day 33: paseo de flores

after class, steve, the 3 europeans (sara, sabastian, and moritz) and i headed to paseo de flroes, the mall in heredia. before we caught the bus to town we stopped at the plaza and played futbol with a group of 10 or so students. it was pretty intense and i was lucky enough to have one kid kick the ball at my head numerous times. when we got to the mall, we ate at the food court there which was a mecca for american eateries, they had subway, quiznos, pizza hut, burger king, and taco bell. after that we looked at the shops which sold a bunch of overpriced clothes. we all decided to buy costa rican soccer jerseys to show our pride in the country. after the mall i headed home to read and work out. we met up at alex´s at 9pm and decided to head to bulevar, a bigger and nicer bar in the city. we had the same group of 5 go out and it was cool to get the europeans perspective on lots of different events like the war in iraq, stereotypes, soccer etc. all 4 of us we wearing our jerseys we bought earlier in the day and taking a ton of pictures. we were probably the most obnoxious groups there but ít was one of the best nights i´ve had in costa rica.

day 32: esoj nas

water rappelling got cancelled AGAIN. this time it´s rescheduled for friday morning at 8:30. class is cancelled that day and i was looking forward to sleeping in but i guess that won´t happen because the company already has my $45. since my plans for the afternoon i tried to make the most of my day. everyone else was out late the night before so they all headed home to take naps. i figured it´d be a good idea to head to san jose and check it out seeing as it is the nation´s capital. the student coordinator tried to convince me it was too dangerous to go alone but i didn´t want to just sit around all day doing nothing, especially since i only have 2 more afternoons left. i grabbed a city map with a few spots circled and hopped on the bus which takes about 30 minutes. the next 2 hours i walked around the city looking at some of the cultural things like the teatro nacional and various plazas. nothing too great but oh well. then, an ''american'' named ricky approached me and gave me some sob story about how he got robbed and if i could spare a few dollars. being the sucked i am i ended up buying him a medium pizza for $8. after that he tried to con me out of more money but i said no and left. i wasn´t sure when the next busy came so i flagged a taxi back to town. met a nice guy who then proceeded to take the longest way possible back to san joaquin. i knew he was running up the meter but there´s really nothing i could´ve done. it ended up being about 5,500 ($11) colones when last time it only cost 4,000 ($8). it could´ve been worse but i guess you have to expect that being a tourist. i have so much homework tonight but at least there´s only 1 more day of class left. the key will be to continue practicing when i get back, but who knows. i would kind´ve like to so i didnt waste the past 5 weeks. anyone know if they offer spanish lessons cheap anywhere in houston, if so let me know. tonight is noche de vaquero and i´m expecting big things and hopefully denny´s ha

day 31: school is getting old

all i know is that school is getting really boring right now. i think i´m about burned out on learning spanish for 4 hours a day...ever day. i didn´t do too much tuesday, just your typical day. we did get pizza at a local place, loncho´s, which was really good. after that checked all my flight info, made sure i had a ride from the airport and headed home to study. before dinner i headed to the gym because i had signed up for a spinning class at 7pm. this was probably the funniest thing i´ve experienced in a long while. first off, the guy teaching the class was dressed like he was competing in the tour de france and he played the worst music i´ve ever heard. his idea of a song to pump up the class was that spice girls song ''if you want to be my lover''. it was an hour long so it was a good workout, maybe even tougher than hester´s class but i dont know. after that, i headed up, took a shower, ate dinner and was too tired to go out. that´s probably a good thing because steve didn´t get home until his mom was going on her morning run. i don´t think i could´ve done class if that happened to me.

day 30: change of perspectives

my first night in costa rica was spent at a b&b in san joaquin and when i got here all i could think of was how small the town was, how few restauraunts there were and how different it was than texas. now, a month later and having spent 3 weeks in monteverde, a town of 8,000 or so people, i feel like im in a huge city with all the amenities i could possibly want. i guess thats what happens when you spend time in another country, you start to appreciate the little things more. the first week or so all i could think about was how i would be without dr. pepper, air conditioning, tv etc. forever but now im starting to realize that i can do just fine without those things (i think at least). the school shrunk by a good number of people this week. 4 of the 5 people we typically hung out with left for other places but we did get 3 new people from across europe that are pretty cool. after today i only have 4 days left here, which is really weird to think about. my time here has been incredible but that doesnt mean im not ready to get back home.

day 29: manuel antonio part 2

slept in until 10am and made a deal with the manager of our hotel. we were suppose to checkout at 11am but our bus didnt leave until 5pm. the problem: where do we put our bags for those six hours. he said we could leave them in his office and get them around 3 or so. we figured since we only had one more day at the beach we ought to enjoy the sun as much as possible while we can. the day was spent mainly the same as before except steve took surf lessons for a few hours and i rented a boogie board because its easier and cheaper. we had lunch at the marlin yet again and relaxed as much as we could. we caught the 3 oclock bus back to our hotel, took a shower in the pool, changed clothes and headed in to catch our bus in quepos. it came to be 5:30 and our bus still hadnt shown so we started to get a little worried. come to find out it would never show and we were forced to combine the 5 and 5:30 buses. what does this mean, it means that several people didnt have seats. for instance i had a ticket for seat 30 but so did a lady for the 5:30 bus. this gave steve and i the wonderful opportunity to stand up for the entire trip back to san jose. the normal person would complain but we decided to make the best of the situation by talking to everyone else standing and annoying those with seats. while standing we got a great view of the driver and his lack of ability in operating a huge vehicle. we witness him blow past motorocycles, and perform his infamous move: the 5 car pass while going around a curve uphill. we did not complain though because it allowed us to make it back in the world record time of 3 hours with 1 stop. a few 45 minutes faster than it took us to get there. once in san jose we had to get connected with our return bus to san joaquin and we didnt have a bus schedule on us. regardless we waited at the stop for 15 to 20 minutes at 9:30 at night with our bags. we were basically bullseyes and shouldve been wearing a shirt that said rob me, please. after 2 locals came up to us and told us that the area was muy peligroso (dangerous) we decided to take a taxi home which only cost us $8. i made it home by 10pm, took a shower and layed down for at least 2 hours before i finally went to sleep. i was so exhausted but this weekend was probably the best ive had here, even though our transportation cancelled, the hotel lost our reservation, and we had to stand up for 3 hours in a public bus. good times, cant believe i dont have another weekend left in this country.

day 28: quepos and manuel antonio

we woke up at 8:30 and hopped on the bus to manuel antonio. our first stop was the parque nacional which is known as the most popular tourist location in the country. they have a ton of hiking trails, private beaches, waterfalls, and animals liek iguana, white face monkeys etc. before we even got in we saw tons of iguanas around and a few exotic birds. we didnt get a guide so we followed behind groups that had guides and tried to listen to any good info they shared. finally we got behind a group we thought was heading to the catarata (waterfall) and followed them out a gate. come to find out they werent going to the waterfall but were exiting the park. now in order to get back in we had to walk all the way around to the entrance which we thought wasnt worth it so we werent able to see any white faced monkeys. we grabbed lunch at a place on the water called marlin which had incredible chicken fingers with wing sauce. we would return to this restauraunt 3 more times over the course of 2 days. we rented some chairs on the beach for the day and relaxed, listened to music and just hung out for a while. later on we got in the water and watched a few of the surfers. for the night we headed back to mar y sombra where i rain into chloe a girl that studied with me in monteverde. steve and i hung out with her and her sister. around 1am we were lucky enough (note: sarcasm) to witness 4 or 5 ticos get in a fight. in college station they would immediately stop it and kick out the people but in central america apparently they allow people to settle their differences with a few punches. night ended around 2am after some salchichon and tortillas.

day 27: bus to manuel antonio

friday started with us finding out that we didnt have the transportation coming that we had scheduled the day before. this meant steve and had to leave class at 10pm, run home and grab our bags, catch a bus to san jose and buy our tickets for the 12pm bus to manuel antonio. the 12pm was full so we ended up getting on the 1:15. ill admit i was a little wary of riding a public costa rican bus for 3.5 hours but it ended up being alright. other than the fact that the 3 year old next to me threw up 3 times and there was a 45'50 year old couple who insisted on taking pulls of cocique and making out for 20 or so minutes. we stopped once and ended up making incredible time, getting there a little before 5:00. we were feeling a little parched so we stopped by a local bar and hung out and talked to locals for an hour or so before catching a bus to our hotel, the infamous hotel california. insert disappointment #2: they had our reservation set for monday to wednesday even we though we talked to them twice to confirm everything. we then walked to down the road about 2km to another hotel that had a vacancy. it ended up being a nice place and about $20 cheaper per night so we couldnt complain. it had AC, hot showers, lots of english channels etc. we hopped in the pool and decided to head into town eat and then go to the local hangout mar y sombra. we ate at a local soda (small restauraunt) and practiced our spanish with some of the locals. this was when a local doctor invited us to his house for dinner the next night. mar y sombra is an outdoor bar, dancehall place on the beach that has been around 30 plus years and was recommended to us by lots of guides. it wasnt too much fun and we were tired from the bus ride so we headed home around 11pm.

days 25 and 26: wednesday/thursday

wednesday
today was suppose to be the day we went waterfall repelling but that didn't end up happening because there was a 3 hour long downpour that afternoon. after boarding the bus, driving 45 minutes and walking 1/2 a mile our guide told us that we wouldn't be able to cross the 2 rivers to get to the waterfall. he told us the river is normally 10 cm deep and it was now 3 meters due to all the rain. instead we got to hike around for an hour and then head back home. i think we're going to reschedule for next friday morning because it doesn't usually rain until after 2. after we got back steve and i worked out at the gimnasio again. for the night, 15 or so students headed to fiesta because it is "cowboy night" every wednesday. they had a mechanical bull and everyone was wearing boots and trying to two step, it was hilarious. sure i don't know how to salsa but at least i can two step...sortve. after we hung out there for a while and watched the bull riding contest we decided to get a taste of america and eat at the denny's which is conveniently located nextdoor. the funny thing is in costa rica denny's is a really nice restauraunt, everything costs $10 or more. the only people that typically eat at denny's in college station are senior citizens and drunk college students at around 3am, but i decided not to tell them that. for some reason my credit card didn't work there and i had already ordered my food so i had to get someone to cover me, this was really frustrating.

thursday
i decided to sleep in today and not go to school until after break at 10am. this was probably one of the best decisions of my time here, it was awesome to get to sleep in until 9 and i didn't really miss anything at school. after showing up late the rest of my day flew by. after school we headed to heredia which is the closest big city to san joaquin de flores. it's about a 15 minute bus ride and one of the most polluted cities i've ever seen. i think it's because 80% of the cars on the road are buses and they probably don't have tough emissions standards here. we heard they had lots of american fast food places in town so we decided to eat at pizza hut which tasted exactly like back home. it was really good to eat at two normal places in 2 days. the girls in my class told me that they even had dr. pepper at one of the supermarkets in town so we went on a 45 minute adventure to find it, only to come up empty handed. we asked at least 10 locals but none of them had a clue where automercado was. disappointed, we headed back to san joaquin, but i figured ive gone 4 weeks without my favorite beverage what's 10 more days. i decided to catch up on my reading and homework tonight because i've kind've been slacking off lately. i got home talked to my family for an hour or so and was asleep by 10pm.

day 24: whats up with these showers

after classes we went and ate with a group of students at super snack´s again. same good food, but we need to switch it up some. then we headed back to cpi where i got on the internet, did my homework, and tried to figure out our plans for manuel antonio this weekend. we booked a room at the infamous hotel california, i don´t think it has anything to do with the song but it does have hot water, air conditioning, and 20 plus english channels. then scuba and i hit up the gimnasio, it was good to get some exercise besides walking. i got home and took a shower which is always an experience here. they have 2 separate rooms at my house, one for the toilet and one for the shower which is pretty convenient. however, the shower room doesn´t have a curtain or anything so i ended up flooding the bathroom again. there are also 2 hoses connected to the shower head that disperse water but i haven´t figured out how to turn those off either. after that i hung out, did some homework and got my hermana tica to help me with my homework. she´s studying english but she can only talk about as good as i can in espanol, which is no good. tonight we also discovered that steve has over 20 channels in english, including hbo and every news station imagineable. we spent our night watching fox news trying to figure out what has been going on in the world the past 4 weeks which was cool. i didn´t get to see everything but i know bombs are flying in lebanon and bush dropped a curse word i believe. other than that i´m clueless so please inform me. also found out that i dont have school next friday (the day before i fly home) due to a holiday, i think the annexation of guanacasta. that is neat. also the internet is really slow here so i can´t upload pics daily but i´ll try to in a few days. see you tomorrow.

day 23: back to junior high

new school, new class. i'm one of 4 students in my class ages ranging from 12-15, i'm a year older than the profesor. i feel old and im only 22. there's definitely a different level of maturity in this class, and by a different level i mean no maturity. for 20 minutes they drew faces on their hands and talked like hand puppets. i didn't mind having classes with the 50-60 year olds but this is going to be way different. two of the girls are from the bahamas and all they can talk about is dancing and reggae music but to each her own. i think what makes me most upset is that these little kids know more spanish than me ha. the majority of class time was spent reviewing to make sure everyone was on the same page. after class steve and i walked throughout the town, hit up the supermarket, got a membership to a gym here for $5/week. then the rain hit, steve's family said it rains here everyday at 230pm and as i'm typing this it's 2:21 and just begun to rain. i headed back to my place to do my homework, talked with the family and ate dinner. they're such a nice family and i'm happy to be living with them, even if steve's family is more outgoing. for the night we met up with 5 or so students at alex's and they told us they were going to the casino for the night. we figured what the heck and took a taxi there, which cost $4. it's pretty much like a normal casino except when you walk in they don't id anyone, which was weird because there was a high school student in our group. i think i gambled about $1 and we mainly just sat around, talked, and watched people which was pretty entertaining. they had a house band with some of the most interesting instruments i've ever seen, one guy just beat a stick on a metal can for a while. for me the highlight was definitely when a man proposed to a lady on the stage. i thought it was an interesting place to propose but then again, i've never proposed so what do i know. taylor said maybe it had some special meaning to them, but yet again, i dont know. after that some locals taught steve and i two of the basic salsa steps, which everyone knows how much i love to dance (note: sarcasm). we took a cab home around 1am, good first night i guess.

day 22: monteverde to san joaquin de flores

the drive to san joaquin was about as boring as i expected it to be. i got picked up at 830, stopped once for snacks, and got to my new house by 130. they say moving from monteverde to san joaquin is like going from a motel 6 to the ritz carlton and i think i agree. although my house isnt huge it definitely has a lot of things my old house didnt, ie. tiled flores, comfortable beds, and a really hot shower. once i got there my papa tico talked to me for about 30 mins really, really fast but i was able to keep up nicely. the next 30 mins were then spent with me nodding and pretending like i knew what was going on. after that it started to storm really hard for about 45 minutes. towards the end the water crept through all the doors and started to flood the house. they assured me this was the first time it had ever happened but nonethless, i helped them sweep all the water out for 30 mins or so. the bad part was that as we were sweeping water out more and more was coming in but it eventually let up and things went back to normal. my family is really nice and you can tell that the dad really wants to hang out with me because i think theyve had mainly female students. steve flew into costa today so i gave him a call, figured out where he lived and walked over to his place. hes staying with a family that another one of our friends lived with last summer (matt johnson) so we all talked about matt and chris, except they referred to chris as baracho. his family is really cool and i ended up eating dinner there and just sitting around talking till 730ish. after that steve and headed to the local american hangout, alexs bar, except no students were there. we hung out, shot some pool, i was offered drugs twice and we went home around 930. good first day in a new place, i think its going to be awesome to have steve here to take on costa rica with me. weve already planned out some things for this week like repelling down water falls and manuel antonio this weekend. maybe bungee jumping, i dont know, i dont know if well have enough time.

day 21: last day

picture 1: my family, except i'm not sure who the little girl in the front posing is

picture 2: my bike gang

"Nothing lasts forever, not the mountains nor the sea, but the times we had together, they will always be with me."

that quote is just a joke, i thought it was really funny, but maybe not. i can't believe today is already my last day in monteverde. sure the first week took forever but the last 2 have really flown by. i slept the latest i have since i've been here, 8:40 and it was awesome. got up and studied some, got bored with that and decided to head to the monteverde cloud forest reserve. most of my friends left town and the rest rented atv's so i did the 8km trek by myself which was surprisingly wasn't too bad. once i got there i did a 3 hour trail which was suppose to have an awesome view of the continental divide. i was really pumped about this because you are suppose to see the continental divide from the peak on a clear day. unfortunately, midway through it started to rain and got incredibly foggy but if you were curious as to what the continental divide looks at in immense fog i've posted 2 pics, one from each side. after that i took a taxi home and rode bikes with andres. they are clearing out a lot next door to our house to build a hotel and it has some pretty "sweet jumps" jk. but there are some places you can go downhill and pick up some good speed. i found out my bikes breaks were shot the hard way, but going out of control and hitting a big dirt hill. it was pretty fun though. after that the kids played with fire some. no really. they kept lighting matches in the house and spraying perfume on them. kind've reminded me of something i would've done whne i was 13. the game plan for tonight is to get packed up and get to sleep fairly early to rest up for the voyage to heredia tomorrow at 8:30am. i'm excited to meet my new family but part of me is definitely hesitant because i know it'll be tough for them to compete with the group i've lived with the past 3 weeks. i'll miss the incredible weather here. i'll also miss the view of the rainforest every day on my way to school. however, i will not miss walking uphill both ways to school.

day 20: school's out for the weekend

last day of school in monteverde. we finished our first set of irregular verbs and half of the "to be" verbs. it's crazy but spanish has something like 16 words that mean "to be". at the end of class we played scrabble which was really hard because i'm not even good at that game in english. all my friends headed to isle of tortuga for the weekend but i wanted to save some money so i stayed here. plus it would mean i'd have to leave there around 10am sunday and get to heredia a little after 6pm. 8 hours in a car did not sound fun, especially because 4 of those hours would be on the mountain roads. in the afternoon ricky asked if i wanted to go with him to the bike store so he could buy a new chain. i said yes, not knowing it was going to be a two hour long excursion and a 45 minute walk each way. on the way we stopped and i bought him some healdo (ice cream) because he's always telling me how much he likes it and giving me the guilt trip. his mom gave him 2,000 colones ($4) and he was able to buy a bike chain, tire patches, a sticker and still get back change. it's still surprising how inexpensive everything is here, unless you're a tourist. after we got back i checked my email and called my pops. i'm trying to get all my living arrangement stuff in houston taken care off while i'm here. i think wes and colby found a pretty nice townhome we're going to get (http://search.har.com/engine/indexdetail.cfm?mlnum=2456443&class=7&leadid=6&sTYPE=0&backButton=Y). i start work 2 weeks after i get back and i'm going to new jersey, new braunfels, and corpus a time or 2 so it'll definitely be rushed. i went on a 6k run for the fifth straight day which i think's impressive, although i think the real reason i run is because it takes up some of my time in the afternoon. the weather here is perfect for running but i could use some paved roads. the entire time i'm running i have to look down to make sure i dont fall in a hole or hit a big rock. took a shower, ate dinner, and headed up to the place next to la taberna. a lot of the students were there and i got to meet the owner, Sergio, who is originally from the bronx and a recovering drug addict. he moved to monteverde to get away from his old life. needless to say he's an interesting guy to talk to. the night ended with super pollo, which was lovely.

day 19: we get a dvd player

andres, the 15 year old kid who lives with me came back today. he went to stay with his dad for 10 days because it was his birthday. for his bday his dad got him a dvd player which is awesome because very few people have those here. it's a really old style but still it means we can rent movies so we headed to the place and rented three; ice age 2, taxi, and scary movie 4. of the 3 movies only 1 worked in the dvd player because i think they're bootleg copies. i mean they already have the davinci code out on dvd here and i think i saw it a little over a month ago in the theatres. we watched taxi and i got to read the spanish subtitles and try and follow, it was a lot of work so i gave up on it. i went to my room and read for a while and did my homework and somehow fell asleep on accident around 8pm. the funny thing is i woke up at 1am and thought it was the morning and started to get ready for school. see i only have 1 outlet in my room and i was charging my ipod so i didn't have a clock to tell me it wasn't morning yet and i didn't notice till i walked outside and it was pitch black and raining really hard. once i figured this out i got ready for bed again and slept till 6:30am. i must say that getting 10.5 hours of sleep is incredible and i suggest everyone try it sometime. i have so much energy now it's incredible.

* the picture is of my class for week 3

day 18: respect

we decided to shake things up today and not eat lunch at our typical place, stella's bakery. we went to a restauraunt that served "the best hamburgers in costa rica" and i must admit they were pretty good. it was great to have a 1/2 lb hamburger and fries and think back to whataburger which i miss almost as much as taylor. after that i hung out at home and had my family help me with my homework some. i haven't been studying too much lately and i've been frustrated in class because i dont know most of the verbs the other students are using. i decided i'll work on studying more my last 2 weeks so i can learn as much as possible before i leave and head back to texas to forget everything. maybe neto will let me practice my espanol with him. we listened to "fotografia" by juanes y nelly furtado in glass today, not too bad for a song in spanish pretty catchy although i couldn't understand all the words. at night we went to our local hangout, la taberna, and played some pool. it was awesome because a lot of students were there last night. typically there are 5 or so of us but last night there were at least 20 and 2 of our professors even came. left there around midnight, tried to go to super pollo for a late snack but it was closed, oh well. probably not the best idea to eat post-midnight.

my house has 4 kids and i still haven't seen them get in trouble yet. it's pretty disappointing, i think they're the most well behaved children i've ever seen. not once have i heard the mom or grandma yell at them or tell them to stop what they're doing. i know when i was 12-14 i was getting in trouble on a daily, if not hourly, basis for doing something dumb. you can see how much the kids respect their elders and that discipline is really important in their culture. it's pretty neat really.

day 17: atv's

had to go back to class and i now have 3 people in there with me. all 3 are girls, in their late 20's and incredibly smart. i'm pretty behind from missing on monday but i should be able to get caught up. for the afternoon brad and i did a 2 hour atv tour. i'd ridden atvs before in the past but it was never as cool as this. the tour was on public and private trails and over 20 km long. some people didn't want to ride too fast but i was still able to get mine up to about 65 kmh (only neto will know how fast that truly is) a couple times. we stopped in a few spots to take in the views, one of the pacific ocean, one of the caribbean, and then the rainforest. we were also able to ride through 4 separate rivers which was really cool because it was nearly 3 feet deep and got us pretty dirty. and to make sure we got extra dirty our guides made sure to follow behind us and spray us a few times. i got home, studied some irregular verbs and then read myself to sleep.

day 16: nothing too special

got back from arenal around 12 and just sort've layed around the house. i was exhausted but couldn't fall asleep so i finished reading my book and headed to town. got some lunch at the panaderia, got on the internet to talk to taylor and what not. went to the insect museum with my costa rican brother, not a big fan of insects but it's fun if you enjoy them putting tarantulas, cockroaches, etc. on your face and all over you.

costa rican drivers are ridiculous, maybe even worse than corpus drivers. from our first day they told us to watch for them because they are "always in a hurry". my question is what are they in a hurry for? everyone here is late for everything, whethers its tours, class, taxis etc. most of the people do not work full-time so you'd figure they'd have more hours in each day but that's not the case here because they go to sleep around 9pm at the latest. also, monteverde doesn't believe in speed zones so motorcycles and cars can travel as fast as they want on these bumpy, mountain roads. and my family told me that the most common cause of death in monteverde was automobile accidents, that's neat. rather boring day, but its my last week here so i gotta make the most of it.

days 13, 14, and 15: la fortuna & arenal

SATURDAY
headed out a little after 8 on our 3 hour journey to la fortuna. drove 25 miles to lake arenal, which took an hour and a half because the roads here are horrible. then we took a boat across for 45 minute which was pretty cool, had a great view of the volcano. after that we had a 15 minute taxi ride to our hotel which consisted of only 4 rooms. the 4 of us occupied half of the hotel ha. got situated and walked around the town for a while before our hike. at 3 we were picked up by our guide to tour the volcano. i forget his name but he has lived in the town all his life and knew a lot of people who were killed when arenal erupted in 1968. he took us on a two hour hike up to the viewing location while he told us stories and the history of the town and whatnot. it rained for part of the hike which we thought was a good sign because the day had been pretty cloudy and we were hoping it would clear up the sky so we could see the laval flowing. unfortunately it didn't and when we got to the lookout station it was still too cloudy to see much, but we could hear the lava flowing. after the hike we headed to the baldi hot springs which was a series 12 hot tubs ranging from 95 degrees to 152 degrees. this was probably the best part of the weekend because we could just relax for 2 hours. since it was a huge tourist spot they were able to charge ridiculous prices for food and drinks but i guess that's to be expected. my friend mike bet that i couldn't stand under a 130 degree waterfall for 20 seconds so of course i did but it really wasn't that bad. two of the guys i was with tried to get in the hottest pool but i wasn't about to test that out. after the hot springs we hung out with some local teenagers and they let us borrow their bikes for a while.


SUNDAY
woke up around 7:45 for our white water rafting tour and headed to rio toro. we had scheduled a 2.5 hour trip down class 4 rapids and it was an awesome time. our raft was just 3 guys and our guide. down one of the trickier rapids i flew out of the raft but somehow my left foot managed to remain stuck in the trap that's suppose to keep you from moving around in the boat. so there i was, halfway out of the raft with my leg trapped and twisted in all sorts of weird positions. i thought i was going to drown (not really) but i ended up getting free and jumping on another raft. it actually ended up being pretty painful and my knee is swollen but i should be able to walk it off in a few days. on the way back to our hotel we stopped for lunch and got to meet the other groups who rafted that day. we met people from canada, norway, and australia who were on a 35 day trip throughout central america with a company called gap tours. they were really cool until mike made fun of canadian pop music while avril lavigne was on the radio. after lunch we layed around the hotel, watched the world cup, and read because it was raining pretty hard outside.

SUNDAY NIGHT
ran back into the gang we met rafting at a pub down the street from our hotel. we put aside our differences in music and talked for a while when we decided it would be a good idea to introduce them to the great american sport of flip cup. they were loving it and we ended up taking over the place and drawing a rather large crowd. it ended in dramatic fashion when we stole the victory in the fifth round, 3-2 winning the best of 5 series. throughout the night we met a ton of random people from all over the world. that is one of the main things i've enjoyed about my time here, getting to know people from all different walks of life. to end the festivities, our canadian friend andre decided to cover our tab and paid over $65 (which is really expensive in costa rica). incredible weekend, just hope i'm not too behind in my classes.

day 12: soccer in central america etc.

i'm not all too sure what's happened to me but i look like i have the chicken pox right now. my back and stomach are covered in bites from some sort of insect and they itch like crazy. i've had them since i got to monteverde but they just started to get worse and i'm guessing it's from my bed. on saturday i killed a good sized spider in my room (inch or so) but i doubt that's what was doing the damage. my host family changed my bedding and my abuela tica is going to spray my room tomorrow so we'll see how that goes. besides that the day was good, i wasn't tired in class, played futbol with ricardo and then again with the school at the indoor field. also started reading mere christianity by c.s. lewis, a book i started last year but never could finish. me, mike, ally and brad booked our trip to the arenal volcano this weekend which should be awesome. arenal is an active volcano here that erupts daily. we're leaving saturday at 8am getting there around noon, doing a couple tours, and hanging out in the hot springs for 3 hours. then on sunday we're heading to a river to go rafting on class 4 rapids and we're returning monday at 11. a great trip and i get to miss class on monday. i still miss my friends and family a ton but i'm starting to get use to costa rica which is good because i'm 1/3 done w/ my time here.

a note on soccer in central america: one thing i've noticed about watching soccer here is the differences in the cameras. the cameras are always focusing on the palyers, coaches, fans etc. expressions after somebody scores where as in the u.s. we are busy focusing on the technical aspects like the angle of the shot and whatnot. i remember learning something about this in my international business class last year but apparently i didn't pay too much attention.

day 11: independence day

i'm not an incredibly patriotic person but i was definitely upset i couldn't spend the 4th of july in the usa. it's always a great excuse to hang out with friends, barbeque, or float the river. i talked to one of my friends here from texas and we decided we should barbeque here so we headed to the supermercado. we bought hotdogs, buns, chips, chicken etc which would typically cost about $25 in the states but for some reason it was nearly $60 because i guess they aren't common foods here. we also sprung for french's mustard and heinz ketchup over the generic costa rican brands. we then headed to will's cabana, he lives on his own not with a family where they had a grill. They don't sell lighter fluid here so we had to go old school style and burn a bunch of newspapers to get it going. the food was really good though but that could be because i've lost all use of my taste buds from eating arroz y frijoles for 11 days straight. the person who owns the place were will lives also owns the restauraunt next door so we went in there and hung out for a while with some of the local policia. i've been here nearly 2 weeks and only seen the police twice and i figured out why, they like to hang out at this restauraunt and drink while working. not kidding. they had to leave to go make an arrest in santa elena and i'm sure they weren't sober because we almost convinced them to take us along for the road so i could record cops: monteverde edition. the rest of the night was spent talking in english and eventually the talk turned to politicals and more importantly, president bush. i wouldn't consider myself very politically-minded but on this trip are some of the most liberal people i have ever met. i didn't feel like arguing so i headed home around 10ish. although it wasn't the best 4th of july ever it was about as american as possible.

day 10: conspiracy theory

where does my costa rican family get their money from? i've never seen anyone work yet they seem to be doing really well, especially up to costa rican standards. they own a tv, a washer, a dryer (really rare), eat meat at least twice a week, buy cokes, etc yet nobody works. either they get money from the government, are in the cota rican mafia or are getting paid way to much by cpi. cpi, my school, pays the host families for allowing us to live there but i didn't think it would be enough to sustain a family of 6 forever but maybe i'm wrong.

also, a couple days ago i met roy the father of the 2 oldest boys. this house doesn't have any men in it, just the 12 and 14 (soon to be 15) year olds. i'm not too sure about how the story goes but i think roy and elena had 2 kids yet were never married. anyways, he came to pick up andres to take him on a trip for his birthday and ended up hanging out for about an hour, talking, and laughing with the mom (the one he had 2 kids with) and the grandma. i just thought it was rally strange because i can't imagine too many other estranged couples hanging out and enjoying themselves.

and finally, costa rica is filled with families without fathers. it's really kind've sad but not much unlike the states.

day 9: don't go chasing waterfalls

woke up, ate breakfast and mentally prepared myself for the 25k bike race i was going to compete in when my abuela tica informed me that they weren't able to locate a bike for me. it seems that nobody in monteverde is my size so i was out of luck. yesterday i did a test run on ricky's "big" bike but there was no way i could get that thing up a hill plus it didn't have any gears. disappointed, i went and watched some of the race which was cool, they had about 150-200 participants. finished reading my book searching for god knows what by donald miller which was incredible. high suggest it and of course one of his others blue like jazz. for the afternoon we decided to check out a waterfall at the san luis biological reserve. it's over 7 km away so we decided to get a taxi which costed 6000 colones ($12), very expensive for costa rica. we got to the office, payed the $7 entry fee and started the one hour trek to the falls. about 20 mins in brad wanted to get closer to a stream for a pic we jumped down a hill about 6 feet and ended up sliding down another 10 feet or so. we changed our mind and decide it wasn't a good view so we headed back up. apparently we didn't think this through bc we now had to freestyle clim back up 15-20 without many holds. i thought for sure we would die or be saved by lassie. luckily, last year i took rock climbing as a kines class so i got up in a minute (or 10). the rest of the hike was incredible; great views, streams, rapids, and even a few planks to walk across. after a few falls and scraped we got to the waterfalls at 4:05 amd they were, without a doubt, the greatest display of nature i've seen. the first fall was 30 ft. followed by another 70 ft fall. feeling adventurous we decided to get in the water which was extremely cold, 65 degrees or so (grandma, even colder than fort clark springs). we messed around for 45 minutes or so then headed back. when we returned we were about to call a taxi when i met a guy in the navy from corpus. he was on a trip with 8 or so friends and had 2 rentals cars and they offered to take us back. i guess that was my first ever hitchike, not sure. that night we went to moon shiva, the most american bar/restauraunt they have. they had an african percussion group which was pretty entertaining. it was 6 guys playing music w/ so much energy, different a different type of experience. great first weekend here.

day 8: saturday

woke up at 8:30 to watch england vs. portugal before my tour at 11:30. game ended up going into overtime and i missed the end. i had a sky trek tour scheduled which is basically a series of 11 ziplines that take you throughout the santa elena reserve rain forest. anyone that knows me knows that i am terrified of heights so i thought this would be a good way to face my fear. to begin we had to walk up stairs about 9 stories with incredibly strong winds but come to find out that would be the most scary part. it was an awesome time and they had all sorts of lines. they boast the highest, fastest, and longest lines in costa rica. the highest one was over 420 feet (thats 42 stories) high, the longest one was nearly 1/2 a mile, and the fastest one travelled 40 mph. just my luck i got stuck on the highest one about 20 yards from the canopy. this gave me adequate time to look down, freak out, and then pull myself to the end. we were on the tour with a group of 6 students from george washington university that were pretty cool. after the zip lines were over we grabbed lunch and then walked throughout the cloud forest on suspension bridges and i had the opportunity to take some cool pics. headed home and ate some dinner. went out to la taberna, a local bar, and hung out with a few of the students till about 11:30. i wanted to get to good sleep because i'm competing in the monteverde eco bike race tomorrow.

day 7: week 1 is over

last day of school and then the weekend. i have to admit this was a long week although it did pick up some at the end. i'm glad to have my first and most difficult week behind me. next week my friend mike from school gets here and it'll be nice to have someone to hang out with on a regular basis.

1. each day at school we have a 20 minute break at 10am where we eat, drink coffee, hang out etc. a funny thing i noticed at break today was that our language school has its own pecking order not unsimilar to that of a high school cafeteria. you have 4 main groups:
- your hardcore wanna be latinos aka "mesa de espanol" - they refuse to speak english even at break
- your hardcore party-ers, the ones that go out everynight and our in costa rica to party for 6 weeks straight
- your smokers - they seem to have a contest each day to see who can smoke the most cigs in 20 mins
- your over 40 crowd which is fairly self-explanatory
well obviously i'm under 40, haven't been to a bar yet, don't smoke and use my 20 minutes to speak english so i'm not all too certain which group i belong to but it's interesting to watch nonetheless.

2. i knew i was visiting monteverde during the raining season but i had no idea what i was getting myself into. it has rained for nearly 4 straight days and since i've been here i have experienced no more than 3 hours without rain. the walk to school today was horrendous, we were walking into rain with the wind blowing at least 35mph. all i could do was close my eyes, lower my head and pray i didn't get hit by a motorcycle [more on costa rican drivers another time]

3. around 7 ricardo (my costa rican brother) asked me if i wanted to go to the serpentario with him and we walked around for about 15 minutes. i'm not a huge fan of snakes, i actually hate them, so i was ready to get out of there. he then challenged me in a game of uno, one of my favorite childhood games. i was excited about finally getting to hang out with some of the students outside of a school setting so we headed to dos amigos and la taberna (the 2 local bars), i'll talk mnore about those later. if the weather cooperates tomorrow i'll be heading to a zip line tour throughout the rainforest reserve. hope everyone is doing well and trust me, i'm trying to get pics out asap but the internet here is incredibly slow, you have no idea. later.