Sunburned but smiling:o)

Lots to catch up on!! I had some problems with this stupid website last week so I didn’t get to post at all.
Where to start… Well! Last weekend I went on a trip to the town of Montezuma, Costa Rica and um, I’m in lovvvve. That place is INCREDIBLE. It’s this crazy laid back hippy town on the southern tip of the Penisula Nicoya (Pacific side). A bunch of little hotels and cafes right on the water, and the main street is lined with vendors selling some of the most gorrrgeous handmade jewelry I’ve ever seen. I got a pair of turquoise (surpriiiise) earings for like 4000colones, which is just about $8! These things would sell for like $30+ bucks in the states. Love it.
At night evvvveryone in town heads to this beachside bar called Chico’s. Both nights we were there, there were fire thrower/dancer people and they were redonculously amazing. Of course my pictures don’t do it justice at all, but o well. Chico’s is super fun. They’re either playing latino music and all the girls are standing around waiting for some Tico hotshot to come sweep them off their feet and onto the dance floor. After last week, I have decided I need to go to more of the dance classes offered at school. *ahem* Oy… haha But Saturday night they played a ton of reggaeton music and the dance floor was packed. It was great!
Saturday during the day we took a boat out to this beatiful island, Isla Tortuga. The boat ride was horrendous, it seems like it’s kind of an art to drive through the waves out to the island, but I don’t think our driver was much of an artist; we got SOAKED. Haha and the ride back was so jarring I’m pretty sure I’m an inch or so shorter now after that spine compacting debacle. But it was totally worth it, the island was incredible and we got to go snorkeling! We saw a ton of fish and I even dove down to see a small shark with her two babies! Very cool. Only problem we ran into wasn’t discovered til later when all us girls were back at the hotel… We all forgot to put sunscreen on the backs of our legs while we were snorkeling… Needless to say, we all had some crazy sunburned booties. OUCH. Hahaha silly gringas.
Before we left on Sunday we hiked out to a waterfall outside of the town. It was so pretty! There was this lil lagoon at the bottom of the falls where we all went swimming. A friend from school, Kelly, and I climbed up this rock about 10feetish up and jump; then we attempted to scramble up the rocks under the cascades where we both won some impressive bruises and I got a loverly scratch on my already badly sunburned thigh. But it was fantastic! We also got to see some howler monkeys and I got a video of the most redonculous sound they make. It’s wicked creepy!!!
Classes are going well. My teacher this past week was muuuuch different than my first. Very serious and not nearly as much fun as Samuelito, our teacher from last week, but we learned a lot… I am doing an “Intercambio” with a Costa Rican student who is currently learning English at the school. We’ve met twice now for about an hour each time. We speak Spanish for half an hour and then switch to English for the last part. His English is definitely better than my Spanish, but we have fun attempting to decifer what the heck the other is trying to say.
This weekend was INCREDIBLE. I just got back a little while ago from NICARAGUA! We took a trip to Granada, Nicaragua for a few days, and I am just amazed by that country, even if I didn’t get to see a whooole lot. Granada could not be more different from Heredia, CR if it tried! It’s such an old city, and it’s just down right beautiful. Most of the buildings are colonial and just so perfectly old world Central America. Granada is this crazy mix of old and new, and I’m not quite sure who will win out, but it makes for an interesting scene! The streets are a mix of honking cars, horse drawn carts and families of 3 attempting to fit on one simple bicycle; internet café’s on many corners and old women haggling in the streets over fruit prices. We went on a tour of the city when we first arrived; unfortunately we were all so exhausted I don’t think we took in much information. But our tour guide gave us a laugh, unintentionally though I think… She busted out into song every once in a while and we all just sorta stood there and stared. Haha and then she showed us around this archipelago of islands in Lake Nicaragua and proceeded to give us a chuckle with a few more attempts at these ridiculous operatic songs. But the islands were gorrrgeous, a lot of them have been bought and have houses on them now. And it’s soooo cheap!! Imagine owning your own island in the states, it would be soooo expensive to even buy; these things were selling for like $250,000. Craziness. Pretty sure that’s what I’ll be saving up for ;o) hehehe. Friday we went to one of the active volcanos and hiked around that for the good part of the morning. It was pretty incredible! The main crater had smoke coming out of it and it smelled like assssss from the sulfur, but I got some awesome pictures!!
The hostel we stayed in was wicked cool too. Got to meet some awesome people and everyone was just chatting about all their adventures and everything. Three girls in the group we went with are New Englanders and go to Northeastern, so I got along great with them and had a blast. We made friends with some adorable Australian surfers…(ahem… be still my beating heart… hahaha) and a huge group of us went out to a bar on Friday night where we all sat around a big table and played a huge game of “Big Booty” (the not so camp apropro version where we opted for inapropriate hand signals instead of numbers) that had us laughing absolutely histerically. All in all it was a pretty incredible weekend if I may say so!!
So this is my last week in Heredia, and it’s a little sad. But I am so CRAZY, REDONCULOUS, SUPER EXCITED for next week when I go to Playa Dominical on the southern pacific side of the country for…. SURF CAMP!! Yaaaaay!!! I absolutely cannot wait. Hopefully I will make Dad proud! Haha then he and I can catch some waves back home Eastside:o)
Ok well I promised Sebastian (the grandson) that we would play xBox again. He kicks my ass everytime and I can hardly understand what he wants me to do as he jabbers in Spanish at me the whole time, but it’s a laugh!! Hopefully I will be able to post this entry as long as the website decides to be nice. I hope everyone is doing great, I miss you guys!!!! Lotsa love to all
paz.amor.felicidad