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!