¡20!

Officially out of the teens now, and at a solid two decades, wow. My actual birthday was pretty normal, had class, went to boxing. My host family was super sweet though and surprised me with a birthday cake after dinner. Went out for drinks and a little dancing after wards with friends. Unfortunately had to leave my house at 4:30 in the morning in order to catch a bus in San Jose for Uvita on the Pacific Coast, which meant that I got absolutely no sleep.
There were three of us, Sydney, me and then our friend Lauren from school. She had just come in because she's doing another study abroad program in Costa Rica for the semester. So generally good times just catching up and hearing about everyone at school. Our hostel, the Tucan Hotel was great 1. because we had AC in our room (so wonderful on the humid/hot coast) 2. because it had an abundance of comfy chairs and hammocks to hang-out/sleep-in and 3. because it had free coffee (i love free and I love coffee :).
Saturday we headed out to the national park Marino Ballena, where we did exactly what you're supposed to do at the beach, sleep/relax/read/swim/chat/snack. Around 4 in the afternoon we headed over to the parks most distinctive feature. Due to awesome and to me inexplicable forces of geography, there is a whale's tail (in shape) that extends out from the beach into the ocean at probably a football field's length. At low tide you can walk out on the tail and have ocean waves lapping over your feet from both left and right. The view and feeling of almost walking on the ocean was incredible.
Sunday though was the best, because the three of us paid for a group surf lesson. Our instructor was Travis, an American who'd come to Costa Rica originally as a Peace Corps volunteer and then later had staid and married a Tica. He teaches surf lessons on the side as his main focus is community development. By amazing or perhaps not so amazing coincidence, Lauren, Sydney and I are all interested in doing the Peace Corps post-college. So just getting to talk with him was super interesting. However the surfing was even more amazing (terribly sorry to be using all the superlatives, but its was the day calls for :). This was my second time and while it took me a good 45 minutes before I managaged to stand, stand I did and it was a blast. I am absolutely determined to surf at least once or twice more before I leave Costa Rica, surfing just gives you such a rush and all I was doing was riding in the white-wash, not even touching the huge crashing waves further off shore, I can't imagine how much fun that must be to master those.
So that about sums up my twentieth birthday, pretty darn good time if I do say so myself. Now back to the schoolwork, of which I just found out I have more than I thought. Apparently I will be writing a 30 page history paper this semester. Eeek! I haven't even written a 30 page paper in English let alone Spanish before. So wish me luck! :)