Well, so I know I haven't posted anything in ages... sorry! I started a new Spanish class at the beginning of this month and it has been an incredible about of work! The class is called 'Advanced I' and it includes a little bit of more advanced grammar and a lot more oral participation - which is good, because I need practice with my conversational skills more than anything! Last thursday I gave a presentation by myself about the 'Political History of Latin America'. It had to be at the very least 30 minutes long and I was only aloud to glance at my notes every now and then to keep my place. Other than that it was 30 minutes of pure talking in Spanish. I basically almost died that week. I got sick the Saturday before so I basically did nothing that weekend to work on the presentation (which had been my plan) so come Monday I started spending ALL of my free time on researching information for the presentation. I would go to class from 8am-12, come home and eat lunch, and then research, write, and organize from like 1pm-7 or 8pm. Then I would eat dinner and do my homework for class the next morning, go to bed, then wake up and do it all again. It was crazy. The hardest part was just reading all of that information in Spanish! First I would read through PAGES of information about the history of a country in Latin America - and this goes slow because I had to make sure I understood it - then I had to choose which information was most relevant to my presentation, then I wrote all of that information down, and then I more or less memorized it. It was probably the most I have every work on a presentation in my entire life - which is saying something.
I was REALLY nervous too about having to talk in Spanish for 30 straight minutes. However, The day of the presentation came, and I got up in front of the class and told them all about the political history of latin america. I chose 3 countries to focus on (Colombia, Venezuela, and Nicaragua) because really, they all have similar histories in general: There was a revolution, then the conservatives took over for a while, then that turned into a dictatorship and then there was another revolution and the Liberals took over, and then they maintained power for 10 years but in that space of time there were about 30 different presidents because a military coup was like what they did for fun on the weekends.... yeah. I was boring myself to death during my own presentation. But, the good news is: I talked for almost an HOUR in Spanish (and all in the past tense which I feel like is quite an accomplishment) and it really wasn't that hard. I surprised myself at how easy it was. I suppose that was the whole point of the presentations anyway - our professor wanted to prove to us, or better yet wanted us to prove to ourselves that yes, we actually can talk that much in Spanish without having to read verbatim from our notes. Well that was the presentation Thursday, then I went back to my house and finished reading a short story for my latin america literature class and then I went to class, came back home, and studied for the midterm that I had the next day. Did I mention that this week was absolutely crazy? Well the long and the short of it is, I made a 92 on the presentation, a 98 on the mid term, and friday afternoon I came home and slept for an hour. So that week had a happy ending!
However, I can't say that this week has been much less hectic. The classes here are just hard with tons of work, but I feel like I'm learning a lot. As far as Spanish itself is going, some days I feel like I can speak it like a pro, and then other days it's not so good. My grammar and pronunciation and everything go way down hill when I'm tired, that's one thing I've discovered!
My little sister Mariana started school this past Monday so our daily routine has changed a little. She is in the fourth grade and her classes start at 7am every morning. This means that by 6am if not earlier the whole house is usually awake - and awake means normal loud life - slamming doors and cooking breakfast (the kitchen is right next to my room) and yelling at Bruno "¡Bruno no! ¡AFUERA AFUERA!" to keep him from peeing on the floor in the living room. What I'm saying is, it doesn't really make a difference what time I set my alarm for, I'm usually awake by 6:20 or before! The first two days that Mariana was in school was really funny as far as Bruno is concerned. He is completely attached to Mariana so when she left for school he would just wander aimlessly around the house whimpering. The first day he wouldn't eat anything because he was so depressed!! It was really hilarious to see the difference in him when Mariana would get home from school around 2:30 - Bruno would run circles around the house and tear up anything left lying on the floor out of sheer joy. Hahaha, he is so much fun! He just recently turned 4 months old - I have explained before haven't I that Bruno is our little schnauzer? - anyway, he's finally gotten just big enough and strong enough that he can now jump up onto the beds by himself. This is both really fun and a bit of a problem. Before, anything that we didn't want Bruno to chew up we would just throw on the bed so he couldn't get to it. now, NOTHING is safe.
It's really funny though because a couple of times I have left my bedroom door open by mistake and when I come back in Bruno is sitting there - curled up in the heap of sheets on my unmade bed! Actually, last night Bruno fell asleep on my lap while I was talking to Luis before bed and when I finally got up to go to bed he was completely dead - in a metaphorical since. haha, when he sleeps he sticks his legs straight out, but his body is completely limp.... really comical sight! Anyway, I carried him to his little bed which is situation just outside of my room. I went to the bathroom to wash my face and when I came back Bruno was magically curled up asleep on MY PILLOW! I didn't have the heart to move him, so I just slid my pillow over to the other side of the bed and used the extra pillow for me. He stayed curled up in my bed until about 3am when I woke up and heard him moving around. I figured it would be better to put him back in his own bed then - he has no scruples about where and when he pees!
Well this weekend I am staying here in San Jose, but I am really glad. I am sooo tired and looking forward to just relaxing and hopefully catching up on some sleep this weekend. My mamá has promised to show me how to make this strawberry cheesecake thing that is absolutely delicious on Saturday, but those are my only plans. I might go out Salsa dancing if I can round up some friends who are staying here this weekend too. We'll see!
Well, that's basically what's been going on with me in the last week or two. I figured it would be way too much to try and put ALL of the information that I wanted to share in ONE post, so you'll have to go read the other ones to hear about all of the fun weekend trips that I've had in the past few weeks!
¡¡Abrazos de Costa Rica!! (hugs!)
-Megan
Friday, February 20, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
Arenal Volcano and Monteverde
Oh MAN I am behind!
Okay! So. First of all, I absolutely cannot believe that I have already been here a month. I just had my final exam today, so my first Spanish class is already done with! I'll be starting the next one on Tuesday so this weekend we have a long weekend. I'm excited because some girlfriends and I are using the extra day to take our first trip off on our own. We're going to Manuel Antonio - a beach/National Park on the pacific coast.
TWO weekends ago I went on a trip with the university to Arenal Volcano and Monteverde which is a town in the mountains. The very first night of our trip we arrive in La Fortuna, the town right by Arenal Volcano. We had enough time to put our bags in our hotel rooms and change into our bathing suits before leaving again to go to a resort built around hot springs. Oh. My. Goodness. Before I left on the trip I was telling my family that I was going to be going to Arenal Volcano and stuff and they always asked me if I was going to the hot springs, like that was going to be the greatest part of the trip. I didn't understand why everyone got this look of pure delight on their faces at the mention of hot springs. Now, however, I completely understand! Okay, it's hard to describe, but the hot springs are natural springs of water that somehow receive their heat from the volcano. The resort was like a crazy nice hotel built around the hot springs so that there was a series of pools filled with warm water. The pools ascended a hill and as you got up to the higher pools the water got hotter. The very first pool on the bottom was nice and warm and it was built around a bar so that you could swim over and order a drink while you were in the water. I mean, I didn't really care about the bar, but just to give you an idea of how nice this place was. Anyway. About halfway up with the most awesome pool. It had a rock structure in the middle where the water bubbled up through it and spilled over the top, creating small waterfalls that you could stand under. It was just like when you stand in the shower under a stream of warm water. Nice. That's not why the pool was awesome though. It was amazing because it had a WATER SLIDE! Okay, this water slide was serious you guys. It looked harmless, but it was crazy. You climbed up a bunch of metal steps to get to the top, just like any other water slide and then you sat down in the rushing water and went. It was a straight shot down, no curves, but it had 3 humps that you slide over before getting to the bottom. I think that the first 2 humps were to make you think it was fun but when you got over that 3rd hump you skyrocketed the rest of the way down the steep incline and hit the water with a crazy impact! I mean, my bathing suit was just about ripped off my body the first time. That didn't really matter though because no one could see me behind the 10ft high, tremendous splash that happens when you land. Oh man. I went down like 3 or 4 times. It was amazing.
The other really cool part of the hot springs was the topmost pool. The water up there was HOT, just like a hot tub at the beach. There was also a huge water fall up at the top that you could sit/lie under and receive the greatest water massage ever. We stayed up at the top pool for probably a good hour. The water up there was really shallow and you could just lie down in the pool so that your body was just barely completely covered. It was great. After a couple hours in the hot springs we got to eat a buffet in the resort which was absolutely delicious, and then we went in the bus to see if we could see some lava coming down Arenal Volcano. We didn't have much luck with the volcano. We drove to the middle of nowhere so that we could see the back side of the volcano where most of the activity happens. It was completely dark outside by this time and the summit of the volcano was covered in clouds. I saw the tiniest bit of lava leak down the side for a second, but we didn't get to see anything crazy. Our bus driver was tired so after about 30mins we left. It's probably just as well because we had to be up early the next morning.
okay, so the next day, saturday, we went to the La Fortuna waterfall. We had to hike down a path that went through the rainforest. It was absolutely beautiful. The trees were so tall and covered in moss and vines. Some of them had hollowed out insides, like a little house. At the bottom of the path was a beautiful waterfall that crashed down into a pool of the clearest blue water. We all (once again in our bathing suits) jumped into the pool for a swim. The water was absolutely frigid after the hot springs, but who can pass up an opportunity to swim in a pool with a waterfall crashing down about 20ft away? It was really hard to swim in the pool and not get dashed against the rocks because the force of the waterfall was so great. It was a fun game to swim towards the waterfall (you couldn't go very far because of the push) and then let yourself be pushed back towards the bank. We swam around for a while in some of the other, more calm areas of the stream. I talked to one of the guides in the park for a while and then we left to go get lunch.
After lunch we packed up everything and checked out of our hotel. We took a boat ride across Arenal Lake and it was ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS!!! The lake was surround by rolling green hills with the huge volcano behind us. The countryside reminded me so forcefully of Scotland that it wouldn't have taken much to believe that I was there again. I talked to the captain of the little ferry boat for a while to practice my spanish and then I went and sat down on the other side of the boat to take pictures. One of the guys who worked on the boat came and sat down next to me and started talking to me (in spanish, of course). He asked me if I liked the countryside and I told him yes, I though it was very beautiful. He said "so are you". BAAAHAHAHAHA!!! I tried so hard not to laugh. I managed to get by with just a smile. Oh man. The guys here are something else. Honestly, for the most part they leave you alone but if you start talking to them the conversation usually goes like this: "Hi how are you? Do you have a boyfriend?" It's funny.... Although my dad does not think so. :-)
So after the boat ride we took vans through the gorgeous countryside - I cannot remember a better word for that in English - and watched the sun set over the ocean while dancing in the van to Reggaton. It was great. We arrived at our hotel around 6:30 and had an hour until dinner. I was about to die so I went and hung out with my friend Matt and the guys in his room because Matt offered me a peanut butter and pineapple marmalade sandwich. Matt is basically the nicest guy in our group. We're friends.
We ate pizza for dinner - our group took up the whole pizzeria. It was really good. The crust here is different and the sauce that they use too, but it was yummy. I went to bed early because I'm not much for the drinking scene and because we had to get up super early the next morning. Breakfast was at 6:30 and we left right after for Monteverde cloudforest. Okay, the hot springs were cool (haha) but the cloudforest was the best, mainly because we took the tour on ZIPLINES! Oh man. Usually I am not one for heights, but this was sweet. Our whole group got geared up with the guides helping to put our harnesses on. The guys who was helping me asked me if it was my first time on a zipline in the canopy. I told him yes and he said it was his first time too. I told him he'd better be lying. We received our instructions on how to zipline correctly. They gave us each a pair of heavy work gloves that had an extra strip of thick leather on the palms. At the end of the line you brake by closing your hand on the rope to slow yourself down. We went through a series of about a dozen lines through the canopy. Sometime you were flying through the forest, other times the lines ran over a huge open space where you could see a big picture of the countryside as you zipped along. It was sweet. At the end of each line was a platform -usually high up in a tree- for you to land on. There a guide would unhook you from the first line and secure on to the next one. The whole process was really quick and efficient. And just a side note - ALL of the guide were really cute. I just can't describe how much fun the whole thing was. In the middle of the tour we landed on the ground and walked over to the Tarzan Swing. Okay, THIS was a little scary. We had to climb up a rickety metal structure, get hooked onto the swing, and then jump. Terrifying. Quite a few people in our group opted out, but I couldn't have lived with myself if I had chickened out. (College has made a completely different person out of me, by the way). I climbed up to the top - I felt like I left my stomach on the ground, so I didn't have to worry about that. When it came to my turn I half jumped, was half pushed off into the air. I dropped SEVERAL feet before the rope began to arch back up. At the very highest point my feet were above the trees. It was about as great as a roller coaster. I loved it! As they say here in Costa Rica ¡Pura Vida!
At the end of the canopy tour I was talking to one of the guides and telling him how much I loved the zipline experience. He told me that I should apply for a job. Oh if only! I mean seriously, if I were going to be here in Costa Rica for another 3 months, I would go work there.
The canopy tour was the end of our trip. All that was left was the drive back. It's supposed to be a trip of about 4 hours. It took us 8. We stopped for about 2 hours for lunch - it was hot and I just wanted to get back to San Jose, but on the up side I did get to see an iguana type thing of which I took about a million pictures. He was cool. We made another stop on a beach with black sand. It was kind of pretty in a very different way. When I finally got back to my house in San Jose I was wiped out. Buuut I had homework to complete and then I stayed up talking to my brother Luis for a while. It's all good. Pura Vida.
I'm really behind on news but I'll try and write about this weekend and last weekend when I get back here to San Jose on Monday. Right now I'm off to the beach! ¡Chow!
Okay! So. First of all, I absolutely cannot believe that I have already been here a month. I just had my final exam today, so my first Spanish class is already done with! I'll be starting the next one on Tuesday so this weekend we have a long weekend. I'm excited because some girlfriends and I are using the extra day to take our first trip off on our own. We're going to Manuel Antonio - a beach/National Park on the pacific coast.
TWO weekends ago I went on a trip with the university to Arenal Volcano and Monteverde which is a town in the mountains. The very first night of our trip we arrive in La Fortuna, the town right by Arenal Volcano. We had enough time to put our bags in our hotel rooms and change into our bathing suits before leaving again to go to a resort built around hot springs. Oh. My. Goodness. Before I left on the trip I was telling my family that I was going to be going to Arenal Volcano and stuff and they always asked me if I was going to the hot springs, like that was going to be the greatest part of the trip. I didn't understand why everyone got this look of pure delight on their faces at the mention of hot springs. Now, however, I completely understand! Okay, it's hard to describe, but the hot springs are natural springs of water that somehow receive their heat from the volcano. The resort was like a crazy nice hotel built around the hot springs so that there was a series of pools filled with warm water. The pools ascended a hill and as you got up to the higher pools the water got hotter. The very first pool on the bottom was nice and warm and it was built around a bar so that you could swim over and order a drink while you were in the water. I mean, I didn't really care about the bar, but just to give you an idea of how nice this place was. Anyway. About halfway up with the most awesome pool. It had a rock structure in the middle where the water bubbled up through it and spilled over the top, creating small waterfalls that you could stand under. It was just like when you stand in the shower under a stream of warm water. Nice. That's not why the pool was awesome though. It was amazing because it had a WATER SLIDE! Okay, this water slide was serious you guys. It looked harmless, but it was crazy. You climbed up a bunch of metal steps to get to the top, just like any other water slide and then you sat down in the rushing water and went. It was a straight shot down, no curves, but it had 3 humps that you slide over before getting to the bottom. I think that the first 2 humps were to make you think it was fun but when you got over that 3rd hump you skyrocketed the rest of the way down the steep incline and hit the water with a crazy impact! I mean, my bathing suit was just about ripped off my body the first time. That didn't really matter though because no one could see me behind the 10ft high, tremendous splash that happens when you land. Oh man. I went down like 3 or 4 times. It was amazing.
The other really cool part of the hot springs was the topmost pool. The water up there was HOT, just like a hot tub at the beach. There was also a huge water fall up at the top that you could sit/lie under and receive the greatest water massage ever. We stayed up at the top pool for probably a good hour. The water up there was really shallow and you could just lie down in the pool so that your body was just barely completely covered. It was great. After a couple hours in the hot springs we got to eat a buffet in the resort which was absolutely delicious, and then we went in the bus to see if we could see some lava coming down Arenal Volcano. We didn't have much luck with the volcano. We drove to the middle of nowhere so that we could see the back side of the volcano where most of the activity happens. It was completely dark outside by this time and the summit of the volcano was covered in clouds. I saw the tiniest bit of lava leak down the side for a second, but we didn't get to see anything crazy. Our bus driver was tired so after about 30mins we left. It's probably just as well because we had to be up early the next morning.
okay, so the next day, saturday, we went to the La Fortuna waterfall. We had to hike down a path that went through the rainforest. It was absolutely beautiful. The trees were so tall and covered in moss and vines. Some of them had hollowed out insides, like a little house. At the bottom of the path was a beautiful waterfall that crashed down into a pool of the clearest blue water. We all (once again in our bathing suits) jumped into the pool for a swim. The water was absolutely frigid after the hot springs, but who can pass up an opportunity to swim in a pool with a waterfall crashing down about 20ft away? It was really hard to swim in the pool and not get dashed against the rocks because the force of the waterfall was so great. It was a fun game to swim towards the waterfall (you couldn't go very far because of the push) and then let yourself be pushed back towards the bank. We swam around for a while in some of the other, more calm areas of the stream. I talked to one of the guides in the park for a while and then we left to go get lunch.
After lunch we packed up everything and checked out of our hotel. We took a boat ride across Arenal Lake and it was ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS!!! The lake was surround by rolling green hills with the huge volcano behind us. The countryside reminded me so forcefully of Scotland that it wouldn't have taken much to believe that I was there again. I talked to the captain of the little ferry boat for a while to practice my spanish and then I went and sat down on the other side of the boat to take pictures. One of the guys who worked on the boat came and sat down next to me and started talking to me (in spanish, of course). He asked me if I liked the countryside and I told him yes, I though it was very beautiful. He said "so are you". BAAAHAHAHAHA!!! I tried so hard not to laugh. I managed to get by with just a smile. Oh man. The guys here are something else. Honestly, for the most part they leave you alone but if you start talking to them the conversation usually goes like this: "Hi how are you? Do you have a boyfriend?" It's funny.... Although my dad does not think so. :-)
So after the boat ride we took vans through the gorgeous countryside - I cannot remember a better word for that in English - and watched the sun set over the ocean while dancing in the van to Reggaton. It was great. We arrived at our hotel around 6:30 and had an hour until dinner. I was about to die so I went and hung out with my friend Matt and the guys in his room because Matt offered me a peanut butter and pineapple marmalade sandwich. Matt is basically the nicest guy in our group. We're friends.
We ate pizza for dinner - our group took up the whole pizzeria. It was really good. The crust here is different and the sauce that they use too, but it was yummy. I went to bed early because I'm not much for the drinking scene and because we had to get up super early the next morning. Breakfast was at 6:30 and we left right after for Monteverde cloudforest. Okay, the hot springs were cool (haha) but the cloudforest was the best, mainly because we took the tour on ZIPLINES! Oh man. Usually I am not one for heights, but this was sweet. Our whole group got geared up with the guides helping to put our harnesses on. The guys who was helping me asked me if it was my first time on a zipline in the canopy. I told him yes and he said it was his first time too. I told him he'd better be lying. We received our instructions on how to zipline correctly. They gave us each a pair of heavy work gloves that had an extra strip of thick leather on the palms. At the end of the line you brake by closing your hand on the rope to slow yourself down. We went through a series of about a dozen lines through the canopy. Sometime you were flying through the forest, other times the lines ran over a huge open space where you could see a big picture of the countryside as you zipped along. It was sweet. At the end of each line was a platform -usually high up in a tree- for you to land on. There a guide would unhook you from the first line and secure on to the next one. The whole process was really quick and efficient. And just a side note - ALL of the guide were really cute. I just can't describe how much fun the whole thing was. In the middle of the tour we landed on the ground and walked over to the Tarzan Swing. Okay, THIS was a little scary. We had to climb up a rickety metal structure, get hooked onto the swing, and then jump. Terrifying. Quite a few people in our group opted out, but I couldn't have lived with myself if I had chickened out. (College has made a completely different person out of me, by the way). I climbed up to the top - I felt like I left my stomach on the ground, so I didn't have to worry about that. When it came to my turn I half jumped, was half pushed off into the air. I dropped SEVERAL feet before the rope began to arch back up. At the very highest point my feet were above the trees. It was about as great as a roller coaster. I loved it! As they say here in Costa Rica ¡Pura Vida!
At the end of the canopy tour I was talking to one of the guides and telling him how much I loved the zipline experience. He told me that I should apply for a job. Oh if only! I mean seriously, if I were going to be here in Costa Rica for another 3 months, I would go work there.
The canopy tour was the end of our trip. All that was left was the drive back. It's supposed to be a trip of about 4 hours. It took us 8. We stopped for about 2 hours for lunch - it was hot and I just wanted to get back to San Jose, but on the up side I did get to see an iguana type thing of which I took about a million pictures. He was cool. We made another stop on a beach with black sand. It was kind of pretty in a very different way. When I finally got back to my house in San Jose I was wiped out. Buuut I had homework to complete and then I stayed up talking to my brother Luis for a while. It's all good. Pura Vida.
I'm really behind on news but I'll try and write about this weekend and last weekend when I get back here to San Jose on Monday. Right now I'm off to the beach! ¡Chow!
Monday, January 19, 2009
¡¡Costa Rica!!
*I originally wrote this Thursday, 1/15/09*
Well. I’ve been in Costa Rica for almost 2 weeks now. Some things have become routine – like going to bed sometime around 10:00 every night and waking up before 6:30. So many things I am still learning… especially the language. It would take forever to chronicle everything that has happened since I arrived here but the highlights are certainly worth telling!
First, my family is wonderful. I live in a lovely house with my Mama Tica (Costa Ricans are called “ticos”), my older sister AnaCatalina, my older brother Luis, and my little sister Mariana. Oh, and Bruno our crazy puppy. He’s about 3 months old and bites everything! Every morning when I get up and open my door Bruno is sitting outside waiting for me to play with him. We also have an older gentleman who lives with us named Don Jose. I don’t reaaaalllly understand if he’s related or what, but he lives with us in the house! My mamá is really great. She makes the most delicious food every single meal! She helps me practice my Spanish by naming all of the foods and their ingredients for me. I hardly ever see Ana because she works long days and at night she is usually with her ‘novio’ (boyfriend). Mariana is cute and mischievous. I have spent lots of time playing with her and Bruno – usually while watching her favorite teen soap opera in Spanish. Mariana also taught me how to play Rummikub! Such a fun game, but you have to concentrate pretty hard to figure out the best moves to make – We played 9 or 10 games of it yesterday and by the end I had a headache…. Meanwhile genius Mariana is begging me “¡Otra! ¡Otra!” Luis is so nice! He has helped me a ton with my Spanish. He always asks me questions about what I’ve done during the day and explains things to me when I don’t understand. He is really patient with me! He says that he knows how it feels to be frustrated with a language because he went through the same thing when he was learning English. My whole family speaks a good amount of English but we mutually agreed in the beginning that they would all only speak Spanish with me. It has helped a lot!!!! I get frustrated, umm, pretty much every day, because it’s hard for me to understand when they speak fast. It’s also extremely frustrating to me when I can’t express what I want to say. But, I can tell that I’m improving.
Luis has a guitar and lets me play it whenever I want! Blessings From Heaven! I play whenever I get tired of doing homework. I have an intensive Spanish class every morning that lasts for 4 hours and then I have a decent amount of homework to finish for the next day! I’m also taking an elective course in Spanish literature that is every Tue/Th for 2 hours. When I get back to ASU, 50 min class periods are going to seem like the blink of an eye! I am learning to dance Salsa and Merengue at the university and it’s really fun. However, it’s with all of the other international students – who all insist on speaking English like, ALL THE TIME. They frustrate me a lot. I have met a few other students who like to practice their Spanish outside of class and I usually hang out with them most.
I have been to Tamarindo beach on the Pacific Coast. A group of students went last weekend. It was really beautiful with the mountains and beach right there together. I wore SPF 50 and still got a little burnt! Speaking of the weather here it’s been unnaturally cool for this time of year. I don’t know what the exact temperature has been, but I wear a sweatshirt almost every night and usually feel comfortable in jeans during the day. They keep assuring me that the weather should warm up soon! We had an earthquake here last week. It was the first time that I had ever been in an earthquake! There are tremors here in Costa Rica all the time and I had felt several since I arrived. At first when the earthquake began I thought it was just another tremor but it got stronger and stronger and I knew it wasn’t just another tremor. Even after it had ended I felt as if I was still moving. I was in the National Museum with some classmates when it happened. We didn’t really think a whole lot of it after it was over and we went on with our tour. When I got home that evening however I watched the news with my family and saw that some parts of the country had been affected more strongly by the earthquake. Several people died from being burred under earth and rubble. Last I heard they still had not determined how many deaths had occurred because a lot of people are still missing. Many people were stranded for a long time because in some places landslides completely covered the roads and made it impossible to travel in cars. I’m thankful that nothing that bad happened here in San Jose. We had a few broken glasses and things that fell off of the walls in our house, but that was all.
The people here are crazy drivers. I don’t really know if there is a lack of traffic rules in general or if it’s just that everyone ignores most of them. I do know one rule: As a pedestrian you have the right-of-way, ummmm, NEVER. Crossing the street is an experience totally in itself.
I LOVE being here, but sometimes it’s difficult not knowing anyone. Of course I am making friends and I adore my family but it’s still not quite the same as having my real family and my friends with whom I can share anything and everything!!! Much love from Costa Rica y ¡espero que Dios les bendiga!
- Megan
Well. I’ve been in Costa Rica for almost 2 weeks now. Some things have become routine – like going to bed sometime around 10:00 every night and waking up before 6:30. So many things I am still learning… especially the language. It would take forever to chronicle everything that has happened since I arrived here but the highlights are certainly worth telling!
First, my family is wonderful. I live in a lovely house with my Mama Tica (Costa Ricans are called “ticos”), my older sister AnaCatalina, my older brother Luis, and my little sister Mariana. Oh, and Bruno our crazy puppy. He’s about 3 months old and bites everything! Every morning when I get up and open my door Bruno is sitting outside waiting for me to play with him. We also have an older gentleman who lives with us named Don Jose. I don’t reaaaalllly understand if he’s related or what, but he lives with us in the house! My mamá is really great. She makes the most delicious food every single meal! She helps me practice my Spanish by naming all of the foods and their ingredients for me. I hardly ever see Ana because she works long days and at night she is usually with her ‘novio’ (boyfriend). Mariana is cute and mischievous. I have spent lots of time playing with her and Bruno – usually while watching her favorite teen soap opera in Spanish. Mariana also taught me how to play Rummikub! Such a fun game, but you have to concentrate pretty hard to figure out the best moves to make – We played 9 or 10 games of it yesterday and by the end I had a headache…. Meanwhile genius Mariana is begging me “¡Otra! ¡Otra!” Luis is so nice! He has helped me a ton with my Spanish. He always asks me questions about what I’ve done during the day and explains things to me when I don’t understand. He is really patient with me! He says that he knows how it feels to be frustrated with a language because he went through the same thing when he was learning English. My whole family speaks a good amount of English but we mutually agreed in the beginning that they would all only speak Spanish with me. It has helped a lot!!!! I get frustrated, umm, pretty much every day, because it’s hard for me to understand when they speak fast. It’s also extremely frustrating to me when I can’t express what I want to say. But, I can tell that I’m improving.
Luis has a guitar and lets me play it whenever I want! Blessings From Heaven! I play whenever I get tired of doing homework. I have an intensive Spanish class every morning that lasts for 4 hours and then I have a decent amount of homework to finish for the next day! I’m also taking an elective course in Spanish literature that is every Tue/Th for 2 hours. When I get back to ASU, 50 min class periods are going to seem like the blink of an eye! I am learning to dance Salsa and Merengue at the university and it’s really fun. However, it’s with all of the other international students – who all insist on speaking English like, ALL THE TIME. They frustrate me a lot. I have met a few other students who like to practice their Spanish outside of class and I usually hang out with them most.
I have been to Tamarindo beach on the Pacific Coast. A group of students went last weekend. It was really beautiful with the mountains and beach right there together. I wore SPF 50 and still got a little burnt! Speaking of the weather here it’s been unnaturally cool for this time of year. I don’t know what the exact temperature has been, but I wear a sweatshirt almost every night and usually feel comfortable in jeans during the day. They keep assuring me that the weather should warm up soon! We had an earthquake here last week. It was the first time that I had ever been in an earthquake! There are tremors here in Costa Rica all the time and I had felt several since I arrived. At first when the earthquake began I thought it was just another tremor but it got stronger and stronger and I knew it wasn’t just another tremor. Even after it had ended I felt as if I was still moving. I was in the National Museum with some classmates when it happened. We didn’t really think a whole lot of it after it was over and we went on with our tour. When I got home that evening however I watched the news with my family and saw that some parts of the country had been affected more strongly by the earthquake. Several people died from being burred under earth and rubble. Last I heard they still had not determined how many deaths had occurred because a lot of people are still missing. Many people were stranded for a long time because in some places landslides completely covered the roads and made it impossible to travel in cars. I’m thankful that nothing that bad happened here in San Jose. We had a few broken glasses and things that fell off of the walls in our house, but that was all.
The people here are crazy drivers. I don’t really know if there is a lack of traffic rules in general or if it’s just that everyone ignores most of them. I do know one rule: As a pedestrian you have the right-of-way, ummmm, NEVER. Crossing the street is an experience totally in itself.
I LOVE being here, but sometimes it’s difficult not knowing anyone. Of course I am making friends and I adore my family but it’s still not quite the same as having my real family and my friends with whom I can share anything and everything!!! Much love from Costa Rica y ¡espero que Dios les bendiga!
- Megan
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Pre-departure Thoughts
Several people have asked me to keep in touch with them/keep them updated on what's going on in my life while I am in Costa Rica. I am far from being under any delusions that I could possibly email every single one of those people - and then have time leftover to go out and explore and live and discover things in Costa Rica that would be worth emailing them about. Needless to say, this is why I decided to create a blog. An easy way to send out news to all of those who want to keep up with me! Well, here is my first post. A few preliminary, pre-trip paragraphs if you will.
Whenever my semester abroad in Costa Rica comes up people keep asking me the same question: "Are you excited?"
This is such a hard question for me to answer. I mean, I think I'm excited. But really if you were to ask me in general how I felt I would have to answer that the overriding emotion right now is nervousness. I am really nervous about this whole thing. I mean consider the list: I am going to live in a country that I have never been to before for 3 months. I can't leave no matter what. I will know no one. I am going to be living with a family that I do not know. They don't speak my native language. I will be attending a new university where I have no friends, I know none of the professors, and I am completely unfamiliar with their routines of classes (classes last for about 2-3 hours a day there. And they're all in Spanish). I only speak enough spanish to have a really simplistic conversation with someone, and just to make things hard, I have vowed not to speak a lick of English while I am in Costa Rica.
Now this may sound like an incredibly pessimistic and depressing list of 'cons' in regards to my semester abroad, but don't think that I sit around brewing over how bad things could be. I don't. I'm just a super-practical person and I prefer not to go into situations with any delusions of how wonderful and perfect it is going to be. It is not going to be perfect. I'm not being pessimistic, I'm just being realistic. And now that I have owned up to all of the scary new things that I am going to have to face at the beginning of January, I feel much better about facing them.
That last item on my list of 'hardships' - that I have promised myself that I will absolutely only speak Spanish while I am on Costa Rican soil - some people might say it is an obstacle I am placing in my own path, that I'm just making things harder than they have to be; To that I would say EXACTLY! This is the essence of my personality. I was thinking about Costa Rica today as I was taking a shower and listing in my head all of the uncomfortable, new and scary situations that I might potentially find myself in. I suddenly wondered "why on earth am I doing this?" The answer came even faster than the question - I am achieving one of my childhood dreams. (If you've read 'The Last Lecture' by Randy Pausch, you know where I'm coming from). Becoming fluent in another language has been a dream of mine for a while. Getting to live in another country and submerge myself completely in a different culture is another dream that has been building in the last few years. Since these dreams are right up there at the very top of my bucket list I will do a lot, if not anything, to realize them. You see for me the desire to master a goal, to triumph over a challenge, is a consuming desire. It trumps most other feelings that reside in my body once I really get into it. When I was training for my half marathon people would ask me how on earth could I go out and run 10 miles... and how could I KEEP going when at mile 8 my leg muscles felt like they were deteriorating? The answer is, no matter how much I want to quit at something my desire to conquer it is 10 times stronger. I love challenges. I create small challenges for myself every day just for the fun of it. Really.
So I guess my answer for those people who ask me if I'm excited about Costa Rica is "yes".... in a round about way. I know that it will be hard to adjust to living in a new culture with people I don't know, speaking a language that I'm still very much in the process of learning. But I have this goal in front of me and I am going to smash it to pieces. That excites me. I also know that once I make it through those first few hard weeks, I am going to LOVE being in Central America, speaking Spanish like no body's business! I look forward to soaking myself in a new culture and exploring this beautiful country that I have heard so many wonderful things about. It is my greatest wish that these 3 months abroad will be a life defining time and that I will come back home with a new dimension added to my character, whatever that may be. I am excited to see what new ideas and experiences God will bring into my world and I pray that this trip will serve as a way for Him to continue opening my heart to the needs of people everywhere - of every culture and every language.
Thank you all for your prayers while I am away. I promise to keep this blog fairly updated during the 14 weeks that I am in Costa Rica and I'm sure I'll have a lot more to tell once I get back!
Much love,
-MeganCreed
Whenever my semester abroad in Costa Rica comes up people keep asking me the same question: "Are you excited?"
This is such a hard question for me to answer. I mean, I think I'm excited. But really if you were to ask me in general how I felt I would have to answer that the overriding emotion right now is nervousness. I am really nervous about this whole thing. I mean consider the list: I am going to live in a country that I have never been to before for 3 months. I can't leave no matter what. I will know no one. I am going to be living with a family that I do not know. They don't speak my native language. I will be attending a new university where I have no friends, I know none of the professors, and I am completely unfamiliar with their routines of classes (classes last for about 2-3 hours a day there. And they're all in Spanish). I only speak enough spanish to have a really simplistic conversation with someone, and just to make things hard, I have vowed not to speak a lick of English while I am in Costa Rica.
Now this may sound like an incredibly pessimistic and depressing list of 'cons' in regards to my semester abroad, but don't think that I sit around brewing over how bad things could be. I don't. I'm just a super-practical person and I prefer not to go into situations with any delusions of how wonderful and perfect it is going to be. It is not going to be perfect. I'm not being pessimistic, I'm just being realistic. And now that I have owned up to all of the scary new things that I am going to have to face at the beginning of January, I feel much better about facing them.
That last item on my list of 'hardships' - that I have promised myself that I will absolutely only speak Spanish while I am on Costa Rican soil - some people might say it is an obstacle I am placing in my own path, that I'm just making things harder than they have to be; To that I would say EXACTLY! This is the essence of my personality. I was thinking about Costa Rica today as I was taking a shower and listing in my head all of the uncomfortable, new and scary situations that I might potentially find myself in. I suddenly wondered "why on earth am I doing this?" The answer came even faster than the question - I am achieving one of my childhood dreams. (If you've read 'The Last Lecture' by Randy Pausch, you know where I'm coming from). Becoming fluent in another language has been a dream of mine for a while. Getting to live in another country and submerge myself completely in a different culture is another dream that has been building in the last few years. Since these dreams are right up there at the very top of my bucket list I will do a lot, if not anything, to realize them. You see for me the desire to master a goal, to triumph over a challenge, is a consuming desire. It trumps most other feelings that reside in my body once I really get into it. When I was training for my half marathon people would ask me how on earth could I go out and run 10 miles... and how could I KEEP going when at mile 8 my leg muscles felt like they were deteriorating? The answer is, no matter how much I want to quit at something my desire to conquer it is 10 times stronger. I love challenges. I create small challenges for myself every day just for the fun of it. Really.
So I guess my answer for those people who ask me if I'm excited about Costa Rica is "yes".... in a round about way. I know that it will be hard to adjust to living in a new culture with people I don't know, speaking a language that I'm still very much in the process of learning. But I have this goal in front of me and I am going to smash it to pieces. That excites me. I also know that once I make it through those first few hard weeks, I am going to LOVE being in Central America, speaking Spanish like no body's business! I look forward to soaking myself in a new culture and exploring this beautiful country that I have heard so many wonderful things about. It is my greatest wish that these 3 months abroad will be a life defining time and that I will come back home with a new dimension added to my character, whatever that may be. I am excited to see what new ideas and experiences God will bring into my world and I pray that this trip will serve as a way for Him to continue opening my heart to the needs of people everywhere - of every culture and every language.
Thank you all for your prayers while I am away. I promise to keep this blog fairly updated during the 14 weeks that I am in Costa Rica and I'm sure I'll have a lot more to tell once I get back!
Much love,
-MeganCreed
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