Adios Costa Rica... Hello Texas!

This is so weird writing this blog entry while sitting in my own bed back home. It doesn't feel right to have a room to myself or even have a fan for that matter. The reverse culture shock is really getting to me!

Today was such a long crazy day. I guess technically it has been a long few days considering that I slept for 15 minutes last night. After Eric and I won in spades, I finished packing, and then Eric, Jessica, Sarah, and I all hung out in our room and stayed up all night talking. We had to start loading up the bus at 3:15 this morning, so it wasn't too difficult for us to stay up for the last hour. After somehow finding the energy to load up the bus, we left Puerto Limon at 4:00 this morning on our bus. Everyone surprisingly had quite a bit of energy when we first got on the bus! I guess it was the thrill that we were heading back home, but it didn't last for too long. After listening to music and talking for a little while, just about everone fell asleep. We got to the San Jose airport around 7:00... much earlier than we expected. Since our flight didn't leave until 11:30, we had to hang out in the airport for four hours basically trying to waste time. At this point, I was super hungry since I hadn't had anything to eat since my Burger King the last night. I refused to pay the ridiculous prices to get food at the airport, so I just waited until the free airplane lunch (which was a disgusting chicken sandwich). This is about the time when I became really delirious haha. I was super giggly and having so much fun doing nothing with everyone. Finally our plane took off, we landed in Houston around 4:15, and I was back to my house around 5:30! It was really hard to leave everyone after living with them for a month. I HATE goodbyes, even though I know that this isn't goodbye forever. I'm so glad that all of us go to A&M because I know that I will still be able to see people, and a few of us have classes together next fall. I can't wait to take both Brannstrom's and Quiring's classes next semester. I know that some of the people that I met on this trip will be my very good friends for a long time.

It is still so weird being back in America. I absolutely hate having my cell phone after not having to deal with it for a whole month. It was so nice to not have to worry about anything or be on a strict schedule like I am back in the states. Basically... I miss everything about Costa Rica already. The country is so laid-back as a whole, and it isn't congested like America is. I loved how family oriented the whole country was, and of course I really enjoyed having to speak Spanish... or at least try to. I'm still going to speak it as much as I can here, even if everyone laughs. Some more things that I'm going to miss a whole lot are the awesome music, being able to eat Mmmios (an ice cream bar that is almost like a Snickers), being able to walk anywhere that you want to go, Cremas (two vanilla cookies with icing in the middle), how people will talk to you and be friendly because you are a foreigner, sodas (small restaurants that serve typical Costa Rican food) and pulperias/supers (grocery stores), learning about a new culture, and of course I'm going to miss all of the people that I was with. I was really lucky to be able to room with Eric and Brandon for most of the last half of the trip. I really liked both of them and loved every second of living with them. Like I mentioned earlier, I feel like I made quite a few really good friends and I can't wait to see how those frienships grow.

Before I forget... a few more random things. The boys use so much hair gel, it's ridiculous. They all had mohawks or had their hair spiked up all over. Inside jokes such as the "Jack Sparrow" song by the Lonely Island and "Drunk History" and "Boys will be girls" videos with countless quotable moments.

Words cannot express how much I'm going to miss being in Costa. On the other hand, I am SO GLAD that I have kept a blog throughout this entire experience. I can't wait to read back through it to re-live every day. This truly was the best experience of my life. I was so blessed to be given this opportunity to study abroad, and I'm so glad that I didn't let it slip through my fingers. Living in Costa for a month has changed the way that I view life and has made me so much more appreciative for the things that I have. I would not have traded this experience for anything. I will NEVER forget this trip and how much I loved it. I was happy the entire time (well, minus the few times when I would complain about school work) and surprisingly never got homesick or wished to go home. When everyone else was ready to get home, I was still wishing that we had more time to stay. I love everything about the country... how green it is, the people, the culture, the food, the overall way of life, the atmosphere. I'm going to try my hardest to make it back to Costa Rica someday... and it would be so cool if I could live there! That's how much I loved it. As my trip has come to an end, I keep finding myself trying to hold onto every last bit of it. I still have 3,000 colones in my wallet and even more in coins in my backpack. I also still have my bus tickets, my Cuban cigar wrapper, and a taxi driver's number hoping that these will let me be able to hang on as long as possible. For as long as I live, I will have Costa Rica in my heart. I hate ending this because it is bringing me closer to the reality that I'm not in Costa anymore. I can't help but to get choked up thinking about how it is over. I feel like I owe a thank you to Costa Rica as a whole... thank you Costa Rica for providing me with a better experience than I could have ever dreamed of. You have changed me as a person and now have a special place in my heart by showing me the best month of my life. I will never forget what I experienced and I WILL be back someday. PURA VIDA!!!!!!!!!!!!

Enjoying the last few hours

It is currently 1:20 here in Costa... and in 2 hours, I am supposed to be awake and helping to pack up the bus. Considering that I still have to pack, it looks like I'm not getting any sleep! Our bus is leaving Limon at 4 in the morning to drive to San Jose, where our flight departs around 11 ish. Then I'll be back in Houston around 4:20 in the afternoon! It's going to be a looooooooooong sad day.

Sarah and I with our coconut milk

Today was so much fun though. Definitely a perfect last day. When we woke up, 8 or 9 of us went to the public bus station and hopped on a bus to Cahuita, the beach we went to the other day. It was a really chill day there because a lot of people still had work to do. Since it had stormed the last couple of nights, there was a lot of sediment and sticks floating around and the waves were pretty rough. Eric, Jessica, and I ended up going on a little hike through the national park that the beach is in. We ended up coming across 6 howler monkeys! When they first started howling, we didn't see where they were and it was a really scary sound. Jessica tried to grab my arm for me to protect her, but I kept backing up because I was a little scared myself. Oops. After the beach, there were still a few things that I wanted to do in Costa before I left. I bought some coconut milk straight out of a coconut, had my first cup of coffee ever, bought a few more souvenirs (including my favorite Costa Rican candy Choys!), and then went to the Limon soccer game. I don't remember exactly who they were playing, but it was a blast. After the game, I ate my last meal at Burger King because I wanted something fast to eat and I didn't have a lot of money left. I got back from eating, finished up my last assignment (whoop!) and then Eric and I rematched Jessica and Sarah to find out who the spades champion would be. Eric and I ended up winning of course. It was been so much fun playing spades with them and hanging out. We have kinda formed our own little group with the 4 of us, and they are definitely 3 of my most favorite people on the trip.

Eric and I at Coco

I also bought my last legal beers tonight... for another year at least. Imperial and Bavaria Negra have been the beer of choice, and it's going to be so weird not being able to buy alcohol when I get home. I meant for this post to be really long, but considering that I've only gotten 5 hours of sleep total in the last few days AND I still have to pack AND Jessica, Sarah, Eric, and I are hanging out pulling an all nighter, I'm going to have to stop this post for now. Tomorrow night when I get back to Houston I'm sure I will have a really long post about how much I miss everything. I already am in disbelief that I am leaving Costa in less than 12 hours. I'm going to miss this country so much. But I can't wait to see my family tomorrow! Here are a few more random pictures from throughout the trip...

Shelly and I with our matching clothes

Next time that I post I will be back in the USA! I guess it's only fitting for me to give one big thanks to the country that has provided me with THE BEST experience of my life. So thank you Costa Rica. I will be back soon. PURA VIDA!!!!


PS Sarah is the coolest person ever!!! jgfldkjvbmc,gjklfbkmv

Livin the Costa Rican life

Sooooo I tried to post this last night, but for some reason blogspot wasn't working. So here is what I did on Tuesday and Wednesday....

Sorry I didn't post anything yesterday. It was a fairly boring day and I didn't feel like typing anything... but here is a little recap of yesterday, Tuesday June 28th, from what I can remember:


Jessica, Eric, and I with our matching hats/glasses



We didn't have anything planned for the day because we didn't feel like driving to the beach. Even though we can see the ocean from our hotel, Limon is just a port city where some cruise ships and other boats come into, so there isn't really a "beach" near us. I feel like we walked around the city a lot figuring out things for our assignments and trying to find last minute gifts for family/friends back home. All of us were waiting until we got to the last city to buy gifts for people so that we didn't have to carry them around with us everywhere, but that ended up being a bad idea. Limon isn't the most tourist-friendly place and I have only seen two souvenir shops in the entire city. Everyone was pretty upset, but we managed with what we were offered and wandered around and got gifts for people and ourselves. It was actually fun... when I was paying for one of the t-shirts that I got for myself, there were 3 ladies at the check out counter: the cashier, and two other older ladies who were just keeping  her company and talking to her. The cashier didn't really speak English (which I am now used to), but one of the ladies standing there did, so she helped me to communicate with the cashier. The lady that could speak English ended up talking to me more, and she asked things like where I was from and what all I was doing. When I told her I was from Texas, she asked me if it was a "small town". She had heard of Texas before and acknowledged that, but it made me laugh when she thought it was a small place. I actually laughed out loud and told her that it wasn't small at all. Then I told her that I had been in Costa for a month and listed all of the cities that I had traveled to. She proceeded to tell me that Limon was WAY different than all of those (which I had realized from being here for a few days), and that people that live here almost don't consider themselves Costa Ricans. I wish that I remember exactly what she had said, but it was something along the lines that everyone here is so different from typical Costa Ricans that they don't really consider themselves a part of the country. It makes sense considering that Brannstrom has been teaching us about how this city used to be a huge banana plantation, and is home to many Jamaican heritage citizens. It was really exciting that this stranger would open up to me and tell me briefly about how things are so different here. Just from that short conversation I felt like I knew so much more about the culture here. The only other highlight that I can think of from the day was during dinner. Eric, Sarah, Jessica, and I tried to find a restaurant to eat at, but we didn't really know where any good ones were and the girls weren't too comfortable walking around aimlessly at night, so we turned back and just ate dinner at the restaurant in our hotel. To our surprise, right when we sat down, three men walked in with instruments! They were just random guys from the city who I guess had permission to play in the hotel, so we were entertained with music while we ate. They were HILARIOUS. I couldn't understand a lot of the songs because they were in Spanish, but they were all very animated and kept giving the four of us a lot of attention because we were all laughing and would clap loudly at the end of every song that played. They sung a song about a mosquito that went something like "mosquito mosquito don't bite me no more" and another one about a banana where the singer went around the restaurant and gave banana nicknames to all of the males in the restaurant (maybe you can see the correlation??). Eric's was "smiling banana" and mine was "extra large banana"... we died laughing. Eric and I are actually laughing about it right now as I'm writing this haha. I'm going to miss Costa Rican music SO MUCH. It always puts me in a good mood and I always catch myself dancing all the time. I'm going to have to find some salsa places or something so I can keep listening to it when I get back to the states. That's basically all for yesterday.

Me and Shelly with birthday drinks on the beach

Today was Shelly's 22nd birthday! We all decided to wake up this morning and head to Playa Bonita, which is a beach just a few kilometers away from our hotel. Instead of taking a taxi to get there, I got to use the public transportation system for the first time since I've been here! We hopped on a bus, along with a bunch of other people, and rode about 15 minutes to the beach. It was a pretty small inlet where we swam, but it was a gorgeous day! I think it was the first day that we have gone to the beach where it has actually been sunny the whole time that we've been there... and I didn't get sunburnt! Bonita wasn't my favorite beach. It was very pretty (bonita = pretty in spanish) but the waves were ridiculous. Usually big waves are fun, but these waves crashed so hard and so quickly that it was almost too dangerous for us to go out deep in the water. They were so strong that you had to brace yourself for when they crashed or else you would get swept onto shore. It might sound like fun, but just take my word for it... it was pretty scary at some points. We played a lot of frisbee, got some tropical drinks at the restaurant that overlooked the beach, and basically just hung out! It was a nice relaxing day, especially since Dr. Brannstrom, Kelly, and just about everyone else came with us. I still haven't really decided how I feel about trying to do everything as a large group like we have. It is so much fun when we are all together doing something, but it is the most frustrating thing ever trying to get people to agree on one thing or trying to get people to say what they want to do. That's why I have ended up either eating by myself some nights (which I am completely ok with... it's nice to have a break) or just eating with Brandon somewhere. We were basically at the beach all day long, got back and did a little more shopping, went to eat pizza for Shelly's birthday, then had a study part and worked on our assignments. My grades on them have drastically decreased, but whatever I'm on vacation and only have one more to do.

I can't believe that tomorrow is my last full day here :( Looking back on it, it feels like we were at the Soltis Center so long ago, but it doesn't feel like the trip should be over. I am not ready to leave AT ALL. I absolutely love everything about Costa Rica. A lot of people don't like how sketchy and trashy some of it is (especially this city Limon), but I have loved it. It has really opened my eyes to how lucky I am. Going to restaurants with no A/C or fans, seeing numerous homeless people sleeping on the streets, seeing the shacks that people live in... these are all just a few examples of things that I have seen that have showed me how blessed I am. I'm really excited for tomorrow though. A few of us are going back to Cahuita (the beach we went to a few days ago where I surfed) for a little bit, then there is a soccer game in town tomorrow night that I want to go to!

Man I am so lucky to have been able to come on this trip. I'll save the rest of my sad/sappy/emotional/reflectional post for tomorrow when everything really hits me. This post has been long enough. Scattered through this post are random pictures from the last few days. I think most of them are from Playa del Coco, the city that we were in a few days ago. Enjoy!

Swimming at the pool in Coco

SURFING!!!!!!

Considering that I like to write these blog posts going in order of what happened each day, it's going to be really hard for me to contain my excitement until I get to the afternoon. We all woke up this morning and got ready to get on the bus again to go to another beach, Cahuita, which was composed of a white sand beach and a black sand beach. It took my 2 roommates (Eric and Brandon... the same 2 roommates that I had in Playa del Coco) a little longer to get ready today because our room is so small! It has 3 twin sized beds and they are almost touching each other, so there is hardly any room for our suitcases. We'll get used to it eventually. After we ate a quick breakfast, all of our study abroad group plus Dr. Brannstrom hopped on our bus. The same bus driver that drove us to Limon, Heiner (pronounced HAYner), stayed the night at the hotel with us and drove us on our tourist bus. The beach was about an hour away from our hotel, but it was really cool! The city was still very Afro-Caribbean and it felt like we were in Jamaica at some points because of all of the dreadlocks and accents.

As soon as we got there, we all went to the white sand beach, and before we had even got in the water, we found a monkey in the tree that was right over our bags! I guess the monkey was used to being around humans because it came down right next to us. One of the girls had a bananna that they fed it, and the monkey just took it out of her hands and ate it all! It was so cool to be that close to one, but it got a little scary when another monkey came and they started growling at each other. That's when most of us got in the water. The beach was nice and the water was pretty clear. We had a lot of fun body-surfing again and playing frisbee. We also found tons of whole sand dollars! The water was full of them. After a few hours of swimming there, most of the group left to go on a snorkeling tour. I had every intention to go with them, but when we were walking to the plaza where we were supposed to meet, I walked past a sign that said "Surfboard and bicycle for rent".

THIS IS WHERE I GET SUPER EXCITED!!!!!!!! Obviously I walked into the store... which was a restaurant. I saw a black guy with dreads who was wearing a tank top and board shorts, so I figured he was the guy that I needed to talk to... even though he was also making a smoothie for a customer. I ended up asking him about the surfboards, and sure enough he was the right guy. He totally had a Jamaican accent and kept saying "yea mon" and things like that. It was perfect. I rented a surfboard from him for only $5 an hour! He told me that he also gives lessons, so I'm guessing the 4 boards that were outside were all his and he just rented them out to people for extra money. I ended up getting a long surfboard (probably about 10 feet) because they are easier to use. Kaili ended up coming with me which I was happy about since everyone else wanted to go snorkeling. Really guys, I can't believe everyone chose snorkeling over surfing!

So Kaili and I walked to the black-sand beach (conveniently called Playa Negra) where we were told has the best surfing in the area. It was a much longer walk than we thought, especially carrying the huge surfboard which I could barely fit my arm around. But we got there and it was so worth it. The beach was GORGEOUS. The dark sand, semi-clear skies, and the never ending ocean... and we had it all to ourselves! Nobody else was on the beach and it went on for miles. I hope Kaili got a picture of the beach because I didn't have my camera with me. I had "surfed" once before in Galveston, but that's not much of surfing. It was a little difficult to get the hang of at first and was super tiring, but once I got the hang of it I had so much fun. The waves were really big! There would be times when a series of about 10 waves would crash one right after the other, so we had to really struggle to get out to a good spot without being wiped away. Trying to not let the waves crash over us was probably the most tiring thing. I got really good at catching a wave as the afternoon progressed! It got to the point where I could ride one every time that I paddled out. I had a blast and I'm glad Kaili was there too. She tried to do it quite a bit and got so close to standing up. She ended up knee-boarding on it more and had fun doing that. Trey also ended up coming out there to swim with us. It made me really wish that I lived on/near a beach. Just sitting on the board, looking out into the miles of open ocean with nobody else in sight was the best feeling ever. There were no worries, no distractions... just me enjoying the perfect day in the middle of the ocean. I can't really describe the feeling, but it made me so happy to be out there. It was one of my favorite parts of this whole trip.

Sadly I returned the board and we headed back to our hotel. I ended up getting super sunburnt all over and I'm in quite a bit of pain right now. The rest of the day we walked around the city a little and Eric, Jessica, and I grabbed dinner and had the worst service ever. They didn't even have/know what we were ordering, even though it was straight from the menu. We ended up all liking our food though so it worked out. Another side note... I haven't done laundry since we left the Soltis Center. So basically since the 16th ish? Which is a pretty long time considering we are in our 4th city now. I guess I'm just going to try to hold off and not do laundry until I get home! Hopefully I can last that long haha

I'll have pictures up soon as soon as I get them from Kaili's camera! Hopefully my sunburn doesn't hurt too much when I try to go to sleep. Oh how did I almost forget... Dr. Brannstrom took away 2 of our assignments!!!! That relieved so much stress from all of us. We are all so behind on our work because we just play all day long. Thank goodness he realized that. Ok I'm done... Goodnight!

From coast to coast

What a LONG day. This morning, we left Playa del Coco at 9:30 and headed for Puerto Limon... and we didn't get here until about 7. The journey was from the Pacific coast (the west side of the country) all the way to the Caribbean coast (east side). I didn't mind the bus ride at all considering I slept or listened to music almost the whole way. It's almost fun riding the bus because we can all hang out and talk or we can ignore each other by listening to our ipods.

This city of Limon is not what I expected. Maybe it is just because we got here at night, but it looks like a pretty rough place. It might also just be that Dr. Brannstrom kept warning us to be really cautious here. I don't know all of the history about Limon, but it is more African based and a lot of the people here were at once immigrants from Jamaica. It's going to be completely different than all of our other cities... so I'm excited for that! And tomorrow we are taking a bus to a beach that is about an hour away yay! I love the beaches here.

Welp this is officially my shortest post yet! There isn't too much that can go on when you are stuck inside a bus all day long. Time to go watch the rest of Across the Universe!

The beach, Cubans, and Mulan

Sky and beach at Playa Hermosa

What a perfect last day in Playa del Coco. I woke up nice and early and went shopping around the town to get a few gifts with Brandon. We had planned to shop for a little bit, come back to the hotel to meet up with everyone, and then all go to a different beach that was farther away... but when Brandon and I got back from shopping, there was NOBODY at our hotel besides Dr. Brannstrom. Thankfully all of our friends thought ahead and told him to tell us that they went to Playa Hermosa... a beach that is about 10 minutes down the road. Brandon and I caught a taxi and thankfully were able to find them in Hermosa. I have no clue how we met up with them, but we did! We spent a few hours on that beach and it wasn't too too different than the others. Definitely not as pretty as the beach we went to yesterday (Ocotal... or something like that) but still fun. Except there were tons of little jelly fish that kept stinging all of us! We all felt like we were getting bit by little ants because we all had parts of our body that were stinging. Everyone thought that it was just our mosquito bites that were burning, but Eric got one stuck inside his swimsuit, and after we saw the sting mark that it left on his leg, we figured out that we were getting attacked by stupid jelly fish. The sun tried to poke out today, but we didn't have much luck. It started to pour down rain right when we left the beach, and basically hasn't stopped raining at all until just now (at 1 in the morning).



Sarah and I on top of rocks at Ocotal



When we got back from the beach, we just hung out in our hotel rooms and did a little bit of homework... and I got to skype with Borg!!!!! :) That made my day. I walked around the shops some more because I got tired of sitting in my room. I'm sure the people working thought that I was crazy because I walked into all of the shops about 3 times each. Then the confusion began... there is one restaurant here that had a buffet on Wednesday night for pizza. The sign outside doesn't specify that it is only on Wednesday, so we tried to get everyone to go there tonight. Just to make sure that there was a buffet today, we made sure to ask someone this morning and they told us that yes, there was a buffet there tonight. So we all roll up to the restaurant for our pizza buffet... and they tell us there is no buffet! We were so mad. I ended up leaving the restaurant all together and eating somewhere else. The USA vs Mexico soccer game was on so a few of us stayed at the other restaurant/bar and watched the game... even though we lost.



Yesterday, Ocotal

But this is when my favorite part of the day happened. Once we got back from dinner/watching the game, Jessica, Sarah, Eric, and I went up to Sarah and Jessica's room on the 2nd floor balcony to play spades. Eric and I took this as the perfect time to smoke our CUBAN CIGARS that we had bought yesterday. It was one of those things that we couldn't resist. I had never smoked a cigar before, but I knew that I probably wouldn't get too many chances to smoke a Cuban, so we both got some to cross it off our bucket lists. As we enjoyed our cigars, Eric and I lost to the girls in spades (it's ok... we played last night also and we won), but since we were playing on the covered balcony, we were able to enjoy the rain as well as listen to fun music. Afterwards, we watched Mulan to kinda just relax after a long last few days. It was the perfect night and was so much fun.

This city has easily been my favorite so far. Being so close to the beach, not having hardly any school work to do here, the nice hotel, and the chill atmosphere has made everyone enjoy this city so much more. On a more sad note, I feel like I really got to experience this city's culture these last few days. I guess it was on Thursday (when a few of us went to the hookah bar), we talked to a local who was telling us about a young boy who was attacked by a shark when he was surfing and he passed away. I had kinda forgot about that conversation until yesterday... when taking the taxi home last night from Ocotal beach, there were hundreds of people leaving their houses and walking on the street. That's when I used my Spanish to ask the taxi driver what everyone was doing and where they were going. He told me that there was a boy who had just passed away from a shark attack... obviously being the same boy that I had heard about the day before at the bar. It really got me thinking because it seemed like the entire town was leaving to go to a memorial or something like that that evening. It didn't stop there. This morning when Brandon, Eric, and I were shopping, we saw a huge parade of people walking down the main street in Coco. We stopped to see what was going on, and as they got closer, we noticed that this was the funeral procession. Hundreds of people were walking in the street. In the front were some younger boys (I'm guessing friends of the poor boy who passed away) carrying a surfboard as well as boogey-boards. Right behind them were a few men carrying the coffin of the young boy. The many other people followed them... everyone was dressed in their everyday clothes. Most of the kids were wearing their t-shirts and swim suits like they always wear. It was very sombering to see this occurring right in front of us. Of course the 3 of us all felt terrible and were very sad for the entire city, since everyone seemed to be affected. It was very cool (for lack of a better word) to see how the ENTIRE city came together for this boy and his family. The town wasn't shut down, but it might as well have been. The street was completely full, and so was the church when they finally got there. The church is right next to our hotel, so throughout the afternoon we witnessed all of the people that were there. There wasn't enough room in the large church for everyone to fit, so the street was still full then. It was such a humbling experience to witness all of this happen, and see how it all came together over the last few days. It really showed me, once again, how this country and city are all so close to each other and are basically one big family. It's something that I will never forget.

A few more random things that I keep forgetting to write about... the mosquitoes here are awful. I have sooooo many bites all over me. Some of them are huge and they won't go away. I hate it. And also, lots of places here are under pretty tight security. The convenience store right next to our hotel (the store happens to be attached to a different hotel) has a guard standing in front of the door holding a shotgun at all times. Definitely creeped us out on the first day that we were here! As tempted as I was to take a picture with him, it also scared me, so I just always walk by really fast. There is also a guard that patrols the gate into our hotel. He gets here every evening when the owner leaves, and I'm guessing that the guard stays up all night long making sure that nothing happens. I have felt like this is a safe city, but who knows. Something that I need to look more into... the other day, when Eric was going into the grocery store, a local yelled "Hey!" and then simply stuck his toungue out at Eric and made the farting-ish noise that you make with your tongue. We have no clue why he did this, but it has become a joke among all of us.

Tomorrow we are heading to our last city :( We are going to Limon, which is literally all the way across the country on the Caribbean coast. Our bus ride is probably going to take all day long. I can't believe we have less than a week left. We're just going to have to soak it all up and get no sleep! Sorry this one is so long. I actually felt like writing a lot, unlike the last few days. Pura vida!

Livin the beach life

Ah I forgot to write something for yesterday! I'll try to write down everything that I can remember/focus on the highlights. So yesterday, Eric, Brandon, Shelly, and I toured the city of Playa del Coco for about 3 hours. We just started walking around like we usually do and got lost for a while. Of course we ended up finding our way back... I'm glad we got lost though. We ended up at basically a Goodwill store and Eric and I both bought some old school shorts! Then we got back to our hotel, swam in the pool, went to the beach, swam in the pool some more, and basically just hung out. Later that night, we finally got some people to go out! Brandon, Shelly, Hannah, Sarah, and I all went to a bar/restaurant/lounge place right down the street. Apparently in Costa Rica they believe in "girl's night", so the girls got free drinks from 9-11 (lucky them). The bar also had hookah, so the 5 of us rented one and just hung out for a few hours talking. It was an awesome night! We also talked to some of the locals for a while there and had a great night.

As for today... woke up this morning and it was raining. Womp womp. Everyone had planned to go to a different beach right down the road today, but the rain ruined that plan at first. It didn't stop raining until around 3 ish, so we were kinda forced to just stay at the hotel and get some work done. Finally when the rain let up, we called a taxi and went to the other beach. This was our first time using a taxi in Costa Rica which was pretty exciting considering I had to speak to the guy in Spanish since he hardly knew any English. I was impressed with how much I remembered! I even held a little conversation with him and asked him questions. The beach was AWESOME. It was in an inlet and since it had rained all day, there were huge waves that we body-surfed on forever. The waves dumped us literally right on the shore, so we would be covered in sand and all got scratched up every time we caught a wave. We threw the frisbee around a little, body-surfed for a long time, and walked around the cove to an area where there were a bunch of rock formations. I'll upload the pics tomorrow, but the rock formations were so cool! We climbed up on top of them and took a bunch of pictures. It was so beautiful and was definitely the best part of the beach. I think we're going back there tomorrow! I know this one isn't too descriptive, but it hasn't been too eventful of a day and I'm so tired and don't feel like writing a lot. I covered the best parts haha

New life goals that I've figured out while studying abroad:
1. become fluent in Spanish
2. learn to break-dance and salsa
3. become an international business major (or don't?) and start my own business in Costa Rica taking people out on a catamaran to go snorkeling
4. more to come later....

I'm too tired to finish this now. I will tomorrow for sure

Oh... me and Eric bought Cuban cigars for tomorrow. Cross it off the bucket list. Score!
4.

This city is awesome!

I love Playa del Coco... hands down. Everyone was so happy when we pulled up and noticed that our hotel/resort is about 100 yards from the beach. And in the plaza, instead of there being lots of benches and stores, there is a soccer field! We used it today to play frisbee, but it is my goal to play some futbol with the locals at some time. I'm sure I would get made fun of though since I'm terrible at soccer. Right when we got here today, everyone put on their swim suits and we got some lunch at an awesome restaurant. I'll have pictures of it soon because I'm sure we will go back there. Then we all went to the beach and swam of course! The water was surprisingly pretty warm and there are tons of fishing boats in the cove that we are in, but it is so pretty here. The water isn't as blue as I was expecting, but NOTHING on this entire trip has gone as expected. I've learned to just accept that everything is going to be a huge surprise.

After the beach, we came back and swam at our hotel pool! This hotel is awesome. I'm staying in a 3 person room with Eric and Brandon which already told me that this part of the trip is going to be so much fun. The hotel makes a "u" shape around the pool and it is all outdoors with a bunch of cool lights! This city is pretty small though compared to Liberia. I can't wait to see more, since we all got overly excited today and only went to the beach or our hotel pool.

Something is starting to get a little annoying... I know that we are on a study abroad trip, but it feels like everyone is doing too much studying. Yea we have assignments and they take some time, but the last few nights, everyone has disappeared into their rooms as soon as they eat dinner. WE ARE IN COSTA RICA! Put of schoolwork a little and have fun. I'm not asking to go out to bars every night, but at least hang out with everyone and be social. I was fine with it at first, but it's starting to get old. I really hope everyone realizes this and people start to not care as much and have more fun!

 "Don't let the classroom get in the way of your education"

Almost beach time!

Internet was bad again, and we traveled earlier today so I didn't have time to post this until now, but this is what I wrote on June 21st!

Today was our last full day in Liberia. It feels like we just got here… partially because we did. As much as I have loved this last half of the study abroad trip, it has gone by WAY too fast. Spending only 3-4 days in each city hasn’t been anywhere near enough. By the time we get to our destination city it is usually almost dark so we can’t really explore, then we have the whole next day to figure out the city, and the day after that we have everything mapped/figured out so it is fun, and then we leave the day after that. It’s been fine because there isn’t too much to do in Liberia besides walk around, but the whole concept of it sucks especially when we still have school work to do. I almost wish that the entire 4 weeks of this abroad trip would have been city hopping. Experiencing different cities and having everything being new and exciting has been awesome so far, and I still have two more cities to go to!



Church in the plaza



I just walked around A LOT today again. A few of us went in search of an “elite” neighborhood that had very rich and nice houses, but after walking forever we never found it so we turned around. I don’t think that I have ever sweated as much as I did today. I feel like I’ve said that a few other times this trip, but today it was just flowing off of me like a river. For lunch I ate in one of the local sodas (I think I’ve already said it, but a soda is basically a small restaurant that is a Costa Rican cultural thing and they usually serve typical dishes for fairly cheap) and this one was super nice! They are usually cafeteria-style where you walk up and point to what you want, but this one had menus, was two stories tall, and had TVs in it! We felt like we were royalty eating there compared to other sodas we had been to. We have also found a local smoothie joint that just about everyone in our study abroad group has grown to love. It is just a little shack on one of the street corners, and 2-3 ladies are in there making these amazing smoothies with fresh fruit. Yesterday I got one with pineapple, coconut juice, lime, and maybe mango? (I don’t exactly remember). But today I got a strawberry-pineapple one… both of them were awesome. I’m sure the ladies love having us here because all of us go and buy smoothies from them.

It actually rained a lot today, and was storming pretty bad at night while we were having our debriefing meeting with Dr. Brannstrom. While he was talking, I looked up through the opening in our hotel (it forms a rectangle around an open plaza area) and I saw what looked like a camera flash. As soon as the bright light exploded it was followed by the loudest BOOM ever. If you haven’t caught on, the “camera flash” was a huge bolt of lightning that looked like it hit only a couple of hundreds away and the “boom” was thunder. It was the closest/loudest thunder that I think that I’ve ever heard, and when it was combined with the power in the hotel going out, it made me think that my life had in fact ended from the lightning bolt. Everything went black for a split instant and I had no clue what was going on. Of course everyone was completely freaked out, but it gave us a good laugh.

Cool, random artwork that I found on a bridge

I feel like I am forgetting a lot of things about today… if I remember them, I will add them soon. I’m really tired though and ready to get to bed. I can’t to leave tomorrow around 10:30 to head to the beach Playa del Coco! I’ve been waiting for this all trip long!

I can't believe that I forgot this... our pillows at Hotel Wilson were TERRIBLE. It literally felt like someone put packing peanuts or styrofoam in them. Worst pillows ever.

First full day in the "Dirty L"

This is the post that I wrote last night, Monday June 20th... my internet wasn't really working so I had to wait until now to post it. Warning, it's quite a bit long. Well, I guess the rest of my posts are too...

At first, I was not too thrilled about being in Liberia. It definitely is not a tourist town so I wasn’t sure what we were going to do, and it also seemed a little scarier than La Fortuna. But once I got out into the city this morning and actually saw it (rather than trying to figure it out based on what I saw when we drove in last night), I started to love the city! It’s been our first true “culture shock” since we have been in Costa. It isn’t like anything that we’ve visited yet, mainly because it isn’t geared towards tourists at all. It has been a nice change to not have souvenir shops everywhere and to not see as many tourists as natives. I actually feel like I’m in a foreign country for this first time on this trip.



Our hotel, Hotel Wilson... with Vegas style light up palm trees



The city is awesome. We spent today just wandering around trying to figure everything out. This city is MUCH larger than La Fortuna (about 5,000 in La Fortuna compared to 50,000 here), so we split up into groups and basically divided and conquered the whole city. Then we got together/still have to get together to tell each other what all we noticed. We found everything from upper class houses to lower class establishments and everything in between. From this experience, I now realize that the only way to truly figure out a city is to have no plans and just walk around all day long. It is great. Especially in Liberia where we got to actually see the culture of the city without it being distorted by tourist attractions.

My favorite part of the day by far was just sitting in the main plaza (which is in the center of town) and watching everyone. I was there around noon, so a lot of school kids were on their lunch break. In the center of the plaza, there is a gazebo that is completely open so you can see into it from all sides. There were probably about 10 or so kids probably around my age that had brought music with them and were break-dancing in the gazebo! It was so cool to see the culture and how they did what they love to do… hang out with friends and dance… in the most popular part of the city. It has inspired me to learn how to break-dance. We’ll see how that one goes. I love the style and vibe that all of the kids here give off. Their clothing style is something that I can relate to. Most of the boys, if they weren’t in their school uniforms, were wearing tank tops and a cool pair of shoes, and quite a few were skateboarding around. It makes me really wish that I had my longboard with me. I wish that I knew Spanish and that I was going to be here longer so that I could become more involved with the style of this city.

I never thought I would say this, but I actually ate at a Chinese restaurant for lunch. We didn’t realize that it was Chinese food until we got inside and looked at the menu. I thought that ordering regular food in Spanish was hard, but ordering CHINESE food in Spanish was another story. Surprisingly, we were all fairly happy with our meals so it was a success. We also noticed that just about every single person was wearing jeans/pants. Don’t they realize that it is super hot and humid here?! I don’t see how they survive wearing jeans when I was basically dying while wearing shorts. If they weren’t wearing long pants, I noticed that a lot of younger guys were wearing board shorts/a swim suit. That, along with the numerous amounts of surf-style shops, makes it feel like we are near a beach. I still haven’t figured that one out yet. I’m really excited to go explore more tomorrow!... and yes, I’m thinking about trying to fit in tomorrow and wearing my tank top and board shorts while I wander aimlessly around town.

Hah I know I just posted a blog a few hours ago, but I want to try to keep up to date! We rolled into our next city, Liberia, today around 6! It sucked because it was already dark when we got here, but we will be here for 3 nights so we have plenty of time to explore. Our hotel definitely isn't as nice as the one in La Fortuna and this city seems like it's going to be a little more sketchy, but hey we're still in Costa Rica. I am rooming with Kelly while we are here (the guy who told me the motto "don't let the classroom get in the way of your education") so I'm super excited about getting to hang out with him more and getting to know him better! We haven't been able to do anything here besides go to dinner which was surprisingly really good. I'm glad that I can get internet in my room even though it is crazy slow.

The drive here was so much fun! I LOVE driving through Costa and just looking out the window. Everything is so beautiful, so I didn't mind that it took a little less than 4 hours to get here. I had my window down so that I could take pictures and just feel the breeze as we went through the Costa Rican landscape. We made a couple of pit stops, and one was at a little "shop" that was on the side of the road. By shop, I mean that there was a cart that was selling a few handmade things. I bought an awesome photo album that is made out of natural Costa Rican things like banana leaves! I'm really excited to put pictures from this trip in it.

I'm starting to miss people back home more now. I love hanging out with the people here, but we are together for all day everyday so we need breaks from each other... which is becoming evident. I'm bummed that I had to miss a Camp Edwards roadtrip this weekend and that I couldn't be home with my dad for Father's Day. I'm still loving everything about this trip though. Especially this country in general. Everything about it has been so cool and relaxing. I wouldn't mind having a house here at all!

And I can't believe I forgot to write about this in my blog earlier today... the sun rises here about 5:15 in the morning, which is really inconvenient when the shades in the hotel room at La Fortuna SUCKED. Basically, the sun woke me up a little after 5 and I could not fall back asleep for the life of me because it was so bright. That's when I used my college education, as well as having a room to myself, to my advantage. I realized that I had a huge bathroom, so I took my matress off my bed and dragged it into the bathroom, closed the door, and slept there for a few more hours! Probably not my finest moment, but I slept so much better in there because of how dark it was. I have a picture to prove it. Love it.

Bike rides, sunburns, and discoteques!

This is the recap from Saturday, June 18th! I'm just writing it now, so hopefully I can remember everything.

We all woke up pretty early so that we could go and explore La Fortuna! Most of the day was devoted to our assignments, in one way or the other. The good part about these assignments is that they are more about learning on your own. So some of our assignments are to walk around the city and write about little restaurants or things like that. Eric, Sarah, Jessica, and I all decided to rent bikes today so that we could explore more! We rented them for 3 hours and rode all around. We rode out to one of the sites for our assignments to look at different farms/agriculture, but then we rode past it. WAY past it. It was so much fun because we obviously had no idea where we were, but we didn't have anywhere to be! I loved being able to just go whichever direction we wanted to. It was a great way to explore the whole city! It was so relaxing and fun... even though it was HOT. I was rockin a tank-top, and I have the WORST sunburn ever. It looks like I'm wearing a white tank-top, but it's just my skin. I'm in a little bit of pain, but o h well. No pain no gain! One of the places we ended up was a little bitty grocery store. It is called a "mini-super", but mini is an understatement. These stores are a cultural aspect of Costa Rica, but are sadly starting to disappear because of larger businesses. They are basically little stores (usually attached to the owner's house) and are just a bit bigger than a pantry. The one we went to only had 2 isles in it, and it was probably about 15 feet long. I of course had to buy a drink and snack there, and attempted to talk to the owner, even though he only spoke Spanish. It was an awesome experience!



The rest of the day was pretty much devoted to working on assignments. They suck... but I like them better than the ones that we had to do in the rainforest! Brandon and I hung out at the hotel bar for a while and talked to another guy and girl (who were about our age and from Florida) for a few hours. It was Gabby's 21st birthday, so around dinner time, everyone got dressed up and we all went to dinner together. Surprisingly, Costa Rican pizza is really good! Everywhere here is really tourist based. One of the "friends" we made was the part-owner of a restaurant that served Tex-Mex and pizza haha. We saw him all over the city and he was very friendly so we always stopped to talk to him.

But back to Gabby's birthday... after dinner, most of us went to a discoteque! A discoteque is a club/bar, and it wasn't too far from our hotel. We rode a bus to get there, and that was an adventure in itself. The whole language barrier thing has been difficult, but made things that much more exciting. We were told the bus would pick us up in the square at 10, so we went there to wait. There were a few other people waiting so we knew we were in the right place but we got worried when it was 10:25 and the bus still wasn't there. It ended up eventually showing up but it wasn't what we were expecting. It was pretty much one of the vans that we have been taking everywhere for just the 20 of us study abroad kids... but there were a bunch of natives going also. We ended up having to sit on each other's laps for the ride, and some people had 2 people sitting on their lap. We all died laughing the whole time and I'm sure all the Ticans on the bus were making fun of us.

We finally got to the club and there were hardly any people there to start out. We kinda hung out for a while and just talked with each other, but then we started to migrate towards the dance floor. Surprisingly, there was NOBODY dancing. In our group, there were probably about 10 girls and 4 of us guys. A lot of the girls went out and just danced by themselves on the floor, but then a few of us guys went out there and joined them. We basically got the party started! We were the only people on the dance floor (keep in mind that we were dancing to Mexican/salsa music most of the time) for quite some time! Then the natives slowly started to join us and before we knew it, the dance floor was packed. I never though I could have so much fun at a Costa Rican club! I loved dancing to the salsa music... mostly because none of us really knew how so we were just having a great time being goofy. I was pretty much the only guy from our group that danced the whole time, so I got to dance a lot with all the girls in our group OOOHHHHH YEAAAAA! I don't think I've ever danced so much in my life. It was so much fun that we didn't want to stop.

One of my favorite parts was when the Costa Rican guys would come up to the girls and start dancing with them. The girls had it coming... a large group of American girls, dancing in groups with hardly any guys. I would sit back and watch the Costa Rican guys start to make their move on the girls, and I start to crack up laughing because some of the girls felt awkward dancing with them. Watching their facial expressions and watching the girls trying to escape after not too long was priceless. All in all, it was an AWESOME night. Way more fun that I expected.

Today (Sunday, June 19th) we haven't really done much. We are leaving La Fortuna to head to Liberia in about an hour, so everyone has been walking around and getting everything packed. Hopefully the internet is better in Liberia so that I can update this more often!

On top of the sign at the Soltis Center on our last day

Out of "the bubble"... from 6/17

Ok this is going to get a little confusing... but I wrote this on Friday, June 17th. At the hotel in La Fortuna, I haven't had too many opportunities until now to have internet. But this is the post that was from that Friday:

Today we finally left the Soltis Center, and hit the town of La Fortuna! It feels so good to be out of the “bubble” that we were stuck in at the Center. We got to La Fortuna this morning and will be here until Sunday afternoon ish. It’s cool because we have been to La Fortuna a couple of other times on our trip already so we had a little idea of what the city was like. All day was pretty much spent wandering around and figuring out the city. Eric, Brandon, and I were together most of the day and just walked around the entire city and went into just about any and every place that we thought was interesting.

We also talked a lot to the locals! Everyone is very friendly and they are always willing to have a conversation. We found out a bunch of random things just from talking to the locals… at Down to Earth Coffee, we talked to the owner who roasts every single bean in his store by himself on his farm. He has apparently been doing it for about 11 years, but the farm has been with his family since about 1893!!! We also talked to artists on the side of the road who sculpted all of the knives/pipes/pens out of clay themselves. And finally we talked to a man, who is actually from Houston, who is part owner of a new restaurant in town. It is where we ate dinner tonight because they had Tex-Mex food as well as pizza… enough said.

While the 3 of us were aimlessly wandering around, we were taking notes of all of the different cultural aspects of the town as well as drawing in our little sketchbooks that we have. We got a few weird looks, but it’s going to be really neat to look back on our notes/sketches when the trip is over. We ate at an amazing soda (a soda is basically a small restaurant that serves the typical meal of rice, beans, a meat, plantains, and juice) for lunch and it only cost $3! There were a few school kids eating in this small restaurant when we were, and they were definitely laughing at us the entire time. We have just resulted to making fun of ourselves since we look like such tourists.

Today was also Brandon’s birthday! The old man turned 26, so just about all of us went to dinner together and got drinks afterwards at Don Ruffinos, one of the more popular tourist places here. This entire city is full of tourists… especially at night. It seems like once it hits 6 o’clock and starts to get dark, all of the locals go home and it is only tourists out and about. It’s really weird because it feels just like America.

I have my own room to myself! I have a full size bed, air conditioning, AND a fan :) Everyone else has a roommate and twin size beds in a room that is about the same size as mine. I was the last person to get a room, so I was lucky enough to get my own! It pays to be patient. These next few weeks experiencing all that Costa Rica has to offer are going to be so cool.

The last night at the Soltis Center

So I've already been in Costa Rica for over 2 weeks... uhhhh wut?!?! That is still so shocking to me. Today was our last full day at the Center, but I'm pretty ready to see what the rest of this country has to offer. I've heard only great things about this country, and I'm really excited to get out on my own and being to experience it first hand. We presented our projects this morning (FINALLY!) and ours went really well!! I'm so glad that they are over with, but it was a great experience to come up with our own project, physically collect data ourselves, then write a huge proposal and paper over it. I don't think I would have gotten a chance to get experience like that anywhere else. We didn't get too much of a break today though. As Dr. Quiring left the Center after lunch, and then Dr. Brannstrom gave his first lecture a few hours after lunch.

This next class that I'm taking is going to be awesome. It's going to be completely different than anything I've ever done. Basically, Brannstrom is giving us a few tasks to do which mostly deal with interpreting the culture and drawing/journaling about our findings. We are pretty much going to be on our own schedule the entire time. No classes. No tests. Just a meeting at 6 oclock every night to keep in touch with him. It's going to be so much fun! The way he described it was:

“If you learn something between now and departure… it is because you discovered it—you sought it out, you engaged it, you dug deeper—not because you took notes in lecture.”

It's going to be interesting to see how the class goes! It sounds like it's going to be a lot less work than this first class that I just finished... but since we are completely on our own it is going to be so much more money. Paying for every meal each day as well as gifts/random things/excursions is really going to add up. Oh well, I guess I should just live it up, right??

Some things that I'm going to miss about the Soltis Center:

• Having 3 meals cooked for me each day
• Being basically inside the rainforest
• Having Dr. Quiring with us
• Hanging out on "The Stoop" and just talking at nights ("The Stoop" is the patio right outside of Brandon and Eric's room where we would all hang out at night and just talk)
• Being disconnected from the real world and not having anywhere to be or anything to do
• The amazing view from our patio and the balcony in the academic center
• Dr. Eugenio Gonzales and all of the other extremely nice staff that works here
• The ping pong table and playing "fly pong" where we try to hit the huge bugs flying around with the ping pong paddles
• Being forced to spend a lot of time with all of the other people I'm studying abroad with

Some things that I'm NOT going to miss about the center

• Not having A/C
• Having nothing to do or nowhere to be/go
• Getting chiggers (which are finally almost gone... still a bit itchy)
• Eating rice and beans all the time when I'm tired of it
• These small squeaky beds in our super hot rooms
• Having to go to class in a room that has huge windows taunting you with the view outside
• All of the other people that "invaded" the Center... we got here first!

Random fact of the day... for dinner tonight, we didn't have rice OR beans! We had pizza and Coke! Everyone was so happy when we walked downstairs and saw our dinner. And sorry, I don't have the video tour of the Center tonight. Right when I was about to go out and take my video, it started to rain. I'll get one for sure tomorrow morning before we leave for La Fortuna!

I can't wait for these next 2+ weeks!! P.S. my Costa Rican beard is coming in nicely if I do say so myself

Presentations are tomorrow!

Tomorrow is the day that we have all had our eyes on for the entire 2 weeks we've been here! The one major project that we have been working on for over a week is due tomorrow at 8:30 in the morning. The entire day today was devoted completely to finishing our paper and perfecting our slide shows and presentation (which still aren't perfect). I'm going to be so glad to get this over with. This project has felt like it has dragged on FOREVER. Tomorrow around 10 in the morning, I will be a free man again and won't have to worry about any more projects for a while.

Like I said yesterday, I again relied on music today to get me through the day! Mac Miller and lots of Owl City got me through the day at first, but then out of nowhere a real gem caught my attention. Out of nowhere, "I Believe I Can Fly" by R. Kelly (yes the song from Space Jam) popped into my head and I was singing it all day long. It was plain perfection.

The reality that tomorrow is also our last full day at the Soltis Center is finally setting in. Earlier today, Dr. Brannstrom (the professor that will be teaching the geography class where we are in different Costa Rican cities) arrived at the Center. He met us here so that he could ride the bus with us to the first city that we will be going to on Friday, and he is also going to be listening to our presentations tomorrow. For these first 2+ weeks, each individual day has seemed soooooooo ridiculously long because we've had so much to do. But I cannot believe that the trip is almost halfway through! :( But I am really really really excited to go on Brannstrom's part of the trip and travel all across the country.

These last 3 days it has actually felt like we were in a rainforest because it finally rained!!!! Up until Monday, it had barely rained at all, but we have actually gotten quite a bit of rain these last couple of days. I have actually enjoyed the rain. With everything being so open at the Center, you can hear the rain in the forest and see it all. It's been pretty relaxing and I can now say that I actually experienced the "rain" part of the rainforest. Tomorrow, I'm going to try to get a video tour with my camera of the Center so that everyone can see what I've been talking about for the last 2 weeks.

Today I heard/figured out one of my new life mottoes. This isn't just a motto that is a joke and will last for a day, but I really hope that I can use this for the rest of my time in school... and the rest of my life in general. Here is the background behind it: Along with Dr. Brannstrom, a guy named Kelly Lemmon came to the Soltis Center. Kelly is working on his dissertation, and he is doing it on the impacts of study abroad on students... or something along those lines. Before we got to Costa Rica, all of us students completed one of Kelly's surveys, and he came today to talk to us in person. He's also going to be hanging out with us for the last 2 weeks of our trip which will be really cool. Basically, today he put us into groups so that he could facilitate a discussion group about different questions he had about why we studied abroad, why we chose to come to Costa Rica, etc. One of the questions he asked was something along the lines of "What were your reasons for chosing this particular program?". Most of the people in my group answered that they chose this one for an academic reason. They knew that we would be able to work closely with the professors, and their main reason for being here was to get the academic experience that isn't as available in a classroom in College Station. After hearing their answers, I blurted out that, as bad as it sounded, I didn't choose to come on this trip at all for academic reasons. I could actually care less about the grade that I got in these classes here and that I didn't want to spend my whole time doing classwork while I was abroad. I told Kelly that I was here almost completely for the experience/knowledge that I would gain from being on my own and experiencing another country/culture. As soon as I said this he just looked at me and smiled. He replied with "That reminds me of something my grandfather used to tell me. He would always say: Don't let class get in the way of your education." This statement had me thinking all day long... and I realized that that phrase PERFECTLY sums up why I chose to study abroad. The education that I have been seeking by coming to Costa wasn't knowledge about the geography classes I'm taking, but the education I have truly been looking for is to figure out more about myself and other cultures. Grades may seem important, but down the road I know that I would regret it if I spent more time here focusing on school than I did focusing on having a good time and learning what I want to learn about. I'm so glad Kelly interviewed us so that I could realize this. I'm definitely going to spend the rest of my life living by this motto.

Other than today being stressful, I'm so relieved to have our presentations almost done. On another note... HAPPY 26TH ANNIVERSARY MOM AND DAD! Y'all are amazing parents and I'm so happy that y'alls marriage has been so successful. I couldn't be any luckier than I am to have y'all, and I look up to both of you so much.

Time to go practice my presentation a little more so that I don't bomb it like I did the last one!

So tired of this project!

Can it please be Thursday morning already?! These projects are getting so annoying. All that we did today was work on our project, go to class, make graphs for our project, go to class, work on our project... oh and write the paper for our project. ALL DAY LONG. A few days ago, I thought that designing our own project would be really fun, and it was then! But now that we've been doing about a months worth of work in the last few days, me (and the rest of the students) are all sick and tired of it. Today everyone was pretty much going insane. There were periods where people were tired this morning, angry this afternoon because things weren't working out right or data was getting messed up, and then tonight everyone was so delirious from writing and working for so long that nobody could focus anymore and everyone was giggling at everything.


Me coming in hot on the zipline!

I feel bad for Shelly and Trey, my other two partners. They are getting to experience my terrible writing skills first hand, and you can only imagine how bad I was writing at 10:00 tonight after working all day long. When they read over the few paragraphs that I was supposed to write, they busted out laughing because some of my sentences made me sense at all. I guess it was good because it gave us all a good laugh to end the day which was exactly what we needed. We finished the rough draft of our paper today though which is great. Now we just have to survive one more long day tomorrow of revising everything, making sure it is all perfect, and practicing our presentations for Thursday morning. I'm going to be SO GLAD when this project is done with.



The 3 of us that got cool colorful hats... at the hot springs

 Other than that, I've really been missing American food lately. I would give anything (well... almost anything) to have a cheeseburger even just a pb&j. Yes I can still buy them here, but since we've been in the rainforest we haven't had too many opportunities to go out and get food. Don't get me wrong the food at the Center isn't bad, I'm just getting so tired of it. I've noticed that I eat less and less of the rice and beans everyday. We all still get a kick out of how they "recycle" the food here. This morning we found spaghetti noodles in our omlettes (we had spaghetti last night...) and we are starting to find plenty of other similar foods used meal after meal. Hey I'm glad they aren't wasting the food at least!

Another random thing that I don't think I've wrote about yet... there are so many dogs in Costa! I'm not sure if they are people's pets or what, but everywhere we go there are always so many dogs just roaming around. The weird thing is that the dogs don't look too dirty/skinny/ugly like the stray dogs in Texas do. These dogs look like they are pretty well off! They are all really friendly too. I'm sure they can tell that we are tourists because they always come up to us and walk with us around because they know that someone will pet them or give them food. All of the natives just go about their day, so I guess the dogs are more like "community dogs" and just roam around wherever they want!

It's been weird getting adjusted to the other students/professors being here. The lines to eat are so much longer and we have to share the common area with them. It wasn't too bad today because they are doing a lot of field research, but after having the whole Center to ourselves for over a week it is different... but nice... to see new faces walking around. It made me feel like I was in WCL (West Campus Library) today though because so many people were walking around when we were writing our papers and it was so loud, just like WCL always is.



Sitting under a waterfall that was hotter than 100 degrees!



I've got a long day ahead of me tomorrow! I'm sure I'll rely on my music to get through a lot of it. Today was filled with the band Passion Pit... who knows what tomorrow's band will be that keeps me dancing and in a positive mood!

Goodnight world :)