Hasta luego, Costa Rica.

It has taken forever for me to get this last Costa Rica post up, but I think I've just been so sad to finally say goodbye. I finally settled on "See you later" because goodbyes are just too sad. Besides, I can't wait to go back again. Especially with Garrett. So here are a few more pictures of me and Mom in Costa Rica. We just thought this "Clean and Free Toilets" sign was so funny, especially because all the toilets I came across in Costa Rica were clean and free. This is the stop on the way to the Arenal volcano (which Mom kept calling either "Las Arenas" or "Las Arañas," meaning "The Sands" and "The Spiders." It was so funny!). Doesn't Mom look happy on her first day in Costa Rica?


This is the first "exotic" animal Mom got to see in Costa Rica. It is an adorable sloth just hanging out in a tree on the side of the road by Arenal.


The main reason for going to Arenal is to go to the hot springs. We spent the day at the springs in Tabacon. It was a fabulous tropical paradise. The water is hot and steamy, and it cools slightly as it runs down the stream.


Here we are hanging out under a waterfall. The water felt so good! What was really funny was that even the water in the showers, sinks and toilets was from the hot springs, so there was no cold water. It was pretty strange to see steam rising from the toilets, but the hot shower was great. In Costa Rica, most homes do not have water heaters. Instead they have an electric heater connected to the shower head which heats the water. While the water gets pretty warm, it was nice to have lots and lots of hot water.


Here are some more pictures from our next weekend in Tortuguero. Pretty blue crabs.


Here's the pool at our hotel. It's in shape of a sea turtle with cute little turtle eggs at the bottom. I'm way down sitting in the turtle's head, waiting for the monkeys to come swinging through the trees.


Mom loved the four hotel dogs. When we first carried our bags to our room, the dogs escorted us. They were just so happy and sweet, wandering around the hotel checking on everyone and chasing the monkeys.


And here is a picture of a really big horned beetle we saw in Tortuguero. Isn't he pretty?


What I will miss most about Costa Rica are all the kind people I met there and the really great times I shared with them every day. One great experience was when Mom and I went to the opera Faust. We ended up in these terrible seats behind a column. We had to lean really far over the balcony to see anything. After the first act, one of the trombone players called to me and asked if we could see anything. I said not much. So he took us down to some empty really good seats. It was so nice, and we were so grateful to be able to enjoy the rest of the show.

Another fun experience was watching Mom, Mari and our neighbor try out new exercises. Mari had a tai chi dvd and a belly dancing dvd that she got in two boxes of cereal. One day she, Mom and the neighbor decided to try the videos out. It was so funny, I had tears in my eyes because I was laughing so hard.


Mom and I had a great time in our Spanish classes and had really great teachers. Here is Mom with her professor, Mariela, after graduation.


And here's my graduation picture with Edward, my great Spanish professor.


On our last full day in Costa Rica, we went to Sarchi to see the famous painted oxcarts. They have been painting oxcarts in Costa Rica for over a hundred years, and it is so fun to see the intricate designs that they take the time to paint on such a functional object. These ones are older, and the sign in front of them says "The Flirtatious Oxcart." I had never thought of oxcarts as being particularly flirtatious, but these pretty ones definitely are.


And finally on our very last morning, Carolina, one of our neighbors, made a mani/pedi house call. Mari wanted me to go home with fancy fingers and toes for when Garrett picked me up. Carolina is really talented, and we all had so much fun.


It's funny because on my first night in Costa Rica I cried. I felt so homesick that first night, but Mari sat with me and told me that this would be "una gran experiencia." During my entire trip when I started to feel a little homesick, I would concentrate on what a great experience I was having. Now that it is over, I really really miss it. It was a great experience and I can't wait to go back.

Adventuras en la jungla!

Yay! I found some photos we had on a CD, so you can be entertained until we home on Saturday. These are from Tortuguero, where we spent the weekend, literally in the jungle. The hotel we stayed in was spread out and more like a bunch of cabins surrounded by rain forest. It was practically impossible for us to fall asleep because during the night, the monkeys were screaming and running across the roof.


This is a caiman. They have caimans and crocodiles in Tortuguero, but no alligators. I think these guys are scary enough.


Every night we could also hear the frogs croaking. This frog is called the Blue Jeans frog. Can you guess why?


And here is a picture of the Red-Eyed Tree Frog. His picture turns up everywhere on things in Costa Rica, so he's pretty famous. And he isn't poisonous.


We loved the monkeys even though they were noisy. Mom liked to sit on the porch outside our door, with her entourage of hotel dogs (pictures of the dogs will have to wait), and watch the monkeys.


In fact, we were so inspired by the monkeys that we decided to zip through the trees just like they do. Here are some funny pictures of us flying down the zip line in the canopy of the rain forest.


We felt perfectly outfitted to work for the electric company. I bet all the monkeys were watching us and laughing, but it was really fun.


And Saturday night we went on the turtle tour to see the green sea turtles nesting. We don't have any pictures of the turtles because no cameras are allowed on the beach. The tour was in the middle of the night. It was really dark and the only person who is allowed to carry a flashlight is the guide. The flashlight only has a dim red light, so it doesn't frighten the turtles away, but there isn't really enough light to see where you're going. So when we went on the turtle tour, the guide said we were a little late and we had to hurry to the beach. We were practically running through the town and the forest and the beach in the darkness, trying desperately to keep up with the guide so we could be closer to the flashlight. Then when we got to the beach, we got to see a turtle laying her eggs. She was 1.7 meters long. I was really surprised that the turtles were so big. We also heard another turtle digging a nest behind us, and we saw another turtle pull herself down the beach and into the sea. It was really a great experience.

Alright...I promise more pictures this weekend! We'll see you soon!

Sorry guys!

I know you are all eagerly awaiting news of what Mom and I have been up to in Costa Rica. Unfortunately we have been taking all the pictures with Mom's camera, and she doesn't have the camera cord to put the pictures on the computer. So you will all have to wait until after we get home on Saturday to see our really neat pictures. Just so you know how exciting the upcoming post will be, here is what we have been doing:

Arenal Volcano: The morning after Mom got to San Jose, we left bright and early for Arenal Volcano, where we spent all day hanging out in Tabacon Hot Springs. It was so beautiful because you're basically sitting in different parts of the river, but the water is really hot. It gets cooler as you go downstream, but not much cooler.

Tortuguero: We spent this last weekend in Tortuguero basically in the middle of the jungle. We had a really hard time sleeping because the monkeys were screaming, the frogs were croaking, the birds were singing, the bugs were making whatever kind of weird noises bugs make, and the guy next door was snoring really really loud. We saw all kinds of fun animals, and even went to Tortuguero beach in the middle of the night to see the green sea turtles nesting. One of the days, we decided to do as the monkeys do, and we went on zip lines through the rain forest canopy. When we went walking through the mud in the middle of the rain forest, we even saw poison dart frogs. Lanna-don't worry! We didn't touch them!

I can't wait to come home and see all of you again! And I know you are all sitting on the edge of your seats, eagerly anticipating our exciting photos. I promise I'll get them up as soon as I can!

Bumming Around Downtown

After the trip to Manuel Antonio last weekend, I decided to pick an activity that was a little easier on my stomach, so my buddies and I decided to bum around downtown. Our first stop was the gold museum, where they have lots of ...gold!


Look how cute these little gold and jade frogs are!


These are some pretty scary gold crocodiles.


And for your viewing pleasure, more frogs! Can you tell which animal I liked the most?


After being blinded by all the shiny yellow stuff at the museum, we started walking toward the National Theater to have a cup of coffee (or in my case, some tasty mango juice). In the square next to the theater, there are tons of people feeding the pigeons.


Yes, this is a pole-dancing cow!


There are even cows dressing up like pigeons!


The National Theater is really beautiful, quite possibly the most beautiful building in San Jose. It was built by the coffee barons, so if you were wondering where the money you spent on coffee went, here it is.


I love all the marble, statues and paintings. I can't wait to see a show here!

This is their gorgeous coffee shop where I got to enjoy my fancy schmancy mango juice.


The statues on top of the building are so fancy that even the pigeons wanted to adore them.

Here is the outside of the building. It's so pretty and the front is a public square.


After that, it was about 2:00, which in Costa Rica means it's time to start raining, so it was time to head home. No more bumming around.

I've never been to Hawaii...

...but I'm already convinced that Manuel Antonio is one of the best places in the world to spend a vacation. This is where I spent last weekend with my friend, Jess. After suffering through the four hour bus ride (and four hours of extreme motion sickness), we finally arrived in Jurassic Park Paradise Friday evening. The beaches were absolutely gorgeous, not crowded and a good place for spotting animals.


We saw a lot of these osos perezosos (sloths) hanging out all over the park. It was hard to notice them at first because they move so slowly.


The beach had lots of these cute little hermit crabs scuttling around.


And of course, no trip to Manuel Antonio would be complete without monkeys! We saw three different kinds in the park, but these white-faced monkeys were my favorites. See the grouchy look on the other monkey's face? He wants some coconut too.


We spent all day Saturday and all Sunday morning hiking around the park and lying on the beaches.


I thought I'd leave a message in the sand for all my poor landlocked buddies in Salt Lake.



While we didn't see any monkeys really close to the beach, we did see some really sneaky raccoons running off with a little boy's peanut butter sandwich.


Jess was really trying to watch out for the little girls with abnormally long arms, dogs, sloths and monkeys in the road.


And for those of you who were wondering what a $10 a night hotel looks like, this is it. Even though it wasn't particularly fancy, it was less than a block away from the park entrance.


Our room was so small that I couldn't get a good picture of the entire room, but here is Jess looking particularly gigantic in front of the itty bitty bathroom door. We had to duck to walk through the door. Our fancy digs included an icy cold shower, teeny ants on the floor and two geckos that liked to chirp in the middle of the night.


My favorite part of staying at this hotel was the yummy breakfast we had every morning. This is gallo pinto, cheese and bread served on a banana leaf which gives the food a very interesting flavor. We also had fresh guanavana juice each morning from the guanavana tree in the yard. The family who owned the hotel was so sweet and took great care of us.


I love throwing these random ocean pictures in here because they are so pretty. Enjoy!


Because Manuel Antonio looked just like where they filmed Jurassic Park (which I'm told actually was filmed in Costa Rica), I thought I'd post some pictures of the "dinosaurs" we saw. There were lots,

and lots,
and lots of lizards!

It was a pretty fantastic weekend, and I would highly recommend Manuel Antonio as a great vacation spot. I wanted to stay there forever, but I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't pass my Refugee Law class by lying on the beach all week. Too bad.

A Day in The Life...

So...I decided that I was spoiling all of you with my fancy weekend photos. Just so you don't get greedy for more fancy schmancy pictures, I thought I'd show you what my weekdays are like.

5:30a.m. I wake up because the sun is shining into my room through the skylight. I lie in bed until 7a.m. trying to go back to sleep because it's too early to wake up.

7:00a.m. My host brother, Manuel, is getting ready for work, which means he has turned on his salsa music and it is impossible to try to sleep any more. I get up and walk into the kitchen where I find my tasty breakfast waiting for me. This is fresh, homemade juice that my host mom, Maritza, made for me, a bowl of fresh mango, papaya, strawberries, bananas and pineapple, and a plate of gallo pinto (rice and beans) with scrambled eggs and bread. Yum!



8:15a.m. I leave the house to walk to the bus stop. Here is a picture of the house. By the way, the car belongs to the neighbors. I was slightly surprised to learn that Maritza does not know how to drive and doesn't have a driver's license. Manuel is just starting to learn how to drive because here you can get your license when you're 21. You'd think that by waiting to give people their licenses until they were older, there would be fewer accidents and safer drivers, but that is just not the case. Drivers here are crazy. Stop signs mean drive faster. Pedestrians NEVER have the right of way, and there are very few crosswalks. I'm still working on my street crossing skills.

This is a picture of the street where I live. I love all the different colored houses.



This is the sidewalk I walk down every day. You can tell it's the rainy season because the sidewalk and gutters are so green. Although the sidewalks are not well maintained (there are lots of big, random holes) and I am pretty accident-prone, I haven't fallen down yet. And at the very end of the sidewalk, across the street is the park where I catch the bus.




8:50a.m. I get off the bus and walk to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights or the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights where we have class until noon. This is the Court. I don't have a picture of the Institute, but it is equally white and impressive.



12:00p.m. I walk to Costa Rica Language Academy to have a cheap lunch (about $2.50 for a burrito and a drink) and try to get my reading done for the next day. Pretty, huh?


2:00p.m. It starts to rain. You can watch the video of the scary rain. It is so loud. And 2:00 is also when I make my daily phone call to Garrett. Sometimes the rain is so loud that I have to wait until it lightens up to call Garrett because even though I'm inside, he wouldn't be able to hear me.




3:00p.m. I have my Spanish class and then wait for the rain to lighten up enough for me to walk to the bus stop. When I finally get home around 5:30, Maritza is usually home from work and in the kitchen making a yummy dinner. I continue to read and study for class the next day.


8:00p.m. Maritza, Utako (the other girl who is living in the house) and I all sit down and watch Maritza's favorite novela, Nuevo Rico, Nuevo Pobre. I'm glad the acting is way over the top because it make it really easy to follow the story.



9:00p.m. Manuel comes home from the dance class he goes to after work. Maritza always meets him at the door. How sweet!


11:00p.m. After finally finishing my reading and outlining the cases for the next day, I finally try to sleep. I always put on my headphones so I don't have to listen to the neighbor's dog cry all night. I've never disliked a dog so much. He is sad because he is outside, but the porch is pretty big and covered and it's only around 70 degrees. So he's not wet or cold or cooped up, he's just sad that he's outside and has to let everyone know it. I really do not like that dog.

So that is my typical day. Pretty exciting, huh? No monkeys or rainforest, only nice people and lots of studying. But I'm really having a great time. If you've noticed, I added a new song to the blog. My Spanish teacher introduced me to this one, and I thought it was pretty cute.