Home Sweet Home

My detour to Georgia was great, I golfed, cooked, went boating, saw the town, and had a sweet Kimberly Clark tour. It was great to see my friends and catch up. I had quite the hiccup getting there and that led to a drive to atlanta adventure landing us in Agusta by 6am.

But now I am truly glad to be HOME SWEET HOME.

My parents had chocolate milk waiting and still haven´t complained about my massive piles of luggage in the living room. My bed feels so soft. I have been seeing my friends in a whirl wind of activity and fun. Sure I miss the layed back schedule and gallo pinto but wow....

-The first hot shower was mind blowing
-I ate an entire bag of Bagels and cheese in less than 12 hours
-I have already drank a gallon and half of milk
-I do feel super guilty about dropping the paper in the toilet but dude that is a good idea
-The conference grounds will ALWAYS have a piece of my heart
-Costa Rica can try but it can´t beat this...

I am definitely still processing the last three months and am sure that life lessons are ready to explode. I will keep you posted.

I´m american again

It is all done... I am no longer a Costariccence. I am sad.

I am currently chilling in the Dallas Airport and experiencing a whirl-wind of emotions. Say goodbye is hard always, especially when you are all returning to such dramatically different lives and locations.

My final day was a perfect send off.  We had our final exams in the morning and everyone did well, we spent the afternoon on the beach getting our last touch of color, Annemarie and I went to the centro to run our final errands.  Annemarie was on a mission to spend all her colones and it was a lot of fun to shop with a buy crazy Annemarie.

We had NACHOS! From my favorite soda, I played with Ignacio and watching cooking shows with my madre. As a family we watched the soccer game, A fairly intense one where my brother appeared to be cheering for the wrong team.

It was nice to have everything all packed away, sitting and relaxing was the ONLY option. We then went for our final beach ride around town and my parents dropped me off at La Mesa (a specific cement table where I had out with all my tico friends). That was a hard HARD goodbye. My family said lots of nice things, and I tried to say lots of nice things too. This is a time when I wished I would have practiced my flash cards more ;)

Most of us took a group bus to the airport, another hard goodbye to the friends that stayed behind, it felt crazy to think this was the last time I was seeing all this.

It was nice to all take the same flight to Dallas but then it just got harder. I am the only one left now waiting for my 8:30 p.m. flight to visit friends in Georgia. We moved from gate to gate saying goodbyes; Annemarie was the last one and the worst one. I left her walking down the hallway crying. I am so glad for all the relationships I made but right now praying that I survive without them. We were like family.

El final Fin de Semana

The majority of us spent our last weekend in Puntarenas and I think it only made it harder to say goodbye.

I did a lot of last hangouts with Tico friends and passed time speaking Spanish on the Beach. We finally attended a Puntarenas fútbol game which only made me love the sport even more.

You were not allowed to bring bottles, coins or anything in the stadium that you could through so all beverages were sold in bags, but the fans found a way to throw them anyway. The refs also had there own police escort.

We had a bonfire on the beach!! with marshmellows and no rain a blessing from God. I tried for the forth time to see harry potter and still a no go, I heard! fireworks which is one step closer to seeing them.

I made banana bread for my family which was delicious but opened the door for gluten craving. I learned how to cook lots of other Costa Rican foods and for dinner one night we had Cow Butt...deliciosa.

I also did some studying and a lot more laying on the beach. I thought about packing once but that is as close as I got.

Los Chinos

The adventures in food have continued, to recap I was too scared to tell my host family that I didn´t like eggs, fish, tomatoes, and so forth after I told them I was not able to eat bread, pasta, cereal, pizza, and so forth. Therefore I have been trying LOTS of new things and well I think God gave me a miracle because I like them all. And I think lunch on Tuesday was the final test... Fish Soup.

Now fish soup is an understatement and I changed the name to Soup of the entire ocean because well because something in there had legs. There was three different kinds of shells, something else that was really tough and meat that still had the scale shapes and was neon pink...

Sopa de todo el mar

I ate it and they were SO ecstatic, they kept telling me that no other student had ever eaten it before and in the back of my head I am thinking I can only imagine but I just said ¡Que Rico! My hermano told me it was very good for hangovers f.y.i.

I then told them that in the United States I don´t really eat fish, that my family never cooks them. This surprised them too but I explained that my mom was the only one who liked them. And then my host mom was even more surprised she asked "¿what about the chino, your chino brother?" he has to like fish, and I said no he only likes meat and rice, no veggies no fruit. And she was just floored that there could be a chino that doesn´t like seafood. And yes she does no he is Korean but chino serves the same pupose here and yes during this whole conversation she held her eyes in a slanted fashion with her hands. All in all GREAT lunch.

Cooking Patacones, deep fried plantains with beans

I am currently in the process of learning how to cook all the delicious food.

TEXAS?

This weekend I felt like I was in a whole different country! Well maybe more like Texas. We went to Guanacaste for the Independence day but turns out there was a HUGE rodeo, full of games, bull fights, horse shows, cows, food, souvenirs, carnival rides, free sampling booths and plenty of people to watch. We spent 14 hours there on the first day!

On Sunday we traditional dancing and singing in the central park and then drove to the Pacific to spend time at Playa Conchal, where are blonde gringa powers got us free horse rides on the beach.

We went back to Liberia for the night and just hung out down town and watched an open air type concert. The most entertaining part was the homeless people dancing with no shame on the stage. Later that night we saw them all sleeping on the same side walk and congratulated them on their dancing from what we can tell they are “married”.

Monday brought the crazy too, we were just heading home but turns out the celebration was everywhere, which included authentic dancing in front of Mundo Magica (A target type equivalent), marimbas in the bus stop, and a hodge podge marching band with children dancers. Oh Costa Rica how I love you.

Last viaje, más o menos...

The week ended nicely. A former student came to visit my host family so I have had a new brother for the past few days and it has been fun swapping stories and adventuring in Puntarenas together. He showed me a ridiculous 80´s clothing store where he got some clothes that look like they came straight out of Prince of Belaire.

Today I also swam to the sunken ship in front of the USAC building with Lauren, a new girl this session. It was very fun but VERY tiring turns out it is WAY farther than we thought. All the current was strong so we swam all ziggy zaggy and probably twice the distance we needed. We were out adventuring for about an hour and a half...

Tomorrow I leave for BULL RUNNING in Guanacaste, it is the Independence of Guanacaste from Nicaragua so there is lots of activities. I can´t to play.

Typical Wednesday, finally!

Life is starting to settle into a pattern again, which is good. I was going a little crazy with all the action going down. The last vendors of the carnival finally left today. The take down process is a lot slower here. Apparently these carnies have a more relaxed schedule.

We were hoping they would leave the firewood so we could have a bonfire!

I went to the daycare again yesterday, it was nice to see all the kids again and talk about our vacations. The kids just had two weeks off of school for winter break, the fact that it is winter here is hard to fathom. The weather has been milder but I still see temperature in the High eighties on a regular basis.

I went to aerobics and impressed all the ladies with my abs. A lot of the moves we do are more dance like with like a cagillion motions combined so I think they thought I was not very athletic... but rightfully so because for those moves I spend have the time watching them. Today we are doing arms so they just told me to put sand in a bottle. I like how sports are universal.