Yet ANOTHER Amazing Trip

I know I keep writing about "amazing" trips, but I really can't help it!  Once again, I had SO much fun on one of our AFS trips.  This one was only with my local chapter here in Puriscal.  Wednesday morning, we met in el centro at 2:30 in the morning (No, you didn't read that wrong.  We really did meet that early).  We drove to Puntarenas, a beach about 2 hours from my house, and took the 5 o'clock ferry across the Gulf of Nicoya.  The ferry ride was a little over and hour, so we got to the other side  after 6.  Then, we drove to El Tambor, an all inclusive resort in Guanacaste, and stayed there for two nights.

Before I left, everyone told me that the beaches in Guanacaste are especially gorgeous, but I actually preferred Punta Leona's beaches.  Tambor's beach was definitely beautiful, but the brown and slightly rocky surface couldn't compete with the pure white sand in Punta Leona.  Plus, Tambor's water was pretty rough, unlike the bathtub we swam in in Punta Leona.

That said, everything else about El Tambor was perfect.  Picture this: food and drinks whenever you want them, a huge pool with an all-inclusive bar in it, a beach lined with palm trees, and all your new best friends/ sisters and brothers to share the experience with.

Our AFS family became even closer those three days.  I seriously can't believe I've only known these people for 5 weeks.  And sadly, now that we're all a family, I'm about to be ripped away and shipped back to the US.  I mean, don't get me wrong, I am really excited to see my friends and family there.  It's just that I feel like I've built this new life here in Costa Rica, only to turn around and say goodbye to everyone.

It's the wierdest thing, having so many different feelings about the same day.  Thinking of August 31st makes me so sad, but so happy at the same time.  The thought of being home makes me smile, but I cannot even think about leaving here.  I have four days, just FOUR days, left of this awesome experience.  So, let's just say I'm already planning my first return visit...

Mother's Day, the Costa Rican way

Wednesday was Día de Mamá (Mother's Day) here in Costa Rica.  I could tell right away that it would be a big deal because we had the day off school, and my family told me that on Father's Day we don't.  Plus, practically every store here has some kind of mother's day display in the window, and there have been Mother's Day commercials for weeks.

I wanted to do something special for all three of my moms here: my host mom, my host grandma, and my AFS liaison, Digna.  All three of them have been so wonderful this past month (can you believe it's been a whole month?!).

I decided to frame two pictures from the day we all went to church together, since they turned out so well.  I gave this one to my host mom, because we are her two daughters:

Me and Melany

And I gave this one to my host grandma, becasue we are her three new daughters this year:

Erica, Melany, and me

For my AFS liaison, a bunch of us exchange students chipped in to buy a bouquet of flowers from a little flower shop across from our school.  Then, we surprised her with them at her shop the day before mother's day.  She was so happy!

My house had lots of visitors on Wednesday.  My host mom's parents, sister, brother, and uncle all came from their homes in Acosta.  One family came with a baby only a day younger than Melany.  Then another couple, who I'd met once before, came too.

Everyone celebrating Mother's Day

In the afternoon we made homemade tortillas, and by we I really mean my host mom's mom made them and Erica and I watched.  For all the Ticos, this wasn't a big deal, but I thought it was really cool.  We ate them with something called Natilla, which is some sort of cheese-ish spread.  I'm not quite sure what it is, but it was good.

Making tortillas

Then that night we had cake.  It was a mother's day cake for my host mom and grandma, but it was also a five month birthday cake for Melany.  It's a Costa Rican tradition that the birthday girl or boy has to bite the cake after everyone sings to them.  This time both of the mom's had to do it, then Melany, and then they told me and Erica to do it too.  I told them I wasn't a mom or the birthday girl, but it didn't matter, so Erica and I did it too.

Thursday I went to school in the day, and then Emma came over in the evening to sleepover.  The next morning (yesterday) we had an AFS trip to a place where they make agua dulce, which is a traditional drink of Costa Rica made from sugar cane.

Later today my family is going to Acosta, where my mom's family lives.  We're gonna spend the night and come back tomorrow, in time for me to go to school Monday.  I'll be sure to take lots of pictures, and write about it when I get back.

Vamos a la Playa

 I'm back from an amazing vacation week with the other 6 weekers in Puriscal and the 6 week language study folks from a couple different cities.  Apparently they all knew about the vacation when they applied for the program, but I had no idea! Remember how I said in my last post that I was going to an AFS camp for the week? That's what I thought it would be because that's how my AFS liaison described it. So I was pretty much expecting a cabin full of skinny bunk beds, one communal bathroom, and camping-style cuisine. Well, imagine my shock when we pull into the beautiful Buena Vista Lodge in the mountains of Guanacaste.

Buena Vista Lodge and Adventure

Emma and I got to room together, which was great because we had so much to catch up on from the last two weeks!

The room that Emma and I shared

We arrived at Buena Vista on Monday afternoon, and pretty much chilled the rest of the night.  We went swimming, ate dinner, and then rested up for all the activities that were planned for Tuesday morning.  First, we went horseback riding through the mountains, which was cool.  

Lots and lots of horses

Then we went to a spa, where we went in a sauna, then had a mud bath, and then went swimming in naturally heated spring water.  That was super fun, but unfortunately I don't have any pictures because I couldn't very easily bring my camera into the mud bath.  Finally, we went on this incredibly long and fast water slide down a mountain.  You couldn't see the end of the slide while you were riding because it twisted and turned through the trees, so towards the end I was actually thinking "Okay, when's this slide over?"

Then the next day (Wednesday) we went ziplining again!  There were about 10 ziplines in the course, and I got to go upside down on the last one!

Ziplining again!

That afternoon, we left Buena Vista and headed to Punta Leona in Puntarenas.  Again, we were in a beautilful resort!  The food was amazing.  The pools were amazing.  And most of all, the beaches were amazing!

BEAUTIFUL beach

There was also a ton of wildlife.  I saw two parrots, pizotes (I didn't know what those were before I came to Costa Rica), lots of lizards, a huge iguana, and racoons.  The pizotes and racoons would come over to us while we were eating and try to find food around the tables.  That is, until a worker would come shoo them away.Overall, I had a great week.  We got back from Punta Leona on Friday, and although I'd had lots of fun, it was great to come back to my lovely Tica family.  I'm looking forward to the second half of my exchange!

Two Days of AFS Adventures

As promised, I'm gonna tell you all about my ziplining adventures last Sunday.  We took an awesome safari car to this beautiful house near the Pacific coast. At the house, we had to sign our names like ten times on a document that said that if we die on the tour, but damage their equiptment in the process of dying, we still must pay to replace it.  That scared me a little.  But luckily none of us died or damaged the equiptment.

Anyway, we did two ziplines, a ton of repelling down cliffs and waterfalls, and one free fall in our repelling harnesses.  It was very fun, but very tiring, especially when we had to hike all the way up the mountain after we finished the tour.  I thought the repelling would be a fun and easy tourist attraction, but it was actually pretty hard! I had blisters on my hands for the next few days.

The whole group at the bottom of a waterfall we just repelled.

Repelling down a waterfall.

Beautiful view of the rainforest

On our long hike back up the mountain, we saw a toucan! It was my first time seeing one, so I was super excited!  We also saw two macaws fly overhead, making tons of noise.

First time seeing a toucan!

The second AFS Adventure, and the reason that the title of this post reads "Two Days of AFS Adventures," took place Friday.  We went to Volcan Irazu in Cartago, and then to Parque Diversiones, the Six Flags of Costa Rica. 

Volcan Irazu

The volcano was beautiful, but very chilly.  Who knew I would ever be wearing long sleeves, a jacket, and two pairs of pants in Costa Rica?

The whole group at the top of the volcano.

In contrast, it was super hot at the amusement park!  We all had to remove lots of layers on the bus between the volcano and Parque Diversiones.  Oh by the way, the reason we went was that for some reason, when you buy a phone here you get four free tickets.  I don't know if that's a special promotion they have right now or it's always like that, but lots of us bought cell phones when we got here, so we had plenty of free tickets.

In front of the biggest ride in the park.

The rides at Parque Diversiones were nothing like the rides at Disney World, Hershey Park, or Six Flags, but it was a fun day.  And I got icecream, so that makes everything better!

This cart just happened to be in the park.  It doesn't really have to do with the events of the day, but I wanted to show you because its pretty, and it's a famous symbol of Costa Rican history.

Traditional form of transportation in Costa Rica.

So that's all for those two adventures.  A couple other bits of news: this morning I went to church with my family for the first time.  I had no idea what was going on because I couldn't understand any of the service, but it was a nice experiece.  Tonight I'm going to a surprise birthday party for a fellow AFSer.  Then tomorrow I leave for a five day AFS camp.  Three days will be in a camp, and two days in a hotel at the beach, so I'm looking forward to that!  I am feeling sad about leaving my wonderful family, but I'll be back before the weekend starts, and we have plans to visit the zoo in San Jose.  Expect to hear about my AFS camp next weekend!

First 10 Days

Wow... I've been so busy, I didn't even realize that I haven't written since my first day here!  Sorry to my family, friends, and anyone else who may be reading this.  But have no fear, I'll get you all caught up.

I'll start with my first day in Puriscal.  It was pretty overwhelming, but definitely exciting.  Our families greeted us as we unloaded our luggage from the bus, and my first impression was that us exchange students were the tallest ones in the group.  I guess height is one thing that can't be gaged on skype.  There was a performance of a typical  Costa Rican Dance, and then everyone went their separate ways.  My family has a pickup truck, so unlike a lot of the people who walked home, Erica (an Italian student living with  my granparents) and I loaded our luggage into the truck bed and headed home.  In the car, my host mother gave me flowers and my host grandmother gave me a little "M" statue that now sits above my bed.

My family's house is on the same property as my father's parent's house.  I pretty much consider them my two houses because I'm always going back and forth between the two.  Here is my house:

 I took the picture from the other house, so you can tell how close they are.  And here is their house:

My dad's parents live here with their 19 year old son Berny, and now Erica and Taylor (a former AFSer from the US who has returned for a gap year) live there too. 

And here is my room:  

There are three bedrooms in my house, so I sleep in this one, my parents and baby sister sleep in one, and then my mom's sister (who lives with us) sleeps in the third.

I'm not gonna give you a play by play of these first ten days, because that would take too long, and I'm sure you would get bored.  Instead I'lljust highlight a few of the many exciting things I´ve done so far.

Last Monday, the day after I arrived in Puriscal, I went to San Jose with mi abuela, Erica, Cris (Berny's girlfriend), and Lara (an Austrian AFSer whose exchange ended yesterday).  Erica needed to go shopping for school shoes, but we also saw some famous landmarks of Costa Rica:

Catedral Nacional de Costa Rica

Teatro Nacional de Costa Rica

Wednesday I hiked the "mountain" across the street from my house, which is actually somewhere between a hill and a small mountain, but was very tiring to climb.  I was with Erica, Taylor, and a boy who lives on our street and is a freind of the family, since mi abuela insisted that we bring a boy with us for "protection."  

View of my neighborhood from the top

At the top of the mountain there were cows grazing, and the boy we were with's family owns some of them.  We ended up walking a calf all the way down the mountain because apparently it had escaped from the barn and was not supposed to be at the top with the full grown cows.

Me with the calf

Erica and I half way up the mountain.

Thursday was supposed to be my first day of school, but I have the same class- Technology- for the whole morning on Thursdays, and I was the only one who showed up.  Therefore, I ended up being released early. (Later I found out that I have a choice of which Tech class I go to, so I assume everyone else had chosen the other one that day).  Then I found out that there was some sort of meeting for teachers, which meant there were no classes after lunch.  So pretty much I had no class the whole day.  This kind of thing happens a lot, or at least it seems that way to me after a few days.  Friday, what I now consider to be my real first day of school, I had 3 periods free because those teachers weren't there.  Today I explained to my class that in America, if a teacher isn't there, we still have class with a substitute.  They were shocked!

Anyway, I'll write more about school later becasue there's a lot to tell.  Oh and I also have to write about my adventures on Sunday, ziplining and repelling down waterfalls!  I have tons of pictures and videos, but you'll have to wait.  This is enough stuff for one day.

¡Hola, Costa Rica!

Sorry I haven´t written in so long, but it was hard to get internet access at the AFS orientation in San Jose.  Well, anyway... I´m with my host family!  I´m sitting in my house in Puriscal, CR, and I just can´t believe it!  The goodbyes with my friends and family on Thursday morning were hard, but now they´ve been replaced by plenty of hellos. Hellos, hugs, and kisses. 

First at the orientation in Miami, where I met all of the American students going to Costa Rica. 

The twelve Americans in the Miami airport.

Then at the camp where all the AFS students stayed for two nights.  I met students from all over, heard languages from all over, got in pictures with people from all over.  It was an amazing experience! 

Me (far right) with the three Hungarians.

But the best hellos were the ones just a few hours ago, when I finally met my host family!

Meeting my host mom and sister.

I can already tell they´re all so nice and so helpful with my Spanish! I can´t wait to get to know them better!

A Picture's Worth a Thousand Words

I just realized I never posted pictures of my host family!  Sorry about that.  The suspense must have been killing you (Please note the sarcasm here; I'm sure you all had far better things to think about).  But anyway, I was waiting to post pictures until I received my official placement email from AFS, expecting that it would contain pictures.  It did not.  So instead I selected a few pictures from facebook and I'm just hoping my family approves of them.

From left to right: My host mother Angie, host father 

Rodrigo, Rodrigo's younger brother  Berny, host sister 

Melany, and Berny's girlfriend Cris.

My host father's parents (who will live very close to me) with Melany.

My beautiful little host sister, Melany.