Over the past week I have been living in San Jose, Costa Rica with a very nice lady and attending CRLA (Costa Rica Language Academy). I have had a good time this week but I am very happy to be leaving this big city and all the people behind as tomorrow I travel up to Monteverde, home of the cloud forest! Below you will see pictures of this week's journey.
At my home stay this is the room that I have. It is a very simple room but nice enough for me to stay in. There are six students living in the house with our house mom, which is a lot of people for this small house but at least I have my own room.
This is the bathroom that I share with 2 other girls. This bathroom is one of the smallest that I have ever seen, I can't even sit normal on the toilet because my knees hit the wall but I manage, and it is a great adventure (at least we have running water!).
This is the view of the family room as well as dining room where we eat our meals at.
This is what I have every morning for breakfast. A fresh banana, fresh watermelon, fresh pineapple, and hot tea. I really enjoy the breakfast but by lunch time I am more than ready to eat! :-)
This is a really cool tree I see on my way to school. The house I am staying at is in Cedros in San Pedro which is just outside of San Jose. I have to ride the public bus from her house which can take anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour depending on traffic which is very frustrating sometimes. That is why I like to walk by the tree because it reminds me of nature and not all the hustle and bustle of the big city.
This is another house I pass on my walk to school and what is so funny about it is that it has a McDonalds sign in the front yard. I don't know where it came from or why it is there but it serves as a good landmark when giving directions. Here in San Jose they streets are not labeled so all the directions are given from landmarks like banks, houses, etc which sometimes makes it hard to find places, especially when those places are no longer there.
This is the language school that I attended this week. I went to class from 9-3 Monday through Thursday and had a great time. The school here has very small class sizes as well as a wonderful courtyard to sit out in.
One of the free classes they offered was a cooking class where we made heart of palm or palmito.
Here I am actively participating in the class!
Here is a picture of me eating the palmito with a fresh tortilla! It was very yummy!
There were only two of us that were taking classes for 5 hours per day so in the afternoon we played a lot of different games to help increase our vocabulary and speaking skills. The first afternoon we played scrabble and it was a ton of fun but hard to come up with words in Spanish but we were successful, and luckily we didn't keep score although I did spell azucar!
One of the activities we had in class was to describe to the other person the picture without them looking at it. Needless to say some of the pictures were very close to the actually picture while some were nothing like what they were supposed to be.
Here I am graduating from my one week of classes! This is my teacher Lorena who was very helpful and patient with me.
This is our entire class with only 3 of us graduating since the rest are going to be there longer than the week we were there.
On Wednesday night I went with the other 5 girls that live in my house into downtown San Jose to walk around and eat dinner. This is the national theater that is located in the heart of San Jose which was very beautiful all lit up at night.
This is us in the restaurant that we found downtown which was VERY GOOD and a good change from all our meals at home.
After we finished eating the girls found a candy store to go look around in and they had almost every jelly like candy imaginable.
This is one of the meals we had for dinner consisting of rice, beans, vegetables, and a little bit of tuna salad. I am learning that here many people do not eat a lot of meat which is vastly different from what I eat at home but probably a lot better for me.
This is another meal we had consisting of rice, palmito, a small salad, a fresh tortilla, and a cooked plantain (like a banana).
Since I did not have class on Friday I went white water rafting on the Pacuare River. This is evidently where they held the world white water championship last year. The largest rapids we had were class 4 which was a lot of fun. But not only was the rafting fun the landscape was just incredible. We were in the middle of nowhere with rain forest on both sides of the river. We saw many different birds like herons and toucans as well as thousands of the popular blue butterflies. There were also many beautiful waterfalls and just breathtaking scenery. Sadly I was not able to take my camera since it isn't waterproof so I was not able to capture any of the beauty. I am wanting to do the same trip or even a 2 day trip later on in August when the water will be moving better so maybe by then I can find a waterproof camera to use.
Tomorrow I will begin my journey up to Monteverde which is where I will be spending the rest of my summer before I come back in August. The bus ride will be interesting so I am not looking forward to that but the end will be worth it. I am going to be volunteering first with an NGO called PRONATIVAS and this organization was set up by a lady named Willow. This organization specializes in trying to identify, classify, as well as promote the use of native plants in Costa Rica. I will be working with Willow who is actually the author of several books about plants in Costa Rica so I am very excited to be working with her. She evidently has many other professionals coming to work with us this summer from botanical centers around the US. I don't know a lot about what I am going to be doing yet but I do know on Tuesday I will be going into a school and helping the children and Willow plant a native garden. I will also be working with other organizations such as the Costa Rica Conservation Foundation. I am very exciting to be moving into the mountains in the cloud forest of Costa Rica! I hope that everyone is having a great summer, it's hard to believe I have already been here for 6 weeks now!
At my home stay this is the room that I have. It is a very simple room but nice enough for me to stay in. There are six students living in the house with our house mom, which is a lot of people for this small house but at least I have my own room.
This is the bathroom that I share with 2 other girls. This bathroom is one of the smallest that I have ever seen, I can't even sit normal on the toilet because my knees hit the wall but I manage, and it is a great adventure (at least we have running water!).
This is the view of the family room as well as dining room where we eat our meals at.
This is what I have every morning for breakfast. A fresh banana, fresh watermelon, fresh pineapple, and hot tea. I really enjoy the breakfast but by lunch time I am more than ready to eat! :-)
This is a really cool tree I see on my way to school. The house I am staying at is in Cedros in San Pedro which is just outside of San Jose. I have to ride the public bus from her house which can take anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour depending on traffic which is very frustrating sometimes. That is why I like to walk by the tree because it reminds me of nature and not all the hustle and bustle of the big city.
This is another house I pass on my walk to school and what is so funny about it is that it has a McDonalds sign in the front yard. I don't know where it came from or why it is there but it serves as a good landmark when giving directions. Here in San Jose they streets are not labeled so all the directions are given from landmarks like banks, houses, etc which sometimes makes it hard to find places, especially when those places are no longer there.
This is the language school that I attended this week. I went to class from 9-3 Monday through Thursday and had a great time. The school here has very small class sizes as well as a wonderful courtyard to sit out in.
One of the free classes they offered was a cooking class where we made heart of palm or palmito.
Here I am actively participating in the class!
Here is a picture of me eating the palmito with a fresh tortilla! It was very yummy!
There were only two of us that were taking classes for 5 hours per day so in the afternoon we played a lot of different games to help increase our vocabulary and speaking skills. The first afternoon we played scrabble and it was a ton of fun but hard to come up with words in Spanish but we were successful, and luckily we didn't keep score although I did spell azucar!
One of the activities we had in class was to describe to the other person the picture without them looking at it. Needless to say some of the pictures were very close to the actually picture while some were nothing like what they were supposed to be.
Here I am graduating from my one week of classes! This is my teacher Lorena who was very helpful and patient with me.
This is our entire class with only 3 of us graduating since the rest are going to be there longer than the week we were there.
On Wednesday night I went with the other 5 girls that live in my house into downtown San Jose to walk around and eat dinner. This is the national theater that is located in the heart of San Jose which was very beautiful all lit up at night.
This is us in the restaurant that we found downtown which was VERY GOOD and a good change from all our meals at home.
After we finished eating the girls found a candy store to go look around in and they had almost every jelly like candy imaginable.
This is one of the meals we had for dinner consisting of rice, beans, vegetables, and a little bit of tuna salad. I am learning that here many people do not eat a lot of meat which is vastly different from what I eat at home but probably a lot better for me.
This is another meal we had consisting of rice, palmito, a small salad, a fresh tortilla, and a cooked plantain (like a banana).
Since I did not have class on Friday I went white water rafting on the Pacuare River. This is evidently where they held the world white water championship last year. The largest rapids we had were class 4 which was a lot of fun. But not only was the rafting fun the landscape was just incredible. We were in the middle of nowhere with rain forest on both sides of the river. We saw many different birds like herons and toucans as well as thousands of the popular blue butterflies. There were also many beautiful waterfalls and just breathtaking scenery. Sadly I was not able to take my camera since it isn't waterproof so I was not able to capture any of the beauty. I am wanting to do the same trip or even a 2 day trip later on in August when the water will be moving better so maybe by then I can find a waterproof camera to use.
Tomorrow I will begin my journey up to Monteverde which is where I will be spending the rest of my summer before I come back in August. The bus ride will be interesting so I am not looking forward to that but the end will be worth it. I am going to be volunteering first with an NGO called PRONATIVAS and this organization was set up by a lady named Willow. This organization specializes in trying to identify, classify, as well as promote the use of native plants in Costa Rica. I will be working with Willow who is actually the author of several books about plants in Costa Rica so I am very excited to be working with her. She evidently has many other professionals coming to work with us this summer from botanical centers around the US. I don't know a lot about what I am going to be doing yet but I do know on Tuesday I will be going into a school and helping the children and Willow plant a native garden. I will also be working with other organizations such as the Costa Rica Conservation Foundation. I am very exciting to be moving into the mountains in the cloud forest of Costa Rica! I hope that everyone is having a great summer, it's hard to believe I have already been here for 6 weeks now!
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