Blogs from San José, San José, Costa Rica, Central America Caribbean - page 26

Hi everyone, hope you are all doing well. I'm fine, not too much going on. I saw the new James Bond movie on Saturday night, it was really good if you have a chance to see it. Then we came back home and had some friends over for a little get together, it was really nice. Anyway, attached are some pictures of my house if you are interested.... read more

Sorry I haven't updated in WAY too long, but life just gets crazy sometimes and BAM suddenly I'm two weekends behind. So, two weekends ago was a long weekend. Our Spanish finals were on Friday morning and then we were free, totally free, until Tuesday at 8. We had a ridiculous girls day on Friday and hung out with some Ticos and my Venezuelan and Guatemalan friends. Saturday morning, Kate and I went to HiperMas (loosely translated as SuperMore, which is a Wal-Mart equivalent. Other than some necessities, I bought a National Geographic in Spanish that I have slowly, but successfully, been reading. How random is this? John McCain's daughter's favorite band is a Costa Rican group called LePop, and one of the band members is my friend Kali's Tico Brother! They were having a release ... read more

So this last weekend ISA was supposed to go to Manuel Antonio, but it had been raining for days all over the country, particularly on the Pacific side, so our trip got scratched. However, lots of us were set on hitting the beach that weekend, so under our own gumption and colones we headed to Puerto Viejo, on the Caribbean side of things. We left on a bus at 4 and finally got to PV around 9:30, in search of a hostel called Rockin' J's, which is fairly famous as far as hostels in Costa Rica are concerned. It contains a restaurant/bar, and 3 types of sleeping accommodations: actual rooms, tents, or open air hammocks. We opted for tents due to a general paranoia of contracting dengue, but most of our tents didn't zip anyway and ... read more

Hey everyone, This will be our last blog from Costa Rica. When next we write it will be from Vietnam, somewhere. Still not decided on whether we start in the north and work our way south or catch a train for Ho Chi Minh City and see the south and Cambodia first then head back north. I´d like to take the slow boat to Hong Kong from Halong Bay if possible at the end of the stay. But we´ll let you know anyway. Costa Rica is a small gem of a country. We arrived carrying left over stress from our lives in Oz but it did not take long for us to get in the groove of the Ticos and relax. Nothing has gone wrong for us. We have been very lucky. The people are lovely ... read more

So, first of all, I'm headed to Monteverde tomorrow, for the weekend, and I'm super excited. Check in for that blog on Monday-ish. Classes are awesome so far. I'm taking Intermediate 1 Spanish, which is just about perfect, and involves a lot of talking, which is what I need to practice. I'm also taking Tropical Ecology, with a fun young male profesor, and the class will include Field Trips to Tortuguero and Santa Rosa, FOR FREE to do cool things like play with sea turtles. YAY. Environmental Impact and Social Development promises to be interesting, the profesora has a Masters in Wildlife Management and a Ph.D. in Sustainable Resources, and we have a couple trips for that class too, which promise to be fascinating if a little depressing. Finally, the segway to the title, and the ... read more