Ocupada!

Busy, busy, busy, Brit.  This is going to be a ridiculously long post because it's been a while so I understand if you can't get yourself through it.  Anyway, I can't believe it's been a week! It actually feels like I've been here for a lot longer!  We started class last Tuesday, and since then, I've felt like all my time is somehow being fully consumed.  I'm taking a Spanish class, Environmental Awareness and Sustainable Design, and Tropical Marine Bio.  And the two non-Spanish classes take field trips :) Yayyyy! I guess I'll do a brief day-by-day recap so my thoughts don't get so disorganized...

Sunday

ISA Orientation: talked a little bit about the history of Costa Rica, what it's known for, demographics, etc. etc.  

Went to the Mall San Pedro with Nate, Quinn, and Lanna for lunch.  It was just a normal 3-story mall with lots of shops and a movie theatre.  We also checked out the gym, which took us forever to find and is now where Nate and Quinn go to work out (only because Nate thought the closer gym's dumbbells only went up to 40 lbs but they're 40 kg, which is almost 90 lbs haha).  And I'm still getting used to the km measurements on the treadmills.  I signed up at the closer gym and I've been going after my morning Spanish class.  After the mall we just hung out at Nate and Quinn's house, talking and testing my PowerBalance band of course ;) Many of our advisors/directors have been warning us about the dangers of being in San Jose like getting robbed, and it's made me really cautious and actually kind of paranoid.  It's strange to not trust people.  I think I'm usually too trusting, or I dont think anything bad will ever happen to me.  Not the right attitude, I know...but I am being careful!  So when we got lunch at the mall, I thought I got robbed when I took my wallet out to pay and no cash was in it.  But who would pull my wallet out of my bag, take the money out, and put my wallet back right?  Right.  So when I got back home, my money was laying on my bed.  Soy muy inteligente.   

Monday was Universidad Veritas orientation.  Same ol' thang. They encouraged us to fully immerse ourselves in the Costa Rican culture, to have open minds about cultural differences, and to think before we react to things we are not accustom to.  This school is awesome.  It is a small liberal arts school with fashionable, intelligent, and creative students whose works are displayed throughout the hallways and rooms.  There are people building projects, photos hanging from the walls, and other types of art scattered around the buildings.  After orientation we went to a local "soda" for lunch and then met back at the ISA office to start our tour of San Jose y no me la gusta.  I live outside of the city of San Jose in Zapote, so I don't have to really deal with loud, busy city life.  And as much as I love Westwood, I am not a huge fan of crowded cities, plus San Jose was kind of dirty and not exactly aesthetically pleasing.  And I'm sure the rain didn't help its looks either.  BUT of course it has character and we saw a church, their central park (which was basically a little square of cement with a dome), the centro mercado where they sell lots of souvenirs and food, and the theatre.  So I'm pretty sure I won't be visiting the city very often.  It poured pretty hard but it was still fun walking with everyone, and Kevin, Lanna, and I went to the Auto Mercado (nearby grocery store) to pick up some food.  Speaking of food, I've really been craving CPK.

 I live in my own room with my own bathroom in a big two story house right by the park and a 3 minute walk to school.  It has a sweet balcony with a view of the mountains and is more than I ever ever expected!

Tuesday: Classes began.  I like my Spanish profesora.  She's super animated and cracks jokes and laughs at them.  It's four hours long and has 8 students, which I absolutely LOVE.  Can you imagine what UCLA would be like if classes like Comm 10 or PhySci 5 had 8 students?  After class I went and signed up for the gym and worked out then had my environmental awareness and sustainable design class, which has 6 people in it.  We talked about shifting agriculture, and basically about why tropical countries are the poorest in the world.  It's definitely going to be an interesting class.  That night we wanted to go to a bar called the Jazz Cafe but it was super crowded so we went to Bar El Rio.  We all just hung out and listened to 90's music while watching the ridiculous Ice Ice Baby, In the Jungle, and Material Girl music videos. Classics obviously.

Wednesday: Spanish class. Gym for kickboxing class which was like tae bo in the beginning then all of a sudden turned into Salsa stepping so it was tae bo with a little latin flavor.  Then marine bio class, which will be really cool too.  We'll be going on two field trips--one on the west coast and one on the east coast, and will be watching Blue Planet during class :)  After dinner a bunch of us went to go see the Ugly Truth at the movie theatre at the mall because Wednesdays are 2 for 1.  So it's 2,000 colones for 2 people.  That's about $2 per person! 

Thursday: Spanish class.  Museo Nacional de Costa Rica. Gym.  Environmental class.  Party at school.  It was a fiesta with food and drinks and dancing.  There was a salsa dance competition and some drummers and dancers came to perform.  Kacia, Natalie, and I met some ticos who go to our school.  They're all digital animation majors who are way into reggae haha.  Really laidback guys who seemingly dgaf.  After the party we went out to Castro's bar.  This has been my favorite night so far.  Natalie and I went out onto the dance floor and I felt eyes from all directions just staring at us, and maybe even saw a few people laughing at us gringos.  Thank goodness a Tico couple saved  us by asking us to dance and then teaching us some of their moves.  I danced with the husband who spun me around, making me feel like I was actually dancing salsa!  This is where I finally saw the Tico friendliness that everyone speaks of.  They were so open to helping us dance and showing us how it's done.  There were a few creepers, but for the most part I had so much fun speaking Spanish and salsa dancing all night :)  Guys, if you want to woe a girl, learn how to salsa dance...or act like you know what you're doing and just spin and dip the heck out of her.

Friday: Spanish class then departed from the ISA office around 1:00 for Monteverde--the Cloud Forest.  It was a 5-hour drive by bus to our hotel que se llama Villa Verde.  I felt like I was at summer camp, a really really fun summer camp.  

Saturday we did the canopy tour.  We had the option of doing a canopy tour, atv tour, and horse back riding.  I decided to just do the canopy tour.  There was a series of about 12 zip lines, a tarzan swing, and a repel.  The tarzan swing was my favorite :) After our canopy tour we returned to the hotel where I took a nap before lunch.  After lunch a group of us walked the 5 km to town in Monteverde.  On the way we stopped by the Casa de Arte where Kasia, Lindsay, and I bought some pretty sweet headbands!  Once we got to town we were all so tired so we just sat and eventually walked around to the stores, which all just had souvenirs and such.  I forget who from home wanted me to get them a hammock, but there was a really cool one at this one store, but we all thought it would be best to wait to buy one.  Fortunately, we took a taxi back to our hotel.  We had a few hours to kill before dinner so we made some friendship bracelets out of some string we bought in town.  Every one added their own individual touch to their bracelet haha.  After dinner we headed back out to town to a bar called Bar de los Amigos or something like that.  It wasn't all salsa dancing so it was fun to dance to something else other than salsa music.  We made some dance circles and just acted silly--my kind of dancing :)  It was a pretty good night.  Plus it was Natalie's birthday at midnight! Yayyy! Haha.  

Today (Sunday) we went on a short hike in the biological reserve in Monteverde in the morning then afterward the sun was out!  It was the most I've seen of the sun since I've been in Costa Rica so some of us laid some blankets out and laid out in the sun until we had to have lunch and head back home.  On the way home we stopped at the Cheese Factory for some ice cream.  I got mint chip of couuuurse.  They had all sorts of cheese there, including chocolate cheese.  It was disgusting (duh, right?). We finally got home around 8:00.  And I've been writing this blog for almost 3 hours now.  I am so tired.  Hopefully it won't be another week before I post another blog cuz that was difficult.  I am LOVING it here but I do miss everyone at home.  I also miss hot showers.  

Paz.