Cold Showers, Hotdog Buns, and Border Crossings

I've become an expert in the art of taking cold showers. You need to approach the stream of water with determination and without any fear. There are two techniques that can be executed. One is the "splashing" strategy, where you scoop small amount of water over yourself, attempting to climatize yourself to the cold. The second strategy, and the one I prefer, is when you dive straight in and submerge yourself in the flowing water. The best way is to start with your hair, and everything else follows after that. The first 15 seconds are somewhat challenging, but after the initial shock it can actually be quite enjoyable. It's an important lesson to learn, especially considering there is no hot water anywhere in costa rica or nicaragua (at least, not where I have been). 

From my travels in Costa Rica and Nicaragua I have come to understand that bread is not something that many typical ticos or nicos appreciate. If there is any bread, it is most likely plain, white bread. OR-- what I have come to realize is possibly more common (especially in nicaragua) is the use of hotdog buns in place of regular bread. Order french toast, you get french toast made with hd buns, order french bread, you get hd buns, order a club house sandwich, you get 4 hd buns with some sort of filler in between. I don't really understand the logic behind it, whether they think it actually tastes the same, or if they don't know the difference, but it is quite entertaining once you get paste the initial disappointment. 

Do not ever try to cross the Nicaraguan/Costa Rica border (trying to enter CR) on a Sunday. Apparently (and we were unaware of this at the time), everyone leaves Nicaragua on Sunday to go find work in CR for the week (at least this is what we deciphered from our experience). We got on a bus from Granada to Rivas at 6:45 am, arrived in Rivas by 8:30, made a direct connection to the border and arrived at 9:30. We thought we would then be able to go straight through and make it in to Costa Rica in record time. Little did we know that the border did not open until 12 pm, and we would be waiting with what seemed like thousands of other people until we would finally be let through. We sat in the same spot in like for 6 hours without moving, in the hot sun, with people pushing and cutting, until we finally made it through the border at around 3:30 pm. We finally made it back to Samara by 8 pm, but this was only after we paid a taxi to take us from the border to Samara (a 4 hour and $80 trip). So, the moral of the story-- no border crossings (from less desirable to more desirable countries) on sundays!

Nicaragua Travels

So we are off to Nicaragua tomorrow. The rain has finally subsided, and 7 of us are going to travel to Nicaragua in the morning. We are planning to stop at a few different cities, with the first stop in Rivas and then continuing on to Isla Ometepe, Granada, and Leon. It is slightly entertaining that we have just come out of the storm in Costa Rica and now there is apparently lots of rain in Nicaragua. But it should be a really fun trip, and lots of good people are going! we are going to leave around 7 am and will hopefully make it all the way to Rivas, but if not we will just stop somewhere along the way for the night.

Last night we all went out for the last night in Samara, as many of the people we are traveling with wont be returning after Nicaragua. It is sad to see them all go, but hopefully there will be some new students in classes when I return.

Samara is a great little town, but it is very small. I have gotten to the point where you know most of the travelers, and many of the locals (ticos) as well. It is a beautiful place when it is not raining, but everyone knows each other so the soap opera dynamic has kind of been created. But besides that it is a great place, you just have to try not to get too intertwined in all the activities of the town.

RAIN RAIN RAIN!!! and more rain.

I have never experienced as much rain in my life as I think I have in the last 2 days. It has been raining nonestop for the last 48 hours, and harrrrd! The streets have turned in to rivers, the school is leaking, if you want to go anywhere you get completely soaked, and there is no hope of becoming dry. ever. I think it is a combination of it being October, which is known to have a lot of rain, but I also think there is a storm compounding the rain. So we have just been hanging out at school, watching movies, reading, and last night some friends had a little dinner party at their apartment, so we all went over to that. I've been told that it should start to clear up by tomorrow, which would be really great. Normally we get a few hours of rain a day, but it is balanced by quite a lot of sun. But that is definitely NOT the case today. It is pretty impressive actually!

Other then that I am just wrapping up my 3rd week of classes, finishing off Principante 4 (the forth level of school), before moving on to Intermediate 1. My Spanish is improving, while my english is getting worse. I'm forgeting words, how to spell, and have a hard time formulating intelligent sentences. The best part is that everyone is going through the same thing, so it makes for some quite interesting and entertaining conversations! (see what I mean...)

my room/walk to school

my hot little room...

clothes/bathroom...

my walk to school...

Arriving in Costa Rica!

So after a series of unfortunate events causing me to nearly miss my flight (I had to RUN across JFK airport and only take carry on luggage as the baggage check had already closed) I arrived in Costa Rica. I was met at the airport by my host mother who took me to her house in Heredia for the night. The next day I took a 5 and a half hour bus ride to Samara, where I am going to spend the next 2 months. On the bus I met a couple from the Netherlands, Stephen and Linda. They were so incredibly sweet and it turns out they were enrolled in the language school in Samara as well, so we were able to navigate the journey together. When we arrived in Samara it was already getting dark (the sun sets at around 6 pm here), and I went to meet my Tico (Costa Rican) family. My Tico mother is Alice, tico sister is Stephanie, and Stephanie has a one month old son, Matias. The family is very nice, and as my Spanish is improving I am getting to know them better as we can actually communicate. It doesn't hurt that Stephanie speaks english as well. 

School is going well. It is RIGHT on the beach which is amazing- you walk out of the school and are ON the beach. Considering I've only been in class for 4 days my Spanish is improving a lot, and there are tones of activities to do when your not in school (yoga, soccer, dance class, cooking class, etc.). I'm also excited to learn to surf and take some trips to other parts of the country. The school offers trips you can sign up for, or you can plan your own (to national parks, coffee plantations, etc.) 

Each Friday there is an exam to see if you can move up to the next level of classes. I was tested my first day and was put in the principal 2 class (skipped principal 1), which was nice, but I'm missing some of the basic vocab words (like colors and numbers and things), which is making the learning process a little more interesting. But there's a test tomorrow so we'll see if I pass it! 

There's people here from all over the world, many from the states (california, utah, new jersey, tennessee, and florida), as well as people from the netherlands, switzerland, france, germany, and other places in europe. What makes it even better is that the staff here are all super nice as well, so that's really nice. 

hmm.. i guess that gets everyone caught up until now. pictures to follow...

New York!!!!!!!

I was in New York for 3 days before heading down to Costa Rica. Coincidentally, I arrived the same day as our Guatemala gallery opening. It was so nice to see everyone again, and all the pictures and products from our time in San Lucas. Here are some pictures from the gallery.