)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Perfect timing for our return to breakfast, which included pancakes and SYRUP. Safe to say I got seconds.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">After breakfast, we had a little trip up the canal to a turtle rescue site. It was crazy how our captain navigated the little passages in the canal and knew where he was going. Along the boat ride we saw more monkeys, various birds, fishermen, a dog swimming in the canal trying to find where his owner was fishing, and beautiful scenery.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Along the trail to the turtle rescue, we ate termites, encountered a gigantic spider and walked along the ocean. Sadly, the turtle rescue was closed in preparation for nesting season, but one of the locals who worked for the organization was nice enough to tell us about their work and answer any questions we had.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Poaching is a big issue, and also the temperature rise because the temperature determines the sex of the baby turtles <span style="font-size: x-small;">(I believe the warmer it is, the more likely it is a female)</span>. We were cutting it close on time, so we loaded back up on the boat <span style="font-size: x-small;">(which luckily picked us up at the turtle site rather than where he dropped us off earlier that morning, cause I was not feeling the walk back the trail)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Quick ride to the lodge, picked up our things, bought some yummy bread, and back on the boat to backtrack the canal to the bus.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mr. Basilisk saw us off!</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Realizing I hadn't eaten much of my chocolate yet, I snacked on that and enjoyed the views on the drive home. Three stops along the way, one for this yummy fruit that I can't remember the name of <span style="font-size: x-small;">(but it was purple and had the texture of a peach/plum)</span>, another for ceviche, and another for lunch at the same spot we stopped for breakfast. I was seriously considering buying my own container of ceviche but then was too lazy to get out of the van, which actually worked in my favor. Everyone who bought it was unable to finish their's on their own, so I ended up just finishing everyone else's off and probably ended up with a whole container for myself...hehehe.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We arrived back in San Pedro wayyy earlier than expected <span style="font-size: x-small;">(3:30pm instead of 6:30pm)</span>, so I was of course thrilled as I had not completed the research that was due for a presentation the next day. Ellie and I wanted to work at the cafe that we had my birthday lunch at (Kai Cafe), but turns out it is closed for good, so sad!! I was really looking forward to their pasta again. So we just ended up working on it separately at home. Greeted my host parents, and my papa's host brother Nando, then went to take a shower.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Had a nice Facetime sesh with the Eagle Clan, and had a big craving for hot dogs since that was what they were currently cooking for dinner.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Ironically enough, when I went out to eat dinner with mi familia - my mama had cooked lentil soup with hot dog slices, I told her she read my mind, jaja.</span></div>
<h3 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Febrero 9</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Woke up and noticed their was some blue paint from volunteering in Tortuguero left in my favorite ring. My ring states Gandhi's words, "Be the change you wish to see in the world," and the paint was stuck in the lettering...quite fitting.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">First class of the day was with Joaquin - time to present on Nicaragua in relation to the Human Development Index. Went very well <span style="font-size: x-small;">(I think)</span>. During our lunch break, I finally caved and got PB&J supplies at the grocery store <span style="font-size: x-small;">(since the first grocery trip I had been craving PB&J because everyone else has been eating them for lunch)</span>. In Spanish, we got our tests back! I got an 8.2/10 - not too shabby, especially for how I was feeling after the test. A lot of little grammar mistakes are what put me back, so easy fixes <span style="font-size: x-small;">(hopefully)</span> for next test!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The plan for after class was to play soccer with everyone, but it was a rainy day <span style="font-size: x-small;">(actually heard some thunder)</span> so we decided to figure out an alternative plan. Our group is notoriously indecisive - so it took us ten minutes in the stairwell, fifteen minutes and two brownies later at Aroma y Sabor <span style="font-size: x-small;">(two brownies because the first one Wendy got had a piece of plastic in it so they gave her another for free)</span>, a pit stop at my house to drop my things off and bring in my laundry hanging on the line outside, and a walk up the hill past Iglesia de Lourdes to figure out what we were going to do. Ditched the plan for french fries and just went to a newly found tienda by the church for some snacks and headed back to Natalia's house for a movie night! The tienda was a nice surprise, such cheap snacks and so close to my house.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Danielle ran home quick to get her HDMI cord to connect Ellie's laptop to the television for Mulan.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Great way to spend a rainy night in Costa Rica - watching Mulan with my ladies. Once our sing-along ended, it was approaching 7:00pm so I had to scoot home quick for dinner. It was already dark but I live very close to Natalia, so I walked a ways with the rest of the group to where they would get taxi's and just power walked home. My tica mama was so happy that I brought in all the laundry from the line, she said it was very unexpected, as it rarely rains in February here.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Febrero 10</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In Helen's class, I found out that the reverse peace sign in the UK means F-off (akin to our middle finger in the US). Apparently it is because the French would cut off the British soldier's archery fingers in wartime, so when they still had their fingers, it was a sort of "f-you" thing to hold them up to the French. I also found out Costa Rica is one of the top 10 most paranoid countries - which I can definitely see in the culture <span style="font-size: x-small;">(seems to be for good reason)</span>. Everyone has a gated house, most with barbed wire around the fencing, and then locks galore, and they do not go out often at night.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For Environmental Issues, we had a field trip to at 1:00pm to Jardin Botanico Lankester! Private bus hired by ICDS took us to the botanical gardens in Cartago. We were free to wander around the property for about an hour and a half.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So much beautiful flora to see! Branched off from the main path with Ellie and Meira, where we came across this incredible path of leaf-cutter ants.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Then I wandered off on my own for a bit to the ferns areas <span style="font-size: x-small;">(felt like I could get lost in the gardens, but in a good way)</span>. The grounds were amazing, there was even a little Japanese garden to explore.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The best part, which I accidentally saved for last, was the orchid greenhouse.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I do not think I would have gotten to the other parts of the gardens if I had gone there first. Orchids of all shapes and sizes were there <span style="font-size: x-small;">(and I took wayyy too many pictures of them)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It is unbelievable how intricate they are.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Came back together about 1.5 hours later, bought a little pear juice box (I'm addicted), and we were back on the road to San Pedro. Homework: write a little paper about our experience and another paper on the effectiveness of botanical gardens as a conservation method - I am good with that.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Febrero 11</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Had an inkling that I was getting starting to get sick <span style="font-size: x-small;">(which turned out to be true)</span>. Woke up late, showered, and went to class. Jorge was our professor for the beginning. Something interesting he pointed out was that he does not like the fact that Costa Rica is considered the "happiest country" because it allows for passivity. By adopting "pura vida," Costa Ricans have an excuse not to change. After Jorge's lecture, Joaquin took us out on the town for an observation exercise. Initially we were going to observe students at UCR (Universidad de Costa Rica),</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">but we outnumbered the amount of students on campus, so we booked it to Mall San Pedro to do the exercise there. We were told to disperse, strictly observe for 20 minutes, noting any cultural differences/similarities we see, and then write for 15 minutes. Ilana and I had spotted a Mrs. Fields on our way in, so we went there to grab a cookie for observing - disappointing appearance. So I grabbed some french fries and observed away.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Some things I noted: a lot more men in the mall, everyone wearing long sleeves and jeans - no skin but clothes can be tight, women hold hands here, everyone on their smartphones <span style="font-size: x-small;">(same as in US)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Walked back to ICDS for lunch - hot and humid <span style="font-size: x-small;">(bleh)</span>. Ate a PB&J and grabbed a smoothie before leaving for our Spanish field trip! Had a private bus take us to <a href="http://www.artesaniasdecrochet.com/" target="_blank">Artesanias D'Crochet</a>. Such a neat business started by Dona Rosa in 2000. She handmakes jewelry made out of recycled organic material from fruits and vegetables. Spent the afternoon asking her questions about her business and the products she makes. It takes around 26 days to make one piece of jewelry, but that is from her collecting the waste at the market, cleaning them, drying out the fruits/vegetables in the sun <span style="font-size: x-small;">(takes the longest)</span>, pigmenting them, and then finally piecing them together to form a piece of jewelry<span style="font-size: x-small;"> (which is the shortest, takes about 20 minutes or less)</span>. Truly an awesome business to be running!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">After the field trip, went home to rest a bit before our big night out with Luis for the Art City Tour in downtown San Jose.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Graffiti here is amazing.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For one night <span style="font-size: x-small;">(about six times a year)</span>, a bunch of art galleries and museums in the city are open for free admission! First stop was Museo de Arte y Diseno Contemporaneo. Pretty interesting exhibits - one of which was a commentary on tourists.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Once everyone finished up looking around, we walked down through the parks in that area to the central avenue <span style="font-size: x-small;">(passing by the main corner/hotel for transgender prostitution)</span>. Luis had provided us with money for dinner, so some went to get Lebanese food while most went to a pizza place Luis had been talking up. Something interesting is that they do not put sauce on the pizza. Instead, they provide the table with a bowl of sauce that you can add if you like. The slices were unexpectedly hugeeee, everyone struggled to get down their second piece.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I got about a quarter of the way through my second and tapped out - I wasn't too thrilled with my second piece <span style="font-size: x-small;">(supreme, first was pepperoni)</span>, so I didn't bother asking for a to-go box. However, the waiter was so kind, on the way out he ran up to me with my piece all packed up, ready to-go.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We had money left over, so we shuffled over to POPS to get some dessert. Una copa doble con galleta <span style="font-size: x-small;">(cookies and cream)</span>, por favor. Yummm. Happy with the ice cream, we waited around for everyone to finish up dinner before heading to the Museo del Oro Precolumbino. Meira was trying to get us kicked out by touching everything - a security guard spotted her and just shook his head in disapproval <span style="font-size: x-small;">(but he was smiling so he found it entertaining I guess, jaja)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Although it was the gold museum, they had some other exhibits that were not underground ready to be locked up at the end of the night by 12 in. thick vault doors <span style="font-size: x-small;">(ironically I forgot to take pictures of the gold pieces)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Around 8:15pm, Maylin got the ice cream urge, so Ilana, Jean, Meira and I walked with her to get some <span style="font-size: x-small;">(I resisted my urge to get seconds)</span>, and then went back to the museum to await our van pick-up. Everyone seemed tuckered out from the busy day. Hannah and I walked Natalia home, then said "Chao" for the night. It was late-ish, so my parents were already asleep - locked up the house, put my piece of unwanted pizza in the fridge and went to bed. A great, busy day!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Febrero 12</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Had our first seminar in Rural and Urban Sustainable Development. Maylin, Natalia, and Wendy taught the class about the ties between Poverty and Environmental Issues. Large break between classes, spent it studying for my first quiz in Environmental Issues on Biodiversity, INBio, and Forests. Ended up falling asleep on the ICDS couch and waking up to a puddle of drool, my bad! But got in enough studying for the quiz before my accidental nap.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Also, something from Environmental Issues news sharing - check out Jason deCaires Taylor's underwater museum!! Now, thanks to Danielle, it is on my "need to dive here" sometime in my life list.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Febrero 13 (Cumpleanos de mi papa)</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Feliz Cumpleanos de Cali!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">After laying awake half the night freaking out about my throat, I decided not to go to Puerto Viejo with everyone and just take this weekend to recuperate. Luckily, hostels are cheap so I didn't lose out on too much money by staying home <span style="font-size: x-small;">(just lost out on the fun)</span>. Hannah gave me some antibiotics in case whatever I have doesn't go away, but I am just waiting it out to see if it will subside on it's own <span style="font-size: x-small;">(not one to take medication)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Friday's are community service days, and what a time we have with navigation and public transportation...especially when we are trying to get to our community service site. Maylin and I have to take two buses to get to our site in San Rafael, Moravia. Well, somehow we got both buses wrong! jaja. The bus we take from San Pedro to San Jose for com. service is at a different stop from the one we usually to downtown because they go to different parts of San Jose. Somehow we managed to get on the bus that takes us to the normal downtown spot even though we were at the other bus stop. Anyways, we had to figure out how to backtrack our way through San Jose to that area, ended up walking way too far on the central avenue, then too far to the right, ultimately making a big square before ending up where we needed to be <span style="font-size: x-small;">(we were sure to make better mental notes this time so it doesn't happen again)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">However, once we made it to the bus stop we had confirmed last trip, we still were confused and ended up just taking the same wrong bus as last time <span style="font-size: x-small;">(that doesn't go straight to our site)</span> because at least we knew how to get to our site from that route. Hopped off at Lincoln Plaza, walked down and up the hill, and made it to IPI. I think the source of our issue is that we keep asking people if the bus stops at "IPI" and they say something different, and thus it is a no go. But if we say "IPICIM", we may get somewhere!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Volunteering went smoothly, continued working on the borders for the new beds. Filled up more water bottles, peeled off the labeled, and buried the bottled in the ground for the borders. Not nearly as hot and sweaty as last week because it was windy and a sort of misty rain was cooling us off <span style="font-size: x-small;">(no luck finding a rainbow though)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Around 12:00pm, time for us to catch the bus back to San Jose! Maylin was on a tight schedule to meet up with everyone to go to Puerto Viejo, so it was important not to miss the bus outside of IPI. Well, we walked out of IPI and there goes the big yellow bus without us on it. So we waited around thinking another would come soon - 30 minutes later, nothing. So we walked back to the other bus stop near Lincoln Plaza to await one. Bus after bus, none going into San Jose. We were beginning to lose hope, haha, until a yellow bus came rolling around the corner with San Jose - Moravia written on the top, wooo! 355 colones, 20 minute ride, back in business. Little stop by the panaderia right at the bus stop <span style="font-size: x-small;">(where I will most likely be getting a snack every Friday)</span>, got myself a dulce de leche panuelo. They are the most impossible things to eat cause they crumble everywhere and the powdered sugar gets all over you, but I wore my crumbs and sugar loud and proud through downtown San Jose.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Got to the San Pedro bus stop without any issues, made it home, tried to find a watercolor notebook for my host papa <span style="font-size: x-small;">(fail)</span>, quick shower, and had a mini Grey's marathon. Soon it was time for dinner, since it was my papa's birthday, his other daughter and her family came over to celebrate.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I finally got the names straightened out a bit. My other host sister's name is Silvana <span style="font-size: x-small;">(like my Spanish teacher)</span> and her husband and son <span style="font-size: x-small;">(who I met for the first time today)</span> are both named Sebastian, and then her daughter is named Sofia. Everything was going fine, eating some ceviche and chips with guac when they got a phone call from a family friend.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What I gathered from the frantic conversations were that Sofia's Youth Group was held up at gunpoint and robbed. Every Friday, they have meetings in a building just around the corner from my house (actually right across from where Maylin lives), and Sofia usually goes to them but she wanted to celebrate her grandpa's birthday so she luckily was not there. So, of course she was distraught the rest of the night. It was interesting to see my host papa's reaction to it, he was either very upset to see her upset, or seeing her upset just made him very stressed. I couldn't tell if him trying to calm her down was coming from an annoyed place, or from a I hate seeing you upset place. Probably a mixture. He kept telling her we did everything we could, they went down to check on everyone and offered for them to come back to their place, etc. But Sofia just kept bursting out into tears.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">After things calmed down a bit, we sat down for some chicken, which was followed by queque! Funny thing, in Costa Rica they blow out the candle before everyone starts singing. There was a larger passionfruit tart cake, then my host mama cut up this itty bitty, cupcake sized chocolate cake someone brought. I feel like in the US, the person with the birthday would just eat that themselves. But here, it was cut up amongst seven people and shared. I have noticed that changing in myself - usually I am pretty selfish when it comes to sharing food, especially when it is something I realllly like, but here the ICDS crew has adopted the policy "mi comida es tu comida".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Some gift opening and cleaning up, then Silvana's family left and everyone in my house went to bed. I finished up what little bit of Grey's I had left to watch on Netflix <span style="font-size: x-small;">(now I have to wait for season 11 to be on Netflix - grrr)</span>, then hit the sheets myself.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Febrero 14</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Happy Valentine's Day! Sending hugs and kisses to everyone back home!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Woke up very late (11:00am - normal time at home) and had a late breakfast with my host mama. Found out today is the anniversary of her mother's death - muy triste. Really craving some chocolate so I guess I will finally get dressed for the day and go get some!</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02141075455954663973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2183738454216185272.post-62176118959922260082015-02-02T22:44:00.001-08:002015-02-02T22:44:56.881-08:00Lunes a Lunes, y Caca<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Okay. SO, it's been a while! Going to attempt to cover this entire week that I haven't posted about!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Enero 26-29 (clases)</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Since I waited so long to do this post, I do not recall many details about the weekdays <span style="font-size: x-small;">(whoops)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">On Monday, I had class at 8:00am, instead of 10:00am like usual, because Professor Temple wanted to take her class that is scheduled before my Community Engagement class on a tour of San Jose Wednesday. So, Joaquin agreed to have a four hour session on Monday from 8-12 and then no class on Wednesday so that she could do her tour. Entonces, I was not looking forward to a 4 hour session <span style="font-size: x-small;">(I have enough trouble with 2 hour sessions at 8:00am)</span>. However, it turned out to be a great class! It was more of group therapy session were we all sat in a circle and talked about the differences in cultures we are experiencing here.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Things such as our tica mamas cleaning our rooms and tweaking little things when we are out for the day. Por ejemplo, if I leave any shoes out, I will come home to them in my closest. Another girl said her mom will remake her bed everyday. And another extreme case was that Ilana came back from class and found her mom had moved her bookmark in the opposite direction <span style="font-size: x-small;">(so strange, jaja)</span>. We also discussed family structure here, how children live with their parents much longer and that the families are very large/close <span style="font-size: x-small;">(it's like Thanksgiving every weekend for family get togethers)</span>. Ellie made an interesting connection between the need for independence in US culture and consumerism. Why move out of your parents house if they have the space? Moreover, time blocks in Costa Rica are more like 20 minutes, whereas in the US they are 5 minutes. If someone is one time block late, it is okay. If someone is two time blocks late, requires an apology. If someone is three time blocks late, an apology plus justification.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In my Rural and Urban Sustainable Development class I learned that scientists are creating artificial leaves, which I had no knowledge of. Also, Kip told a story about his friend who's dad owned a farm and a company bought all the land around the property and cut off their access to water in order to make them sell the land to the company <span style="font-size: x-small;">(insanity)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In Environmental Issues, we start of each class sharing a current news story, and I love this because it is interesting to see what everyone chooses to share. Tommy shared an article about the toucan who had his beak ripped off by someone and how there is lack of legal protection. Ellie shared about four indigenous activists/protestors who were killed in Peru, which is ironically where the U.N. Summit took place. I shared about a plan to build an underwater city called Ocean Spiral. On Thursday, we watched Fern Gully, which was one of my favorite childhood movies.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Also, on Wednesday we had an ICDS meeting to talk more about our homestays and the cultural differences with Luis. On the way there, Sam and I decided to get some brownies, because, well, we wanted 'em. So, we arrived a bit late. I walked into the room, everyone yelled "Surprise! Feliz Cumpleanos" and began to sing to me. I was so confused and didn't think they were being serious, until Luis pulls out a huge rainbow cake and starts to light some candles, telling me to "make three wishes and keep them a secret"! It was amazing, I was caught so off guard <span style="font-size: x-small;">(again)</span> by how kind everyone is here and how much they celebrated my birthday when they just met me <span style="font-size: x-small;">(p.s. that makes at least five birthday celebrations since I have been here, love it)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Thursday night I spent some one on one time with Lanz, we made some macaroni and cheese, it was beyond splendid.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Enero 30</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Friday was my group's first visit to our community service site! We <span style="font-size: x-small;">(Danielle, Meira, Hannah, Kip, Maylin and me)</span> are all working for Molinas Verdes de Molinga, but in pairs at three different sites. However, on Friday we all started out by going to the main site, </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Full Tierra, to get the basic introduction to the organization.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It took a bit of meandering to get there. We met with Ani, one of the ICDS admins, to walk there. Had to ask for directions a few times but no problema! We were greeted by Eric, one of the founders of the project and soon after Santiago, our supervisor, arrived. He gave us the low down on Full Tierra. Told us some key vocabulary we may need to know and put us to work weeding and working on the compost piles.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I did not think of bringing my garden gloves <span style="font-size: x-small;">(and neither did another else)</span>, so we were weeding with bare hands. I usually prefer to weed without gloves because I feel I can get a better grip to pull the roots out, but I soon changed my mind once I stuck my hand into a few ants nests and they bit me all over <span style="font-size: x-small;">(grrr - the bites are starting to itch today)</span>. Let's just say I won't be making that mistake again!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">After some more weeding, and admiring all the smelly-goody plants <span style="font-size: x-small;">(basil in particular)</span>, Hannah, Kip, Maylin and I were dismissed while Santiago took Danielle and Meira to the site they would be working at <span style="font-size: x-small;">(Maylin and I do not go to ours until this upcoming Friday - can't wait!)</span>. We backtracked the best we could and decided to all go get some eats. Kip was talking up this taco place a few people had gone to earlier in the week, so we were convinced to go there. All excited, we turned the corner and found that it was closed. A group "noooooo" was let out and we turned around to go to our back up <span style="font-size: x-small;">(and always reliable)</span>, Aroma y Sabor. Maylin and I split a chicken empanada and burrito, and also splurged for a mango, peach, pineapple smoothie. Safe to say I will be getting about 5o more of those before I leave Costa Rica.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Went our separate ways for about an hour to get cleaned up before meeting back up at ULatina to go to Museo Nacional in downtown San Jose. We met up with Meira, Danielle, and Ani, and j</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">ust our luck, it was free admission that day! When you enter the museum, the first thing you come into is a huge butterfly garden.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Spent some time in here admiring all the colorfully patterned butterflies, we even saw one crawling out of his cocoon. The path then led us up to a lovely rooftop garden that branched off to different buildings where the exhibits were shown.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">There was a large group of people waiting in line for what looked like free coffee and pound cake, so obviously we joined in the line even though we weren't quite sure if we were allowed to. Got some agua dulce y cake, so good <span style="font-size: x-small;">(but I really was excited for some coffee cause I was cansada)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Walked around the various exhibits (historical with dioramas, architecture, photography documenting major world events, the history of the museum, etc.). For some reason I thought it was a good idea to do the limbo at one point..</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Pretty neat, but again I found myself admiring the views more than anything else. The sun was peaking through the clouds over the mountains, producing rays that lit up little sections.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">After we made our rounds at the museum, we thought it'd be a good idea to scope out where we had to catch the bus for the adventure to Volcan Irazu, so we walked a few blocks to the Teatro Nacional, which was across the street from the bus stop. From there we ventured over to POPS to get some ice cream, and spent some time listening to some awesome musicians playing the sax and a gigantic didgeridoo.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">After a satisfying double scoop of brownie explosion and cookies & cream, it was getting late so we headed in the direction of the bus back to San Pedro. On our way there, we were stopped by a </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">guy, claiming to be from LA, asking for money to buy a meal. He said he got "rolled" by the cops for marijuana and gave us a whole speel. No one seemed inclined to tell him no nor give him some money, so I gave him a dollar, said "have a good day", and continued onto the bus stop. A hop, skip, and a jump and I was back home.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I noticed some glasses on the main dining table, so figured they were expecting some guests. Had a quick Skype session with the Eagle clan :)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">After which, my host papa came into my room to ask how my day went, and ended up serenading me, too cute. After my host mama served me dinner on my own, I realized they were having a few family members over to celebrate their </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">44th wedding anniversary </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small;">(actually on February 3rd - manana!)</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">. It is crazy to think they have been married longer than two of my lifetimes. So, Nando, the youngest of my host dad's brothers was the first to arrive. They commenced drinking some Costa Rican liquor and I had some wine <span style="font-size: x-small;">(I don't think they want to serve me hard liquor, which is fine, my mama didn't seem quite comfortable with me having wine, but my host papa insisted)</span>. A little while later, Jessica, who I think is my mama's niece, arrived with bunches of food. But not five minutes later, she began to cry. Apparently she was having some marital troubles of her own, ironically enough. On the one hand it was a celebration of 44 years between mis padres, and on the other, Jessica was telling me never to get married and that marriage was very difficult.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I was trying to catch snippets of the conversation to figure out what the problems were, but all I caught was something about zumba classes, violence, and trying to stay calm. Didn't sound too good. At one point everyone was in the kitchen and Jessica and I were at the table alone, I felt so bad that I didn't know what to say to help or console her, instead I sat awkwardly for a while and let out a little "lo siento". Although I had already been served dinner, I joined them for some fish soup <span style="font-size: x-small;">(really yummy - they all added ketchup, mayo, and tabasco to theirs, but I thought it was good as is)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Around 8:45pm, I said "chao" and left for the movies with the ICDS crew. Maylin, Hannah and I planned to take a taxi together, but I left kind of early so no one else was out yet. As I was waiting, a group of guys were walking in the direction of my house, so even thought I was right outside my house, I snuck back inside the gate until they passed and Maylin arrived <span style="font-size: x-small;">(better safe than sorry)</span>. Less than a 2 mil cab ride later, we were at San Pedro Mall trying to navigate our way to the movie theater.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Finally found our way to the ticket booth where Sam and Jean were already buying their tickets. The majority of us decided to see The Theory of Everything, while another little group saw Ouija. The Theory of Everything was pretty good, but heavily focused on romance rather than the work of Stephen Hawking, which was a bit disappointing. Funny enough, after the movie ended we realized the Fall group of ICDS students were sitting right across from us in the theater. They invited us to Chicago to get some drinks, but we were all so tired out from the day that we took a rain check. Trying to get out of the mall was a task in itself. Everything was dark and closed down<span style="font-size: x-small;"> (very creepy)</span>, so we were wandering around for a while before a security guard came and showed us the way out.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Planned the meeting time for Volcan Irazu, hailed three taxis, and got home safe and sound. Surprisingly the party was still going at my house when I got back around 11:30pm. My other host sister was there eating dinner with her husband, Sebastian <span style="font-size: x-small;">(who I hadn't met yet)</span>, and they were chatting with mama Hilda. I had a quick introduction then went to my room for some zZzZz's. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Enero 31</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I forgot to tell my host mama the night before that I was going with a group of ICDS folks to visit Volcan Irazu, and we were meeting at 7:20am at ULatina to catch the bus into town. In my defense, when I got home the night before I didn't think I would be going because I was so tired, but I should have told her just in case. Woke up at 7:00am, made a snap decision to join the group on the excursion, packed some sunscreen and my windbreaker, </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">wrote a little note to my mama </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">and ran to meet them at our usual spot at ULatina. Ironically, the three of us who were not planning on going ended up being the first ones there </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small;">(Ilana, Jean and me)</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">. After everyone arrived, we took the bus into San Jose and rushed over to the line for the bus to the volcano across from the Teatro Nacional.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Should have known we were on tico time and in no need to rush, but instead we got there at 8:00am, expecting to just catch the bus, when it didn't come until 8:20am. Mingled a bit with another student group who was on a program with Sol Education <span style="font-size: x-small;">(meaning > other people mingled while I tried to stay awake and wished I would have stopped somewhere quick to get some food)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The yellow bus with "Volcan Irazu" splashed across the top finally arrived and we claimed our seats in the back. Luckily, Wendy gave me some of her granola bar and Ilana was willing to share some of her gallo pinto, so that tided me over until we got to Irazu.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The drive there, mostly everyone tried to sleep/slept...but I was in too much awe of the views.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I swear, everywhere you look in Costa Rica it is incredibly beautiful. Going up and up and up the mountain, the bus would weave in and out of bright blue skies and dense grey fog. The landscape was covered with bright shades of green - the bus ride in itself was worth the trip.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Around 10:30am we arrived at the entrance to the park. Everyone shuffled off the bus to stretch, buy some snacks, and get their tickets. I was one of the first of our group to buy a ticket, and it was more than I anticipated <span style="font-size: x-small;">($15)</span>, but luckily some of the other girls figured out that we could get in for $2 <span style="font-size: x-small;">(1 mil colones)</span> with our student IDs, so Maylin and I quickly ran back over to see if we could get our money back <span style="font-size: x-small;">(we did!)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The partial granola bar and few spoonfuls of gallo pinto didn't quite do the trick, so I bought a tortilla con queso for 1 mil colones and was a happy camper. Sam and Terina were also kind enough to share their package of berries with everyone so I snatched up a few a those.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Back on the bus for about a one mile drive to the crater sites. At first, everyone seemed a bit unimpressed (including myself). Maybe not unimpressed, just not necessarily what we expected. We walked along the fence path that allowed everyone to view the craters, snap some photos.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">May and I overheard the other student group talking about a trail on the ridge, so we decided to jump on the bandwagon. Hannah and Jean joined us as we tried to catch up with the Sol group. They were so fast, we lost track of them and went down the wrong path, realized we had to backtrack down <span style="font-size: x-small;">(up)</span> the road a bit to get to the higher trail.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So. Happy. we did this! The views were unreal. Clouds in every direction for as far as one could see. As we went higher and higher, I could feel my heart pounding <span style="font-size: x-small;">(I am seriously out of shape, people)</span>. Altitude <span style="font-size: x-small;">(and exercise in general) </span>was getting the best of me, but it was welllll worth it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We made many little pitstops along the way to the top to take pictures, then had a major photo session once we reached the top. Like I wrote in Spanish class today, "en ese momento, quise vivir en la montana y no salir nunca".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">However, this wasn't the case. I couldn't live on the mountain because the bus was leaving at 12:30pm, whether I was on it or not. After rotations taking photos, and soaking up as much of the view as possible, we hurried back down the trail to join everyone for the bus ride back to San Jose. A quick trip to the bathroom and a run around the souvenir shop,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">then the bus was leaving <span style="font-size: x-small;">(no tico time for the departure)</span>. I snagged a window seat to better enjoy the views on the way back, and took wayy too many pictures.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Once we were down from the mountain, my body decided it wanted to sleep. The sun was glaring, so I put up the hood on my windbreaker and tried to sleep the rest of the way. Made it to San Jose, everyone was feeling a bit "bleh", so we sought out some food. Ilana, Jean and I went to the central market to get some spices, but ended up just grabbing some lunch there <span style="font-size: x-small;">(casados con papas fritas, yum)</span>. Couldn't pass by POPS without getting some ice cream as well, so another brownie explosion and cookies & cream it was <span style="font-size: x-small;">(no self-control)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Caught the bus back to San Pedro </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">and opted to stay in for the night while some people went to Mundoloco for some Salsa music. N</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">eglected to take a much needed shower, ate dinner with my familia, and watched waaaay too much Netflix </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small;">(Grey's of course)</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">, I was a happy, lazy camper.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Febrero 1 (Cannot believe it is already February)</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Superbowl Sunday!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My mama asked me the night before when I was waking up, I told her between 9:00am and 10:00am. She said she and Cali would be at church, so my breakfast would be ready in the microwave whenever I decided to wake up. Well, I didn't wake up until 11:00am <span style="font-size: x-small;">(whoops)</span>. Thinking that is considered late here <span style="font-size: x-small;">(since my host parents get up at like 5:30am every morning)</span>, and that they may already be back from church, I jumped up and took a shower. I figured that if I was at least ready for the day when I came out of my room that it wouldn't look as bad as if I came out in my pajamas. Luckily, they hadn't returned yet. I snatched my breakfast out of the microwave - there was arroz con pollo and refried black beans <span style="font-size: x-small;">(yassss, love them)</span>. As soon as I began to wash my dishes, the door opened and my parents were home.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I asked how it went, my mama smiled big and told me today it was very beautiful <span style="font-size: x-small;">(whereas other days she said she gets bored or does not really like what the priest? says)</span>. It was nice to see her so happy. Afterwards I told her I woke up mas tarde, she said Natalia likes to sleep in, too and sometimes she even sleeps until 11:00am <span style="font-size: x-small;">(accompanied by a shocked facial expression - confirmed I should not sleep til then or at least not admit that I did, jaja)</span>. Kept my mouth shut that I woke up at 11:00am, and soon after left to help cook lunch for Ilana's familia. Stopped by the supermarket to get some baguettes for garlic bread, then joined Natalia and Ilana in the kitchen to make some spinach fettuccine alfredo. Considering I have only had pasta twice since I have been here <span style="font-size: x-small;">(three times if you count the macaroni and cheese from the other night)</span>, it was a much needed meal. Natalia and Ilana had their hands full with pots full of noodles and sauce, so I was assigned the garlic bread. Sliced the baguette in half and crumbs went everywhere, felt so bad <span style="font-size: x-small;">(I hope her host mama did notice)</span>. When it was ready to serve, the family started piling in. Us three, her host mom, her host mom's daughter, two granddaughters, two sisters, and one nephew all joined for a pasta feast. Everyone added some queso <span style="font-size: x-small;">(not sure what kind)</span> to their pasta and it hit the spot. Some "muy rico"s later, and all the plates were spotless <span style="font-size: x-small;">(except for the granddaughter's, Sarita, who was not a fan)</span>. However, Sarita did enjoy showing us all of her Frozen themed possessions, which made me miss my Pey Bey. Sarita had this one Elsa doll, but it sang "I'm a Barbie Girl" by AQUA...not sure if anyone else remembers this song, but it surely was stuck in my head the rest of the day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The pasta put us all in a food coma. Natalia, Ilana and I sat around the living room <span style="font-size: x-small;">(I was horizontal)</span>, talking intermittently while trying to get some energy to do anything else with our day. Some soothing latina music was playing in the background which made it difficult to stay awake. Orange ice cream was eaten <span style="font-size: x-small;">(I had two cones - what food coma?)</span> and Sarita brought me one of the family dogs to snuggle with, Golby I believe is his name. I think I am making more canine friends than human ones, but it's all good in the hood, jaja.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Hours passed quickly and soon it was time to meet up with a few people to watch the Superbowl at a local bar, Mundoloco. Around 5:10pm, Sam met up with Natalia and I at Ilana's. Left around 5:30pm to meet Wendy at ULatina and swing by the bank so Natalia could get some more colones. While waiting for Wendy, we decided to go to the beloved Santa Clara bakery right across from ULatina...loaf of raisin bread, a donut, and a cinnamon bun later and we were on our way to Mundoloco to eat some more.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We joined Maylin and Hannah, arriving a bit late to the party <span style="font-size: x-small;">(middle of the second quarter - but the second half of the game is always the most exciting anyways)</span>. Got some sad news though, no Superbowl commercials in Costa Rica <span style="font-size: x-small;">(3/4 of the fun was sucked out of it all - but don't get me wrong, we still had a great time)</span>. Got some nachos and Imperials, and went crazy like a bunch of gringas when Lenny Kravitz and Missy Elliot appeared during the Halftime show. I was rooting for the Seahawks, so like everyone else was astonished when they screwed themselves. But May and a few others were super excited that the Patriots won, so esta bien. Paid the bill and went out to hail some cabs. On the way out, I yelled to Natalia, "they lostttt" in disbelief, and Wendy said "Really? Those damn Seagulls." Quote of the night <span style="font-size: x-small;">(love her)</span>. Error of the night - this guy came up to us, asked if we were trying to get cabs. We said yes, not thinking ahead that he would try to help get us cabs and expect some tips in exchange. So, he hailed one for the first group before we could tell him, "thank you, but we got this" <span style="font-size: x-small;">(I felt bad, but it wasn't like he was helping us with directions or something that we couldn't do ourselves - our arms work)</span>! Anyways, a short cab ride later and I was in for the night. Locked up the house, drank some agua, and passed out.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Febrero 2</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">**So this is where the caca portion of my post title comes in. Warning everyone reading now - if you don't like discussing poop, you may want to avoid the beginning and end of today's recap <span style="font-size: x-small;">(LOL)</span>. It's about to get personal up in here.**</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The mornings after I drink, I usually wake up super early, and today was no different <span style="font-size: x-small;">(might have been because I forgot to close my window the last night and the train was extra loud this morning)</span>. I woke up an hour before my alarm <span style="font-size: x-small;">(naturally I decided to stay in bed instead of being productive)</span>. On point with my routine after nights spent with alcohol, I take a nice morning poop. Well - today's was a monster. I knew this day would come, but it sort of caught me off guard this morning. Usually I can tell when there is going to a problem mid-process, but when I finished up and went to flush, I looked at it and literally said "Oh shit". Even though I knew it was hopeless, I tried to flush it once. Panicking, trying to figure out how to explain this in Spanish to my host mom <span style="font-size: x-small;">(thinking back to the ICDS handbook that had that handy phrase in the survival spanish section)</span>, I decided to just let it sit and soften up while I was at school <span style="font-size: x-small;">(I have a private bathroom after all)</span>. So I just closed the lid, washed my hands, and went on about my daily morning routine <span style="font-size: x-small;">(which ironically we had to write about for our spanish homework today, I left this portion of my routine out)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Anyways, threw on a sweater and went out to eat breakfast with mis padres. My mama scrambled me an egg and I had some bread and fruit with it. Afterwards I worked a finishing up some reading for Community Engagement, then went to said class. Today we had a guest professor, the director of ICDS, Don Jorge. We discussed the Human Development Index and pondered how we can measure well-being, basic needs, or quality of life when it is all relative. Then, it was time lunch. The group that had gone to the grocery store earlier in the week were running low on food supplie for lunch, so we visited Mas o Menos to replenish our goodies<span style="font-size: x-small;"> (I got some more hummus with pita pieces, some refried black bean dip, apples, and yogurt)</span>. Proceeded to speed-walk back to the ICDS office to eat all our newly bought goodies. Lucky for me, Ilana wasn't hungry, so she gave me her packed lunch from home and I could save my goodies for a later date <span style="font-size: x-small;">(aka later that afternoon)</span>. I had a yummy potato/cheese/egg concoction with rice and broccoli.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Soon it was time for Espanol. We reviewed the preterite, did some exercises, and played a little game to see which team could conjugate the most verbs in the present and past tense yo form. Jean and I would have won, except we neglected to add accents on many of the verbs, therefore causing us to lose by 5 points <span style="font-size: x-small;">(gotta remember those accents on my test on Wednesday, yikes!)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">At 3:30pm we had a meeting with Luis at the ICDS office to discuss our upcoming trip to Tortuguero <span style="font-size: x-small;">(aka not tortuguero, but a town on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica)</span>. He told us we would be doing some service work to help improve the infrastructure of a local school that has less than 20 students, all different ages/grades, and only one teacher for them all. Some past projects ICDS has done are finishing the bathrooms that they had started to build and building a walkway from the river to the schoolhouse <span style="font-size: x-small;">(because before the children basically had to walk in a swamp when it rained)</span>. Obviously, I am very excited to help in any way I can!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Following the information session, a few of the other students had planned a soccer game with some local kids and an older man at the field near Iglesia de Lourdes, so they went to play and I joined the group that went to watch.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Such a great time <span style="font-size: x-small;">(but then again, it always is with these people)</span>. We were seeing how many pushups we could do <span style="font-size: x-small;">(Sam showed us all up by doing 30)</span>, talking and laughing about random things, then decided to make shapes out of the clouds. Meira made a comment, something concerning poop, and my mind shot back to this morning. Before I knew it, I was telling everyone about it and they were all dying of laughter. It spurred a whole caca themed conversation that I was very appreciative of. However, I was starting to panic, thinking that when I got home it would no longer be there and that meaning my host mother actively lifted up the lid, found it, and dealt with it. Oy vey. The soccer game ended, and Danielle started teaching us all gymnastics <span style="font-size: x-small;">(to my surprise, I am still able to do a split on demand, woohoo!)</span>. On my walk home, this couple was carrying groceries and ran across the train tracks seconds before it came wooshing by, I shot a terrified look in their direction and the girl just laughed - crazy people!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">When I got home from the soccer game/laughing party/gymnastics extravaganza, I noticed my host parents were not home. I went straight to my bathroom to see if the caca was indeed still in the bowl. Well guys, it was gone. I immediately went to my desk, frantically consulting google translate and my spanish dictionary to write a note to my host mama <span style="font-size: x-small;">(because frankly I do not think I would have been able to say it out loud)</span>. I included things like I am SO sorry, thanks SO much for cleaning my bathroom, I didn't mean for you to have to do it, I was waiting til I got home from school to let it soften up, blah blah blah. About fifteen minutes later, I heard the door open and knew it was time to confront her. She came into my room all smiley, asking how my day was <span style="font-size: x-small;">(I must have looked like a sad little dog with its tail between its legs)</span>. I didn't let her finish saying, "hola, como estas?" before I was blurting out, "Lo siento por mi bano"!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I handed her my note, and she looked at me very confused. She read it, looked up and asked if I simply <span style="font-size: x-small;">(olvido)</span> forgot to flush or if it just wouldn't go down. I confirmed the latter, and she shuffled me into the bathroom to show me how to make the flush more powerful. A conversation I was terrified to have turned out to be, "no problema, esta bien!" jaja. Anyways, at least the seal has been broken, she's seen it all, and I can come to her about my poop problems next time it happens <span style="font-size: x-small;">(cause it inevitably will, folks)</span>. No shame.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Dinner wasn't awkward, thank goodness. Had some hamburguesas, rice, and mashed sweet potatoes <span style="font-size: x-small;">(which are not orange here, rather a greenish color)</span>. Super yummy though. Now it is t</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">ime to work on my Rural and Urban Sustainable Development homework </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small;">(no Environmental Issues tomorrow, mi profesora tiene the flu - good for me, bad for her)</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Buenos Tardes, y lo siento por los detalles asquerosos!</span></h3>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02141075455954663973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2183738454216185272.post-48411093876964613722015-01-27T11:54:00.001-08:002015-01-27T11:58:34.191-08:00Cafe de Jazz, DOKA, y Viaje a Jaco!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Dios mio, it has been way too long since my last blog post </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small;">(not technically - but so much has happened in just 5 dias)</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">! Where to begin...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Enero 22 continued...</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So like I said, after dinner a group of us gals <span style="font-size: x-small;">(Terina, Danielle, Meira, Ellie, Wendy, Samantha, Jean, Maylin and I)</span> decided to venture out to a local Jazz Cafe for the night. I am very glad I decided to go <span style="font-size: x-small;">(I was already in my PJs when I found out some people were planning to go out and highly considered calling it a night)</span> because it was amazinggggly fun! Not knowing exactly where it is <span style="font-size: x-small;">(when we went to Chicago we all scoped out how far it was from our houses during the day so we felt comfortable walking there at night)</span>, I asked mis padres if they thought it was okay to walk there with Maylin - they gave me the go ahead, but told us to take a taxi home. About a 7 minute walk later, and we were greeted by a few others who had already arrived. Cover charge 3,000 colones, bracelet on my wrist, and went straight to the bar to get some drinks.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I decided to just go for it and ordered a Long Island Iced Tea - muy bien. Once everyone figured out which drink direction to go in <span style="font-size: x-small;">(vodka, tequila, rum, etc.)</span>, we asked where our table was <span style="font-size: x-small;">(Terina had made reservations for us, and it's good that she did because the place got packed quick)</span>! At first, we were smushed against a wall and in between two other tables that made it impossible to get to the seats in the back <span style="font-size: x-small;">(plus there were only six seats when we had nine girls)</span>, so Ellie worked her magic and got us moved to two tables right next to the stage.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">However, we soon realized that no one would be sitting down during this show. The locals flooded in, all standing around the stage ready to dance and sing their asses off. Two long islands, part of daiquiri and cosmo later, I was up from my chair dancing along with them. The band was called Sonambulo Psicotropica, who played a mixture of psychedelic, afro, and latina rhythms that made it impossible not to enjoy yourself.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">Everyone was in their own worlds, moving to the music however we wanted. At one point we were in the middle of the crowd and the band began a unified moment of yelling - just letting go of everything and screaming "ahhhhhhhh". It was a night to remember to say the least. I plan to return again <span style="font-size: x-small;">(but next time not wearing a long sleeve shirt and jeans, so flippin hot)</span>. When I was told Jazz Cafe, I imagined sitting down and listening to some music - completely unexpected but incredible experience!</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">Around 12:30pm, we stuffed five of us in a taxi and headed home. After we exited the club I realized how badly my ears were ringing <span style="font-size: x-small;">(and they continued to ring until I fell asleep)</span>, ticos don't mess around! Made it safe and sound back home, locked up the house, snatched cookies and some much needed water from the kitchen and went to my room to crash. I had no idea how I was going to wake up for the coffee tour the next morning with ICDS, but at least I had a great night.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">Enero 23</span></span></h3>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">Friday was the DOKA Estate Coffee Tour set up through ICDS. Met at the office around 8:30am <span style="font-size: x-small;">(not too early, jaja)</span>, everyone claimed their spots on the bus and we were off. Soaked up some more gorgeous views, Lulu asked the bus driver to make a special stop along a mountainside close to the estate to take some photos, muy bonita.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">We arrived at DOKA, ready to rumble. Even though it was early, the day was already warming up quite a bit. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">We all were admiring the rainbow eucalyptus trees and the flowers, and also a pair of ox strapped to a very colorful cart <span style="font-size: x-small;">(it was sad though because the ox could not move their heads without the other one having to move with it, I didn't take a picture of them, but Ellie drew a daily doodle of them which I hope she doesn't mind me sharing!)</span>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">Our <span style="font-size: x-small;">(the ICDS group joined by some older couples from the UK and Ireland)</span> tour guide began by telling/illustrating the growth process of a coffee plant. There are a lot of different steps that each take a big chunk of time, but let's just say it takes a lot longer than one would think to grow and see production from a coffee plant <span style="font-size: x-small;">(if I remember correctly, it takes 4 years to see the first production)</span>. After this, he guided us through the various steps of harvesting the plants and told us about the labor involved. Sad state of affairs to say the least.</span></span></div>
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Must be raked every 45 minutes.</td></tr>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">80% of the labor force during the harvest season are migrant workers from Nicaragua. An awesome <span style="font-size: x-small;">(like top notch)</span> picker makes at most $40 a day, so probably average picker makes more along the lines of $20 or less a day. They get paid per basket of beans they pick - each basket, after peeling, is equivalent to 7 lbs. of coffee beans. They work 9 hour days, and the majority of this is during the hottest part of the day. The workers do get housing, and used to get schooling for their children on the plantation<span style="font-size: x-small;"> (not anymore)</span>, but they get paid in plastic tokens that can only be used at stores on/near the premises <span style="font-size: x-small;">(one day a week they get paid in real money)</span>. It felt very awkward to be taking a tour and watching the migrant workers when we know the conditions they are working under. Maybe I am just assuming this, but unlike our group who pushed the topic to be discussed by the tour guide, I imagine most tourists who go on the tour do not even realize what really is happening there - exploitation of migrant workers.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">At the end of the tour, we were dropped at the gift shop to spend all our money and sample all the coffee. It was madness trying to get to the coffee station, so I kind of hung back, snacked on a few chocolate covered coffee beans, then went outside to sit in the garden. The property was very beautiful, I'll give them that!</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">Soon it was lunch time - a buffet served at a restaurant at the estate. Ilana, Kip, Terina, and I were eager beavers and went straight there once we were told it was ready. Great food, and an awesomeeee sample </span><span style="font-size: x-small; line-height: 19px;">(or two or three samples)</span><span style="line-height: 19px;"> of a coffee milkshake later, we were stuffed.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">There was word of a butterfly garden around the corner from the restaurant, so everyone flocked their after their bellies couldn't handle any more food. Such a beautiful space, it wasn't very large, but it felt like a little wonderland. The pathways twisting and turning, going up and over all the flora, even had a little stream with a bridge! Butterflies fluttering about, mostly this beautiful type that has blue on the top side of their wings, and a pattern that looks like an owl's eye on the bottom. Also, there were some very large caterpillars on the trees that I almost didn't see because they were so well camouflaged!</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">About a half hour later, Lulu came to round us up to get back on the bus. On the bus ride home, the back of the bus bonded over puppies and food - the topic of favorite ice cream flavors came up and inevitably plans were made to go get some once we got back to the ICDS office.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">Our destination was Glu Glu, a little ice cream shop near where Katie lives. We were all so excited after the walk up the hill, thinking that the inside of the ice cream shop would be air conditioned, but we were wrong. It was hot as balls in there <span style="font-size: x-small;">(makes sense, they only need to keep the coolers for the ice cream cold, not the shop itself - but it made for a sweaty Jenna)</span>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 19px;">I was first to order </span><span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 19px;">(eager beaver strikes again!)</span><span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 19px;">, "un cono pequeno con chocolate, por favor". She didn't understand me, so I asked Ilana to order for me thinking I was saying something wrong, she repeats the same thing and boom, the woman understood. Didn't quite understand why she didn't get it when I said it, but thinking back it may be because I do not say it confident enough - I'll try working on that.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">Anyways, chowed down on the ice cream, stood around and chatted for a bit with the group before heading back in the direction of home with Maylin and Danielle. Discussed scuba diving a bit and went our separate ways. Since we were headed for the beach early the next day, I decided to just hang out at home and pack <span style="font-size: x-small;">(ideally I was planning to do homework, but that didn't happen)</span>. My mama made pasta for dinner, so good! But on top of that, there was an incredible homemade refried black bean dip in the middle of the table <span style="font-size: x-small;">(it is safe to say I had my fair share, and more)</span>. Full day and a full belly, it was time for bed.</span></span></div>
<h3 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">Enero 24</span></span></h3>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">Woke up at 6:30am - excited for our trip to the beach!</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">I am still proud that somehow we managed to plan a trip for 13 people on such short notice, and it was awesome. Yes, there were some kinks when it came to paying the bills for the hired van and hostel, but overall, it was another weekend filled with great, unexpected adventures.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">We agreed that the bus would leave at 7:30am, which turned into 8:00am after figuring out the payment for the driver, but then we were headed for Jaco. The bus ride was filled with laughter and word games - one in particular named "Bobby's World" that took Wendy, Maylin, and I foreeeeever to understand. Everyone got a good laugh out of it. Basically you would say what can exist in Bobby's World, "boobs but not breasts", "trees but no leaves", "spelling but no english", "earrings but no ears", "teeth but no mouths", etc. etc. Probably to anyone who read those can already see the pattern/rule, but what can I say, it didn't seem quite as obvious when you can't figure it out for an hour <span style="font-size: x-small;">(for those as ignorant as myself, words with double letters are allowed in Bobby's world, jaja)</span>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">About 20 minutes out from Jaco, our bus driver made a pit stop before a bridge that had some shops to get water and a snack, go to the bathroom, and last but not least - see some crocs! It was pretty cool, I think I counted 23 of those buggers.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">Took some time to load up on some sunscreen, people bought some things at the shops, then we were back on the bus to our final destination. Once in Jaco, we didn't exactly know how to get to the hostel, Beds on Bohio<span style="font-size: x-small;"> (highly recommend it!)</span>, so our driver was nice enough to drive around the town for a bit until we located it. At first, he started going inland a bit farther from the shore than I anticipated so I got a little nervous, plus the area began to look a little dodgy, but then we worked our way back in and ended up within two blocks of the beachfront :)</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">The next hour was spent trying to figure out paying for the hostel and coordinating the rooms (<span style="font-size: x-small;">two rooms with a queen bed each, and then two rooms with two fulls beds each; which, if you are keeping track, that only sleeps 12 people and we had 13. Due to the circumstances, Ilana, Ellie and I volunteered to sleep three in one of the queen bedrooms)</span>. The people before us had just checked out, so we had to wait a little while for two of the rooms to be cleaned - the hostel owners offered for us to leave our belongings in the bar area that was closed for the time being so we would have more beach time, but I do not think any of us were feeling comfortable enough with that to jump on the opportunity. Instead, as soon as one of the rooms were done being cleaned, we all dropped our things and started changing into our suits. Soon after, a group of us were beach bound, and a group of us were food bound.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">Ignoring the obvious pattern of people setting up there things in the shade of the palms further back from the beach, we set up camp in the middle of the sand with no trees around. Ilana opted to watch our stuff while everyone ran for the water<span style="font-size: x-small;"> (so refreshing)</span>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">I realized very quickly that it was a mistake leaving my contacts in. Thinking I would just skip on back to the room to take them out, I went up to get my shoes from Ilana. But then it hit me that Terina <span style="font-size: x-small;">(who had gone with the group in town to get food)</span> had the key to the room everyone dropped their things in, including my bag with my contact case and solution <span style="font-size: x-small;">(oops)</span>. So, no going under water for Jenna until I got a chance to get back to the room. Kip, Sam, and Jean rented some surfboards for the</span></span><span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 19px;"> day </span><span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 19px;">($10)</span><span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 19px;">, so they went out to get some waves while others swam and sunbathed.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Maylin, Danielle, Jean, and me.</td></tr>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">About an hour into beach time, Ilana and I were roasting and everyone was MIA, so we decided to make the executive decision to move everyone's belongings into the shade <span style="font-size: x-small;">(thank goodness)</span>. After some more swimming and napping, the MIA group came back with some food, and Ellie offered me the rest of her french fries. Within two minutes, she went to ask me for one last frie, but I had already finished them :p it was time to get some food of my own in my belly. Sam, Kip, and I walked around town for a bit in search of some quesadillas. We ended up at a restaurant right next to our hostel, and met up with Ilana, Jean, and Stecy.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">Walked back to the beach, and decided it was time to try surfing for the first time!</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">Super fun, but holy cow I have a whole new admiration for surfers. Full body workout folks <span style="font-size: x-small;">(is it sad to say I am still sore?)</span>. I stood up twice, thanks to help from Sam! Around sunset, I handed off the board to Maylin and went in to enjoy the view from the beach <span style="font-size: x-small;">(really I was just exhausted, jaja)</span>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">Ilana and Katie were the only ones there. I asked Ilana where everyone else was and she said some were in the water, and others went to get coconut water a few hours ago and never returned. Low and behold, they come walking up and tell us some interesting news - some of the gals got some new piercings, lol. One wasn't so bad, they got their belly button done, but guess what the other got pierced? I'll give you a hint, starts with an "n" and ends with an "ipples". OUCHHHH, I cringed and screamed for her when she told us haha, but I think Jean's reaction was the best.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">After they broke the news, it was starting to get dark so everyone came back to gather their things and start heading back to the hostel. Katie wasn't feeling well and I had some tylenol in my bag, so Ilana and I went back with her a bit sooner than everyone else to get her some medicine. Sand was everywhere, so showers were next on the to do list. I hopped in to rinse off and was hit with some intense amounts of water <span style="font-size: x-small;">(I didn't realize their was not shower head so it was like a stream coming out of a hose on full blast)</span>. A quick rinse and that was my shower. I then realized there were no bath towels, so forced to air dry in the middle of the room while standing on my sand covered beach towel<span style="font-size: x-small;"> (poor Katie and Ilana got a show, jaja)</span>. After a while of still being damp, I decided to just put on my clothes from earlier to soak up the rest of the water and pack my things up to take downstairs to Ilana, Ellie, and my room.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 19px;">Everyone started rolling back to the hostel to get cleaned up and ready for the night.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">Once I felt sufficiently dry, I threw on a dress<span style="font-size: x-small;"> (to make up for my lack of showering)</span> and was ready to roll. A group of us decided to seek out a supermarket to make dinner instead of eating out.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">We made it to the store, but couldn't decide on anything <span style="font-size: x-small;">(I got a sloth beach towel and some water though)</span>, so we ended up stopping in Pizza Pata on the walk home for some quick satisfaction. It was roastinggggg inside the Pizza place. All of us immediately started dripping upon entrance, but the cashier was the happiest man in the world. He was part cashier, part DJ, singing and dancing all over the place as he took orders.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">We got the pizza to go <span style="font-size: x-small;">(even though Kip finished his before we even left the restaurant)</span>, and went back to the hostel to eat. The rest of the night, we sort of claimed this black sectional that was outside on the second floor, next to this awesome mural.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">Ate our pizza and got some free drinks from the hostel's bar. Around 10pm, they stopped serving free drinks and I felt that we needed a little more alcohol for the night, so I put together an excursion to the liquor store to get a bottle of Capt. Morgan to tide us over. Some Coke was bought as well to accompany the rum, but it didn't get opened, jaja. When we got back from the store, everyone was hanging out on the sectional in the dark, just talking about life. Some other people who were staying at Beds on Bohio and even the hostel pups came up to join the party.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">After some time, we walked to the beach. It was low tide so large expanses of the water were completely still on the sand with the surrounding lights reflecting off of it, so pretty. We wandering around a bit, saw a bonfire in the distance so naturally we wanted to join. We figured offering some rum would be a nice gesture, but once we got to the bonfire it ended up being a group of three little kids <span style="font-size: x-small;">(LOL)</span>. We turned back around and walked in the direction of the hostel. At the end of our midnight beach walk, we were greeted by a 25 year old man from Denmark, in his underwear, being duct taped to a post by his 4 friends. Apparently in Denmark, if you are not married by the age of 25, this is what happens to you on your birthday. We all were intrigued so we just stood and around and watch it unfold. After taping the poor guy, they dumped a bag of ice <span style="font-size: x-small;">(aka three big, solid hunks of ice) </span>over his head, and then proceeded to pour packets of various spices over him <span style="font-size: x-small;">(chicken teriyaki, cinnamon, salt, etc.)</span>. It was so strange, but so hilarious. We fed him some rum out of pity, then asked to take a photo with him - no one would believe us otherwise, jaja.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">Confused and laughing about what just happened, we walked back to the hostel. Laid on the hammocks and bonded with Banana <span style="font-size: x-small;">(one of the hostel dogs)</span> for a bit while Ellie talked with a guy named Dave <span style="font-size: x-small;">(who ironically went to CUNY Brooklyn College, small world)</span>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">I was feeling the need for a snack before bed, so Ilana, Ellie, our new friend Dave, and I went to a mini-market for some Doritos. Then it was time to hit the sheets. Our room had this very interesting painting in it <span style="font-size: x-small;">(so naturally I had to take a photo)</span>. The artist had to be high while they were making it - a seascape with galaxies made from pizza and hamburgers, jaja.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It was a tight squeeze, but Ilana, Ellie and I all fit on our queen bed. The only problem was lack of pillows and blankets. Woke up in the middle of the night freezinggg. I was in shorts and a sports bra, and using my new sloth towel as a blanket, but when I woke up I frantically put on my pants and sweater, then used my dress from the night as an extra blanket!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">First day of our weekend trip - success!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Enero 25</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Second day was also a success :)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The night before, we had planned to get up and go for a morning walk on the beach around 8:30am. So Maylin, Kip, Ilana, Ellie and I walked to the right at Jaco for a good bit, enjoying the view.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I made another puppy friend. Eventually we turned around and went back to the hostel for breakfast, along the way saw an interesting squirrel doing a balancing act on the power lines. He had a very furry red body, then his tail and back were grayish black.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The hostel offered a $3 dollar breakfast option, so everyone ordered the tico breakfast - beans, rice and eggs. Plus, we all ordered smoothies - needed some refreshments, even at 9:30am it was hot hot hot. We finished eating, then everyone from the other rooms began to trickle down to eat, all packed and ready for checkout. Maylin and Kip were eager to start the day and not waste a minute of sunlight, but Ilana, Ellie and I were feeling a bit more lethargic. We laid in bed until checkout at 10:45am. After everyone was packed, groups started getting taxi's to go to Playa Hermosa for the day <span style="font-size: x-small;">(about a 7 minute drive from Playa Jaco)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Found a nice spot <span style="font-size: x-small;">(in the shade, not making the same mistake twice) </span>and put all our stuff down. Kip and I sought out surfboard rental, but I held off on getting on until I could see if someone wanted to split it with me <span style="font-size: x-small;">(there was no way I could do a whole day of surfing)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Other groups started arriving, we swam, played frisbee, got some sun, attempted to walk on the tightrope next to our spot, befriended some locals, got some eats, watched some Macaws, and soaked up all the day had to offer.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo by Katie!</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">One thing we didn't have in mind was the burning hot walk <span style="font-size: x-small;">(sprint)</span> in the sand to the water. For some reason, everyone decided to be brave and run to the water without their sandals, big big big mistake. It didn't seem so? bad going out, but coming back in I think we all screamed and cursed and ran to the closest towel or shadow in sight <span style="font-size: x-small;">(it was freaking hot)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Also, while eating my quesadilla, I befriended yet another puppy :)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Our driver came to pick us up from Playa Hermosa around 4:00pm. Sand was everywhere <span style="font-size: x-small;">(ick)</span> and people were changing out of their suits <span style="font-size: x-small;">(Terina accidentally flashed a truck driver, jaja)</span>. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The bus ride home was a lottt quieter than the one there, everyone was tired out from the sun, just embracing the sunset view as we drove through the mountains.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">We got back to San Jose around 6:40pm, I greeted my family, told them about my day. In desperate need of a shower, I asked if I could have dinner a bit later than usual - mi mama kindly agreed to wait until I was ready. Once I got off as much sand as I could and finally washed my hair, I went to the kitchen for dinner. Miss Universe was on the television, oy vey, jaja. It was interesting to see my host parents reactions to the broadcast - they seemed quite invested in it! Mi mama made me lentil soup with hot dog in it <span style="font-size: x-small;">(so good)</span>. Tired from the weekend, I cleaned up and went to my room. Not ready for the class at 8:00am the next day!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Well - I have class in about an hour and gotta do some actual work for it, sooo I will stop my post here :) Details about Monday and Today will be up at a later date!</span></div>
<h3 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Buenas Tardes Mis Amigos!</span></h3>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02141075455954663973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2183738454216185272.post-83900347489523267892015-01-22T18:31:00.002-08:002015-01-22T18:38:09.996-08:00Religión y Otras Cosas<h3 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Enero 20 continued...</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So picking up at the Development from a Gender Perspective course! We began the class by defining what gender meant to us and the controversies that come with it, and while we were describing this to a partner, they had to draw what we were saying <span style="font-size: x-small;">(made for some very interesting drawings)</span>. Gender as a social construct, different than a person's sex, conforming to gender norms, falls on a spectrum/is fluid are all ideas that surfaced amongst the group. Then we moved onto an exercise where we went around and brainstormed stereotypes that different types of women face <span style="font-size: x-small;">(groups included black, latino, indigenous, and muslim)</span>. A pretty basic conclusion was that women are low on the totem pole of life, but it was interesting to see the overlapping words/phrases we used for each group.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My next class was Current Environmental Issues in Latin America with Yanina Rovinski, she is a lovely woman. Chemistry undergrad and Masters in Journalism. Her introduction powerpoint was filled with photographs she took from her balcony <span style="font-size: x-small;">(gorgeous sunset views that I was jealous of)</span>! We did introductions and a basic overview of the course, then let out a little early. At this point my stomach was beginning to growl as I had accidentally skipped lunch <span style="font-size: x-small;">(usually I go grab food during the 12:00 to 1:00 break with the other students, but I had gone back to my homestay after Rural and Urban SD)</span>. So, knowing I wouldn't last until dinner time at 7:00pm, I went with Hannah to a nearby pizzeria thinking I would get a quick slice of pizza to tide me over <span style="font-size: x-small;">(New York thinking)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Turns out this pizzeria doesn't do by the slice, but it did say they had small pizzas - I automatically thought personal size, so I ordered myself one and waited patiently for them to make it fresh! The two free teas that they put on my tray should have tipped me off that they thought Hannah and I were sharing it and that the small is actually big enough to serve two people. Oh well, got my very large, small pizza and gobbled most of it up! I didn't want to waste the extra tea either <span style="font-size: x-small;">(Hannah wasn't thirsty)</span> so I took it home with me along with my last slice.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Once I got home, found a little nook in the fridge to put my leftovers and went to my room to start working on some school stuff. A few days earlier my mama had said something to me about praying for a boy next door on Tuesday <span style="font-size: x-small;">(I assume he was sick or some big life event was happening that day)</span>, so even though I am not religious, I said I would keep him in my thoughts. What I didn't get from the conversation was that my mama's familia would be coming over Tuesday night and having a get together to pray for him! I was working in my room, heard the doorbell ring and lots of voices filling the living room. Unsure of whether I was supposed to come out and greet everyone <span style="font-size: x-small;">(usually they call my name if they want me to come out and meet people)</span>, I kept working. About 15 minutes later, my mama comes in asking to borrow the two chairs I have in my room because they need more seating, at that point I offered to help carry them out and joined the "party" <span style="font-size: x-small;">(in quotes because I do not now what exactly to call it, family prayer get together)</span>. I met my mama's two hermanas, a woman who I assume was one of the sister's daughters, with her husband, teenage daughter, and nephew that was living with them for school. Then my parents otra dija <span style="font-size: x-small;">(other daughter)</span> and her daughter. I still do not know if I made the correct connections between them all, but we shall see!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Remember how I was feeling all confident in my Spanish speaking skills the last post, well reverse that now, jaja. Tomas, who was the nephew living with his aunt and uncle for university, was taking English classes and wanted to practice by talking to me in English, so that was a relief! Other than talking to him though, I clammed up. At family gatherings, everyone speaks so quickly, and I have a hard enough time getting my mama to slow down one on one.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Soon after meeting and greeting everyone, the prayer <span style="font-size: x-small;">(praying)</span> began! I sat silently on the couch and observed. My mama sat in the middle of the group and acted as the "leader" of the prayer, as in she would say a phrase alone and then everyone else would say something in unison after her. These moments were interlaced with songs, accompanied by my papa playing guitar, and it went on for about 15-30 minutes <span style="font-size: x-small;">(quite extensive but very interesting)</span>. Once they were done, we gathered around the table and dinner was served. A yummy rice dish with mixed meats, salad, and chips<span style="font-size: x-small;"> (looove the potato chips here, I don't know why they taste different, but they do)</span>. As everyone finished, I started collecting plates to retreat to the kitchen and wash them so that no one would try to spark up a conversation with me <span style="font-size: x-small;">(bad I know because I should welcome opportunity to practice, but it was overwhelming in the moment - looking back, they are probably used to Hilda y Carlos having students who do not speak very good Spanish)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Dessert was served and my mama made sure I didn't stay hidden in the kitchen any longer :) While we savored our caramel pound cake, my papa and the husband of the daughter of one of my mama's sisters <span style="font-size: x-small;">(phew - it would be best to remember names from now on, huh?)</span> were looking over some music and started bursting out into song at random moments, it was great. Soon guitar was back in the picture and my papa was telling me to go get my ukulele to play for everyone. I, of course, did not want to play in front of everyone, but how can you say no? Off to my room I went, tuned it quick <span style="font-size: x-small;">(with the help of my iPhone app, can't tune by ear)</span> and played what little bit I know for everyone. They were all very supportive, which was nice! "Que Lindo!" <span style="font-size: x-small;">(how cute!)</span> was thrown around a lot.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It was getting late, so the sisters went home. Tomas, his cousin and aunt hung out for a little longer. We looked at all my papa's watercolor paintings and I even pulled up Facebook to show them a few of my drawings/paintings/projects. Everyone was getting sleepy, so "Buenos Noches", kisses on the cheek, and it was time for bed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Enero 21</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Decided it was time to finally take a shower, especially by Costa Rican standards, so as soon as I was able to pull myself out of bed <span style="font-size: x-small;">(like an hour of hitting the snooze button later)</span> I hopped in. Breakfast was waiting for me when I got out, an egg over-easy with toast and fruit - my favorite! My mama was cleaning up from the night before <span style="font-size: x-small;">(or maybe just doing her daily cleaning of the kitchen)</span>. Clock hit 9:45am - off to Community Engagement and Sustainable Human Development I went. This class session was all about the "Iceberg Exercise". From the syllabus I thought maybe Joaquin meant "icebreaker" but turned out it was indeed the iceBERG exercise. We compiled a list of cultural components <span style="font-size: x-small;">(religious beliefs, gender roles, political views, concept of beauty, concept of self, respect of privacy, and 17 others)</span> and discussed whether they would be visible in a culture as a tourist staying in a region/country for a week. After much discussion and an espresso <span style="font-size: x-small;">(cafe mocha caramelo has been my go to espresso)</span> break, we only made it through half of the items.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Lunch time! Went with a group to a grocery store with a restaurant two blocks from ULatina. Rice, beans, pasta, and beet salad for a very reasonable price - more leftovers! A quick stop in a mini-market with Katie to get a chocolate fix, then back to ULatina to find out which Spanish classes we were all put in. Somehow, don't ask me how, I made into the Intermediate class <span style="font-size: x-small;">(woooohoooooo)</span>! I think initially there was only three classes, basic, intermediate, and advanced, however, a few of the girls are pretty new to Spanish so a fourth professor was brought in and now we have basic 1, basic 2, intermediate and advanced. The session went well! Our <span style="font-size: x-small;">(5 of us)</span> professor is Silvana Margarita del Carmen Marranghello Musmanni <span style="font-size: x-small;">(mouthful!)</span>. I know her entire name because we discussed everyone's name as an exercise, told the class about the origins of our names and their significance. In Costa Rica, they have two last names that are both used. The first is apellido paterno and the second is apellido materno. Both her parents were from Italy <span style="font-size: x-small;">(told a lot more of the history but you all get the point)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Once we were done discussing our names, telling her where we are from, what we are studying, and why we want to speak Spanish, we got into the nitty gritty - the syllabus. As she went over the items for REVIEW - I started to get a little nervous as I completely forgot about some of the things she was mentioning, jaja. I definitely need to brush up quite a bit, but I think I can do it! We were let out a bit early so I went on a hot water hunt with Ellie for her tea packet. The cafeteria wanted us to pay $1.80 for a cup of hot water, so we decided we could wait.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Next on the agenda for the day was a meeting with an Embassy representative set up by ICDS. It was very interesting, also scary to hear about past incidents with US citizens getting robbed, raped, dying, etc. in Costa Rica. But just have to keep in mind that bad things can happen anywhere - just be smart and do not call a bluff for someone who is holding you up at gunpoint <span style="font-size: x-small;">(also take back my confidence in my carrying my phone/camera around - so I apologize for the lack of pictures)</span>. The Embassy rep also talked to us about the Peace Corp. so that was cool to hear about his experience as a volunteer.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Another meeting with the head of ICDS, Don Jorge, for the CUNY students concerning receiving credits for certain courses. We are allowed to audit certain courses, but since Hunter did not accept a course equivalency, we can not try to get credit for those courses. Ellie and I finally made some tea at the office, and then after the meeting, a group of us went searching for some coffee/tea portable canisters so that we wouldn't run into this problem again! We located some canisters, went to the grocery store for some essentials, and since the sun was beginning to set, everyone went their separate ways for home. When I showed up with more leftovers, my mama seemed shocked! It must not be a common thing, but I explained to her that I do not intend on buying lunch tomorrow and that my leftovers would be my lunch. She understood, but was still a little skeptical, jaja.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">That night would also be a religious night. On my walk home I remembered that we were supposed to go up to their church for mass and then to my papa's brothers house afterwards - it was the 2 year anniversary of their mother's death.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Around 6:15pm we made our way up to the church. Before we left, they both looked at me concerned and asked "are you sure you want to come, last night we prayed, we are going to the church to pray, and then back to my brothers to pray again? <span style="font-size: x-small;">(but in spanish of course)</span>". I cheerfully said yes, I figured it would be interesting to experience<span style="font-size: x-small;"> (& it was)</span>! My mama couldn't get over the fact that I was in short sleeves, for her it was freezing. I keep telling her it is like 11 degrees in PA right now, so this weather feels so niceee, but she is still surprised when I am I not wearing a sweater or jacket at night <span style="font-size: x-small;">(even inside)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We arrived at their large green church, sat down in the pews, and my parents took a moment to pray. Mass began promptly at 6:30pm, not sure how to describe the service <span style="font-size: x-small;">(it is embarrassing how little I know about religion)</span>. Standing, sitting, priest? talking, praying, offertory, and my favorite part, singing. It was so calming, their voices filled the church and made such a beautiful sound. Once mass was over, the introductions to my papa's family began. We all walked back down the hill to Tacho's <span style="font-size: x-small;">(Luis, my papa's brother's, also Hannah's host papa)</span> house. Another prayer session<span style="font-size: x-small;"> (very similar, if not the same, to the one we had at our house the night before)</span>, and then dinner <span style="font-size: x-small;">(same "party" dish)</span> was served. Then came the amazinggg helado, ice cream. So. So. Good. Over our ice cream, Hannah and I tried to figure out the birth order of our host papa's siblings. We guessed oldest May <span style="font-size: x-small;">(Manuel)</span>, Macho <span style="font-size: x-small;">(Francisco)</span>, Tacho <span style="font-size: x-small;">(Luis)</span>, Cali <span style="font-size: x-small;">(Carlos)</span>, Nando <span style="font-size: x-small;">(Hernando)</span>, and then their sister, who's name is escaping me right now. Turns out my papa, Cali, is actually the oldest! Other than that, we got the order right :p It is also interesting how many siblings my host parents have in comparison to how many kids they have - 2. Also, my mama married Cali at 21 (<span style="font-size: x-small;">my age - yikes D: can't even imagine)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Dessert was finished, and my papa was ready to roll! Once we got outside, he exclaimed "mucha gente!" - I think he had had enough partying for one night, jaja.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Shuffled next door, and we were home. Bid them goodnight and worked on my course equivalency submissions for Baruch<span style="font-size: x-small;"> (which is super stressful because I have to deal with bureaucratic processes for Hunter, Baruch, and CUNY BA)</span>. Around 10pm, ate my leftover pizza while trying to read a bit for my Rural and Urban Sustainable Development class the next day. I realized I had forgot to ask where the TP is located and I was running low, but luckily my mama had read my mind <span style="font-size: x-small;">(aka checked my bathroom)</span> and put an extra roll in there for me. Let me note though, no TP goes in the toilet <span style="font-size: x-small;">(even #2 paper goes in the trashcan)</span>. The plumbing is quite primitive so it gets clogged easily. I am pretty good about it at home, but I keep forgetting to throw the paper in the trashcan at school! So scared for the day that it gets clogged and starts to overflow...<span style="font-size: x-small;">(they actually put a phrase on our ICDS survival spanish sheet that says "the toilet is overflowing, what do I do?")</span>!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Enero 22</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Today I woke up to my curtains open - must've done that in my sleep. My sleeping self knew I'd need help waking up this morning! Had some weird dreams about going to a hostel and catching this weird disease that caused me to have blisters on my hands...details are hazy, but it was strange! There was a hammock involved though, so all was good.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Got ready for the day <span style="font-size: x-small;">(aka threw on an outfit)</span>, and then joined my mama for breakfast. She asked me what I thought about the past two days being that I am not a religious person, and we got on the subject of past students and how they have hosted students of all sorts over the past 12 years: buddhist, christian, catholic, muslim, etc. It was sad though because one girl they hosted was Muslim <span style="font-size: x-small;">(from the States but originally Pakistan)</span>, and when she went home I guess she had become a bit laxed about the traditions and her parents sent her back to Pakistan because they disapproved of her new habits! 8:00am approached quickly so I left for class. We talked about the timeline of sustainable development and its relevance in a historical context, also revisited getting to know Costa Rica. Fun facts - there are 8,000 species of moth in CR, 300,000+ insect species, main export is integrated circuits, national tree is the Guanacaste. We also have to pick a country in Latin America/Caribbean for a case study, I think I am going to go with Bonaire!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Large break between 10:00am and 3:00pm (decided not to audit the Gender Perspective course), so I walked around town a bit. Went to Santa Clara bakery to try to get one of the dulce de leche pastries Ilana had gotten me for my birthday. I found one that looked very similar so I got it, was not quite what I was looking for but it did the trick <span style="font-size: x-small;">(the creme kind of tasted like a cleaning product, but not necessarily in a disgusting way)</span>. In any case, next time I go, I'll have to take a better look at the selection.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Went to Mas o Menos<span style="font-size: x-small;"> (local grocery store)</span> to get a big tube of toothpaste, realized I should save the little travel size one I got for weekend trips with the crew. Walked past a clothing store on my way home and decided to pop in for a second - but they had to unlock the door for me to come in! I guess to deter theft, but it was strange having to be let back out when I wanted to leave. We talked about clothing ticas <span style="font-size: x-small;">(Costa Rican women)</span> wear in my classes, Joaquin said his friend has a pair of "tica pants", which was code for skinny jeans that are two sizes too small. But I feel like everyone buys skinny jeans in sizes too small for them. The reason went in the store was because I feel like I didn't pack quite appropriately <span style="font-size: x-small;">(would've packed more layer-able things, plus jeans)</span>. It is crazy how much the temperature changes from the sun to the shade, let alone day and night.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Anyways, left the clothing store, wandered around a bit, saw some pretty flowers growing on houses. Dropped off my passport to be scanned by Lulu<span style="font-size: x-small;"> (an ICDS employee)</span> for the our Nicaragua trip! Then went back to my casa to relax a bit and eat my leftover beans and rice before my Current Environmental Issues class.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My momma sent me a cute message before class that made me smile :) I miss her and Pey so very much!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In Env. Issues class, we watched a documentary titled Planet Ocean. Such an aesthetically beautiful film. A little "preachy", but overall a great message <span style="font-size: x-small;">(and made me want to be in the water scuba diving - recognized lots of my fish friends)</span>. We also had a local join our class, Tommy, so I am looking forward to that <span style="font-size: x-small;">(not that I do not love my ICDS people, but it will be cool to have a tico in the class)</span>. Class dismissed, and the weekend began!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Came home, hopped in my pajamas, started writing about my day. Ate some pollo, patatas, y arroz con ensalada por la cena. Around 9:30pm, heading to a local jazz club with some ICDS folks for a concert! Tomorrow is a visit to DOKA Coffee Estate, then Saturday morning we are leaving for Playa Jaco until Sunday night, can't wait for the adventures ahead.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Eso es todo por ahora. Buenos Noches!</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">**Today I decided to start a little journal for vocabulary. Whenever there is a word that comes up in conversation that I want to say, but do not know, I will write it down in my journal and look it up when I get home. And also to write down anything I notice while I am out and about that I might forget about by the time I get home to blog and such.**</span></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02141075455954663973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2183738454216185272.post-71849217587770260522015-01-20T10:07:00.002-08:002015-01-20T10:18:05.216-08:00Primeros Dias de Clases<h3 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Enero 19</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">*Side Note* I am finding myself automatically figuring out how to say my thoughts in Spanish - even if I am not intending on telling anyone. Por ejemplo, I was brainstorming a grocery list and in my head it came out "necesito comprar..." It is so amazing and strange how quickly that is happening! I have only been here a week and my brain is already making these connections.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So yesterday classes began! On Mondays and Wednesdays my classes begin at 10am, so I get a chance to sleep in a bit <span style="font-size: x-small;">(yay, Lunes is not my best day of the week)</span>. I woke up around 8:30am, had breakfast with mis padres. Attempted to FaceTime with my momma back home, pero she couldn't figure out the password for our wifi so it was a no go. <span style="font-size: x-small;">(Hopefully I will get to Skype/FaceTime with my whole family soon!)</span>. After breakfast, got ready for my first day at ULatina <span style="font-size: x-small;">(we were told/encouraged to shower everyday, as personal hygiene is very important in Costa Rican culture, but I didn't think I was smelly so I skipped that step)</span>. As I went to leave, my mama told me to be careful because I had accidentally knocked off the garage sensor the night before, I felt so bad! Hopefully it wasn't a big deal.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Edificio C de ULatina - where all the ICDS classes are held.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My first class was Community Engagement and Sustainable Human Development with Profesor Joaquin Phoenix <span style="font-size: x-small;">(just kidding - Joaquin Lizano)</span>. He. Is. Hilarious, at least from what I can tell from the two hours I spent with him thus far. After doing a survey for ICDS and going through the syllabus, his quirky side quickly revealed itself. At one point he said "we" when he was referring to himself and said, "as in my schizophrenic self". He told us about an event he went to that was called Butoh. It was a Japanese dance performance that took place in an Industrial warehouse in San Jose <span style="font-size: x-small;">(had no idea they had such an art scene here, very surprising) </span>that illustrated the descent to Hell. From how he described it, it seemed like an incredible experience!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In accordance with the usual first class session, we went around the room and introduced ourselves. Name - where we are from/go to school - major - around 3 words that define us. Other students used words such as driven, adventurous, outgoing, curious, artist, traveler, intuitive, altruistic, and many others. I chose empathetic, independent, and optimistic. It was interesting because at first the Joaquin thought I meant independent in the sense that the United States fosters a very individualistic culture and I was very ambitious. However, I explained that what I meant by independent was that I am happy being alone and exploring new things. Although I am very loving and I enjoy being around people, I also enjoy time on my own, so sometimes I have to remind myself to check in with family and friends back home if I am traveling and to go out with the other students and be social!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For instance, while we were visiting the oldest colonial church in Costa Rica, while everyone was either inside the church or already back on the bus, I just kind of sat outside the church for 10 minutes, watching the locals play soccer and the clouds rolling over the mountains. It was very peaceful. Another student, Katie, described herself as reserved - I think that applies to me as well sometimes. When in large groups, I really enjoy observing and listening to what is happening.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">12:00pm rolled around and it was time for our Lunch Break. I still had yet to go to the bank, so I decided this would be a good time to exchange some dollars for colones.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Colones are much prettier than dollars.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The line took quite a while, and we only had an hour for lunch, and I was hungry. But it was my fault for not exchanging my silly American dollars sooner. Once I finally reached the window and got my 50,000 colones, I hustled over to the vegetarian restaurant to peruse the menu. Ilana came over and told me she wasn't going to finish the other half of hers <span style="font-size: x-small;">(cheese empenada)</span>, so I just ate that and got some jugo de pina. Talked with Terina who I hadn't really had a chance to get to know as much as the other students, so that was nice!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Next up was clase de espanol! Since all of us were at different levels, we took a placement test to see which class we were going to take. There were two parts: written and spoken. Written, I did eh. The last page was all about the past, and I am no bueno at past tenses <span style="font-size: x-small;">(preterite o imperfect)</span>. The spoken portion seemed to go much better than expected though! We shall see if I get placed in the basic or intermediate tomorrow.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Everyone finished up pretty early, so we went as the gringo herd to the copying center for those who hadn't made a copy of their passports yet. Had an interesting talk about pregnancy and somehow coined the phrase "it's an egg thing" - poor Kip <span style="font-size: x-small;">(the only guy in the program)</span> has to put up with ~15 girls, so I think we will be using that phrase quite a bit. Afterwards, we all remembered that we planned to go to the Chocolateria that was closed on Sunday - so we speed walked there to satisfy our craving. I got an assortment - un limon, un caramelo, una fresa, y una licor de menta. They were all eaten by the time I got back to the ICDS Office <span style="font-size: x-small;">(a 5 minute walk, jaja, don't judge me)</span>! Everyone went to the office to hang out before some of the students had to do an orientation for teaching english at local NGOs. Tried to play trivial pursuit but ended just seeing how many of the questions we could figure out, then orientation started and the group dispersed <span style="font-size: x-small;">(some went to play soccer nearby the office)</span>. I opted to join the orientation group, even though I am not teaching english at my NGO it seemed like it would be beneficial to know!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Around 4:30pm the lesson ended and everyone stayed after a bit to talk to another student who was here on a different program with ICDS, and then brainstorm what we wanted to try to collectively do this weekend <span style="font-size: x-small;">(some ideas being thrown around are a beach trip or attending this festival called Palmares Fiestas happening in a nearby town)</span>. Ellie, Ilana and I were going to have a ukulele session <span style="font-size: x-small;">(aka Ellie teaching us all her brilliant uke tips)</span>, so we walked with a group back to Ilana's house where her host mama and sobrina greeted us. The sun was starting to set and I realized I still had my passport and quite a bit of money in my purse so I headed home because I didn't want to walk home too late. I felt so bohemian - I had a long flow-y patterned skirt on with a saggy sweater and was playing the uke all the way home with the sun setting over the mountains, lighting up the sky with pink and gold. It was great :)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Dinner with my family yesterday was also great, we chatted more than usual <span style="font-size: x-small;">(I think I was feeling more confident because my Spanish placement test went better than anticipated)</span>. They told me about their past students, including a really terrible girl that left after six weeks. Mi mama said she asked her one day if she liked Costa Rica - she said "no". Then she asked her if she like their home - she said "no". I just do not understand how someone could be so rude - let alone, how they could not like my family or Costa Rica!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">*Side Note* Just had a momentary freak out - I am home from school on my lunch break and thought that it was approaching 1:00pm which is when my next class starts, but my computer is still on ET. phew. Need to fix that.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">After we finished eating dinner, I finally asked my mama to cook/serve me less. The food is so good but I will be leaving here 20 pounds heavier if I continue to eat as much as I have been. BUT then she asked me if I had room for a piece of the leftover cheesecake she had made for my birthday...I told her dessert is a different story, she and my papa got a good laugh out of that. I am so happy that I am getting to the point where I know enough Spanish and I am comfortable enough to make jokes with them <span style="font-size: x-small;">(however, I still have too many moments where I am not sure exactly what they are saying and I just try to read their gestures and react the way I think I should)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Enero 20</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Day two of the first sessions of classes! Today I started at 8:00am though <span style="font-size: x-small;">(boo)</span>. I am not a morning person people. I felt so bad, I must have yawned 20 times <span style="font-size: x-small;">(not exaggerating)</span> in my first class - Rural and Urban Sustainable Development. I really like my professor, Dr. Helen Temple. She is from the UK and is very intelligent, also has a good sense of humor! We did another round of introductions, went over the syllabus, took a quick break <span style="font-size: x-small;">(which I used to run a get an espresso and a brownie)</span> and then did a sort of jeopardy type group quiz to gauge what we knew about Costa Rica<span style="font-size: x-small;"> (how many species of ___,___,&___ there are in CR, percentage biodiversity, national symbols, etc.)</span>. She left most of the answers open-ended though so we would have to look them up for next class - we did learn that overall their are around 500,000 different species in Costa Rica, insane!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">When 12:00pm rolled around, the group that didn't have the next class walked out together, which included myself. We came across an itty bitty lizard on the steps, and I decided to scoop him up in my empty coffee cup and take him outside so he didn't get stepped on.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Still felt a wee bit sleepy so decided to go back to my casa before my next class at 1:00pm, taking some pictures of my street and flowers along the way. I realized I haven't been taking many photos because I do not want to carry my camera and iPhone around with me for security reasons - but I am feeling more confident in my abilities to take a few pictures here and there and not worry about being targeted for theft.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In about an hour I will head to Development in Latin America from a Gender Perspective <span style="font-size: x-small;">(a class which I am not technically enrolled in but I am going to see what it's like and possibly add to my course schedule)</span>, and then following that is Current Environmental Issues in Latin America. Wish me luck!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Buenas Tardes!</span></h3>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02141075455954663973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2183738454216185272.post-75053698180561383032015-01-19T15:49:00.003-08:002015-01-19T15:49:51.909-08:00Explorando San Jose y San Pedro & Mi Cumpleanos<h3 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Dia Cinco (Enero 17)</span></h3>
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After breakfast and a little ukulele action in my bed, yesterday's purpose <span style="font-size: x-small;">(& every other day)</span> was to explore!</div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We all (the ICDS crew) met at 10am at ULatina to take the bus downtown to San Jose. I came unprepared with no colones, so Ilana spotted me the 265 colones <span style="font-size: x-small;">(5o cents US, so cheap)</span> for the bus ride.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">First stop, getting everyone's SIM cards in order so we could use the local cellphones ICDS gave us. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Second stop, a market full of little </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">trinkets, clothing, bags, etc. Super tight quarters, but lots to explore! The shops seemed to go on forever. It took a lot of effort not to buy all the colorfully patterned flow-y pants, but I think I will be returning to get some at one point during my stay here.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Ellie was enthralled by the shops, as was I, so the group separated into two since Katie had to meet someone for lunch near the Nacional Teatro <span style="font-size: x-small;">(about 5 blocks from where the market was).</span> Half of the group went along and the other half stayed at the market a bit longer then went for some pastries and much needed hydration to a panaderia. We talked for a while then set out for the central market <span style="font-size: x-small;">(larger than the one we were previously at, but </span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">more formal and had a large variety of things - herbs and spices, trinkets, restaurants, machetes, guitars, school supplies, basically anything you could think of was there)</span>. Aside from the herb/spice stands and the food, I was not as impressed with the central market as I thought - very generic things to buy, but it was still a cool atmosphere and I am glad we went!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Following the market exploration, we looked around at bathing suits, bought some notebooks for school tomorrow, then we started to get hungry so we walked around a bit and finally settled on a place to get some eats. A little soda place near a park with an upstairs dining area that overlooked the street. I got una empenada con queso, quite yummy, and was ready for a nap at this point <span style="font-size: x-small;">(2pm is when I clock out for a bit mentally)</span>. We were all pretty exhausted from the hustle and bustle of downtown, so we decided to find the bus stop to head back to San Pedro. This was an adventure in itself. We had walked quite a ways, so we were far from where we got of the bus that morning. We asked two different sets of police officers were we could find the bus stop to San Pedro/ULatina, both gave us the wrong directions. While waiting and waiting at one of the stops they had told us, we decided we had better ask someone else, who told us yet another stop. Could not find a bus that said ULatina or Vargas Araya, but we were getting warmer! Finally the last woman we asked pointed us in the right direction and we hopped on the right bus.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We decided we wanted to orient ourselves in relation to where one another lives in San Pedro, so we walked around to each of our homestays and introduced one another to our families. First stop was my house, where we chatted with my host parents for a bit then went to the second stop - Ilana's. We c</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">rashed their family party, they were celebrating the grandmother winning 1 million colones y one of the aunt's birthdays. I told her it was my birthday tomorrow, too, and before I knew it, she was telling everyone my name <span style="font-size: x-small;">(which they pronounced "Channa" hehe)</span> lighting some candles, and everyone began singing happy birthday to me! It was so incredibly unexpected and nice, I couldn't stop smiling!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Once the party settled down, we said our goodbyes and walked to Ellie's, Sam's, and Natalia's! S</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">aw two husky's on the way, so sticking adorable. Since Natalia and Sam lived the farthest, they stayed at their houses while Ellie, Ilana, and I backtracked to our places. On our way back, we saw a </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">wild dog ahead of us on the sidewalk. Unsure of what to do, we considered crossing the road, but the dog looked at us and seemed to think "hm, I guess I should cross the road so the gringas don't get freaked out and have to cross it to avoid me", so <span style="font-size: x-small;">(we think)</span> he crossed for our sakes and we walked for a while on opposite sides of the street.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Soon we came to Ellie's street, and then on the way to Ilana's we accidentally met back up with the other group that went to San Jose with us that morning! Hannah and Maylin lived near me so I decided to join them as they walked around to orient themselves while Ilana went back home. <span style="font-size: x-small;">(</span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">All the walking around to see where everyone else lived really made me appreciate how close my house is to ULatina!)</span> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">We all planned to go to a bar named Chicago near Sam's house, so back up the hill we went to show them where we were meeting up later that night. The sun was setting so afterwards we went back to our homes for dinner </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small;">(so very exhausted at this point, some of the other students live 20-30 minutes away from ULatina/my house)</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Dinner with my host family consisted of delicious chili, yuca, and rice. Freshened up a bit for Chicago, then it was time to leave to meet up with everyone! </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">When I went to leave, my host mother asked what time I would be waking up tomorrow - I didn't know what to tell her because I didn't want to seem lazy ... if I were at home, I would have said 11 or 12 <span style="font-size: x-small;">(let's be real here, more like 1)</span> but instead I chose to say between 9 and 10 <span style="font-size: x-small;">(my host parents get up at between 5 and 6, oy vey)</span>. Grabbed my keys and off I went! Met up with Hannah, Maylin, and Katie to walk together. M</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">ost of the ICDS crew was there. I had a tequila sunrise and a mojito - other drinks included orgasmo y sexo en la playa!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">While we were there, my dear new friend Ellie secretly drew/painted me a little something for my birthday. It is amazing and now sits propped up on my television antenna until I can locate some tape to put in on my wall!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The bar started playing American music and at one point Queen's "We Will Rock You" came on and our entire table was banging our fists, clapping, and singing the lyrics - it was a great <span style="font-size: x-small;">(corny)</span> moment, jaja<span style="font-size: x-small;"> (today Sam said she actually had a bruise from hitting her fist on the table wrong!)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Mi amiga Maylin offered to pay for my drinks since it was my birthday weekend, so kind of her! Then we took a t</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">axi home - dropped off Katie first on our way, taxi driver was so nice and waited for Katie to get inside her gate before driving away, without us even asking him to. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Got home safe a sound <span style="font-size: x-small;">(taxi ride was only 1,200 colones = $2.20)</span>, locked up the house, said buenos noches to mis padres, then went straight to my room. I was quite exhausted, but it was a wonderful day and worth going out to Chicago! An episode of Grey's later, a sweet video of Sara and Nick singing Happy Birthday and photos from Rory <span style="font-size: x-small;">(my sister's dog, aka my other niece)</span>, and I was out.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Dia Seis (Enero 18 - Mi Cumpleanos)</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Today I decided to sleep in a bit, I usually get up around 7:30-8am, but I got up around 9:30-10am instead! I received adorable photos from my Aunt Carly of my little Grammy wishing me a Happy Birthday and of my aunt's dog Jinxy <span style="font-size: x-small;">(notice the Jenna loves dogs trend, all of my family knows to send me pictures of their dogs to make me happy, jaja)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Once I finally gathered myself enough to get out of bed, I greeted my host sister <span style="font-size: x-small;">(who was also still wearing pajamas, so that made me feel confident in my abilities to sleep in, no problema)</span> and papa in the kitchen. Mi mama was getting ready for mass, when she came out of the bathroom she looked at me all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, arms open wide for a hug and said "feliz cumpleanos!!" It made me smile :) Since mis padres were going to church, mi hermana cooked me desayuno <span style="font-size: x-small;">(an egg con queso, pan, y tea)</span>. I have not spent much time talking with my sister, to be honest I am a bit intimidated. I know it is probably just because I do not speak much Spanish, but I feel like she doesn't really want to get to know me. In any case, breakfast was nice because she asked me about my sister back home and made an effort to talk to me!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Once I finished up eating breakfast, I snatched some of the fudge from the fridge that I bought for mi familia <span style="font-size: x-small;">(folks - I just realized how long it had been since I had some chocolate... 6 days is way too long),</span> with my chocolate boost I then took a nice hot shower and got ready for the day!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Met up with the ICDS group at ULatina at 1pm, as planned! When I went to leave, Maylin <span style="font-size: x-small;">(who lives down the street from me)</span> was on her way, too, so we walked together. Today was a bit overcast and looked like it was going to ran <span style="font-size: x-small;">(I forgot my umbrella but luckily did not need it)</span>, so it was a bit chilly as we waited for the rest of the group to arrive!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Soon enough, everyone was there except Wendy and Meira. Meira came hopping/running<span style="font-size: x-small;"> (literally, she's so cute)</span> into sight like her usual joyful self, and then we were waiting for Wendy who couldn't make it until 1:30pm. In the meantime, Ilana, Natalia and Katie went to a bakery to get some cookies for Ilana's host mother <span style="font-size: x-small;">(which turned out to be code for going to get a piece of cake and a gigantic dulce de leche pastry for my birthday to sing to me once we went to lunch, hehe)</span>. Wendy arrived and we were off like a pack of wandering gringas, in search of a good lunch spot. It didn't take long before we came across a cafe named Kai. However, it took us a good bit of time to figure out how to cross the road to get to Kai...jaja. Drivers in Costa Rica are, let's say, relentless, loco, unmerciful. Crossing a little one way backstreet is tough enough, let alone the main avenida with two way traffic. After waiting and waiting for an opportunity, I decided we were going to be there all day if we didn't just go for it, so I found myself running across the street and everyone yelling "Jenna! Don't die on your birthday!"<span style="font-size: x-small;"> (I didn't, woohoo!)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Kai was super yummy. They served pasta, so Ilana and I found ourselves doing the usual and splitting two different pasta dishes that we both were craving - penne pesto and fettucini alfredo <span style="font-size: x-small;">(except they didn't have fettucini so it ended up being spagetti)</span>. Funny story, we got the choice of three additions to our pasta, so I chose zucchini, mushrooms, and chicken, and Ilana chose eggplant, zucchini, and peppers. The waiter kept returning to the table after we ordered, first no eggplant - had to switch, then no zucchini - had to switch, after the first two Ilana said, next he will come out and say we ran out of pasta, and soon enough he came out and told me there was no fettucini :D It was great.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Anyways, the pasta dishes hit the spot and everyone else seemed to enjoy their meals - laughing over great conversations and eating, how could you go wrong? I seriously was contemplating being a fatty and ordering a brownie con helado, but then Ilana pulled out the cake and pastry that she bought me and that would satisfy my chocolate craving. The whole table sung Feliz Cumpleanos y Happy Birthday to me, love those ladies.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Some more laughs and a piece of cake later, we paid the bill and attempted to visit a tapestry shop we had seen earlier in the week. Since it was Sunday and a festival was happening in town, a lot of the shops were closed - including the tapestry place. So we ended up walking to a little mall called Plaza de Sol and the rest of the girls without SIM cards got theres while we explored the stores. Next was another failed visit to a Chocolate Shop that was closed <span style="font-size: x-small;">(SO sad)</span>, and a walk home to rest and eat dinner before a fiesta at Ilana's casa tonight!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Dinner was served at 7:00pm, steak and rice with an awesome hongo y tomate <span style="font-size: x-small;">(mushroom and tomato)</span> sauce, complete with a strawberry cheesecake for my birthday! They lit a candle, my papa played guitar, and they all sang "Feliz Cumpleanos" to me :)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The cheesecake was soooo good, and I bonded more with mi hermana y mis padres before leaving for the other fiesta! Even got a quick FaceTime session in with my sweet little munchkin and Sir Nicholas <span style="font-size: x-small;">(Sara was at a work party sadly ): )</span>. They got to say hola to my host family, too!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Around 8:00pm Hannah, Danielle and I left for la fiesta! Everyone was hooting and hollering as we walked in, so much fun. Drinks were had, dancing was done, ukuleles were played, cake was eaten, and memories I will never forget were made. Such an amazing way to spend my 21st birthday, surrounded by new friends and so much love for life!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I am back at my house now, unwinding from an incredible day <span style="font-size: x-small;">(incredible week)</span>. Classes begin tomorrow and I am very excited.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Buenos Noches y Mucho Amor!</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">p.s. I encountered my first cucaracha in Costa Rica, no me gusta!</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02141075455954663973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2183738454216185272.post-51514704485609888462015-01-16T20:13:00.002-08:002015-01-16T20:19:02.862-08:00Orientacion<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So, just returned to mi casa <span style="font-size: x-small;">(literally half an hour ago)</span> after two amazing days of orientation with the ICDS crew. Great way to spend day 3 and 4 of my time here in Costa Rica.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Dia Tres (Enero 15)</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">On the top 5 list for worst sleeps of my life...not exactly sure why! I took my second antibiotic for my sinus infection and everything was draining, as I mentioned before, so I of course I ran out of toilet paper in the middle of the night because I was using so much to blow my nose and had no idea where I could locate another roll of TP without waking up my host parents. Ironically, my dad asked me before I left for Costa Rica if I packed a handkerchief. I looked at him with an "<i>are you serious</i>?" kind of face, thinking he should know by now that I think handkerchiefs are quite gross <span style="font-size: x-small;">(little pieces of cloth that you snot into all day long and keep in your pocket, not for me!)</span>. However, he would not take no for an answer and put one in my backpack...guess what I used to tide me over until I could get some more TP in the morning? Hah.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Anyways, along with the snot, my mind would not turn off and I think the three hour accidental siesta threw off my sleeping pattern. I remember birds beginning to chirp around 5:00am and before I knew it, it was time to get up for orientation day at 6:30am!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I took a quick, cold but more tolerable than yesterday's, shower before breakfast <span style="font-size: x-small;">(scrambled eggs, ham, and hash browns with mixed fruit cup, toast, and tea)</span>. Even though I am the closest <span style="font-size: x-small;">(with the exception of my neighbor, Hannah)</span> student to live to the ICDS office, I was the last one to arrive, and I was late..I must be on tico time.<span style="font-size: x-small;">**side note, Hannah's host papa is my host papa's brother!**</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As I arrived to the start of orientation, Luis<span style="font-size: x-small;"> (student wellness director at ICDS)</span> had already begun his speel. I quickly dropped my stuff inside and we started off for our la Universidad Latina tour. Luis showed us where to print/scan stuff, the cafeteria, our classrooms, the bank, etc. while all the locals stared at the new gringos, then we circled back down to the ICDS Office, grabbed our things, and got in the van to head to Cartago for orientation!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The drive to Cartago was only about 30 minutes, give or take traffic, and I took those minutes to catch up with Ilana who I hadn't been reunited with until now! As we arrived at the gates of Escuela Social Juan XXIII <span style="font-size: x-small;">(where we would be spending orientation day and the night)</span> I immediately noticed the incredible view. The old religious center was located on top of a hill/mountain overlooking the entire city of Cartago, very beautiful, very secluded, very peaceful - my kind of place. We exited the van and started walking to the back of the property where our ICDS orientation room was located, and I felt that I should have been instructed to take an oath of silence as I left the bus.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The property gave off the feel of a rehab center where people go to rediscover themselves. However, we were not in a rehab center and quickly moved to the large field at the center of the complex, introducing ourselves to one another by tossing a tennis ball around.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Tennis ball tossing was followed by a cafe break <span style="font-size: x-small;">(the first of many throughout the day, Costa Ricans love their cafe)</span>, which was followed by an exercise in groups where we read the local newspapers and cut out things we found interesting to present to the rest of the group <span style="font-size: x-small;">(some things I learned were that Costa Ricans probably care more about USA popular culture than Americans do, indigenous Costa Ricans did not gain citizenship until 1991 *terrible*, Costa Rica is known for sex tourism *also terrible*)</span>, which was followed by getting our local cellphones and room keys for the night, and then we were left to our own devices until lunch. Jean and I were assigned as roomies, so we went to drop off our things <span style="font-size: x-small;">(where we passed a large statue of </span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Jesus in a seashell - in hindsight I wish I had a picture to go along with this post, it was interesting)</span> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">and went straight out to embrace the incredible view.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Way too many photographs later, we walked around the property with a few other students, looking for some horses I thought I had seen while we were tossing the tennis ball around during introductions. Soon it was time for lunch <span style="font-size: x-small;">(salad bar, vegetable soup, and other yummy things I can't remember) </span>and everyone was getting to know each other further.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Back to the classroom after lunch but it was too warm so we shuffled back out to the shade where Luis told us we were about to get very uncomfortable with the next activity we did and to tuck our shirts into our pants <span style="font-size: x-small;">(which was very hard for me to do considering I *of course* was wearing a crop top and there was nothing to tuck)</span>, everyone looked at one another horrified, thinking we would be getting very up close and personal with one another. However, turned out we just broke up into teams and each had to jiggy a coin down the top of our shirts to the bottom of our pants and the team that did it the fastest won candy...no problema <span style="font-size: x-small;">(we didn't win - skinny jeans suck)</span>. It was quite hilarious though as some of the coins were momentarily lost in people's clothing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Once we were all done with the coin adventure, we were taught and practiced proper greeting etiquette <span style="font-size: x-small;">(hand shakes, hugs, and kisses on the cheek)</span>, and proper bus etiquette. We were joined by a wild dog, who was so incredibly adorable but we were told not to touch <span style="font-size: x-small;">(if you know me, you know I LOVE dogs and was very hard to resist)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Another cafe break. Back to the classroom for meeting with the other ICDS directors on the Academic Policies and our NGO assignments. I was assigned to Molinos verdes de Moringa, which is a network of urban gardens based on permaculture <span style="font-size: x-small;">(<i>SO EXCITED</i>)</span>. Five other students were assigned the same NGO and we will be working in pairs across three different gardens - our first day is the 30th, so I will definitely be writing a post that day to let you all know how it goes and what we will be doing there!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">After the assignments, we were given a little break before the start of our Latin dance class at 6:00pm. Naturally, I rushed back to the room, grabbed my camera and headed for the side of the property with the view.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My second Costa Rica sunset was simply breathtaking. I couldn't believe more students didn't come out to watch! Once the sun was over the hill and the colors began to fade, I noticed I was getting some visits from some friendly locals <span style="font-size: x-small;">(mosquitos) </span>so I went back to my room to douse myself in bug spray. Got some more cafe quick then headed back out to the hill where everyone gathered to watch Cartago's sea of shimmering lights in the valley before our dance class.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The dance class was so. much. fun. but also, I was so. very. sweaty. For some reason, I got my father's sweat glands and seemed to be the only one practically dripping after the class. We learned a bunch of different dances, all of which I forget except for the salsa. Partnering was fun <span style="font-size: x-small;">(I felt bad for my partners cause they had to touch a sweaty mess)</span>, because everyone in the group is a female except for Kipp/Chris. At 8:00pm we took our Salsa booties to the dining hall for la cena <span style="font-size: x-small;">(choice of chicken or beef, mashed potatoes, squash, potato salad, and key lime pie for dessert)</span>. My table had a very interesting discussion about piercings and tattoos, and as it got later and later we realized the kitchen staff wanted to close up the building. So, we all headed for our cabins and bid each other "buenas noches". Jean opted for getting a shower, and I was thinking I would do the same, until she and Katie both said it was one of the coldest showers they ever took - at that point I realized I could deal with being smelly. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Although I tried avoiding the sun for most of the day, I still ended up with a bit of a lobster face :p </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small;">(but it wasn't bad at all considering I forgot to put on sunscreen!)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Dia Cuatro (Enero 16)</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Second worst night of sleep..."woke up" <span style="font-size: x-small;">(In quotes because I can't say I fully fell into a deep sleep at all throughout the night)</span> to pack up my things and get ready for breakfast/the day around 6:30am.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I had decided the night before that I would not be attempting to take a shower, so all I had to do was throw on some clothes, make sure my hair was decent and that I didn't leave anything left behind in the room. Jean and I walked out to breakfast, passed the Jesus in a seashell and joined everyone else who had already arrived for desayuno <span style="font-size: x-small;">(fresh watermelon and mini bananas, scrambled eggs, rice, cheese, and of course cafe)</span>. After we all finished and all applied our sunscreen for the dia, we loaded up the van and sadly said goodbye to Escuela Social Juan XXIII.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We had about an hour journey until we reached our first destination, so I spent most of that soaking up the landscape.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Our tour guide <span style="font-size: x-small;">(who's name is escaping me at the moment)</span> quizzed us on geography along the way to </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Parque Nacional Tapanti <span style="font-size: x-small;">(una selva - a rainforest)</span>. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Through our guide, I learned that pineapple, peanuts, chocolate, potatoes </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small;">(this one surprised me)</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">, tomatos, and many other things originated in Latin America. Once we came to the parks entrance, we exited the bus and walked along the road for a bit, admiring the rainforest surrounding us - large ferns, moss growing everywhere.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">We came to a trail where our guide took the lead, pointing out plants that we could eat if we every got lost in the rainforest *and plants that we should definitely not eat*. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">About a minute into the trail, it began to rain <span style="font-size: x-small;">(Note -</span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> it is always a good idea to bring a rain jacket to a rain forest. Luckily Hannah had warned me earlier in the day and I brought mine! Other students were not so lucky)</span>. We came to a river crossing where we spent a good bit of time literally soaking up nature!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Once everyone finished with photo opps, we put the gears in reverse and exited the rain forest. Back on to the bus, we drove up the mountain a bit more to take a look at a waterfall in the distance. Another photo opp down, drove a bit more to turn around and head back down the mountain.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">After we stopped to get a better look of the waterfall and take a final bathroom break before going to lunch, Emma told us that it was only approaching Noon...I couldn't believe I had done so much in the day and I would have just woken up if this were a week ago </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small;">(Yes, I was nocturnal a week ago)</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We ate lunch at a local restaurant in Cartago<span style="font-size: x-small;"> (also never asked the name - I need to get better about this)</span>. I had a very yummy grilled Sea Bass fillet, with french fries and rice. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">More bonding with my fellow ICDS folks, and then we were en route to visit two iglesias <span style="font-size: x-small;">(churches)</span>. The first was the oldest colonial church in Costa Rica, where the property was outlined with beautiful, gigantic hydrangeas, orchids, and birds of paradise.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Also, a great view of the mountainside. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The second was La Basilica de Los Angeles - such beautiful architecture </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small;">(sadly, a local committed suicide in the church a few days prior to our visit)</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The bus arrived back at the ICDS office at 3:45pm, said a quick "Chao" to my fellow students and walked across the street to my home! Greeted mi mama, and she quickly halted my plan of taking a shower due to low water pressure, "no se por que pero debe esperar" = sad Jenna. So I guess I will just have to be a tad smelly until the water pressure goes back up! No problema.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Sitting back in my room, I definitely didn't miss the sound of the train passing by my window, but luckily it is </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small;">(somewhat)</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> akin to the ambulances in New York so it does not bother me too much.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So the water pressure came back before I was able to post this, and hallelujah!!! HOT WATER. Granted I have to put it on practically drip setting so it takes a bit <span style="font-size: x-small;">(a lot)</span> longer to get the shampoo and conditioner out of my hair, but so excited! Thanks to whoever told me this trick at orientation!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Also ate dinner before I got the chance to post this! Dinner was awesome. Apart from the yummy food <span style="font-size: x-small;">(fried pumpkin con carne wrapped in an egg, cantaloupe and rice of course)</span>, I feel like tonight was a major bonding moment with my host mama. Usually she is very nice to me, but tonight was extra special because she noted how quickly I am catching on with speaking Spanish <span style="font-size: x-small;">(no pro yet, but tiny feats are noticeable when you do not know how to speak any)</span> and she was smiling a lot more than she has in the past two days I've spent with her. Plus, after dinner we watched a bit of a Costa Rican television show while I washed the dishes and helped my host papa with his English. I am a happy camper! Time to watch some Grey's, study some spanish, and go to bed. Tomorrow hopefully exploring downtown San Jose with some other ICDS students!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Until next time...mucho amor!</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02141075455954663973noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2183738454216185272.post-40527902719358434642015-01-14T20:08:00.001-08:002015-01-14T20:08:14.479-08:00Impresiones Primeras<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Hola!</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So, I am not very good at the whole blogging thing or keeping up with posting <span style="font-size: x-small;">(tried twice in the past and both sites have one post on them, whoops)</span>, but I hope I can keep up with this one because I would like to do it for the following reasons:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>1)</b> My memory is <i>terrible</i> and this will be a place where I can look back and remember all that I did while here in Costa Rica!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>2)</b> It is one way for me to get credit for the study abroad program at my Honors College (other options include sharing my experience at Baruch, completing a photo essay, or participating in a Study Abroad event).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>3)</b> <i>I want to share my experience with everyone!</i> Yes, I will be posting daily things on Facebook and Instagram, however, on here I will be using it as more of a diary with longer posts about my days :)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">All that being said, let's get started!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Dia Uno (Enero 13)</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My day began at 3:15am.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(As you can already tell, it was a looooong day, but well worth the early morning wake up call!)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Showered, made sure I had everything I needed, grabbed a banana quick and headed out the door for the airport. My lovely parents both woke up to drop me off at the airport <span style="font-size: x-small;">(even though my mom just got back from her job at 2:15am and had to go into her second job at 9:00am that day, and my dad had to go to his job at 8:00am, they are troopers to say the least!)</span>. I arrived quite early to my gate. No one else was crazy enough to take flights before 7:00am, so checking my bag and going through security was a delightful breeze! Since I had scads of time, I helped myself to a proper breakfast at one of the airport restaurants and waited to board the plane.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Oh, I can't forget to tell you all that I had to make a pit stop on the way to the gate to buy some much needed tissues - of course I was/am sick.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If you know me, this comes as no surprise. Whenever there is a major event coming up in my life, my body decides to get a cold, or the flu, or something worse. <span style="font-size: x-small;">For instance, sister's wedding = bronchitis and three week diving vacation = strep/mono/they weren't quite sure what kind of infection I had. Yay me! </span>In any case, today I visited the local pharmacy and got some antibiotics for a sinus infection...back to day 1!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Plane promptly departed at 6:40am, I had a window seat and it was a little over an hour flight, way before my normal wake up time, so I intended on sleeping until we reached Charlotte. But - that did not happen.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I was quite distracted by watching the sunrise over a sea of clouds, and then I realized the Snapple I had bought for breakfast was leaking all over the inside of my backpack. Another yay Jenna moment! So I spent the rest of the plane ride trying to clean that up while everyone else was fast asleep. Luckily my laptop case soaked up most of the liquid and it did not leak into my actual laptop.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Arrived in Charlotte, smelling like Snapple apple juice, at 8:14am. Found my gate easily and awaited the next flight to my final destination, San Jose! I knew that two other students participating in the program were going to be on the same plane as me, Chris and Danielle. Turns out I did recognize Chris sitting at the gate, I had seen small pictures of them but I held off from introducing myself in case it turned out the guy wasn't actually Chris or in case he thought I was weird for knowing who he was from a tiny picture I looked at once. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">In hindsight, I was over thinking things. It sort of was a good thing I didn't introduce myself though because the girl that I thought was Danielle turned out not be her!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So anyways, we began boarding the plane at 8:45am and set out for San Jose at 9:30am! By this time it still had not hit me yet that I was going a trip for three months. But by the time I was on the plane and had three+ hours to mull it over, I started to get a little nervous </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small;">(over thinking happening again)</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">. My forehead/sinuses were beginning to hurt from the various changes in altitude and pressure, so that didn't help my situation. I attempted sleeping, planes in general are not very conducive to me sleeping</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small;"> (I booked a red eye for my return from California this past summer thinking I was being really smart and would sleep the whole way, wrong)</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">, since I was in the middle seat whenever I tried falling asleep I found myself almost falling over onto my neighbor's shoulders and jerking myself back up quickly </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(embarrassing bobble head maneuvers)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small;">Dios Mio, I wrote so much and I am only at 12:50pm...lo siento. I think this blog is going to be more like me ranting on and on about my day, but read as much as you like!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Skipping to arrival in COSTA RICA at 12:50pm. Made a pit stop at the bathroom on the way to customs to freshen up, although nothing really helps my looks after plane rides <span style="font-size: x-small;">(I envy those who can travel and still look gorgeous at the end of it all, which is basically everyone in the world except me)</span>. Went through customs smoothly. Made my way to baggage claim, my checked bag made the trip <span style="font-size: x-small;">(happy Jenna, no lost luggage)</span> and I set off to find Emma, one of the program directors at ICDS! Looking all sweaty and frizzy <span style="font-size: x-small;">(despite my efforts to freshen up in the bathroom)</span> and really regretting wearing my new hiking shoes with black jeans and a black shirt <span style="font-size: x-small;">(it was cold in PA folks, but do not wear what I wore when you are coming to warmer climates!) </span>I made my way out of the airport and found the ICDS group with smiling faces! Other students were arriving on later flights so we waited around for a bit until they too made their way out of the airport. Once we were all accounted for and introductions were made <span style="font-size: x-small;">(Chris, Danielle, Hannah, Katie, Sam, and Meira) </span>we found our driver, loaded up all our luggage <span style="font-size: x-small;">(I brought the most stuff, I knew I packed too much, oy vey) </span>and set off for our homestays!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">One by one, sometimes two by two, we watched each student get dropped off and introduced to their new family for the next three months. Hannah and I were the last ones <span style="font-size: x-small;">(neighbors, woohoo!)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Nerves and excitement were setting in! We arrived at the entrance to one of the homes and Emma told us it was Hannah's, so I thought okay I have a few more minutes to figure out how to say what I want to say in Spanish, and then it turned out to be my new home! From there on the introductions were all sort of a blur, and before I knew it Emma and Hannah were leaving to go to her home and I was left with my new padres!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I quickly realized I had very little skills in <i>speaking</i> Spanish. The three years of high school Spanish I took helps with my understanding of what they are saying, however, I am struggling to communicate back. Luckily my papa, Carlos, speaks a bit of English so whenever I do not know how to say something in Spanish or do not understand something they are saying I can communicate with him! Other times I am rushing to google translate <span style="font-size: x-small;">(yes, it is sad, I know) </span>or the English to Spanish/Spanish to English dictionary I brought along with me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So, I arrived, they showed me my room, complete with my own bathroom!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Sat down at the table and had some fresh juice made from a fruit I didn't now existed. Talked as much as my abilities allowed. My papa showed me his watercolor paintings and offered me to use his supplies anytime I'd like! I unpacked my things, met some of the family friends, including an adorable little baby. My mama made us a delicious dinner <span style="font-size: x-small;">(soup for my sickness, salad, rice and an egg casserole)</span>. After dinner we watched the news and I gave them a gift, Apple Butter and Fudge from Brown's, a local orchard/store in my hometown. They enjoyed that and it made me happy! I decided to head to bed early <span style="font-size: x-small;">(like I said, it was a long day!)</span>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">To my surprise, Netflix is available here. I thought I was going to have to hit the pause button on my Grey's Anatomy marathon, but no problema! So I watched some episodes of Grey's Anatomy, then finally fell asleep around 11:00pm.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Dia Dos (Enero 14)</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Today was just a relaxing day to spend with our host families. So, I woke up to my alarm and the train passing by my casa at 8:00am. A yummy breakfast awaited me, gallo pinto <span style="font-size: x-small;">(a popular dish in Costa Rica, black beans and rice), </span>scrambled eggs, and toast. Another family friend joined us and I found out my host papa loooves bread, which is a nice similarity to my dadda.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">After desayuno, I decided it was time to take a shower. My host mother had explained the shower the day before, but I did not catch most of what she was saying and then when I told her I like to shower in the mornings her face looked somewhat concerned, so I figured that meant that their water is heated by the sun during the day and showering in the morning would mean no hot water...I was right. So, after my chilly, but refreshing!, shower, I went on a walking tour of the local area with mi papa. Carlos showed me where the Universidad was, the grocery stores, the mall, places to eat, etc.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">We made a special stop at the pharmacy to get me some medicine for what I think is a sinus infection. The doctor was very nice, spoke english so I could tell her what my symptoms were and she prescribed me Cefadroxil. When I asked her how much she said 5,000 something <span style="font-size: x-small;">(Unprepared, I did not know the exchange rate of colones to dolares so my face was something along the lines of "Oh shit")</span>. I knew that the exchange rate was not 1 to 1, but I was still thinking that the antibiotics were going to cost me way more than I thought, then my host papa told me how much it was in dolares, ~$10, and the world was okay again.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">We returned from our walking tour, passed by some ticos smoking marijuana. After another delicious meal, piscado y arroz con patatas (fish and rice with potatoes), I washed the dishes then headed for my bedroom to relax. Relaxation turned into a three hour siesta, jaja.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">When I woke up, I was given the low-down on how to lock the gates/doors to the house and given my own set of keys </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small;">(officially part of la familia!) </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">and mi papa and I went to a local copying store to photocopy my passport. On our way back, </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I noticed the sun starting to set as the sky lit up with golds and pinks over the mountains. I had not ventured out for sunset the night before so it was my first Costa Rican sunset, and it was <b>beautiful</b>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Upon our return to the house, mi madre was watching some television, resting from her extensive cleaning of the house <span style="font-size: x-small;">(extensive meaning all the furniture was moved around and no nook or cranny was left untouched! My kind of lady)</span>. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Mi padre decided to practice guitar, and wanted to learn a birthday song to sing/play for me this upcoming Sunday, so sweet! I showed him my ukulele that Ilana got for me for my birthday, then I went back to my room and learned how to play Riptide by Vance Joy. My version is quite rough, but I am so excited to be able to play that song <span style="font-size: x-small;">(one of my favorites at the moment)</span>. After practicing, I noticed the pain in my forehead/sinuses starting to spread to my upper jaw. So, I decided to take the first round of my medication, which caused my nose to leak like a sieve, which was good and bad. Good because that meant it was working, but bad because now I had to exit my room with bunches of tissue shoved up my nose to stop the dripping. We had dinner <span style="font-size: x-small;">(chicken quesadillas) - </span>I looked quite silly.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Cleaned the dishes and headed to my room for the night! When mis padres came to say buenos noches, I showed them some pictures I brought of my family, they enjoyed that, as did I :)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">After looking through some Costa Rica guide books other students left here, I decided I wanted to start blogging! SO, here we are. It is 10:43pm and I have to wake up at 6:45am for breakfast at 7:00am, then meeting all the students at the ICDS office at 7:30am for the start of orientation!! So excited to meet everyone.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Will update the next chance I get - which will probably be Friday night or Saturday morning because we are sleeping over at the orientation site and spending the day exploring Friday!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Buenos Noches A Todos!</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02141075455954663973noreply@blogger.com2