FORWARD TEAM!

Ahhhhhhhhh today I got to go white-water rafting!!!!!! I now have a new obsession. We woke up this morning, got on our bus, went to La Fortuna, got on a new bus, and rode for another hour or so to the Rio Balsa which is where we rafted on class 2 and 3 rapids. I kinda wish that it would have been more intense... but it was still a blast!

When we first got to the river, we got all suited up in our lifejackets and helmets, and after a safetly lesson, we got into groups of 5 and were put into groups with a tour guide. In my group it was me, Eric, Maggie, Shelly, and Daniel... and our guide was Jorge! Jorge was super cool. He kept making jokes with us the whole time and you could tell that he really loved his job (considering he has been doing it for 5 years)... but who wouldn't love that job?! I now have a new life purpose/goal and that is to move to Costa Rica and become a white-water rafting guide. I mean it's the perfect job for me. Getting to be out on the water all day long where I don't have to wear a shirt and can play in a raft! It's going to happen. Sorry for wasting 2+ years of money on college mom and dad, but at least I found my calling now!

After we got in our groups, we set off on the river! The route we went on was about 11 miles long and took a little over 2 hours for us to do. The first half was the class 3 part with the more intense rapids. We were all laughing and smiling the whole way... the pictures prove it. Eric and I got to be in the front of the raft which was so much fun! Not only were we in every picture, but we got to see the whole river and ended up taking the hit from most of the waves. Our faces were priceless. I'm really glad that the company had a photographer following us the whole time taking pictures of the whole trip. One part of the first half of rapids we came across a HUGE drop which literally engulfed our raft. One of that commands that we had to follow from Jorge was "GET DOWN!"... which, as it implies, we had to sit all the way in the raft and put our paddles straight up in the air so we wouldn't hit anyone. The photographer got an aweome picture of our group going down the drop while we are all down inside the raft. As you can see, the 4 of us in front are literally completely underwater.

At our halfway point, we met up with all of the other rafts, parked them on the bank, and had a nice snack of pineapple and watermelon. The guides flipped one of the rafts over and sliced up tons of fruit for us. I'm so glad that Costa Rica is famous for their watermelon and pineapple... we eat them all the time and they are two of my favorite fruits! After our delicious snack, we got back on the river for the last half of our trip. Since the last part had weaker rapids, Jorge let us have fun and when we went down some rapids, he would tell the left side to paddle forward and the right side to paddle backwards so that we would spin and do 360's the entire way down. Some of his other commands (which made us laugh every time) were to go forward... and everytime he said it he would either say "Forward friends!" or "Forward team!". Those phrases are engraved into my mind, and they really show how friendly everyone in Costa Rica is. We had only known him for a few minutes before he was calling all of us "friends" or "amigos". Also, every time that we made it down a section of rapids, we would give each other high fives with our paddles and yell "PURA VIDA!"

I can't believe that I got to go rafting. It has always been something that I thought would be very cool to do, but before this study abroad trip, never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that I would be rafting down a river in Costa Rica. On the river we also saw a sloth in the tree! It was right above it so we were able to see it very well. That was the animal that I wanted to see most, so I was happy :)



Me, Maggie, Shelly, Eric, Daniel, and Jorge (front)

To top the night off, when we got back to the Center, me and Eric got some front row entertainment when a few of the girls decided to sing karaoke downstairs and sung songs from Backstreet Boys and N-Sync. Being on the river all day made everyone really tired, so everyone is pretty much being lazy and is already in bed or laying down. Costa Rica... you never fail to amaze me. Pura vida!

Sunday (no) fun day

Just a warning, this post is going to be more of a venting session. Today was probably my least enjoyable day of the trip so far. It started going poorly... right when I woke up. I woke up with my stomach hurting super badly but I pushed through that for most of the day. And then today was completely devoted to our projects. We collected data 3 times today which meant that we had to hike down to the river, which is down a super steep and long road. Walking up and down that road 3 times a day is not fun at all! My legs and butt are so sore from all the uphill and downhill walking. One of the times we went to get measurements, I guess I wandered through some chiggers because my legs and arms and parts of my back are COVERED. I itch so much and there isn't really anything I can do about it. When we weren't collecting data, we were writing our paper... which I am so tired of doing. Everyone today was on edge because we were all stressed/tired/sick of working on our papers. Also, about 20 more students/professors got to the Center today. There are enough cabins for all of us, but the main academic building is not the biggest place ever, so it was really awkward when they got here tonight because we haven't been used to sharing our space with other people. I'm not too sure how well it's going to go down, but we will manage. The other group seems like they will be pretty cool... if we ever actually interact with them. It's awkward like a junior high dance. Ok I guess that's enough venting for now.

I am really excited for tomorrow though! We are going white-water rafting! I have never been before so I'm stoked to go. It will be a nice break from the Center and all of the work we've been doing.
Sorry there's not really any more to this post. It has been a long, rough day and I'm about to pass out. Don't worry, I'm still having tons of fun, today just hasn't been my favorite day.

PS I miss Camp Edwards SO MUCH. It was really hard to be here this weekend and not with y'all for workday 1. Getting to skype with y'all was awesome, but seeing all of the pictures and all of the messages/emails/facebook posts made me feel like I missed out on so much. I hope y'all know that I feel really bad for not being there, and I miss y'all more than ever. Edwards love!

Do you LOVE IT?

It's so crazy to think that we only have a few more days at the Center! With this major project that we are doing, it feels like we have hardly any time left here... which I guess is fine because I could really go for some A/C every once in a while.

Today was devoted completely to our projects. We still had class/lecture which really bugged me considering we are expected to do so much for this project. In class we did talk about our projects, but I felt like it was a waste of time that we could have been using to get more data or work on our papers. Whatever, I'm over it. There was a toucan outside of our classroom today though which was super cool! It was super loud and kept squawking the entire time haha

We went out and collected data for our project today. We went to 2 different river sites and measured the velocity of the river there (using a ping-pong ball and timing it) and we took water samples which we filtered to see all of the sediment deposits that were flowing in that section of the river. We did that twice today, and I guess it was successful-ish? For one of our readings, we got a negative answer for how much sediment we collected which obviously wasn't true since you can't lose weight... but DQ said it was ok and just laughed. Other than that, we worked on our paper for the rest of the day. We get to do it all over again tomorrow! But luckily we have no class at all so we can actually focus on our projects.

It has been really funny to watch everyone's mannerisms change the longer that we have been here. We are all starting to pick up on little things that each other does and copy them. For example, Shelly ALWAYS uses abbreviations on words and instead of asking people if they like something, she will ask "do you love it?" Weeellllllll everyone has picked up on abbreviating things and asking if people LOVE certain things. Any and every word is fair game to be abbreviated, like "sugar" becoming "sug". We constantly laugh because people do it without even meaning to now and it catches them off guard.

We are all starting to get a lot closer to each other. I still remember the first night at dinner here at the Center was relatively quiet and awkward conversations at our separate tables, but now we are all yelling and laughing across all the tables like we are a big family. It has made everything so much more fun!

Here are a few random pictures from the last few days!

Enjoy, and I miss everyone!

BEST DAY EVER!

There has been NOTHING even remotely bad about today at all. First of all, we didn't have class this morning so I skipped breakfast and got to sleep until 10:45! Definitely was a great start to the day. Then we ate lunch, and at 12 we left to go... ZIP-LINING! The place we went was in La Fortuna pretty close to the volcano that we went to the other day. In order to get there, we had to drive on the most bumpy road ever... but it was worth it. Also on the way, we stopped at a little convenient store and found the coolest hats ever! I got an orange one, Eric got a yellow one, and Jessica got a lime green one. They all had a different animal on them and said "Pura Vida" on the front of them, which is Costa Rica's famous greeting/saying. Needless to say, we wore them all day long.

The zip line went through/over the rainforest and we could see Lake Arenal the whole time. In order to get to the first zipline, we had to ride up a gondola type thing which was really fun. The guide encouraged us to stand up while we were going so that we could look through the forest for animals... but we didn't see any. When we got to the first platform, one of the workers was waiting for us with mango and pineapple juice drinks. After a short tutorial on the right/best way to zipline, we were off! We basically went on a zipline tour on a series of 7 different ziplines throughout the forest. The first one was pretty small just to get us warmed up, then the rest of the ziplines were huge and fast!!! After they strapped us in, we basically just leaned back and put our knees up and went flying. The ziplines went SO FAST and we obviously had an amazing view over the canopy of the forest with the volcano and the lake in the background. I had been looking forward to this all trip, and it definitely exceeded my expectations. It was one of the most adventurous and fun things that I have ever done, and even the people that were scared to do it at first ended up loving it. Everyone left with a smile, and we got some pretty good pictures and videos. We were technically supposed to hold on with 2 hands the whole time, so this video isn't wonderful because I had it dangling for a while, but it is still pretty cool if you turn your head to the right a little.

When we were leaving the ziplines, we saw monkeys!!!! We were driving down the road, and our driver spotted monkeys climbing around in the trees. We thought there was only one at first, but there ended up being about 5. They were obviously wild, and were climbing and jumping through the trees. It was the cherry on top of this already awesome day. They were the first wild monkeys that we had seen, and everyone had been looking for monkeys all trip long.

The day didn't even end after ziplining! Right after that, we hopped back on the bus and went to a hot spring. I was just expecting a little lake type thing with a bunch of people sitting it in awkwardly staring at each other, but I was definitely wrong! The hot springs ended up being at a resort, and it was a series of pools that we could go to with varying temperatures and slides and waterfalls! It was so relaxing and fun. The slide in one of the pools was the fastest slide that I have ever been on... minus the Texas Freefall slides and bodyslides that go straight down. This slide said that it got to speeds about 45 kph. I'm not sure how fast that translates to, but it was pretty fast, to the point where at some points I wasn't even on the slide, and other points I was going so far up the side of it that I felt like I was going to go in a complete circle around the tube. We all hung out at the springs for a few hours, and ended up eating dinner there. The dinner was a buffet with pasta and chicken and a bunch of other stuff. Definitely a good break from rice and beans! And to our surprise, we had apparently already paid for the springs/dinner so we didn't have to pay when we got there, so we were all even happier.

Now we are back at the Center and having a little fiesta! All of us are sitting on one of the porches hanging out and talking. Man I sure do love Costa Rica :)

Today we presented our proposals that we worked on all day yesterday... and I totally bombed my presentation. My excuse is that because I stayed up so late last night writing my actual proposal, I didn't get a chance to practice what I was going to say. But I was also tired of doing all of this work, so I generally didn't care too much because I didn't want my proposal to get picked anyways. Thankfully it didn't. The project that I will be researching/working on for the last week here is testing to see how fast the river (Rio Chachagua) flows and how much sedimentation is moving in the stream. I'm working with my roommate Trey and another girl Shelly which will be fun. I'm excited to actually do a project where we will be going out and collecting our own data, rather than relying on just journals and other research methods. And apparently, nobody has ever done this type of research at the Soltis Center before, so we will be the first people EVER to do a study like this here! Cool!

I'm so glad that we have no more assignments to do. We basically get to make our own schedule from now on, so the whole class basically decided to take tonight off! And even better... I'm skipping breakfast tomorrow and sleeping in because we don't have class! And even better than that... WE GET TO GO ZIP-LINING TOMORROW AFTERNOON!!!!! I have been waiting to do this ever since I first saw the flyer to study abroad in Costa Rica. Tomorrow is going to be an awesome day for sure.

Oddly enough, I am sick and tired of being on my computer. I thought that when I came to Costa Rica, I would hardly use any technology and would be out of touch with "the world". But everything that we have done the last few days has required us to be on our computers all day long. That reason, along with the fact that today was a chill day with not much happening, is why this post is going to be really short. Everyone is starting to get a little restless here since we have pretty much been in the same location for a week now with no way to get out. It's not like we can just walk down the street to go to a restaurant or something... we're in the middle of a rainforest.

Assuming I don't hit a tree or something like that while zip-lining tomorrow, expect some cool pictures from tomorrow's adventures!

This is the waterfall that I wrote about a few days ago... Looking at this pic, the rock that we sat on is literally right on the other side of the falls. B-E-A-UTIFUL

As much fun as it is to hike UP a river, writing proposals are not fun at all

I apologize... this post is going to be fairly short and quick. Today we learned about our proposals for the group research projects that we will be doing for the remaining week that we have at the Soltis Center. We learned about the whole proposal process this morning (a proposal is basically a paper to convince people that your research project is a good one to participate in) and our proposals were due tonight!!! I've never written one before, hence the reason that I just now finished it at 2 in the morning, but I know that they take longer than one day to write them. Needless to say, everyone was super stressed out all day today but we all managed to throw something together to turn it. They're not going to be that great... but hey we finised. The idea that I wrote about for my proposal is to measure the soil moisture content/gradient of soil around a fern to see whether there is more moisture right at the stem of the plant, or whether there is more moisture in the soil a ways away from the plant. There were a few more variables, but that's the summary of mine. We'll see tomorrow if anyone votes for mine for one of the groups to research!

In between that, 7 of us went on a hike in one of the rivers that runs on the property! Two of the people  wanted to use the river for their proposals, so Dr. Quiring (everyone is starting to call him DQ which has been pretty humorous) took a few of us to go check it out. My project obviously had nothing to do with the river, but I wanted to go on an adventure... so I did just that! We all wore rain boots since we knew that we would be getting soaked, but before we started on our hike, we had a little fun. I had my rubber boots on and I was laying on my stomach on the tile floor in the main/living area of the Center. I wasn't even thinking about striking a pose, but I was laying with my knees bent and my feet in the air and I had my chin rested on my hand, so it looked like I was modeling. Someone took a picture of me laying like that with my boots, and that started a chain of events with all of us guys that had the boots on. We ended up all doing different poses to make a "calendar", and even DQ posed with his boots and his walking stick! I don't have the pictures of it yet, but they will come soon. The hike in the river was so much fun. We all tried to stay on the rocks or in the shallow water so that we wouldn't get wet, but by the end we were wading in water that was a little less than waist deep. Trey (one of my roommates) ended up falling 3 times and landed straight on his butt every single time. Thankfully he didn't get hurt, but all of us were cracking up.

A couple last quick facts for the day:
1. WE DIDN'T HAVE RICE OR BEANS WITH DINNER!!!!!!!! First time since we've been here that that has happened.
2. We saw a cockroach that was probably about 4 or 5 inches long
3. The number of bugs here still amazes me
4. I am going to sleep now. Byeeeeeeeee!

Oh hot dam

IT WAS SO STINKIN HOT TODAY! I don't know why they call this the rainforest... it has hardly rained since we have been here at all. Before we came, we were told that it would rain for a few hours every single day. We have barely gotten a few TOTAL hours of rain with all of hte days added up! The rain usually cools it down and helps to get rid of some of the humidity, but since it hasnt rained it has just been miserable without air conditioning. Today we actually had a few hours of free time after lunch so that we could nap/relax, but there was no way that I could sleep because of how much I was sweating.

This morning though, we went to a hydroelectric dam that is pretty close to the Soltis Center. We got to put on some hard hats and wear ear plugs and walk through the control center which contained all of the turbines and generators that controlled the dam. The tour was pretty cool since we got to see all of the inside things that controlled the whole dam. Then we took our bus and actually went to the dam which was really cool! We got to stand on a little platform that overlooked the entire river. Apparently the dam provides electricity to 15,000 homes in the area... and it is only running 8 hours a day for 15 days out of the month. All of the other times it is closed for maintenance or to conserve even more energy.

Ever since I've been here (minus day 1... I think) I have taken a picture of the meal that I have eaten that day. Mainly to prove to people that we literally eat rice and beans with almost every single meal, but also just to remember all the crazy things that we eat. Like for dinner tonight, our main course was some mixture of eggs with green beans. I have no clue how they made it, but it looked like they somehow implanted the green beans into a huge circle of egg. I don't know where they get the creativity for some of our dishes. Hopefully at the end of the trip I can make a slideshow of every meal that I've eaten here! Being abroad has also made me wish that I kept up with learning Spanish. It would be so cool to be able to speak the language and understand everyone because only 1 of the kids with me knows Spanish, so everyone turns to him to ask him how to say things.

Even with all the hot, humid weather we've been having and all of the crazy long assignments we've had to do, I wouldn't trade this experience for anything! It hasn't even been a full week yet and I'm already having the time of my life :)