AllieJ

Playa Jaco The third Saturday was the first weekend day we have had for free time since we got here. We decided to take advantage of the day and visit a beach by ourselves. After a lot of research and debating how long we wanted to spend on a bus, we decided on Playa Jaco. While we had heard that it wasn't the best, we figured it couldn't be too bad, and it only took around 2 hours to get there. Initially, there was supposed to be 5 people going. However, when 6 AM rolled around (we wanted to get on the 7 AM bus) 2 people bailed. So the three of us struck out for the Coca-Cola bus station via taxi. When we arrived at the station, we had some difficulty finding the correct place ... read more

I'm sorry it has been awhile since my last post. Last week I didn't do anything to spectacular, mainly just classes and studying for my midterm. This week should have some interesting events, so stay tuned! Welcome party to Veritas On the 15th, Veritas, CEA, and the other international programs had a welcome party for all the students at the university. It was kind of odd that we had it the second week of school, but I guess the reason was the Tico students didn’t start till that week. We were all hoping for a decent barbeque, but it ended up being a small sausage wrap. So that was pretty disappointing. Everything in general was relatively boring until they brought in a small drum core and dancers. They were amazing. Some of the drummers even were ... read more

Today I visited Turubari Park where I went zip lining through the canopy. It was a lot of fun, but first I need to explain the ridiculousness of our trip up to the park. The road from San Jose was very curvy. While our program directors had warned us about it, I was not expecting it as bad as it was. To get a handle on it, think about Badger Hill and lengthen it by 50 km or so and more narrow with people walking and cycling on the sides. There were so many times I thought the bus was going to hit the oncoming car or people. I didn't even make it out of the San Jose metropolitan area before I started to feel queazy. I even took dramamine. So I now have an assigned ... read more

Since I have received multiple requests for pictures, I am putting some up here. However, since it is kind of a pain to put a lot of pictures on this, I have created a flikr account. Visit http://www.flickr.com/photos/alliej/ to see all my photos. Hope you enjoy! If you have facebook, I have all my pictures up there as well. ... read more

Today was my first full day in Costa Rica. It has definitely been an experience. Of course the morning has to start on a slightly bad note because of my forgetfulness. I for some reason didn't think I needed to bring a alarm clock. So I had no way of waking myself up. Every time I would wake up during the night/morning, I thought for sure it was past 7 AM and I was going to be late. However, my internal clock somewhat works and I was able to get up on my own. Thank goodness! The rest of the day consisted of orientation and a couple tours. We went on a tour of San Jose learning more about the history and various places in the city center. I was surprised by the amount of garbage ... read more