Blogs from San Ramon, Alajuela, Costa Rica, Central America Caribbean - page 3

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1.) My host family is awesome. 2.) When your host mom tells you to bring an umbrella to class every day, you should do it because if you don’t, you will get caught in a down pour and you will get soaked. 3.) San Ramon rain is not like rain in the rainforest where it only rains for a few minutes… It pours and storms like crazy. 4.) There are more shoe stores in San Ramon than anywhere else I have ever been. 5.) I am clearly an American and everyone will stare, no matter what. 6.) You need to watch where you are walking in the streets because there is a lot of dog poop and you will step in it. Como yo… 7.) I WILL get lost. Daily. 8.) Costa Rican drivers are worse ... read more


Dia uno: I had quite the experience today… I woke up to breakfast of Coffee, homemade tortillas, bread with ham and cheese inside, and watermelon. I had my first really embarrassing moment… A lot of words in Latin America do not mean the same thing as they do in Mexico, or the Spanish you learn in school.. I proceeded to take a cold shower, because I didn’t know how to make it hot. My host mom and I walked to school along with the neighbors and Ashley. On our way back, Ashley and I got lost for at least half hour- while passing our house multiple times. When I finally made it home I still had enough time for lunch and to talk with my host mom and host sister about my family, US celebrities, songs, ... read more
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Finally made it here, around 11 PM after a long day of travel. My family is wonderful. My host mom made things so easy to step into and they are all so sweet. My host father speaks English and travels 3 hours away for the week to work and returns on the weekends. My host sister loved my gifts, or at least pretended to. I have my own room, hopefully I can make all my clothes fit in the closet = I have internet, but have to be plugged into it. It’s almost midnight, and I have class at 9- crazy. Saludos!... read more

Central America Caribbean » Costa Rica » Alajuela » San Ramon February 23rd 2011

VIDEO - On February 21, 2011, Francisco attempted to burn a small strip of weeds along the perimeter of someone's property. Here is a VIDEO of the outcome of that attempt.... read more


Not much to write about. No problems. Calm, sunny mornings. After my 'tilers' were dismissed a few days ago, I relaxed on the hammock and counted five layers of clouds during the sunset. One layer was climbing the hills below me, and the other layers were above me; some near, some far. A towering rain shower was over the Nicoyan Peninsula, to the left of the disappearing sun. For a while, I watched the lower layer try to make it up to me, thinking that it would engulf me, but it dissipated as quickly as it built. Later I watched a movie on streaming Netflix. It seems like yesterday that I was tuning my short wave/fm radio trying to find something in English. Now I've got microwave internet, and, this year, the owner of the internet ... read more
Clouds work their way up the slopes to my house.
Sundown
You may see this as a pile of shoes but I see it as a potential spider and scorpion nest.

Central America Caribbean » Costa Rica » Alajuela » San Ramon November 21st 2010

Wow, this is just crazy...here we are with less than 2 weeks of class left and the final week of exams and we are done. This past week I had my final exam in tropical ecology and it was a doozy. It was an open book exam and we could use any of our notes. Out of 10 or 12 questions we had to answer 7 of them, and we had three hours to complete them in short essay format. The questions were really specific and not all the answers were in the books and lectures which was frustrating...however its done! All of us walked out of the exam feeling like our brains had been turned into mush and pulverized. That exam was on Thursday, and the following day we had a huge fiesta with all ... read more
Obamas!
All sorts of people
the nearby river


Well, it's almost time to head for the sunny paradise of Costa Rica. According to news and resident reports, the rains down there this rainy season have been monumental and catastrophic to the roads. The Inter American highway that goes past my house at Butterfly has been closed often, and even now has a temporary 'Bailey' bridge that allows one lane at a time. And this is the main road that connects North America and South America. The rainy season ends this month, so I'm heading down next week to see if I can handle the traffic backups. So far, the ladrones have not returned to Butterfly, or, if they have, the presence of Gary and Loren have kept their activities in check. But, so as not to disappoint you, I attached an email I got ... read more
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Quince de Septiembre is independence day in Costa Rica I believe it is the same in Mexico and some other central American countries are around the same time of the year even though they gained independence in different years. Apparently September was a bad month for the Spanish empire September 14th is the eve of independence day aswell as the birthday of many special people in my life. • On the 14th I went to an independence day festival on campus where all the gringo’s got paired with a tico buddy who is an English student, and we ate food talked and watched a group of señior citizen women dance with the typical swinging dresses. After boxing the tico and gringo buddies met up at the central church and then walked around the town which is ... read more

Central America Caribbean » Costa Rica » Alajuela » San Ramon September 15th 2010

Happy Independence Day! Wow so today I went to a parade that was all the schools within a 40 minute commute. We had about 15 middle schools and elementary schools and then about 10 high schools that all participated in the parade that lasted approximately 3.5 hours. Every school prepared either a float that they were on or a dance/ music/ flag and marching routine that they would perform for the crowd. It was really hot and I felt so bad for the kids because they were sweating so much (even with the parade water people distributing water and drinks to them). It was a really cool sight the night before too! Tradition has it that the night before Independence Day, a woman found out the news from a torch relay that was coming from Guatemala ... read more
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