It's been tuanis

My time in Costa Rica has nearly come to an end. This Friday the group leaves for Granada, Nicaragua and will be meeting our new host families there on Sunday (or maybe Saturday?). Anyway since I haven’t blogged in such a while, and since Costa Rica time is coming to an end, I think I’ll treat you all to a nice sappy conclusiony type blog post.

            While going to another country and meeting a new family will be awesome, I don’t want to leave my Bagaces family. We’ve reached a level of accustomedness that I don’t want to have to start all over again. What I mean is that I know the ins and outs of how things work around here. I know how the shower works, the quirks about the toilet, what time we have dinner each night, where things are kept, the way they talk, etc.

            More importantly I truly feel as part of the family. A few weeks ago I was feeling a little sick and apparently everyone in the family was worried about me: aunts, cousins, grandparents. They all also chipped in with advice on how to get better; most recommendations were to take a shot of whiskey.

            I don’t know how many times my host mom and dad have told me “estás en su casa.” You’re in your home. They say it so often it’s almost an annoyance. Almost all plans are made with respect to whether or not I can attend. Once they were planning on going to go to another city to go to the movie theater. When I got home from school that day I said I couldn’t go because I had too much homework but told them they should go without me. They refused to go. If I don’t go they don’t go they told me. However my little brother was pretty upset which reminds me I have to buy him a movie as a gift before I go. A couple of times we were all going to go to some other part of the country on a couple of different Sunday morning. Actually I would never know that these were plans because they wouldn’t tell me about it until I woke up and it was too late to go. I would ask “why didn’t you wake me up?” Oh no, you were sleeping, but don’t worry no pasa nada, todo bien, suave, tranquilo. Tranquilo (tranquil), by the way, is everyone’s favorite word here. Everything is always tranquilo.

            They have continuously made sure that I know that I am part of their family. In return I’ve tried to tell them how gracious I am for everything in my broken Spanish. It is definitely frustrating at times not being able to express exactly what you want to say especially in the more serious moments. But the other night I tried to let my actions speak for me by buying them a round of beers. My host mom told me that her house is always open for me anytime I want to come back. I asked her if I could borrow her house for my honeymoon one day. Ho ho! we had a good chuckle at that one. The other day, referring to the 9 straight days of rain we’ve had, I said “pronto necesitamos un barco!” I’m getting a ton better at making witty remarks in Spanish.

Quick side note since I’m speaking of jokes: Andy, I’ve told the “jump frog jump” joke here several times. My family loves it and they make me tell it to everyone. It works perfectly in Spanish.

Below are some pictures of a party we all threw for the host families this past Saturday. We all chipped in with different tasks. Some people cooked and others decorated.

My departure on Friday will not be a final goodbye to my host family. Once Nicaragua is over, I'll be coming back to stay with them again for another week. They've also invited me to come on a family beach weekend.

Sorry that it’s been such a long time for all of you avid blog readers of mine. Don’t have much time to say anything except that I have been able to watch 1 out 2 Brewers postseason games thus far. Tonight I’m hoping to make it 2 out of 3. And 3 for 3 on wins!

Here are some pictures:

First of all some old pictures from my birthday. Photos courtesy of my friend Hannah.

Playa Carillo, in Samara 9/16. By far my favorite beach so far. But since we went to beaches 3 weekends in a row, you can say that I don't want to see a beach for a while.

The girls are supposed to be spelling out Costa Rica. (Pretty poor effort, I know.)

Below is our first day of our field trip which consisted of a visit to San Gabriel 9/20 (I realize none of you know where any of these places. I include the location so you can look it up on map if you wish.) We each stayed for a day with a family on their farms. The people do not have much but they live off the land and sell what they can for a profit. Many of them built their own houses which, considering how well built they were, was very impressive.

The next day (9/21) we traveled to a Costa Rican indigenous community, the Maleku. It was basically very similar to reservations in the US. The people have very little but are extremely amiable. We were given the "tour" so to speak. The most interesting portion was a tour through a garden and the description of the medicinal properties of all the plants they had there. Note that below is traditional dress. The people wear typical Western clothing day to day.

Volcan Arenal 9/22, La Fortuna. The hotel we stayed at here was amazing and only $25/ night. This is the view of the volcano from my hotel room. Sorry I didn't take more pictures of it all.

This past weekend, I stayed in Bagaces. I got to watch the Badgers destroy Nebraska on Saturday. Amazing. And I already mentioned that I saw the Brewers win on Sunday. My host family watched the Badgers with me, I think Futbol Americano is growing on them. Baseball is another story however.

Cumpleaños

Hello all,

One difference that this blog entry has from the previous three is that it is coming from a much wiser, 22 year old mind. Only moments after my arrival, news of my upcoming birthday spread throughout Bagaces and plans for a grand fiesta were rapidly made. I had to tell them, please, no fireworks and parades, some good food and a cake is plenty enough. They grudgingly obliged and I was told that the fireworks and parades are now once again planned to be used as they were originally intended: for the upcoming Independence Day (September 15).

The party my family threw for me last Thursday was in fact a whole a lot of fun. When I got back from class there were about 20 family members hanging out on our little patio. Class went long however and I got back about a half hour late. My host mom was worried I got lost so she went looking for me. Meanwhile an uncle was cooking up some beef on the grill and my host grandpa and I watched the Packers lose (almost). Later nearly all the gringos came by and invaded the patio making it even more packed (one of the family members yelled out “here comes an army of them!”). My host mom, who had returned by this time, forced all of my classmates to eat even though they had already had their own dinners at their host houses. Finally there was cake, which was delicious, and lots of beer. After singing happy birthday, they stuffed my face into the cake which is tradition. Then someone cracked an egg on my head, which is, of course, tradition. We then proceeded to drink plenty of Johnny Walker and Costa Rican beer which may or may not be tradition.

The following weekend was truly a memorable one. I’ll try to let the pictures do most of the talking for the core parts.

Here is a map that shows where we went for you geography concerned types. We took a bus early Saturday morning to Miramar which is a mountain town. We then traveled up to the top of the mountain on a bus, went on about an hour and a half horse ride, and arrived at the start of a 24-station zip-line adventure. The next day we woke up early and took a bus to Puntarenas. From there we went on little boats to an island called Isla Tortuga. The island isn't visible on the map but it was basically about an hour and a half trip south. And we saw whales, which was nice.

The view from the resort at the top of Miramar before we left on the horse ride.

Horses.

Zip-lining trip. There was a pool with a water fall that we stopped at and swam in. Above is some of the guides. 

Puntarenas. A port city.

The boat ride. Ashley (left) was very excited about the whales.

Trying out some fresh oysters on Isla Tortuga. Yum.

Isla Tortuga. Imperial is a Costa Rican beer. There are two types; the other one is named Pilsen which I am more a fan of.

When we left the Island it started to pour. Needless to say the boat ride was wild. Some of the waves could have knocked the boat over. Thankfully our skipper had good maneuvering skills. I had also had a few beers so I thoroughly enjoyed it as did the other 5 classmates on our boat. The other boat, which was larger and had the majority of us, ran into a few problems. Long story short, the 6 of us on the first boat arrived back in Puntarenas, had to sprint through the city to get to the bus stop, and found that the last bus out had already left. The rest of the kids showed up about a half hour later. Thankfully we were able to take another bus which went took us on a bit of a detour and eventually somehow we found ourselves on the original bus that we had taken on Saturday morning. This bus sort of belongs to the town of Bagaces so the bus driver saw us on the side of the road, recognized us, and picked us up. About an hour later we were found ourselves in a traffic jam that lasted a good hour and a half. Traffic jams here are a little different . Everybody gets out of their vehicles and hangs out since the cars do not move at all. I took the opportunity to go pee on the side of the road, and in doing so, slipped into about a foot of mud. Meanwhile the 20 cars behind me are honking and laughing at me. We finally get back at around 10, I shuffle into my house as my family is watching Slumdog Millionaire in dubbed Spanish, I say goodnight, and promptly pass out.

Overall, pretty good weekend.