Learning "Ji-booty"

Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio has definitely set a high standard for my future park visits. This weekend I saw monkeys, crocodiles, iguanas, a jungle deer, and the most beautiful electric blue butterfly. The crocodiles actually were spotted outside our bus window, casually sunning themselves on a river bank, and thankfully none were present at Manuel Antonio. The jungle, beaches and ambiance were lovely, relaxing and the park was extremely well maintained. The six of us who ventured to Manuel Antonio (only a 3 1/2 hr ride from San Jose) stayed close by the park at Hostel Serena Vista, which certainly lived up to its name, with a front porch to the reception building that took in an ocean view with the water appearing to rise up above the jungle in front of us...not sure how else to describe it, but it looked incredible.
Swimming at the park's beaches was an opportunity to look back at the wonderfully undeveloped shore, a cool green jungle staring back at you instead of rows of condos like the beaches I've visited in the US. Unfortunately in our eagerness to soak up all this beauty we also soaked up a bit too much sun, ending Saturday with sunburns all around. Worth the pain though....the monkeys we saw on the beach were crazy. On the look out for food, and generally lacking fear of humans, the monkeys would run up to people's bags and steal away whatever food they could find. We all watched as late in the afternoon one monkey managed to steal a bag of cheetos almost a big as him. Another monkey stole a child's boxed milk, raced up a tree and after tossing aside the straw gulped down the milk, it was obvious he knew what he was up to. The whole weekend was a great rest from school and probably a bad break from Spanish, I don't think I spoke Spanish more than two times the whole three days.
Today though I started my day off right with Spanish class and ended it quite well with my new noncredit mixed martial arts class, which I think I'll be calling my Samurai class. I'm the only gringa and it's a small class with only five newbies and four higher level students(all of whom had spiffy Japanese martial arts uniforms on for class). The teacher is a tico, but with a sense of humor which is great because we are learning Japanese style martial arts- very very ritualistic and formalized, so his attidue helps relax the class. I'm used to the heavy contact approach of Krav Maga and I think I'll need to time to adjust to this new style.
We practiced some basic forms with fake wooden swords; I had to fight the urge to laugh as I was taught to lunge for a killing blow with my wooden sword. I think the class will be fun though so I plan on staying with it, besides it gives me the interesting opportunity to learn Japanese in Spanish....the teacher insists on counting in Japanese,which I of course have no knowledge of, and then we were taught the Japanese names of our forms today, but I had a hard time remembering Japanese words with Spanish accents. The only one I did manage to memorize was when we held the sword out flat in front of us the teacher called the form something that sounded like "Ji-booty", causing me much stress as I internally laughed like crazy, while striving for a straight face.

Tico high school and Food-starved Monkeys

Today was good, had my final two classes of the week, both were really good: La migraciones de Costa Rica looks interesting and Cultura and Desarrollo en American Latina, while full of fellow gringas, has two cool professors and I think will be pretty interesting as well.
Overall it's been an overwhelming week that's felt like the first week of high school all over again. Everyone just looks really young on campus. I have quite a few freshmen in my classes and they act and dress like high school kids- lots of jean miniskirts, gelled hair for guys and everyone wearing hollister/american eagle/aeropostale shirts. I was a complete coward this week and didn't really try to chat up any of the Ticos. Part of the problem though is when I do talk with them they are incredibly hard to understand, not sure why since I don't have problems understanding my professors or family...
Saw the most amazing thing at the local mall on Tuesday (amazing for me :). The mall was really nice, very American feeling with two stories and little kiosk stores running down the middle of each main hall. One of the kiosks was called Rice 'n Smile and they sold rice pudding of about ten different flavors. I absolutely love rice pudding! I got the choco-avellena flavor, which amounted to nutella rice pudding and was in heaven for the next half hour.
Anyway, now I have a lovely three day weekend to look forward to (no Friday classes) and I'll be headed out early in the morning to Manuel Antonio, a famous park on the Pacific Coast that is rumored to have extremely aggressive monkeys (we've been warned to guard our packs against food-hunting monkeys) and close by are beautiful beaches, including one nude gay beach which I think we might be avoiding. Should prove to be an adventure :)

Mariachi and Chinese food

Starting to feel comfortable with Costa Rica I think. My host family and I don't seem to have too many problems communicating. Yesterday, five of us managed to work our way to San Jose, walk across half the city and use the bus system for the first time without getting lost and managing to keep it a cheap trip. I bought some earring that are supposedly made from orange peel, which I can't quite be sure of, they are lacquered black, so can't be sure of the natural color, but they do seem too light to be made of wood and have a slight curve to them that might suggest an orange peel...
Last night was crazy, my family hadn't warned me that we were to have a surprise party for my host aunt, who turned fifty the day before. I found out about the party when I saw strangers walking into my house and once I entered my madre introduced me to everyone in the family. About fifteen minutes after we surprised the birthday girl a nine-man mariachi band came streaming into the house playing and singing like crazy,I could not believe my eyes. Afterwards there was some hilarious Spanish karaoke and a general good time :)
Tomorrow is the first day of classes....I'm ready to get busy but not so much for the whole college classes in Spanish bit, I understand people pretty well when they speak to me, but I have a really hard time when ticos are talking to each other since the speak so much faster. Wish me luck!
Today Costa Rica had a presidential election, which meant that there was a ridiculous amount of car honking and waving of party flags all throughout the day. I got a good look at it all wandering through Heredia during the day. Tried some Chinese food, tico style and it was pretty much the same as Chinese food in the US-sweet and heavy on the sauce. What was strange that there was no hoisin, soy or sweet and sour sauce at our table but instead the ever present Lizano picante salsa and ketchup, yes ketchup. I tried both with our food but can't really recommend either to go with Chinese food.

A few pics from my time in Monteverde

 

 

 

 

Bienvenidos a Heredia

My host family in Heredia is fun, they have had quite a few students before so they like to help me out and correct my Spanish. My host sister Estefania is 8yrs old and adorable, I think she likes me a lot and wants to cook something with me. Her brother, Fabricio (such a great name!) is your typical 11 yr old, loves his Nintendo DS and asked me what Wii games I played our first night at dinner. I played a charades sort of game with both of them and a friend of Fabricio's today and I was absolutely terrible, didn't know half the words I was given, but the kids were great and hilarious to watch. My host parents are super sweet- my mom, Alba, has a great energy and calls me Alexandrita. My padre, Oscar, is funny and he works for the UN in San Jose at some sort of institute against criminal activity in Costa Rica.
I have a pretty sweet room, and I don't use the word sweet lightly. My bedroom is the only one on the second story and I have my own bathroom, a television and a lovely big bed. My madre told me that the television only gets Spanish channels though the rest of the televisions and the house get international channels. In my best interest as far as learning Spanish was what she told, so I watched Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire dubbed in Spanish while I unpacked last night, it was interesting. I felt like Harry had a really feminine voice.
Tomorrow I'm taking the bus for the first time to the IFSA office in downtown Heredia. I'm a little nervous but my mom drove me around in circles today pointing out the stops over and over again trying to make sure I understood where I needed to be. It takes some getting used be treated more like a child, but it's comforting a bit to to have that extra attention, because the language, landscape and people are all different and I need some extra help getting around. We are going on a tour of the university and Heredia tomorrow so that should help with my bearings.