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Ah low! So i have officially been in Costa Rica for three weeks now. SO how am I feeling? Pretty good, i think the dreaded "culture shock" is supposed to be hitting me soon but I'm thinkin about just ducking and trying to miss the whole thing. Maybe it only gets some and not others. I mean is it even real? I don't know, maybe after another week i will have been here a month and by then ( or at leats thats what everyone keeps saying) my spanish is supposed to be alot better or i'm supposed to be understanding alot more or some such and then when I find out I still don't understand and can't speak well, I'll have the "shock". But i'll just keep you posted k? Nothing too interesting happened this week. I had classes monday through wednesday. In my history of socio-economic growth of costa rica, my professor "Vladimir" decided to talk not about socio-economic growth but about the interesting eating habits of the indigenous people, such their habit of eating the woman's afterbirth... Tom Cruise anyone? We decided not to go anywhere this weekend so it ended up being pretty low key. Not complaining though cause I spent thursday and friday running, walking my dog, going to the pool, and ALOT of reading for class. Lifes SO rough. I spent my friday night with a trip to wendy's for a frosty and then went back home and listened to NPR and played solitare. WILD one, right here. But thats only because we haven't really figured about the bar situation, it seems like wherever we go, the crowd dies. Then we walk back by the same bar and its packed again. I'm getting this strange suspicion that we don't quite fit in here... hm. Today (saturday) was more fun though. A group of us took a bus to Monte de la Cruz which is a nearby mountain with some hiking and great views of the valley below. We passed through San Rafeal (notice pictures of the church) which is east of Heredia and ended up at this park type area on the mountain with some facilities, picnic tables, and playgrounds as well as all kinds of trails and a path to the "mirador". There is actually a big cross ( "la Cruz") there of which I didn't take pictures because it was kind of ugly and had grafitti on it (sorry Jesus). But the view was nice and we stayed there for a little bit. Note to self: wear sunscreen in the mountain. My legs are now crispy red, just the front side of course. Tonight, my dad was working but my and mi mama went and had fried chicken and then went to Hyper Mas, which is the Costa Rica walmart ( which I found out is actually owned by Walmart.. anyone surprised?). But let me tell you, this was the place to be on saturday night. LIke i think all the people who were supposed to be at the bars decided on hypermas instead because it was so crowded. I resisted the urge to take a picture. I asked my mom about it though and she said that on the 15ths and the 30ths its always really crowded because thats when people get payed. She bought four tires, don't ask me why. So yeh thats all thats really happened... boring. School, placentas, solitare, fried chicken, Walmart, tires, blog. Its just as well because tom i have church at 8 with my family! Should be interesting... Adios amigos!

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