Trip to Tárcoles

Sorry it's been so long since my last post.  Apparently someone has been publishing posts on my blog from Costa Rica, which is obviously such a huge problem that Blogger had to close down my account, delete my blog, and lock my out of my inbox unless I would let it send a recovery code to my cell phone which, conveniently, does not work here.  But I prevailed!  Take that, sketchy Costa Rica poster!

Anyway, we went on a really cool weekend trip to a fishing village on the coast of Costa Rica called Tárcoles.  We went on a tour of some epic alligators and got to hand-line for fish off of these tiny skiffs on the ocean.  Then we swam about for a bit in the ocean and got badly sunburnt.

Here we are waiting for the boat to come take us on a crocodile adventure.

And we are still waiting for the boat.

Lauren was very exited about the arrival of the boat.

I told Tom to "Smile with the jungle" and this is what he did.

This crocodile's name was Hugo Chavez - he's about 12 feet long and our boat was RIGHT next to him.  I didn't even use zoom to take this picture.

According to our guide, these animals are called "Homo Sapiens", and they will dance if you give them beer.  He thought he was very funny.

*Cue Jaws music*

Some kind of crane.  There were many cranes but they were impossible to photograph.

This is Osama Bin Laden.

When we found Osama, our guide got OUT OF THE BOAT, got IN THE WATER, and KISSED the croc on the end of its nose.  Yeah.

He then proceeded to grab Osama by the tail and drag him over to the boat so we could touch him.  The croc escaped before we really got up the nerves, though.

We then fed the crocodiles chicken chunks.

Look!  Some kind of eagle!

Here's a baby crocodile.  He was scared of us and booked it out of the water as soon as we came close.

Smile, crocky!

Meet George Bush.  He is the biggest crock in the river, which means it would be a good idea to feed him chicken from your own mouth.

Make that a REALLY bad idea.  Fortunately our guide escaped unharmed.

We watched the sunset on the beach that night and it was beautiful!

Yeah, it was really beautiful.

Hello, world, I'm in Costa Rica!

Friends on the beach.

Sunset....

Sunset....

Sunset....

Lauren and I wanted to make Hannah and Evie jealous by taking a photo on the beach.  It worked.

The next day we went fishing in very un-dorky life jackets.

I actually caught a couple of fish!  Look closely at the line - it's legitimately just a fishing line wrapped around a piece of plastic with hooks tied to it.  Mad skillz.

Then we went to the beach and I buried Tom in the sand.  He looks like he's dissolving into the actual beach.  We were both very sandy when he finally emerged.

It was a very fun weekend and we had a really awesome fish dinner made out of the fish we caught.  We learned a lot about responsible fishing practices and now we all have sand in our suitcases forever.

Good times.

Internships are a Ludicrous Concept

Yesterday was my actual first day at my internship, and it was quite exciting.  Basically I am supposed to follow around the English teacher at this elementary school about two klicks from my house.  She hops from room to room every 40 minutes to teach the same lesson to every class individually - so it's good practice for teaching high school where I'll have to give the same lesson multiple times each day.  But even at the biggest high school, one teacher would never give the same lesson seven times in a row.  It's an exhausting concept to me, but this teacher just plows through it like a champ.  Classroom management is a foreign concept here, so the classes are always a huge rowdy mess and the poor teachers just keep teaching.  I think I could handle the chaos if it was English-speaking chaos, but having 20 kids shout random Spanish words is just a little bit overwhelming for me.  My fake-smile muscles are quite sore.  Supposedly the school is bilingual (or at least that's what it says on the sign) but none of the kids speaks more than 20 words of English.  This will be quite a challenge.

Kids are so funny, though.  For one thing I was asked no less than 18 times if I had a boyfriend, and when I responded that I don't, the kid's would all look shocked like not having a boyfriend was just the worst way to exist.  I asked them if people usually have boyfriends when they are 20 years old, and they said sometimes but not always.  "Why is it so weird that I don't have a boyfriend, then?"  Their response, word for word: "You're a white chick."  So new stereotype to add to the list of Things Americans Supposedly Do: perpetually have boyfriends.  They also thought that I was the teacher's daughter.  This woman is 5'0'' and has a lot of thick black hair.  I guess that means I look like a Costa Rican, though.  That is, until I open my mouth.  The kids would pretty much ignore me until I started talking and then they would just stare blankly at me until I explained that I am an American.

This should be a pretty enlightening experience.  I am predicting that by the end I will be teaching every lesson myself.  The teacher had me do more and more as the day went on.  I thought she was just trying to gently introduce me to the classes, but by the last group she just handed me the whiteboard marker and plopped wordlessly into a chair.  I guess I must have seemed relatively competent.

Sights of San José

The first week here we went to San José, the big city about an hour from Heredia.  There are a lot of big famous buildings there and a huge craft market that has "tourist trap" written all over it.

This is the central plaza - there were a lot of people selling lottery tickets here and we may or may not have seen a mime.

There was no money in this big fountain.  Apparently Costa Ricans don't have superstitions about wet coins the way we do.

One of the many theaters.  They wouldn't let us go in because we looked too much like tourists.

Crossword 7down: inspiration for Costa Rican flag.  Answer: The French flag.  They are the same color and pattern but the Costa Rican flag is flipped and repeats the colors again backwards.  Apparently they did this on purpose as a way of snubbing Spain.

I think this building was important.

Another theater.  This one was cool inside and had a bunch of huge murals.

It also had this statue outside that looks exactly like Brendan.

This museum was supposed to be awesome inside but it was closed so we'll never know.

Here I am by some huge mariachis.  You can't really see it, but I'm holding a cup of ice-cream that may have been pumpkin flavored.  We never really found out what it was supposed to taste like, but it was awesome.  (Also notice how I'm sporting the tennis shoes/dress look.  It was too hot for pants and apparently no one wears shorts here ever)

I really liked the facades of all the buildings.  There would be an ornate architectural statement next to a concrete-and-glass egg crate of an apartment building.  Que wow!

I don't know why, but this statue reminds me of John.  Like if John was a weird statue, he would be this weird statue.  Just sayin'

New Home!

I am officially living the Tica life!  All of us students moved off campus on Saturday and now each of us are placed with a different host family.  Mine lives in a beautiful house five minute's walk from central San Rafael.  Every single wall is painted a different color and there are three fuzzy little tootsie-roll dogs that you have to be careful not to sit on.  There are three people officially in my family: Gabriela, the Mom who is a school teacher; Dilana, who is 18 and a student at the university; and Kris, who is 13 and does magic tricks.  It's a bit complicated though because Jovani, Gabriela's boyfriend, and Steven, his son, are here a lot.  Also Gabriela's sister and her husband are living in the back room with their three dogs while their house is under construction for the next two weeks.  Lots of people, lots of fun.  Hay que hablar el Español todo el día.

Here's the living room.  The TV is always on, which bugs me a lot but whatever.

This is my room.  The bathroom is next to it and is huge, so it's possible that the builders made a mistake and put the plumbing for the bathroom where the bedroom was supposed to be, and then just went with it.

The kitchen.  The food is awesome, lots of rice and beans.  I'm going to be so fat.  Take note: if you finish the food on your plate, it means you want more.  So if you are full, you need to leave a few bites of each thing or you will have yet another spoonful of beans pressed upon you.

 Say hi to one of the tootsie rolls!  You can't see them, but she has bows on her ears like a build-a-bear.

And there's an upstairs too but I haven't been up there yet.  From what I understand, it's sectioned off with curtains to create more bedrooms because Gabriela's sister is in her bedroom so she's living in the loft.

I was supposed to start my internship at a local elementary school today, but there was some miscommunication so I showed up in the Director's office and he hadn't even talked to the teacher that I'm supposed to work with (or figured out who that will be).  I sat in his office waiting for so long that I was sure he was looking for security to take away the weird gringa that no one told him was coming.  Fortunately, I had my ninja stars in my pocket so I escaped quite easily.  So that's a no-go.  Hopefully I'll be able to start next Monday and he will actually know who I am and where I am supposed to work.

So instead of working at the school, I went to the bank to change some American dollars into Colones and the bank teller looked at me like he had never seen an American passport before.  Dude, you changed my bus money yesterday - this is not a new experience for you.

And now I'm in my room delaying doing homework because pura vida.

Meet the CRC

Prepare yourself for the most epic tour of the CRC ever.  It's gonna be the bee's knees

These are the dorms that we are staying in for the first week.  They are super nice, but very cold at night because they aren't really insulated. (Which also means that the walls are paper-thin.  We have a fun time listening to the boys next to us gossip all night.  It's very entertaining)

 This is the best hallway ever.  The dorms line one wall of this veranda, and there's nothing but jungle on the other side.

Here's the main building from the outside, taken from the archway in the photo above.  You can see how windy it is by how the trees are bent double.

Our very own lake!  Two of them, actually.

 Here's the main entryway of the building.  I'm standing on these tiny steps that I continuously trip over even though everyone else seems to have no problem navigating them.  Figures.

 This is the Rotunda.  We use it like a coffee shop to study and hang out with music and food (there is ALWAYS super fresh fruit here - I'm basically living on melon.)

This is the Comedor (cafeteria).  The chef makes really good, authentic food that we devour like hungry lions.  He is quite horrified by our voraciousness, actually.  We also use this room for quiet studying. 

 One of the two classrooms on campus.  There are only 20 of us, so two classrooms is plenty.

 Here's a better view of the lakes.  The bridge goes between them and back to some running trails, gardens, and the compost shack.

 There's also a volleyball net behind the dorm building, but I'm scared to play because the last time I spiked a volleyball I nearly broke my own nose.

 There is a small population of ducks around the lake.  They like to quack, but only in Spanish.

 I know how much you like birds, Mom, so I took lots of pictures of them for you.

Look how close I got to this one!  It didn't even peck my face off. 

 Yeah, I got really close to it.  This picture could hang in a hunting lodge somewhere.

 Then it waddled away, apparently sideways because I can't get it to flip the picture.

 There are also two dogs at the center, Tekila and Feijau (Portuguese for "bean").  It was hard to get a picture of them because they kept hiding in the grass.  This is Tekila.  If you throw sticks for her then she'll swim out to the middle of the lake to get them.

 Now you are well-aquainted with the Center!  I'll be living here for another two days, and then I'll go live with my host family and take a bus up tuesday through friday for classes and other such nonsense.