Mmmm torta chilena

Going a little stir crazy in Heredia, but my family comes in today and this week I will be getting out and about thank goodness. Had a decent weekend though nevertheless. Friday five of us headed to the Paseo de Flores Mall, which makes me feel like I'm back in the US, lots of American stores and food, air conditioning and very very clean. Saw Alice in Wonderland 3D with subtitles which meant we got to enjoy the original English :) Not an amazing film, but Tim Burton's stuff is always interesting and fun to watch and it was the first time I've been in a movie theater since I got here, mostly just been relying on what movies I can find on the internet as my nightly entertainment. Going to the mall also meant an obligatory stop by Rice n' Smile my favorite rice pudding stand ever, had tiramisu flavor this time and enjoyed it immensely. Saturday was a fun contrast of jungle and city: three of us set out mid-morning for some hiking at Parque Nacional Braulio Carrillo (such a difficult name to pronounce by the way), which meant of course taking a bus out of San Jose, to go anywhere in Costa Rica you have to leave out of San Jose. It was only an hour ride to the park, and the views there were stunning, we were winding through mountains with vistas of misty jungle out the window. Our hike didn't take too long, so we were back in San Jose by mid-afternoon and since none of us had anything better to do we decided to do a bit of wandering or traversing ( apparently the Spanish word for wandering is traversar, which I quite like). After only twenty minutes of traversing we found a huge festival- Festival de Transarete. There were dance performances, boxing, book stands, and live music. It was luverly. The live music was just starting up when we found the main part of the festival in Parque Morazan. A well placed coffee shop gave us a chance to refresh, I had my normal cafe con leche and a torta chilena. My friend recommended it, describing it as layers of giant cookies with frosting between each layer, that having been allowed to sit for some time has sort of gelled into a cake. It was amazingly delicious, and I'll be keeping my eye open for it in the future. Anyway we enjoyed the live music, one band only sang classic rock English hits so were treated to Stand by Me and Knock'in on Heaven's Door, but that was followed with some faster-paced Spanish rock. Finished out the evening with a trip to the cheapest soda (essentially diner) that I know of in San Jose. All together a good day, and sunday was pretty peaceful with the afternoon spent at the pool. I almost feel guilty having so much free time....

Hippie techno and Nunchucks...

Relatively quiet weekend, didn't leave town. I did though go to a local all-day DJ festival in Santo Domingo, a neighborhood just south of Heredia. Four of us went, and though I believe it started ridiculously early-10am, who takes in techno at that hour?, we arrived around one. What we found were two "stages", one in small stage setup, very normal, however the other DJ had been placed on the kids playground in the treehouse, it had a slide. I thought it was perfect. Anyway, not much of a crowd, as gringas we always seem to show up too early, however what people were there was pretty much as hippy/hipster as I've seen in Costa Rica, lots of dreads and alternatively styled clothing. I had a lovely time, people watching, dancing for hours and just taking in the music, some of which was good, some of which was not. The last act we saw was wonderful, one guy was playing a sitar while the DJ mixed in his own beats.
That was Saturday, Sunday was a food orgy of freshly made guacamole, fresh bread, and rice pudding, as wells as a little tanning while reading terribly wonderful chick-lit. These are the costa rican days I love the most. :)
Monday though had its highlight when my sensei handed me a nunchuck to "try-out", he had me doing a few little practice flips and I felt myself on my way to becoming a real samurai. A very positive and uplifting moment for a Monday :)

¡Si se puede salsa!

So I have finally mastered the basics steps of salsa! Gracias to my lovely baile popular teacher last night, the three basic steps of salsa are drilled into my head,including the(what was for me) surprising fourth "pause" step in salsa, which I was completely ignorant of and was probably why I failed so miserably in my previous salsa attempts :)All together a pretty cool night, learned salsa and then walking to the bus stop with two fellow gringas we ran in to a free concert on campus. Pretty legit concert, lights, a stage, mosh pit and crowds of people being watched by security, I saw two fights break out in the twenty minutes I watched. The music was good, kinda rock, with some other unidentifiable influences, you had the basic two guitar and a drummer set up backed up by three horns, which made for an awesome sound. There are a lot of live music shows at the campus (Universidad Nacional Autonoma), a lot of lunch time performers with a casual set up by the cafeteria, and this concert was the second big one I've stumbled across in the school´s plaza. I love live music, I just wish I had any clue ahead of time when bands were performing. The school and Costa Rica in general don´t really try to advertise events and websites here are generally useless when it comes to correct and up-to-date information. Oh well, guess it just means I can look forward to a few more surprise concerts in the future, not a bad deal :)

Passed that One Month Marker

Strange to write but Costa Rica is starting to feel routine. Started my fourth week of class today, and while the workload still seems pretty light it keeps me somewhat busy. Had another samurai class and we actually got to punch the bag today, as well as work with our wooden swords and poles...
Interesting times this weekend, went to a live music show that turned out to be African drum music, very invigorating, and absolutely fun to dance to. Sunday I headed to the beach at Jaco, only a short two and a half hour bus ride away, it was just me and one friend. Supposedly Jaco is usually a super-crowded beach, but hardly anyone seemed around when we were there. I wondered if it might have had something to do with earthquake in Chile, I know some people were worried about tsunamis along the coast, but I´d checked beforehand and the papers said that if anything would happen it already would have occurred. Anyway, the beach was great, not the actual beach itself which sadly was no where near as beautiful as Manuel Antonio, however just getting to soak up the sun and swim in the waves was worth it. I'm always feeling restless by the end of each week (which would be Thursdays for me) and was content to have traveled for even one day.
Had the most delicious pumpkin-chicken soup today for dinner, it might sound like an odd combination, but mmmmm, perfect ending to the day. Hope I'll get some for lunch tomorrow; the norm here is dinner leftovers at lunch, and there's a microwave in the cafeteria that always has a long line during lunchtime. Last time I used the microwave, I had to fend off one guy who very much wanted to practice English with me, asking when we could meet and practice. Which I felt bad saying no, but I've already agreed to do a sort of language exchange with another student in my physics class, and at least with him I'll have a chance to practice my Spanish. It's a bit frustrating at times how many people here speak enough English to constantly be trying to use it when they speak to you. My samurai class "sensei" likes to repeat things in English to me, even if I'm already following along with the exercise. All I can do though is keep my sense of humor (some of the English accents I hear are amazingly comical) and reply back in Spanish.