A light at the end of the tunnel

So close to being done! One more week left. This past week and a half has been work work work and only a little bit of play. Seeing as our final report is due at the end of the week and we have presentations on Tuesday, there was not much room for slacking. So I don’t have much interesting to talk about (unless you would like to know the ins and outs of my project, which I would be happy to share). We did have another trip to Sámara which was amazing as usual, a lot of paper writing, a little bit of hammock laying.

The one fun thing I did do this week (besides having my advisor take me our for ice cream, can you say sugar cone, double scoop, dulce de leche and galleta YUMMM!) was, (brace yourself mother) ROLLER SKATING! It was so much fun. I went with Hillary and we held hands the whole time (how romantic). Hillary is not the most experienced skater so it was fun watching her run over little kids (… unless she was aiming for them, which is quite possible lol). I have included a video of my little endeavor… Enjoy!

xoxo Almost home!

Happy Thanksgiving!

(11/28/11)

It was a six hour bus, fairy, bus ride so when we arrived in Montezuma, we found our hotel, checked in, and looked for a place to eat. We found a little Italian place that half the group thought was too expensive, but we decided to go anyway and got the deal of the day. It was a yummy cheese personal pizza and an amazing mango smoothie for only 1500 calones or about 3 dollars. Can you say steal? And it was sooooo good.

After that we laid on the beach for a little, jumped in the pool overlooking the ocean for a little then got ready for dinner.

Thanks to two guys, Thanksgiving was saved. Turkeys were cook and potatoes were mashed. We all came together for a big group dinner and it felt, for at least a little bit, like we weren’t so far away from home.

 In Montezuma, half of the group stayed at a hotel while the other half rented a house. The hotel (where I am staying) is absolutely beautiful; Right off the ocean with a swimming pool and a view to die for. It is also right next to town, which isn’t too bad either. Our Thanksgiving dinner however was held at the house (which none of us knew where it was) and we had to find our way there. So two boys said that they would come meet us at the hotel because there were too many turns to the house to give directions and cell service doesn’t work up there. We waited for twenty minutes and the showed up, very very sweaty. We thought it was because they had ran to get us, but once we started up the path to the house we completely understood. It was some serious San Francisco hills going on. At least four large (and I mean steep and large by my standards so you know that’s serious) hills we had to go up. By the time we reached the house we all (especially me) looked like we had decided to pour water on our heads because we thought it would be entertaining. We were seriously soaked. But that didn’t stop the party. We wiped off the sweat and dug into the guac while the boys finished our amazing meal. 

(11/29/11) 

I was up and at ‘em bright and early. A few of us decided to go zip lining since we had not been able to go yet since in Costa Rica. The zip lines were amazing and half way through we stopped at a waterfall that we were able to jump into for a quick refresher. Then we zipped back to where we started. I was great. Here is a quick video that pretty much sums it all up.

xoxo

If swimming is such a good workout, explain whales

Today (11/23/11) I only had to work a half-day so I was happy about that. I got out of work at 11 and met up with Hillary to do a noontime run. But the moment we were going to head out it started pouring. The thing about being in a tropical place is that it is storming one minute (legit cats and dogs) and then clear the next. So we decided to head to the University where we run and then wait it out. When we arrived at the university (about a 3ish minute walk) we waited for a few more minutes then decided to just go for it. We ran a mile in the pouring rain, and when I say pouring I mean pouring, there were times when I couldn’t keep my eyes open because the water was coming on so strong. Little to say when we got back (even though we ran another two miles without the rain) it was hard to tell whether we had gone swimming or running. But it was an interesting experience. 

Soaked...
After this I went to this really cool café place and got an amazing Chai and Hillary had a delicious sandwich. The windows were lined with mosaics and there were cool pictures on the walls, it was a nice place. We then returned home and I went to sleep (yes it was only about 5:00pm) it’s been a few tiring days back to back. The rest of my night was pretty routine, some laundry, some eating, some TV, and blog writing (DUH).

Heading to Montezuma tomorrow for Thanksgiving! I hope you all eat well and eat a lot!

xoxo

Internet Silliness

Unfortunately I had no internet access for a little over a week, and then when I returned to my hotel I found that I no longer get internet in my room. So let me just say I have been a little lazy when it comes to posting, so I will be posting things that I wrote last week and will eventually catch up. So if I say things like looking forward to Thanksgiving... you know why.

Enjoy ;)

Thanksgiving #1

It is every kids dream to have their favorite holiday twice a year, let me just tell you, my dream just came true. If you couldn't tell by the title of my blog I love food (come on it says Food Endeavors right there), so you can imagine my excitement when i find out Thanksgiving is coming, full force, twice this year. Tonight was (as seen in the title above) Thanksgiving number one! And it was amazing. My advisors planned the whole thing for the entire group, and they supplied the turkey and desserts and each room was to bring in a side dish. My room (I) made corn, and was delightfully surprised by my newly found corn cooking skills (not that it is a hard dish or anything but I was impressed). I cut the corn off the cob, boiled it in salt water for a little and then melted butter and garlic powder in a pan and coated the corn. It was crunchy and buttery and garlicy and delicious.  At 6:00 we all headed downstairs excited for this feast and it was more than worth the excitement. I would love to go through everything I ate but this would then turn into a novel and all that turkey is making my eyes heavy so thats not going to happen.

This amazing picture will just have to do.

Besides all of this excitement (my tummy is so happy!), today I ran a quick two miles, worked from the hotel so I got to be a little lazier, and did an aerobics class at lunch which was an interesting experience. it is already interesting enough to take workout classes in spanish, but every one else in the class seemed to be a regular and so I got a lot of questions about where my name was from, where I was from, I even got an applause for being new to the class. But the teacher worked me hard. After my class I worked more on my project and then cooked my corn, and you know where it goes from there (stuffed my face). 

Thats all she wrote for today, and man oh man am I gonna sleep good tonight!

Uvita

This past weekend we got friday off so we headed out bright and early for Uvita. The cool thing about this place is that the coast is shaped like a whale's tale. It is really hard to explain but I am going to try. Because of the shape of the coast, the beach has a place where the ocean crashes into itself. Like I said, really hard to explain, but it looks like there are two shores fighting each other. It was trippy, I felt like I was in Inception. We spent both Friday and Saturday on the beach and both days by the afternoon it started poring raining. The first day we walked back to the hotel once it started, but the second day the boys were still busy playing ultimate frisbee so we stayed through the storm. As we were sitting there we started getting cold and had the brilliant idea to warm up in the ocean. It was definitely against my intuition, but it worked. The ocean is so warm here that we played in the waves as it rained cats and dogs above us to stay warm. At the beach on Friday we met a dog that the girls named Charlie and the boys named Carlos. Charlie/Carlos followed us all the way back to our hotel (a good mile walk) and kept us company till the Saturday afternoon. Even when we woke up the Saturday morning he joined us for breakfast, he was a good little buddy with a broken tail (poor Charlie). Besides this, we stayed at this cute hotel that had lots of hammocks and cool hanging lamps and themed rooms. I stayed in the Bob Dylan room which entailed lots of posters of Bob Dylan everywhere. We ate a delicious meal of pork ribs, beans, cole slaw, and home made bread at the hotel on our last night (sooo good). And we all woke up bright and early to catch the bus home, only it was 40 minutes late, arriving at 5:40 instead of 5:00 am so a few of us may have laid down in the parking lot and fell back asleep... (I might be included in this few... face down, knocked out... maybe). It was a good trip, a whole bunch of fun and a whole lot of sun.

Rest In Peace Anthony Lee Franklin

On this day five years ago my life was forever changed. I lost a friend, a brother, a mentor, an inspiration. I gained a fire. Anthony Lee Franklin’s battle with cancer ended Monday, November 20^th 2006. He had beat it into remission twice before, but he was finally given some time to rest. At the age of 22 he had touched more people with his warm heart and bright smile than most and he did nothing less than amazing with any and all opportunities that were presented to him. If you want to learn more about him google his name and be amazed at what he managed in his time here. 

As much as I hurt from this loss, and trust me it is the most painful thing I have ever been through and I still continue to go through it everyday, I will not let the impact that Lee has had on my life go in vain. I have spent most of this day crying and wondering why he had to be taken, going over all the times that I could have used his brotherly love over the last five years. Imagining hugging him one more time, hearing him say Diva and make fun of me just one more time. But as I sit here listening to Beyonce with my sore eyes and this large knot in my throat I was pushed back into reality. Watching and listening to Beyonce sing I was here made me remember this fire one more time. I will not let Lee’s footprints on the sand of time be washed away. I will live and succeed in his memory. I will make a difference in this world as he did. I will be remembered as he is. Losing him hurt but he touched my heart and I will take the light he gave me and touch as many hearts as I can in my time here. I will continue to tell his story because his light is so bright that even in death he makes a difference in people’s lives. I am holding on to this and I am taking this fire, this passion for good, for life. I will take the perspective that Lee’s death gave me and I will share it. I can’t say enough how much I miss him everyday, so I will show him through my actions that I still feel him holding my hand on this journey. 

On that Monday five years ago I stood at the foot of his bed, watching his lifeless body, as his grandfather/best friend said to my mother, “He loved that girl”. It is my mission to show him everyday “I love you too”.

I Love You

My Cultural Essay

Hello Again! My internet was so bad last night I couldn't even get to my blog page :( .

But Anyways, I had to write a paper about my experience with the Costa Rican culture and after I wrote I figured I might as well share! So here is my paper I hope you like it.

My time in Costa Rica has been a major eye opener. It is my first time out of the US, not including Canada, and the first thing I noticed and loved was that there was very little English. Seeing the signs that say Alto instead of stop and the billboards in Spanish made me feel relief. In the US everything from our history books to our news is all about us, and it’s nice to know that there are places in the world where not everything is all about us. As I have spent more time in Costa Rica, having everything in Spanish still makes me smile, but I have also learned that my Spanish skills need a lot of work. I find it really stressful trying to communicate when shopping or simply walking around especially since people commonly mistake me for Tica and try to talk to me like I am fluent. I am working on being more confident in what little I do know and just hoping they understand that I am still learning. That is one barrier that I have found I have when trying to get to know Costa Rica better.

On the other side, on place where Costa Rica and I seem to completely agree (to the point where I may never leave) is food. The food here is absolutely amazing and I find that I can’t get enough. Everything they cook is so fresh and my addiction to avocados is easy to appease. I love trying everything that I can find and anything I am offered, even foods that I would normally say no to, I am seeing how I like them. I have decided that before I leave I need to learn how to cook at least one full Costa Rican meal. Beyond the meals I have also found a love for their beverages. I love the freshness of their juices and their té frío is delicious, my weakness specifically is the melócoton, yum.

Besides food, one part of their culture that I also adore is the way that they open their homes to people. As we were surveying the town of Torito, almost every house we went to we were invited in and told to take a seat. I could never imagine that happening in the US. If someone asked me to take a survey I would likely say no, and if I decided to take it, it would most definitely happen at my front door, on the porch. As well, our sponsor has shown us much kindness. Letting us stay in his beach house, feeding us, and making sure we were always comfortable. This even applied during our first meeting with him where he made sure that we were supplied with bottled water because we hadn’t had time to get used to the tap waster. And our sponsor’s father also treated us to a coffee break where he supplied us with books on Costa Rica, some homemade snacks, some guava juice and gave us some guayabitas to go. Their hospitality is something that I hope to learn from and carry with me.

I also quite enjoy their driving. Being a pedestrian is definitely scary but I have to say I’ve always thought our way of thinking about driving was a little backwards. It doesn’t make sense to me that pedestrians should be able to walk around carelessly when, if there is an accident between them and a car they are the ones who get hurt, its always made more sense to me that pedestrians should just watch out. And although it has been difficult to get used to, deep down it makes me happy that if you are stupid enough to get in a cars way you will get hurt. I know that sounds bad but it is the truth.

So far not only am I currently thoroughly enjoying Costa Rica, to the point where I am almost sure now that the moment I get the chance I will be out of the US for at least the next few years, but I am learning a lot about myself in the process.

Working hard or hardly workin'

Well hello again! Let me just start by saying that my arms may fall off half way through this so excuse me if my blog just stops. To explain, I started my day off with my two mile jog and an extra mile of walk/sprint/jog combination. And tonight I went to the gym again but this time did a kick boxing class, hence the reason why my arms feel like soggy noodles. Not to mention that after class I did my little arm exercises (not my brightest idea).
Now back to the rest of my day. Pretty boring, lots of work, lots of writing, and lots of eating fruit. I did buy a pretty awesome toe ring that I am excited about and that is that.

I miss my family and friends and I can't wait to see you guys soon!
xoxo

(Sorry it is not more exciting friends)

Staying on track

Today was a good day (Ice cube style lol). I was up at 6:30,  and running (or should I say a snails jog because I run like a sloth) by 6:45. Two miles thank you very much. Got back to the room around 7:something and took a nice shower. Then I did my hair. I found a girl on youtube who had a way to do naturally curly hair. Really easy, basically just put in some conditioners and heat protectant and mouse and blow dry with the diffuser thing. It took me like maybe 10 minutes and I absolutely loved my hair today! I am so happy :). I worked from 9am-5pm, which was boring. But I did pack some food and had an interesting time trying to eat my plain yogurt out of a gallon size ziplock bag. I'm silly. Today, for the first time, my group and I decided to take the bus home. First we walked up to a bus in the middle of the street that said "San Pedro Mall" (Our stop) on it and tried to enter but the guy said no and pointed ahead of him. We didn't know what that meant so we decided to try and find a different bus. After lots of wandering, we finally walked the way the man had pointed and found the bus stop, silly us. So we loaded on the bus and besides missing our stop making us walk an extra 10 minutes back to the hotel (lesson learned) everything went smooth. After work I scarfed my dinner of broccoli, brown rice and boiled eggs and headed to the gym. At the gym I worked my abs and arms and I think I might be dead when I wake up tomorrow. lol. Well that is my boring day for now!

Nighty Night!

A weekend in San José

I was supposed to go to Tamarindo with every one else but unfortunately my ticket was bought too late and they were all sold out. I am secretly thankful. All of this running around has been a bit overwhelming and I really needed some time alone to collect myself. I spent all of Saturday in bed, literally. Watching tv and being on facebook, it was a day of nothing, much much needed. And today (Sunday) I am finally catching up with everything. Had a nice run at 9:00am, cleaned my room, got my grocery list together, paid my bills, FINALLY caught up with my blog (whew). Its been a nice productive day. I plan to go grocery shopping and cook a dinner of brown rice, chicken and vegetables (nice and healthy). From now on I will be trying much harder to post something every night... We'll see! I miss you guys and I want to give a shot out to my Alpha Phis for having an amazing recruitment and getting 38 new baby phis! Yay!
xoxo ♡