Last Full Day.

Last full day...

wish I knew what to say!

I would make this into a great big rhyme 

but I don´t really have much time

Costa Rica has been rich

Even though the zancudos make me itch

Way too much to explain

But here´s a start...there´s lots of rain!

Anyways...yes it´s true

My last day here is making me quite blue

However, to the states I am excited to get back

Which means...I better pack! (orr..not ;)

Today in Heredia I will be going to visit my friend

And then back to San José myself I will send

Lots of last minute things to do

Very overwhelming, it´s true

Hopefully I will make some chocolate chip cookies;

in the area of baking cookies they are rookies

Unfortunately I don´t have me a ukulele

I´ll try not to cry like a whale-y

You will find me in the Portland airport ´round eleven

Even though last night a busdriver asked me out to dinner at seven

I will be so glad to see y`all

That is, if from the plane I don`t fall

There is so much more I want to say

So many pictures that have had a delay

So I promise you that when I get back

I will post, post post, until I lose my knack

That is, if any of you really, really care

But I still feel compelled to share

Thank you for your love and prayer

Without it I would be who know´s where!

Susán

I Flew Through the Sky

Hello.

So, I got back from a pretty great excursion Saturday--on 

FRIDAY we drove like 6 1/2 hours (up gravel roads to Monteverde), then went to a hummingbird gallery where there hundreds of different colored hummingbirds (I´ll have to put pics/vid up later). Then we went on a hike nearby Monteverde which was a blast--mainly cuz I was with the best group! I dont know what we drank beforehand (well, yes I do...strawberry juice) but the whole way we were cracking jokes and laughing so hard we couldn´t breathe, and pretending like we were tour guides (oh, yes, this plant right here was used by the indigenous people to...).It was pretty fun, and luckily not too long. Later, Jill, Amber and I went around the rural town our hotel was at feeding stray dogs (the dog loving girls had bought some dog food) and then we hung out and ate pizza in town later that night. 

On

 In front of Volcán Arenal on the way to the hotel.

 with the group

 Hiking group minus Tere

 Lost

 

 Observing a river, apparently

SATURDAY morning we ate pancakes and fruit and then left for ziplining!!!!!

It was awesome...it was a series of 11 ziplines (including a rapel drop that I wasn´t expecting, they just kind of push you off the edge) and the Tarzan swing which I wisely decided not to do because most of the group wouldn´t have done it because it was such an intense drop and just too scary. Zip lining wasn´t as scary as I thought, except for the last one. It was really long and high over all the trees, and we had to have our right hand on this clip that was on the line, and since it was so fast and windy, I thought any second I would let go and be spinning and out of control. And then we had to let go of our right hand on the clip and put our hand (gloved) on the line like you do on the other ones to brake before you land on the platform. It was fun though, for the most part, and got to see some beautiful sights! Other people have pics of ziplinging, so i´ll have to post them later.

Well, because my mom put more insecticide out, last night I saw TWO cucarachas....one in Ximes room when we were watching a movie, and one that was dying by the window on the floor. I turned on my lamp because I was paranoid about seeing one, and sure enough I saw it. I stared at it for about an hour in fear and frustration and then saw it wouldn´t be moving. I slept a little last night :) Needless to say I am glad I only have 5 more nights. 

 How can I forget?! Yesterday I saw Jerusha, one of my best friends from Charis, who is living in Heredia (about 1/2 hour from San José) for a YEAR studying bio. I met up with her in San José, we had lunch, and then I took her to my house and it was good to catch up. I´ll get to visit her in Heredia before I leave. It was so surreal and good to actually get to see a good friend.

 Teatro Nacional...the meeting place

Waiting, waiting!

I took her back to San José and took my first taxi by myself on the way home! I didn´t know how dang expensive it is. Also I think I lost my coin purse, probably in the taxi. However, nothing happened to me as I was wandering around San José at night :)

Ok, well until next time,

Súsan

P.S. This is my ukulele in cash...which I will be getting TODAY or TOMORROW :)

You should be proud I was brave enough to even take this pic

I Know...

I suck at blogging.

At least, I have been lately.
I apologize.
Since I still dont have a montón de tiempo, I will post like my top 5 recent pics.
Tomorrow I leave for Monteverde where I will be zip liiiininnng!! Please pray I don´t have a heart attack or anything crazy like that :) I am super excited though (like I´ve probably mentioned before).


So here goes...


Here is 4/5 the class (minus David) outside the National Museum we went to in San José.

Here are a few pics from photo shoots with Ximena.

Chillin with fam in Orosi.

The blur of the cockroach--blurry because of my shaking hands, and blurry because of the rapidness of its ability to move...long story short...that was not my favorite nor most restful night. After one scuttled across my arm right before I fell asleep AND saw another one on the wall, I called the room quits and attempted to sleep in the hammock. A couple hours, no sleep. Back to the room. Phew.

Bet you didn´t see a bird like this today!

¡¡El chichín más lindo!!


Ok, well that´s it for now. I will update next week! Have a great weekend!
Súsan

MONday

Hola a todos!

I´m sorry, but I cant do a long update today. However, I do have a video to show you! This is a typical day in Orosi, listening to the sounds of Adrian and Fabian´s band, and playing with Ximena. 

ASAP I will update the rest! Just takes too much time and energy which I don´t have right now :)

My weekend was good! Pretty non eventful (for the most part) but still fun and relaxing. 

Some things I missed today:

normal, wheat bread º hamburgers (american) º chocolate chip cookies º sun º fresh air of Oregon  º my friends º Oregon fruit, especially this time of year: apples, peaches, pears, blueberries, cherries, strawberries, etc.

Here be the vid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHr_JsF046Y

It´s Viernes, Viernes Viernes

Hola!

well yesterday was the one month mark. Crazy huh?! Went way faster than I thought, but it also feels like I´ve been here a year. Today was a day where I was sad about leaving in 2 weeks.

Today I officially went to the craziness that is San Jose for the first time, the downtown plaza part where there aren´t really roads, just a..plaza with hoards of people and stores, restaurants, markets, museums, etc. We had to meet up at the Teatro Nacional in San Jose at 10, and never having been into the city, it was a wee bit stressful trying to find it, but I managed to stay calm and just keep asking people where I was going. To add onto it, I dont have a phone or numbers from my classmates, so they would have no idea if I got lost/died. Anyways, I met up my 3 classmates (one was gone) and David and we went to the National Museum. It was pretty cool...not my very favorite, but fairly interesting. Everything was found in Costa Rica, from the indigenous people mainly.  I´ll post some pics later.

Then we ate at a restaurant and I got fettucini alfredo (with ham, and garlic bread), yummmm, American food. Then we went to this market strip thing--covered area with cool souvenirish stuff, and I got pretty much all my gifts :) Oh man, and don´t talk about all the earrings! my favorite.

Then we split off and my friend Teresa y yo went on an adventure through San Jose, just walking wherever we wanted, taking pics, getting a delicous fresh fruit smoothie, and miraculously not getting rained on.

It was a blast!

Tomorrow and Sunday we´ll be in Orosi, which I´m excited for. I dont think I´ll get my ukulele till next Tuesday though.

At the moment my host mom is making heart shaped chocolate chip cookies, which look good but the batter tastes different. We´ll see how they turn out, but man I have missed American cookies!

I´ll post pics of today on Sun or Mon!

Ok, well...enjoy your weekend! Soak up some of that Oregon sun and heat for me! (if you´re in Oregon :)

Pura Vida!

Susan

Well Again

Most of you know I felt pretty deathly ill yesterday, but I miraculously slept through the night and woke up feeling almost completely fine again! The only thing was I still didn´t have a huge appetite today (but better) and was a little out of breath traipsing around campus. So I´m glad I didn´t have to end up going to the doctor. Thanks for you prayers, I am feeling good now.

Ok, now for the weekend you have all been waiting to hear/see about....

View on our way to Manuel Antonio

Hard to see, but a huge flock of mackaws (kind of like parrots) flying by our vehicle

Beach at Manuel Antonio! Manuel Antonio is a national park here, and the beach was very pretty, although it was reallllly touristy.

A toon of these little monkies! Swinging right above you, to and fro, everywhere you look! They were cute and fast.

Me, Jill, Teresa, Nicole, Amber & Joanna

Tere y yo

``Nother shot of the beach

If you don´t know Spanish...this is not a happy sign :) Do not swim in this zone because it is contaminated with feces! :( It was so halarious because we had to take a short, sketchy boat ride across the marsh...I won´t tell you what we called it....and if we were a little off-kelter, the boat would almost tip over. It was pretty comical though.

Afterwards we went to our hotel about an hour away, ate lunch, then hit the beach right away. Unfortunately it wasn´t all that sunny (it was about 4) but still warm enough to body surf! Teresa and I body surfed for a long while, until the waves were so big that it knocked us under. So fun. And salty.

Then our little group went beachcombing....and we found a gazillion pretty pink and purple shells, little sand dollars, etc. Some of you might be lucky enough to receive one :)

Sunset at the beach

Saw some horses on our rural walk back to the hotel

House. One of my fave parts on our walk home was three little triplet girls-all with black pigtails- playing and giggling out in the front yard, playing hide and seek. When we walked by, their mom called them in and they all looked at us suspiciously. Probably didn´t help that I told Jill to take a pic of them :) This is the pura vida life!

 A few shots from dinner time photo shoot--a bunch of girls together, that`s what you get!

Good times!

Unfortunately, I regret not going to the karaoke night later--since it was in el campo (the country) it would have been a small amount of people--thus safer and funner--and there were a lot of good stories, but..oh well. At least I got plenty of rest for SNORKELING the next day!

Amber, Jill and I rode on a separate smaller boat with the busdrivers, which was awesome. It took 2 hours to ride to the island, and it was so heavenly. Eventually, we got on the snorkeling boat and started snorkeling. At first I was really nervous, but it ended up being really low key, and AMAZINGGGG!!! It is one of my favorite things ever! There actually wasn´t a ton to see in the areas we went, but I did see different varieties of pretty fish, swimming all around me, and it was cool to see the the big rocks and bottom of the ocean. Oh, and also I got stung by a jellyfish on my arm. I didn´t see it but it stung like NONE OTHER and I was so confused because I couldn´t really see anything at the time. Now you can´t see anything, but there were a bunch of bumps and my whole elbow was swollen. But I guess I´m still alive.

We only spent about 45 minutes snorkeling, and then we headed back to shore to eat lunch.

Delicious lunch!

Awful picture, but there were literally MILLIONS of these crabs scuttling around everywhere! Blue, purple, pink, green. One of the guides made me pick one up so he could take a pic of me with it, but of course it started to pinch me which resulted in high decibal screaming. And therefore, no picture of me+crab.

 Friends

 A crazy girl :)

The boat ride back...HIGHLIGHT OF THE TRIP SO FAR!!!

First of all...

hello, humpback whales!!! We had seen a little of them on the way up, and the drivers were nice enough to steer towards them and wait to see one surface up, but on the way back we saw one closer up, including the whole tail coming out of the water! It was soo amazing. Then my absolute favorite part...

we saw a couple of dolphins jumping out of the water about 100 meters way from us...

and then a whole HERD of them started surrounding the boat! I was so bummed I didn´t get my camera out in time, but from this pic you can see how close they were! We could´ve touched them! 

They did some synchronized jumping, and you could tell they were playing with us. My fave part was that it wasn´t a dolphin watching excursion, but we just encountered them "randomly"! Jill, Amber and I couldn´t stop shrieking and saying "OH MY GOSH!!! You just had to have been there.

THEN...

the biggest torrential downpour I had ever seen! It was hailing and raining so much the driver could hardly see! And mind you...no cover of any kind! We were more wet than just coming out of a shower. Seriously. Eventually, after we got to shore, we got out, and the ocean water was warm...like JACUZZI warm! That was fun. Then, still downpouring, we dropped our carry on backpacks (soaked in and out..and miraculously, those of you who know me well, my camera STILL LIVES) on the bus at the rental place and then trekked back to the hotel. It was absolutely one of the funnest days ever! 

A little example of the precipitation

Another funny story from the trip was one of our stops on the way back to San Jose (we always stop at stores so we can get stuff) One of the girls got this GROSS candy fruit thing, which looked kind of like an apple, was red and really sugary on the outside. Some of us were on the bus waiting. She tried it and had to leave the bus to spit it out. Well, we all had to try it- every person that entered the bus had to try it, and it was so funny because we all ended up leaving the bus and spitting it out, even they didn´t see the other people doing it. Even our guide, Hector, said "Que cosa mas fea!" (that is the sickest thing!) and when we asked him what it was, he said "Ni idea!" (I have no clue!). On the bus rides, there are always 70-80s American music playing. On the ride back, the busdrivers were halarious and would always turn around when they heard a song from karaoke, and say like "remember? this is the one blah blah blah." 

Also, you know you´re in Costa Rica when the drivers make a stop specifically so we can buy alcohol, and put it in the freezer up front. And when they invite you to a karaoke night. LOL. Oh boy.

Good times.

Well, that´s about it for now....it was a great excursion and I heard today that in Monteverde (our last excursion) we will be zip lining! I´ve been zip lining...but not INTENSE zip lining and through a friggin´ rain forest! I´m scared but excited and know it will be good times.

P.S> My life verses, in Ps. 73 came in handy yesterday as I was on my death bed especially as I was mediating on this part....¨My health may fail and my spirit may grow weak, but the Lord remains the strength of my heart; He is mine forever."

And Milly, my wonderful cousin and friend, sent with me a little note for each week with a verse and little message, and I confess I opened this week´s early.....sorry Mills...but it was just what I needed!

Anyways.....got to get going now, but oh a few more things:

ºon friday our class is going to San Jose to the market and National Museum. My teacher rocks!

ºMy ukulele is bought! One of Maricruz´s brothers got it and I just have to pay him...only like $24! I am so stoked

Ok, well...Pura Vida and thanks again for your prayers!

Love,

Susan

Sick

Today...stayed home. Sick. Throwing up, etc. in bed all day. Very exciting.

I might have dengue, similar to malaria, but probably not. Today was one of the worst days of my life but now I´m a ton better (especially after taking Tylenol...you guys should all be proud I took meds on my own).

Got to expend my ipod energy and spend some good time with Jesus.

If it´s still bad in the morning I´ll have to go to the doctor...and it probably will be dengue (from mosquitoes on the excursion...I did get bitten alive.

However, this excursion was THE BEST EVER!!!! I will give all the deets when I have time and I´m not sick. Seems like the very best days and very worst days of the trip are crammed into about 4 consecutive days! We´ll see...

Thanks for your prayers and love. Don´t worry about me. Check in soon!
Susan

Halfwayy

So, today is the halfway point!
I have two thoughts:
We still have 3 weeks left?!
We only have 3 weeks left?!

As in any place, there´s parts of CR I´m not going to want to leave, and others that I won´t mind so much.

Tomorrow, we leave bright and early again for Manuel Antonio/ Isla del Caño. It will be like a 5 hour drive and then there´s a 2 hour (but you never know here :) hike. Saturday we will be taking a boat out to Isla del Caño and snorkeling. I will let you know how it goes!

Oh, and the movie was interesting....called A Ojos Cerrados..very depressing but well made. Our class had a good time. I´´ll show a pic next week.

P.S> I just saw an OSO PEREZOSO for the first time!!! (a sloth). There are multiple families of them here in the trees on campus. After bio this week our teacher took us on little field trips to show us plants and insects, etc, and today we saw one up in the trees!!! They are pretty ugly but cute at the same time. Everyone was so excited.

Well, gotta go now, but until next time!
Susan

yet another red lipstick wednesday

Today, I
realized I am going to miss the old men standing by the gated roads every morning that call out "Hola, macha" (hello, blonde girl)
and
walking/swimming home when there"s a rainstorm..seriously, the ditches and streets become rivers, and the stairs become waterfalls. However, I am not going to miss almost wiping out and cutting my feet and bleeding/worried about passing out before I reach the bus.
missed knowing where/having a regular apostrophe symbol on the keyboard
liked sleeping in a tad because I dont have normal Spanish today! we are meeting up at 4 later today and going to watch a movie in el cine. (the theater). There are only like 2 Costarricense movies that come out every year, and my teacher says they{re not usually very good, but this one is supposedly. I"ll let you know how that goes.
heard screaming girls starting at like 7 am, now that Ximena is off from school for 2 weeks she has her little friends over 24/7. They are so cute, Camila and Maria.
smiled at the funny little rules they have here, like no barefeet in the kitchen (and probably the whole house) and turning on the light when you use the computer so your eyes don"t go bad.
ate a few slabs of fried cheese and fried platanos for breakfast, and a little burrito thing. Cholesterol, yes please. Not that I"m concerned it will be a problem..especially when I get back to the states
saw a monton (a huge amount) of people getting married on FB! Too weird! And congrats, if you{re one of them! :)
enjoyed listening to sermons on my ipod
praised the Lord because it is a brand new day!

Well, I should probably get going on my bio paper. Have a happy RLW,
Susan

Un Poco Mas

Adding on to this weekend....

I found out ukuleles are like $24 here which is incredibly cheap! This past year I have wanted one really bad but they are at least $100-200 in the states. Don´t be surprised if I come back with one...and a hammock :)

I played bass for the first time and it was actually pretty easy! I was just playing "The Way I am" so as you guys probably know that is one of my faves. I played more guitar with some of Maricruz´s brothers, Adrian and Fabian, and also set up some microphones. They all kept asking me if I knew all these American songs, and since I didn´t know like any of them, they were convinced I wasn´t from the states. Ha!

Today I finally tried out the crepe place (la creperia) with a bunch of classmates. YUMMMM!! I had the pollo primavera (chicken, lettuce, tomatoes, ranch, etc.). It was sooo good...although a little pricer and smaller. But worth it. I´m going to have to go back to try the Nutella ones :) Also a frozen yogurt place is right next door....hehehe.

We finally started doing something today for our volunteer work! It was this Tica college girl from the organization, the guy from my group (the other girl wasn´t there), and myself. We went around campus interviewing people about their perceptions of the Calle Armagura (probably one of the most dangerous streets in San Jose). Later on, if our schedules work out, we will be doing different activities with a high school on the street. We´re not really sure! Kind of frustrating at times but that´s how lots of things are here...disorganized. :)

As I mentioned I didn´t do a thing for the 4th of July and it was very odd! Not that I expected to do anything, lol, but nevertheless. Talking with other people today they were kind of sad too. Oh well.

I think blending in in my own country was something I took for granted. Sometimes it is tiring getting ¨la mirada" the look, that says "you´re not from here". But at the same time it´s kind of entertaining. And sometimes I do feel like I blend in.

I got a 97% on my first Spanish test and I think got full credit for my 10 min. presentation! I don´t think my bio essays went as well however :) We get a new prefessor every week in bio. Last week we went to a collection in the basement of the bio building...which had every species of animals in Costa Rica (and in other countries!) Most were in jars of alcohols...snakes, bats, fish, etc. It was so cool. The dried/stuffed (however you call it) animals were a little creepier and smelled funny. But I think it´s the only full collection in Costa Rica!

Well that´s it for now but I miss and love you guys and thanks for you prayers!!
sro

July 4th...without any Fourth of July

Pura Vida!

Ohhhkkkay....to rewind a little bit...

Cranium in class

Red Lipstick Wednesday!

This pays for bus fare both ways and an expensive lunch.

A familiar sight :) my play buddy

beautiful Orosi....Maricruz´s mom is an artist

view from the "compound" from the back of the house

beautiful place

the view of the garden

Ahhh...la hamaca

Slightly emo picture

These are only like $14 baby!

That´s it for now! Had a nice relaxing weekend...

more later!

Pura Vida!

Susan