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Published: September 7th 2008
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White Water Rafting
This is a picture from White Water Rafting! Hi there everyone!
Wow - I’ve already done so many things and I’ve been here just one week! And I’m so thrilled that I get to spend 3 whole months here! So I will recap what I’ve done since I last wrote on Wednesday...
Thursday - Spanish Class from 8-12Noon. It was great this week! I had only 2 other girls from California in my class and my professor, who was a young girl only 24, and a student herself studying English. She was really nice, spoke in all Spanish, but had a ton of patience and always explained everything very clearly for us. Next week I will have a different professor and possibly different kids in my class. After class we went on a bus to Alajuela and had a tour this high school. It's basically free for the students and its like a Technical School so the kids learn a trade. For example, accounting, customer service, mechanic, computer software person, etc. Then the students know how to do a job, they can begin working and use money to pay for college and do another career since. The students are normal high school age kids around 14-18. It
was an interesting concept.
Friday - Last day of Spanish class from 8-12N. We also have an exam every Friday. I only missed 1.5 points!!!!! So I got a 33.5 out of 35. Yay! I was so happy! And we had to talk in Spanish for 10 minutes in class. My topic was holidays in the US and CR and comparing them! It wasn’t too bad really! Then like 10 other students (from NCC) and myself walked to this cute little restaurant like 15 minutes from our school for lunch! They have my favorite dish for $3! Its called “Casado con pollo.” Basically its chicken, rice, beans, tomatoes, lettuce and fried plantains! It’s so tasty and really inexpensive. Its so crazy that I eat rice & beans all the time, but they are really good!
Yesterday (Saturday) was by far my most favorite day! We went White Water Rafting in the Pacuare River and I absolutely LOVED it!! I definitely want to go again! It was SO SO SO much fun! We left at 5:45 AM from Alajuela, and drove for about 4 hours to get there. We stopped 3 times along the way though. Twice to pick
up other people and once for breakfast at this cute little restaurant. We had a typical CR breakfast - gallo pinto, eggs, toast, tomatoes, fruit and coffee. There was 11 kids from NCC and 6 other people who were in this van along with the driver and one of the guides, Mario, whom was hilarious. We went through the group “Nature Adventures.” It is also a group that is big into saving and protecting the environment! They were all really nice people and very experienced so don’t worry! 😊
Then after hours of driving through the mountains, which were absolutely gorgeous we finally arrived. We had to walk another 20 minutes down a steep rocky hill to get to the river. I sure got some exercise on Saturday let me tell you!! It was really hot, humid and so sunny. Finally, after putting on our life jackets, helmets, and getting our paddles, we had a safety lesson! And learned the 5 different ways to paddle! I was SO excited and not even the slightest bit nervous!! We had 6 people in my raft and a guide. Before going I always though that people sat on the inside of the raft, but nope you most definitely sit on the outside edge of the raft!! There are 5 different classes of rapids you can go through, 1-5. We went through class 4 rapids! They were awesome! And we even got to jump out of the raft and swim/float on our backs down the river. You had to float on your back because if you hit any rocks it was much safer going “feet first” because we all had shoes on! At times we had to paddle really hard and other times we would just let the river take us. I loved it so much! And I definitely want to do it again and go on Class 5 rapids this time!!! I think I found my thrill - I know some people like bungee jumping, others sky diving etc. The water was freezing though, but it was so sunny the whole time we were out on the river. After a while I got really used to the freezing cold water! Also on the way there our tour guide saw a sloth in a tree, so we pulled over on the side of the road and got out of the van to look at it! It was so cute and it was a mom with a baby on its chest! Of course it didn´t really move and it was really high up in the tree, but I still got a cute picture of it!
Anyways, today, Sunday, after sleeping for 10 hours, I went to the outside pool nearby my house with a bunch of other kids. It was a beautiful sunny day with no clouds! These kinda days are few and far in the winter especially because it rains every day! It is so hot today, I had to put a ton of sunscreen lotion on so I didn´t burn! Then I came here to the internet cafe with some other kids. Tonight I have some homework to do for class tomorrow. I´m sure I will have dinner around 7pm with my family and probably talk and spend some time talking to them tonight. Also, my brother, Juan Diego, loves to play and talk to me. Everyday he shows my his toys! He´s so cute and I´m so lucky to have another brother, haha! :-)
Hope everyone has a great week!
xo Courtney
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Jessie Luikart
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fun!
hey Court! It looks like your having a blast!! I love keeping up with everything you are doing!! xoxo Take tons of pictures!!!