September 15th was independence day in Costa Rica. We went into the small town of San Vito to see both a night and day parade. The few people that live in the town were all there to celebrate. Pictures to come. Yesterday, I took my first multi-hour hike through the rainforest and saw a waterfall before getting poured on for over an hour. You wouldn't believe how wet the rainforest gets when it rains! River. Everywhere. Pictures to come for the hike also.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Off to the Real Jungle
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Vamos Morados
Last week was an awful week of homework! After turning in a paper, taking a test, and giving a presentation, I finally finished week two of my 60 hour cram-session of spanish class in San Jose (although we still have 8 more hours of class in Las Cruces). On Saturday, I had to give a presentation and lead a 2 hour discussion on pharmaceuticals and their relation to diseases in developing countries before I could finally relax a bit. Gotta love having classes 6 days a week.
After my presentation most of our class rushed to our first fútbol game in Costa Rica. We all decked ourselves out in Saprissa gear (the soccer team that won the league last year). Our professor Jorge, who is literally friends with everyone in this country, came with us to the game and brought his friend José Luis, who just happens to be a famous Costa Rican soccer player that has played many games with the national team and is a mid-fielder for Saprissa. He is only 29 but played in the 2006 world cup! He was playing in China for the last few months and just returned, so he couldn't play in the game we were watching. His nickname, we found out after from our host family, is puppy (pronounced poopy). After Saprissa won 4-1, we went out to dinner with Jorge and José. I rode in Jorge's honda civic while four other girls got to ride with José in his black audi (no fair!)...but at least we didn't have to take a cab like the rest of our class. Here's a picture of a lot of my classmates at the stadium plus Jorge and José being weird in the background:
Although it was raining at the game, there were some very dedicated fans drumming and singing the whole time. I believe one of the cheers went like this: Vamos, vamos morados, que esta noche, tenemos que ganar! (aka Let's go, Let's go purple, because tonight, we have to win!)
We just got to Las Cruces again and are staying here until Sunday, then we go to Las Alturas to work in a clinic and then to live with the Brunka for a few days. Hasta Luego!
Although it was raining at the game, there were some very dedicated fans drumming and singing the whole time. I believe one of the cheers went like this: Vamos, vamos morados, que esta noche, tenemos que ganar! (aka Let's go, Let's go purple, because tonight, we have to win!)
We just got to Las Cruces again and are staying here until Sunday, then we go to Las Alturas to work in a clinic and then to live with the Brunka for a few days. Hasta Luego!
Saturday, September 4, 2010
A Trip Through the Canopy
Today we took our second trip offered by our language school to the San Luis canopies. We explored the jungle in a series of 12 cables with platforms in between. The forest was absolutely beautiful and it didn't rain at all! The guides had a good time heckling our group of 9 girls, especially when we all screamed absurdly on the Tarzan swing. The last cable was superman style, so we got to look down at the river and forest like a bird. Here's a picture of my friend Shilpa doing the first cable:
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Homestay: First Week
The first week at my homestay in San Pedro (San José) has been flying by. We are kept really busy with classes, so I have barely even had time to think about writing down what I've been doing. Here is what I remember:
Thursday we met our spanish teachers and had our first 5 hour spanish class. My mama tica took me to school like I was in kindergarden so I could figure out the bus system. Everyday that I go to the Costa Rican Language Academy for classes, I attempt to engage my mind for 5 straight hours of class with 4 other classmates. The good news is our teacher is adorable and very tolerant. We have a paper or presentation due basically every other day because the class is only two and a half weeks long. To make things better though, we found out the we get free dance classes and 2 'excursions' (see description of Sunday) if we want.
Friday was full of classes again. We figured out how to walk to OET (Organization for Tropical Studies in spanish) and it only took us 25 minutes or so. OET is where we have all of our research, ethnobiology, and pubic health classes along with 'journal clubs' where we have student led discussions of articles. CRLA, where we have our spanish classes, is too far to walk, so we take a bus there. Friday we went to both places. Buses cost less than 50 cents each way, so it's a great way of transportation, but things start to get unsafe around dusk. We have to leave OET/CRLA by 5:30 ish to get home for dinner before it gets dark. My mama tica cooks me DELICIOUS dinners every night. I wish she could cook for me all the time. Here's a picture of my room. It's really nice to have my own space/bathroom. It'll be hard to go back to living in bunks!
Saturday was once again full of classes. Big surprise. Luckily, we finished before dinner and I was able to write my spanish essay in time to go to a sports bar and have an Imperial while watching fútbol. People are crazy about soccer here, which is awesome.
Sunday, we chose to do one of the excursions offered by the CRLA. Six of my friends and I took a boat to Tortuga Island to hang out on the beach for a day. We had to leave at 6 in the morning to drive to the coast. On the way there, we met a really nice Welch guy. His friend was sick, so he had come alone, and it turned out that he spent the day with us. With his dreamy english accent, he described how he was training to be an actor and had been in Costa Rica for the month helping baby turtles hatch and return to the sea. Seriously? Who is this guy? Anyways, the trip was fun, and they fed us like royalty (like they do everywhere we go). Unfortunately, the water was murky because it has been raining so much, so we didn't get to go snorkeling, but we played beach soccer with some 'ticos' to make up for it.
Monday we had classes again, obviously. At night though, we decided to go out San Pedro style and we got most of the people in our program to go to a club called El Cuartel. It was a nice club and it got really packed as the night went on. Also, there ended up being live music, which was good. The only downside was that it was, in my opinion, in an interesting (shady) part of town. Also interesting was learning how to use cabs here. Cabs are the safest way to get around at night, but they are not necessarily efficient if you're a confused American. For example, we all live in different places, but we share cabs to save money. Only problem is, we don't have addresses. We gave the driver a description of the house we wanted to pick someone up at and hoped he could find it. The few times we've taken cabs though, the driver has had to call the house, ask for directions, then drive in circles for a bit waiting for the person. God do I miss cell phones. It made planning SO easy. From now on, we know to bring with us the "address", phone number, and name of the family we are trying to find. My opinion is that someone should really tell the ticos about GPS.
After our night out, I woke up this morning at the normal 6:30 a.m. and had spanish classes. We had the day off of OET classes today, so my friends and I took the opportunity to go to our second dance class. So far I've learned the basic merengue step along with some 4 or 5 other moves. The teacher is the stereotypical enthusiastic latino man who is an absurdly good dancer. He's so good that he can even make it seem like I know what the word 'bailar' means!
On the agenda for the week: Jade museum and InBio conservancy. This weekend we're either going whitewater rafting, zip-lining through the canopies, or hanging out at a hot springs at a volcano. TBA!
Thursday we met our spanish teachers and had our first 5 hour spanish class. My mama tica took me to school like I was in kindergarden so I could figure out the bus system. Everyday that I go to the Costa Rican Language Academy for classes, I attempt to engage my mind for 5 straight hours of class with 4 other classmates. The good news is our teacher is adorable and very tolerant. We have a paper or presentation due basically every other day because the class is only two and a half weeks long. To make things better though, we found out the we get free dance classes and 2 'excursions' (see description of Sunday) if we want.
Friday was full of classes again. We figured out how to walk to OET (Organization for Tropical Studies in spanish) and it only took us 25 minutes or so. OET is where we have all of our research, ethnobiology, and pubic health classes along with 'journal clubs' where we have student led discussions of articles. CRLA, where we have our spanish classes, is too far to walk, so we take a bus there. Friday we went to both places. Buses cost less than 50 cents each way, so it's a great way of transportation, but things start to get unsafe around dusk. We have to leave OET/CRLA by 5:30 ish to get home for dinner before it gets dark. My mama tica cooks me DELICIOUS dinners every night. I wish she could cook for me all the time. Here's a picture of my room. It's really nice to have my own space/bathroom. It'll be hard to go back to living in bunks!
Saturday was once again full of classes. Big surprise. Luckily, we finished before dinner and I was able to write my spanish essay in time to go to a sports bar and have an Imperial while watching fútbol. People are crazy about soccer here, which is awesome.
Sunday, we chose to do one of the excursions offered by the CRLA. Six of my friends and I took a boat to Tortuga Island to hang out on the beach for a day. We had to leave at 6 in the morning to drive to the coast. On the way there, we met a really nice Welch guy. His friend was sick, so he had come alone, and it turned out that he spent the day with us. With his dreamy english accent, he described how he was training to be an actor and had been in Costa Rica for the month helping baby turtles hatch and return to the sea. Seriously? Who is this guy? Anyways, the trip was fun, and they fed us like royalty (like they do everywhere we go). Unfortunately, the water was murky because it has been raining so much, so we didn't get to go snorkeling, but we played beach soccer with some 'ticos' to make up for it.
Monday we had classes again, obviously. At night though, we decided to go out San Pedro style and we got most of the people in our program to go to a club called El Cuartel. It was a nice club and it got really packed as the night went on. Also, there ended up being live music, which was good. The only downside was that it was, in my opinion, in an interesting (shady) part of town. Also interesting was learning how to use cabs here. Cabs are the safest way to get around at night, but they are not necessarily efficient if you're a confused American. For example, we all live in different places, but we share cabs to save money. Only problem is, we don't have addresses. We gave the driver a description of the house we wanted to pick someone up at and hoped he could find it. The few times we've taken cabs though, the driver has had to call the house, ask for directions, then drive in circles for a bit waiting for the person. God do I miss cell phones. It made planning SO easy. From now on, we know to bring with us the "address", phone number, and name of the family we are trying to find. My opinion is that someone should really tell the ticos about GPS.
After our night out, I woke up this morning at the normal 6:30 a.m. and had spanish classes. We had the day off of OET classes today, so my friends and I took the opportunity to go to our second dance class. So far I've learned the basic merengue step along with some 4 or 5 other moves. The teacher is the stereotypical enthusiastic latino man who is an absurdly good dancer. He's so good that he can even make it seem like I know what the word 'bailar' means!
On the agenda for the week: Jade museum and InBio conservancy. This weekend we're either going whitewater rafting, zip-lining through the canopies, or hanging out at a hot springs at a volcano. TBA!
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Escape From Our 8-legged Friends
As we were eating breakfast on the last full day at Las Cruses, our teacher Hector decided it was finally time to mention to us that the house we were staying in was a notorious hang-out for spiders. This came after my roommate, Sarah, described how she was woken up the previous night by a spider crawling on her lips. On a separate occasion, a girl was calmly warned that there was a spider on her bed and that she should get off. Only after escaping did she realize that the spider her friend was talking about was fairly large and pleasantly hairy. She didn’t sleep well that night to say the least. Hector says there are bigger ones yet!
Thankfully, we have escaped the domain of these creepy crawlers for the time being and retired to San José to meet our host families. My “mama tica” is named Nidia and she lives with her husband, daughter, and granddaughter, who is 21. The granddaughter has lived in Colorado as a snowboard-bum for the last two winters during her school’s break, but she’s not allowed to speak English with me. She is studying French at the University and hopes to travel to France someday. Also, Nidia’s other two daughters live in connected houses, and each one of them is hosting a student from my program. It will be nice to have two friends close to ride the bus to class with. Our Spanish class starts tomorrow!
In other news, we got stopped twice yesterday by the Costa Rican police. They were looking for two people who escaped a drug bust. Word on the street is they found 80 kilos of cocaine in a 'vegetable' stand next door to the biology station we were staying at. Good thing they didn't suspect us!
Monday, August 23, 2010
The First Weekend
The weekends in our program start on Saturday night and end on Sunday. No more luxurious two-day weekends. We had a full day of classes on Friday and Saturday. Saturday, we had a nature walk with Rodo, the director/resident expert at our site, before resuming more lectures. Rodo is hilarious and is always joking about the plants we see. We saw a tree that had hanging flowers known to have hallucinogenic properties, and it turned out to be a part of the family of plants I have to do a research project on. My professor, Hector, told me that he once slept with one of the flowers under his pillow to test the theory that the practice induces vivid dreams!
On Saturday evening, we shared an environmental discussion with some students from la universidad nacional that were on a retreat at our site before catching a fleet of taxi cabs into the small rural town of San Vito. The collective 30-something of us easily took over a local bar, S lugar, and later hijacked the dance floor. It turned out to be a good warm-up in speaking spanish seeing as I go to my homestay on Wednesday, where I will have to speak it all of the time. I think the warm-up worked because one of my 5 roommates (sharing a tiny room with me) told me that I was sleep-talking in spanglish. Half way there!
On Saturday evening, we shared an environmental discussion with some students from la universidad nacional that were on a retreat at our site before catching a fleet of taxi cabs into the small rural town of San Vito. The collective 30-something of us easily took over a local bar, S lugar, and later hijacked the dance floor. It turned out to be a good warm-up in speaking spanish seeing as I go to my homestay on Wednesday, where I will have to speak it all of the time. I think the warm-up worked because one of my 5 roommates (sharing a tiny room with me) told me that I was sleep-talking in spanglish. Half way there!
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Algo de comer
The food at Las Cruces is great! There are cooks that make us home-cooked meals 3 times a day. These all include fresh pineapple, watermelon, papaya, or odd veggies and some exotic juice. We also ate some delicious fried plantain today. Breakfast seems to consist of eggs and rice & beans. Lunch today was rice & beans with cabbage salad and potatoes served with guava juice. Dinner was rice & lentils, spinach salad, and some butter/coconut desert balls. Looks like I'll be eating more rice than normal to say the least.
We went to San Vito today. We got some weird looks and only one man said hello to me. He suggested that I get "pan de coco" (a coconut pastry) at the "panadería", which turned out to be a great idea. Thank god they have bread here!
We went to San Vito today. We got some weird looks and only one man said hello to me. He suggested that I get "pan de coco" (a coconut pastry) at the "panadería", which turned out to be a great idea. Thank god they have bread here!
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Fun Facts
A common saying in Costa Rica is "Pura vida", so if someone says "hola, que tal?", you can respond with "pura vida" which means pure life.
There is a language of honking here. People honk for everything: hello, get out of the way, coming around the corner, piropos (cat-calls), etc.
They don't really have addresses here. The addresses are basically descriptions of where things are in relation to landmarks. They can change depending on where you are approaching from also. Basically, it is equivalent to the Dane Cook skit on Burger King where he gives directions to Hank, the guy in the yellow poncho according to stuff you would see on the way.
There is a language of honking here. People honk for everything: hello, get out of the way, coming around the corner, piropos (cat-calls), etc.
They don't really have addresses here. The addresses are basically descriptions of where things are in relation to landmarks. They can change depending on where you are approaching from also. Basically, it is equivalent to the Dane Cook skit on Burger King where he gives directions to Hank, the guy in the yellow poncho according to stuff you would see on the way.
Las Cruces
I'm in Costa Rica! We stayed in San Jose at El Sesteo hotel for the first two nights and have just arrived at Las Cruces biological station, which is about 6 hours south of San Jose. San Jose was not the cleanest city, and people drive like maniacs, but I'll return there in a week for a more thorough evaluation. Las Cruces is going to be gorgeous! We are in the rain forrest basically, and the streets leading to the cabin were streams when we got here.
Here is a picture of our home sweet home in the rain forest. It is actually in a botanical garden, but we're a two minute walk from the forest. We get an introduction to the station in an hour and begin classes tomorrow after a visit to San Vito, a small town near here.
Here is a picture of our home sweet home in the rain forest. It is actually in a botanical garden, but we're a two minute walk from the forest. We get an introduction to the station in an hour and begin classes tomorrow after a visit to San Vito, a small town near here.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Rachel is Amazing
Rachel is at the Bruce household ready to send me off! Leaving for San Jose at 8 a.m. from Chicago. Costa Rica, allá voy!
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