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Published: December 26th 2010
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What an amazing two weeks! I wanted to blog as soon as I arrived here but thought I should wait. Now I'm not so sure if that was a good idea! I've seen and done so much here in Jaco, Costa Rica. It's a beautiful country with amazing people. Everyone is super friendly and live life 'Pura Vida' which means plenty of life, full of life, this is living, going great, real living and sometimes even cool! Everyone is so relaxed and chill, they live life to enjoy its beauty, they swim and surf are always active. They even enjoy the odd cerveza! (beer) and why not, living in a town like Jaco or Hermosa (the next closest town) with its beautiful beaches, tropical climate and good friends. Life is good!
Life for me is also great! I arrived on Saturday the 4th from San Diego, very excited and super tired. My welcoming party was two rather good looking surfers, my transport was a very old looking van, my experience on this particular night at 1 in the morning was breaking down on the side of the road for about 2 hours, being towed into town and then enjoying another ride
in a pimped out red combi!! By 4 am I was in bed and It wasn't until the following morning that I got to see the school that I'm calling home for the next two weeks.
School of the World, what an amazing place and an amazing idea. Zach the brains and man behind it all lives here alongside the students; which at any one time can be anywhere between 8-20 people.
As a student you can choose any number of the following; spanish, surfing, yoga and photography. I chose the former and the latter, spanish and photography. So far it has been a huge learning curve. After teacher 6 ESL students last year, two with absolutely no English, I now know first hand how hard it must have been for my little ones....talk about FRUSTRATING!! It has been so long since I learnt a new language that I'm finding it at times a little stressful. For those of you who know me I don't like the thought of failure, failure is NOT an option and at the moment that is exactly what it feels like! I guess I just want to be able to hold a conversation and
its not that easy. I mean I can hold a conversation, albeit stilted, with shop keepers and the housekeepers here at the school, but as soon as the conversation starts to become 'unfamiliar' I'm lost! Hopefully after my four weeks I'll be on the right track and calling you up speaking spanish!!
And now onto Photography! It has been amazing, Carlos my teacher is very knowledgeable and super chill, so whilst he give us some theory, its mostly driving to super awesome places (that the tourists won't ever see) and taking lots and lots of photographs, after all practice makes perfect! He has taken us to small fisherman villages, fruit markets in an all Tico populated town, private hotel lookouts, a small surfboard production house, private beaches and more. The class is great and I'm learning so much....even how to make us all look like those pin up models in magazines, courtesy of photoshop! You would laugh at what you can do with this thing, it is simply incredible. I'm really excited to show you all some of my edited pics. Hopefully when I get home I can sell some of them.
Costa Rica is such a
beautiful place. I can even see myself living here one day. Jaco itself is, by Costa Rican standards a fairly commercialised little surf town, although its nothing like I had expected.
Yes it has KFC and Pizza Hut, some chain stores and like every tourist town about 10 souvenier shops selling the same produce, however it still feels really authentic. Locals own and operate nearly all the businesses, the tallest building in Costa Rica resides here (which I think is no more than 10 stories) so everything is still very much ground level. The food is all local....we go to these resturaunts called 'soda's' which are set up buffet style. You can get rice, beans, salad, meat and vegetables for about $3.00! not bad at all!
To go grocery shopping isn't all that cheap, so we've been cooking meals together or eating at Soda's. And once a week I treat myself to a nice meal from a resturaunt...a friend of mine, Caliche, owns a resturaunt in town called Wishbone which has incredibly good food, and so this is usually my resturaunt of choice!
So as you can see I'm living a fairly cruisy life....i wake up and go for my
morning swim in the beach (which reminds me of holidays with dad!) learn some spanish, take some photographs, hang out by the pool praticing spanish, ride my bike to a Soda to eat some lunch, take photo's for homework, catch up on other peoples lives via facebook, do some yoga, every second night drink a beer whilst enjoying a home cooked meal, once a week (sometimes more!) go to ladies night and enjoy free drinks with good friends, enjoy my weekends reading and riding, swimming and dancing and then do it all over again!!
I know you're getting jealous now, so I'll leave you. Week one coming soon
love to all xx
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