Just over...

...two weeks left and then I'm going home again. Which actually feels pretty good - there have been problems with the course so we've been recieving really bad tuition, so a lot of us are a bit worried that we won't make the exams. And also Cabarete is a bit too small for me, too many rumours running around in a place like this... But I've had a wonderful couple of months and I'm planning on enjoying my last few weeks as much as possible!

About a week ago I got home from my one week vacation - I went to Costa Rica to visit a friend of mine, Lisa, who's studying Spanish there. She lives in San Jose, the capital in the middle of the country, which is quite a big ugly city but I still liked it. It's situated in a valley with beautiful mountains all around it. Lisa lives with an adorable Costarican family and attends a university where she's taking Spanish courses. I got to meet some of her friends who are mostly ticos and I got the oppurtunity to practice my Spanish. I've come to realize that learning Spanish here is hard because there are too many turists here. Too many Dominicans speak English and we never speak Spanish among ourselves. The only way to really learn a language is to talk, and that we're not doing much of here...

Anyway, I had a lovely week in San Jose and I really loved Costa Rica. We went to a bunch of national parks, we went up into the beautiful green mountains, saw a volcano (even though there were too much clouds for us to see anything and it was raining and windy and I've never been that cold for months!), coffee plantations, sugar cane plantations, I met really great people, saw a great deal of bars and a bit of San Jose. I must confess I did some shopping as well - I almost got lost in all the surf shops that just seemed to proliferate everywhere! But the best part about the trip was seeing Lisa - it was so wonderful to spend time with someone you really care about, that really knows you and that you can feel completely comfortable with, no matter what kind of mood you're in. Lisa is loving Costa Rica and planning to stay for one or two months more after her language course is done. All I know is that I have to go back - I didn't make it out to any beaches or surf locations because they were warning for hurricanes, rains, demolished roads and this and that so we didn't take the risk. And we had a great time in San Jose anyway...

Later today or tomorrow I'm probably going to Puerto Plata which is the next big city west of here. Two of the girls where riding a moto concho (the moped taxis) when the front tire exploded and they fell to one side. The girl on the back got away with a few cuts on the leg but the other one really hurt her knee. She had a really deep, big open wound and her meniscus had to be operated, so she's in a hospital in Puerto Plata. And now they want her to fly home which I definitely agree is the best thing. She has to have a cast from her hip to her foot for 20 days and there's no use for her being here. But of course she's very sad and we're taking turns visiting her. But I'm defenitely thinking twice nowadays before taking a moto concho. I've always been a bit sceptical to the means of transportations here. Apparently a lot of people in the Dominican Republic die in the traffic and relatively large procentage of them are in Cabarete, because the town just has one road and that road is also a big traffic route for traffic going to and from Sosua and Puerto Plata. So huge trucks pass by stomach flutteringly fast along with moto conchos, tourists on motos, cars, guaguas, pedestrians... It's madness.

But other than that - the weather is stabilizing, we have sunshine everyday and some rain at night. But it's easy to feel that the rainy season is beginning to come to an end, because the air feels much dryer. And it's also a lot hotter. When our asshole of an hotel manager (if ever in Cabarete don't stay at Ali's surfcamp, he's really blown it for himself) turns off the electricity at eight in the morning it's completely impossible to sleep any longer. I just wake up feeling like I'm burning up - watching the fan slowing down. But at least you get the chance to begin early with a dip in the pool. So I'm not complaining... ;)

Oh well, I'd better get to studying - ciudense todos!

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