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The roller disco
turned out to be an awesome idea.
Myself, Kira, Vicki, Lisa, Max, Florian, Julia, and two other German
girls went and had a blast. They only
had roller skates, not blades, so trying to stop was fun for everyone... Roller skating with a great amount of people
when you don't speak the same language as the guy on the intercom can be
dangerous. Apparently there's a game
where when this guy blows his whistle everyone switches the direction of
skating. We did not know this. So we here we are, 6+ people holding hands
and skating when suddenly everyone is skating at us. Now, all of us are/were
students at the Costa Rican Language Academy and are therefore at least
proficient with the language. However, people
speak Spanish muy muy rapido. Entonces,
people who are learning can't decipher enough words to start to
comprehend. Sad times.
After skating we
walked around the bar streets, nothing seemed inviting so we ended up in a
pizza place. Spanish food is my least
favorite culture foodwise but since I am in Costa Rica I've been avoiding any
other kinds of food and American snacks whilst at the supermarcado. Pero, when we end up in a pizzaria it would
be rude not to share a pizza. So it
doesn't count. Good pizza, it was.
When we finished
eating Julia, the two other German girls, and Lisa had to leave. Max, Florian, Kira, Vicki, and I still wanted
to hang out but not a one of the bars did we want to enter. It wasn't a night for the bar scene. So, Mom and Pop should be proud, we we're
teenage hooligans instead. We went to
the store, bought some beers, found a nice graffiti wall on an empty street and
set up camp for a few hours. It was
actually quite fun and probably one of our best nights. It was also our last night together :-( It's funny, I've spent the past week and a
half kind of hating San Jose and now, when I've finally gotten acclimated and
stopped caring about the fact that my homestay sucked and found a good group of
friends, it's a bit sad to be leaving.
But not sad enough to actually waste time being sad. It's mostly just the people I'll miss.
Saturday I went on a
3 part tour to Irazu Volcano, Orosi Valley, and Lankaster Gardens. I had a pretty good time. No one else from the school went, it was just
me, a traveling couple, and a russian mother and daughter. Irazu volcano was rainy but we got there when
the rain started so the clouds hadn't covered everything yet. The "what to bring" list mentioned
a sweater but I figured I wouldn't need one and that my waterproof coat would
be fine. I was wrong. The waterproof jacket was nice and helpful
but it was friggin' cold up there! On
the way to Lankaster Gardens we stopped by the most famous Catholic Church in
Costa Rica. It was pretty... The gardens were very pretty. I got made fun of by the people on the tour
because I had 3 cameras with me. But
they all do different things! One is
waterproof so I can take pictures when it's raining, my SLR 'cuz it's the shit,
and my other one because my SLR doesn't have a macro lens. After the garden we went to lunch at a nice
restaurant in the Orosi Valley. The view
was breathtakingly gorgeous. I will
definately post pictures from that.
I got back to San
Jose pretty early, around 5. I still had
to pack some stuff but I wanted to see if Max and Kira wanted to hang out that
night. Vicki didn't get back until around
1am. Since we are all foreigners in this
country we don't have cell phones and Kira is the only one with internet access
at home and we can't really use the host family phones. So I posted on both of their Facebook walls
that I was gonna be at the mall at 7 and I hoped someone would meet me
there. Kira did. She had to babysit for an hour though so we
went to her place. It is really nice. In the "richer" part of town in a
gated community with a guard. Her host
mom works in the Embassy. The English
Embassy I think, even thought she's Finnish and living in Costa Rica. She's extremely nice.
Max and Florian had
gone to see a movie and we met up with them afterwards. We started out at Bar Rio but it was way too
crowded. None of us had been in San Jose
on a Saturday night before and we were not liking it. We ended up at what we thought was just a bar
with a patio but it had a room full of pool tables! So for 2 hours we played pool and had a nice
time before heading home.
My volunteer work
ends the Saturday after next so I will come back to San Jose that day. I'm going to try to make it into town at a
reasonable time because we think that is Max and Florian's last night in town
and Kira will be there and Vicki might be there as well since we both come back
to Naomi's for that night before we go to the airport Sunday. Her to catch a plane back to Manchester and I
to pick up David, which is very exciting.
Anyway, it has the potential to be a nice reunion night :-)
