Hostel Territory

So I've got one week down, and what a busy one it was. So, dang, I guess I'll start with classes. They have been amazing. I've learned a lot in just the five days taken them. My teacher (Daniel) is really cool and nice. He's actually a year younger than me too which is a little wierd. I've gotten a chance to hang out with him outside of class a few times and he speaks really good english when he's not teaching. He doesn't give much homework either, which is nice. The first week it was just me and two others in the class (Anna and Courtney, from Germany and the states respectively) I got to know them pretty well over the course of the week and we had a lot of fun joking around in class.

Outside of class has been fairly eventfull as well. On Monday I met Catalina (A german girl living at the same house as me) who had been away at the beach all weekend. It was really cool because we got into about a two hour conversation about God that night after dinner. Her english is pretty good. Tuesday night I went to a roller dico with some people from the school (there are a lot of Germans here) which was really fun for about 30 minutes then it just felt like skating in circles. Wednesday I went to Wall-E for the second time (first time in spanish though). Good thing there isn't much dialog in that movie. Thursday night was really fun. I debated staying in because I had to get up at 5:45 on Friday to head to Puerto Viejo (more on that later) but finally decided to go to Castro's which is a latin dance club/ bar. There were a lot of people from the school there and I got a chance to make a fool out of myself, meet some new people, and even get some lessons from the locals.

So, Puerto Viejo... that was an experience. I arrived at the school to meet our bus at 6:30 to learn that the only other two guys that were suposed to go had backed out. (one of whom actually still went, just with another group.) So it was me and 6 German girls who, when they remembered, tryed to speak english for me. We arived about 5 hours later and since we couldn't get ahold of any hostels the day before had the task of trying to find a place to stay. The first two places we went to looked very nice, and they must have been because they were full. So we finally found a place just down the road that had rooms available. We decided to stay there for atleast one night, but it was pretty shady. It turns out it was mostly a hang out for stoners, but they were all very nice. There's a lot of rasta culture at Puerto Viejo I found out. The room I was in was just about big enough for 3 beds and that's all that was in there, and not very comfortable ones either. They also had a metal fan spinning about 3 feet above the top bunk where I was sleeping. With out any other real options we headed out for a beach we had found in the travel guide. It was on but there was a lot of debris from trees and stuff since it's the rainy season. There were also several dogs roaming around aparently looking for food. Nevertheless, it was nice to be somewhere warm and away from the rainy chilly San Jose. After returning to the hostel that evening we decided to save some money and make pasta at the hostel's kitchen. That was fun. After scavenging for enough pots and having to go buy plastic plates and forks we were able to start cooking. We ended up making about 3 times more noodle than we needed, but were able to give them to some other people who were cooking there who said they'd use them for breakfast! We then went out to this really cool bar that was all open air (just like everything in Costa Rica) and had live music. The next day went a little smoother. After getting up, packing and doing a couple tricks on the hostel's trampoline we went back to one of the hostels we'd tried the day before and were able to get enough rooms. This Hostel was WAY better. They had large rooms, clean facilities, hammocks everywhere, exotic plants all over, and one room even had it's own bathroom. We then went to a beach at the national park near Limon which was a lot nicer than the beach the previous day. The waves there were the biggest I'd gotten a chance to be in and there was miles of trail in the forest that we explored a little as I was able to get pictures of really cool plants and insects and such. (I get made fun of for getting excited about plants and bugs here too.) That night we decided to spend a little more money and go out to a resturaunt for dinner. most of us ordered wood oven pizza and we enjoyed a live regae band. Needless to say I slept much better that night. The next day we just went to a beach within walking distance from where we were staying which was pretty rocky but had very clear water and was the perfect temperature. We then comenced our 4 hour drive back to San Jose.

After arriving home I discovered that Catalina had her bag stolen at a near by park which contained most of her money and her camera with all the pictures she'd taken. She is alright though and was able to cancel her credit card and have more money sent from home. Later that night we went with Daniel (He and Catalina kinda like eachother) and one of his friends to a classical music concert. All over Costa Rica there is a music festival going on where all the concerts are free. The one we went to was a guy playing the organ at this old catholic church and even though it about put me to sleep it was really beautiful.

So, thus concludes my first week. I started my second week of classes today and have two new people to get to know. I also have my computer at school now so I have internet access to use skype if I can remember to bring my camera/microphone. I'm also working on uploading pictures but facebook is being dumb. Sorry this is so long, but thanks for reading. I miss you all and hope all is well. Later.