Life in Costa Rica

       Wow! Only one week has passed by, but I feel as though I've already been here for a couple! The first week of class went by very quickly, and I'm starting to get the "home" feeling with my host family. I thought that there might be cliques with such a small group (I believe there's only fifteen of us overall in the program), but so far there hasn't been any trouble because someone is being left out, which usually is me! On Friday, we spent two-and-a-half hours touring and roaming around the parts of San José we haven't seen yet, such as the Teatro de Nacional (National Theatre) and other buildings I have already forgotten, since I'm so terrible with official names. I hadn't really seen any huge buildings in Costa Rica like back in the United States until that day. Now it would sound like we all have a pretty good layout of the city by now...but since we travel mostly by buses here (as do the rest of the population because gas is a lot more expensive here than in the United States), we still often find ourselves asking each other, "Wait, where exactly is the place we're meeting up?" The class days here are pretty much the same like back home, with most classes only being a couple days a week, but one class (Español y Cultura) Monday-Friday every morning. But every week there is a huge activity that the whole group of students do, such as the touring of San José last Friday. For lunch, we either have the option of going to local "Sodas" (or the cheapest places to eat for the University of Costa Rica students, or our equivalence of Chipotle back home) or cooking in the ACM (school building) kitchen. I make my lunches in the kitchen with produce and groceries I went shopping for with my Tican sister the previous week because it's a lot cheaper in the long run, and I'm all about saving money. I really love my host family! My Tican mamí is probably the best cook I have ever had the pleasure to cook for me because EVERY MEAL is soooo good; with variety and so much flavor, and she cooks two meals a day during the week, three on the weekends.

       I have heard from other students some minor personal problems with their host families, so I am very grateful for being placed my host family, because we have had no problems yet! :) I have my mamí, papí, and hermana (mom, dad and sister) living in the house, and then a brother living in the house next to us. My Tican sister is twenty-four years old and the brother is around thirty-five I think. The parents are in their fifties, and the dad is very quiet. We have a yellow pet bird (which Elliot practically cooed with happiness when I told him), but I don't really play with it or anything because I'm not really into birds. There are so many stray dogs on the streets here (about three every two blocks) and I have noticed that my Tican sister seems to love dogs as much as I do. But when I asked her why the family doesn't have a dog, she told me my Tican dad doesn't want to ever get a dog again because they had one for fifteen years, and it was a huge heartache for everyone when it passed away.

       This Friday, we are heading off to Gira Finmac Tirimbina, a cocoa plantation in Limón that women run to fund local programs for empowering local women! Sooo excited to also see tropical rain forests and hopefully take some awesome pictures of me with scarlet macaws for Elliot!! Be sure to keep checking my blog for that post and the details! Miss you all back home!

The Elongated Trip With People I Wanted to Taser

       Yesterday (it seems like it's been a couple days already), Elliot dropped me off at the San Francisco, CA airport around 11:30pm. I agree with him when I say that the ride there didn't feel like a couple hours, but much shorter. :( I type this while snuggling with Foofur. So not only did the ride seem shorter than desired, but my flight was delayed by about an hour...so that's more time I could have spent with my hunny. But at least I had the E-Reader Carrie gave me, so I distracted my own personal sadness with A Stolen Life: A Memoir by Jaycee Dugard. And then...I boarded my first flight to Houston, TX...


       You always wonder what kind of person will be sitting next to you on airplanes...especially if you have had my luck and always find yourself sitting next to the snorer, the drooler on your shoulder, the person who won't shut up and let you sleep, etc. Anyways, it turns out that I was in-between a father and son (might I make the obvious-to-the-smart-people comment that they could have sat next to each other and offered me the aisle seat since it's more awkward to sit in-between two complete strangers, yet who know each other and talk across you), and the son was very tired, since it was around 1:00am. He ended up not only constantly moving around, but grabbing my arm to act as a pillow, placing his pillow near my lap so his head was on my leg, trying to sleep while sitting up (who the heck does that besides vampires?!!), but then ended up just slamming his head onto my shoulder and having it sting for the next half hour, etc. Now this may be cute if he was like five, then I wouldn't have minded and thought, Oh, how cute. But no...*irritated voice* he was around fifteen or sixteen, more than old enough to know not to get into a complete stranger's personal space and to not try to make them their own personal pillow.


       Me focusing on being the empathetic person I am, I did not slap him upside the head and tell him to get the hell off of me...even though I wanted to inside. It took a lot of patience, and I resorted to looking at his father next to me with an expression of, "Could you please tell your son to get off of me?" But the boy kept on moving around and getting into my personal space, so I ended up not feeling comfortable enough to fall asleep myself, and did not actually take a nap until around 4:00am, when he finally discovered that he could fall asleep against the window. 


       SO that was the first airplane ride...the second one was almost just as bad. I ended up getting the window seat, which made me happy...until I first heard the girl's laugh sitting next to me. Imagine a nasally, yet high-pitched sound that is more like a guffaw than a regular laugh, and is also loud enough to make the people from three rows ahead to look back with similar expressions on my face, What the hell?... Since I didn't get any sleep from the first airplane flight (only about 45 min.), I figured I would catch up on my sleep on this flight, since I was pretty much in a tired daze, being 7:00am with only 45 min. of sleep. But nooooooo...EVERY SINGLE FREIKIN TIME I tried to close my eyes and sleep, the girl (around 15 as well) would find something hilarious (I swear she must have found oxygen amusing because she would sometimes laugh when no one was even talking to her), and I would be jolted awake...with a sudden urge to grab a taser from my purse. :D The only time I actually slept at all was when she was sleeping as well, and that's because she didn't laugh while she slept...thank GOD! I would like to say that that is the only annoying thing that happened on that flight....but no, that would be too much mercy for sleep-deprived Crystal. Her and her 13 year-old girl friend sitting next to her would lean OVER ME to look out the window at clouds....CLOUDS!! NOT EVEN BEAUTIFUL MOUNTAINS, BUT FREIKING WHITE FLUFFY THINGS FLOATING IN THE SKY THAT WE SEE EVERYDAY! To top off a cherry on my strong distaste for this girl sitting next to me, I notice an obnoxiously shallow trinket on her backpack that says in a stupid glittery and pink color, "Life is too short to date ugly guys." This coming from the unattractive herself 15 year-old, wearing too-tight-for-her-body shorts that make her fat roll out and laughs like a horse that needs to be shot to put it out of its misery. *takes deep breath with closed eyes* At least meeting my host family was a very pleasant experience, even though there were a lot of confused, blank expressions because of my oh-so-great Spanish-speaking skills. I thought that none of my family members speak English, but that's only the parents. My sister and brother speak English, so once I found that out, the communication was a lot easier because I constantly asked, "Cómo se dice..." (How do you say...) A new adventure awaits tomorrow morning because that is when I have my first ACM meeting with the other students! :D

Salmon

       Well, it is officially only two more days until I am flying into Costa Rica! I have been so busy focusing on that aspect, I haven't even realized that my classes will be starting on Monday, haha. But I am still doing what I can with family and Elliot until Saturday comes. One example is eating freshly caught salmon in one of my favorite restaurants in Monterey, CA, called LALLApalooza. Since I go to Ripon College in Wisconsin, fresh salmon is difficult to come by. Salmon dishes are among my favorite, and I haven't had salmon since I left for Ripon last August. As I was eating the fresh salmon steak, roasted on cedar planks with saffron risotto and seasonal vegetables, and then crème brûlée with fresh strawberries for dessert, I caught myself wondering how different the Costa Rican diet will be from what I am spoiled with in California. Only a short amount of time and I will know. :D

The Less-Than-Two-Weeks Launch

       As of today, I am twelve days away until driving to San Francisco, CA with my boyfriend, Elliot...and then flying to San, José, Costa Rica! I don't believe I will really let the excitement fully take over my body until I am fastening the seat belt on the airplane. I usually try not to focus on the excitement beforehand, otherwise the days seem to always take so much longer. Right now, I am spending as much quality time with Elliot and my family in Marina, CA, continuing to introduce the seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Elliot, playing Bejeweled for hours with my mother before her graveyard shift, and cooking dinners with Elliot for his mom and dad on the weekends. Although I will not emotionally focus on it from day-to-day, I will engage on a countdown on this blog! I can't wait to arrive in Costa Rica and make my first blog post on my exceptional adventure!