Blogs from San José, San José, Costa Rica, Central America Caribbean - page 11

Am 28.4. sind wir dann zurück nach San Jose gefahren, um dort die letzten Nacht in einem der schicksten Hostels, die ich je gesehen habe zu verbringen. Das Casa Colon war ein Art Burg, mit Turm und hölzernem Geländer in der oberen Etage. Müsst ihr euch mal im Internet anschauen. Billig, aber absolut sauber und schön und schon fast nobel aus meiner Sicht. Wir haben die Zimmer bezogen und sind dann gleich los uns die Stadt anzuschauen. In einem Food court haben wir dann lecker gegessen und gegen späten Nachmittag kamen wir wieder im Hostel an, um uns etwas zu erholen und frisch zu machen. Denn ich hatte spontan mit Irene ausgemacht, dass wir uns abends zum Feiern in der Stadt treffen. Um noch vorher eine Kleinigkeit zu essen gingen wir rechtzeitig wieder in die Stadt. ... read more

This whole experience has been a real test of perserverence, trust, cross-cultural communications and empathy. It's also been a challenging test of our developing Spanish language skills. As a result of everything that's happened, I have a few suggestions for developers of Spanish language courses and phrase books. In addition to "I'd like a coffee with milk, please." and "How much does that cost?" I think others may find it handy to learn the following phrases, should they find themselves in a similar predicament to our own: "You are a police officer...why aren't you calling an ambulance for us?" and "Yes, of course the ambulance is an accident 100 feet from where we need it to be and now the driver must await the arrival of the police to file a full report. We'll just take ... read more

7. JACÓ Wednesday, April 11 THURDAY (5th)… This week is ‘Semana Santa’ (easter week) and I don’t have classes on Thursday and Friday, so I decided to go to Jacó. Jessica is ‘living’ there for 5 weeks. Verena came as well (from Manuel Antonio)! I got a taxi to the ‘Coca Cola bus station’ to catch the 11 o’clock bus and arrived at about 1.30 pm at the hostel ‘Beds on Bohio’. There, drinking diet Cokes in the sun, sat Verena and Jessica – waving at me. I joined them for lunch and afterwards, I checked in. Me and Neni were in the same dorm (Jessica stayed with her Tico family), but the room was freaking hot! There was a fan and an AC, but neither of them worked. Of course, I did not agree with ... read more

5. ARE YOU F*CKING KIDDING ME Monday, March 26 MONDAY… Third week of school. As every week, new classes are arranged and students are assigned to other teachers. Although this hadn’t meant anything for me yet, this week my class changed a bit. Instead of me and two guys, it’s just me and one guy now – his name is Bill and he’s from Estadas Unidas (United States). First being worried that this other guy had advanced too much for our class and therefore had exceeded me in Spanish, I soon found out to my consolation that we had actually exceeded him – so all was good again. I still have the same teacher this week – she is cute, small, energetic and looks like she could be Snooki’s mom. (What to do when you don’t ... read more

The last day of the tour, we had a long drive from the Guanacaste coast back to San Jose. On the way we stopped at the Carara National Park, which has a brackish series of canals that are home to crocodiles as well as an amazing assortment of birds. Luckily, they hand out a brochure with pictures and names of the various birds so that we can identify our pictures after we have left and have forgotten the names we were told. It allows you to just appreciate the moment without worrying about trying to remember everything. It really is sensory overload out here. The guides take pieces of chicken along to feed the crocodiles, bringing them to the boat and out of the water so the tourists can take pictures. We weren’t disappointed, as we ... read more