How do we feel about purple? This Friday after lunch I met up with Cory, Anne from my Spanish class, and Allie Po from New York in the Plazoleta and off we went (in a super sketchy cab) to the Coca Cola station. While waiting for the bus to Montezuma (we were first in line so we could get the back row seats with more leg room) up rolled Chelsi and Amalia, followed by Alejandro and Austin and Justin and Andy.... and all of a sudden there were about 15 ISA kids at the bus station. I had kind of been looking forward to a low key weekend at the beach but familiar faces are always a welcome sight. The bus was about 3 hours to Puntarenas where we got on a ferry that reminded me of the car ferry to Nantucket. 2 busses later we finally arrived in the tiny town of Montezuma at about 9. The hostel we planned to stay in was full so we wandered town until we came across ¨La Tucan¨ where we found beds in double rooms for $10 a night. The pizza place was the only one still serving so we hit that up and then hung out at the beach in front of the only hopping bar. The streets were full of hippie tourist types and vendors selling wooden, leather, and hemp jewelry. I decided maybe I could make a living here making friendship bracelets. Not all that appealing because the town was definitely a little seedy at night, the guys said they saw some people shooting up behind a bus. Saturday we found a cute little breakfast place and I had banana pancakes in honor of Molly. We beached it for the morning which was nice and relaxing but the sun was SO HOT we had to swim early and often. Chelsi, Amalia, and I hiked up a cool river to a waterfall where we could go swimming and climb up the rocks and jump off, and ran into a bunch of the guys while there. It was nice to get out of the sun for a while. We got a loaf of bread and some fruit at the corner store for lunch and walked around to a nearby beach to see the sunset which was dumb because it set over the land but it was a nice walk and we took some pictures anyway. We made plans to meet back for a bonfire after dinner. Hostel number 2, ¨Hotel Lys¨was really funky and cool and when we got back there a girl with dreads was playing a djembe drum and I made friends with a girl from Israel who had brought poi which she let me play with. It made me miss my Nobles days a little bit. The grocery store yielded yogurt and fruit for dinner and then everyone wandered down to the beach where Aaron and Justin had started the bonfire, complete with driftwood seats on all sides. It was a really fun relaxing evening of hanging out and chatting and the stars were amazing until about 8 when the moon rose. I think we were all tired from the sun because someone asked what time it was and we all assumed somewhere around midnight but the reply was.... 945. Oops. My small group decided to take the 730 bus on Sunday instead of waiting for the 230 which we later found out was the right decision, the others missed their connecting bus and had to take 3 hour cab rides from Puntarenas.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
La Fortuna, Hot Springs, Arenal Volcano
hi team. i'm not sure what's going on with the pictures from the Arenal weekend but hopefully i can get that sorted out in the near future. i'm also having trouble with capitals and punctuation on this keyboard, my apologies. friday after class [this is now 2 fridays ago, sorry] i went to the mall with kniccoa, yocelin, and elena and we bumped into a bunch of other isa kids who said they were going to the jazz cafe that night. we decided that sounded cool so after dinner we called a cab and off we went to this really cool funky jazz club with incense and blue lights on this incredible band.. i'll have to go back. if you're ever in the san jose area, go to the jazz cafe in san pedro. it's worth the 2000 colones to get in the door.
saturday morning we met the isa bus at 6 in the morning and off we went on our adventure. the first stop was in zarchero ? at this amazing sculped park/garden place with a beautiful church. took lots of pictures even though we were still groggy. the sculptor is famous here and was given an offer by disney but turned it down to work on the garden to support his church, according to paulo. the next stop was breakfast, where we had pre-ordered pancakes or eggs and gallo pinto. i went with the pancakes and had the most amazing hot chocolate i have ever tasted. as many of you know, that means a lot. my spanish professor tells us the hot chocolate here is milk with sugar and pure cocoa mixed in a big metal pitcher with a whisk. i'll have to take a lesson. then we got back on the bus and a few hours later arrived at la fortuna, a waterfall in which i believe is near monteverde. we climbed down 400 steps to an amazing waterfall [see the pictures] where everyone went swimming. i feel like here in costa rica we get the 'best of' album of beautiful and cool places. 400 steps back up and we had all earned our lunch. poor amalia forgot her water bottle at the bottom and had to do the climb twice! i sat next to staysha on the bus and we had a nice chat. that afternoon we pulled into our hotel 'los lagos' and to our surprise the sign said RESORT AND SPA which was very exciting. it was a beatiful place but the architecture left something to be desired... my architecture professor max tells me the arenal area is the example of what not to do and the reason that architecture in costa rica is going green. after checking in we all piled back into the bus [i was sick of the bus by now] and went about 10 minutes down the road to the baldi hot springs resort which is this crazy unreal place with layers and levels of hot springs pools with waterfalls and waterslides and all sorts of crazyness and some of the water is too hot to go in but other places were okay... it was all very overwhelming especially because the 'look' is nowhere near natural. it looks like layers of cement pools. how strange. the water felt nice and the swim-up bars were fun [it might be a good thing i hadn't brought any money, glasses of water were fine for me]. it was nice to relax for the afternoon/evening after such a long day on the bus. we ate dinner there and then headed back to our hotel, everyone was exhausted. that night a bunch of us sat out on the porch of one of the rooms watching the volcano. we could hear it rumbling like thunder but all we could see was a red glow through the clouds at the top. meanwhile, fraser made friends with a bird by whistling back and forth, it was some good live entertainment in leiu of spewing lava.
sunday morning was sunny and beautiful and the hotel breakfast was stellar. garrett and i caught a cab over to the arenal volcano national park and had a nice hike -more horizontal than vertical- to a lava field with a great view where we met up with a bunch of other isa-ers who had left a little earlier in the morning. we could hear the volcano hissing and spitting rocks, which then tumbled down the sides. que chivas. when we got back to the hotel we had just enough time to jump in the pool and test out the water slide before climbing back on the bus for another 7 hours of joy.
saturday morning we met the isa bus at 6 in the morning and off we went on our adventure. the first stop was in zarchero ? at this amazing sculped park/garden place with a beautiful church. took lots of pictures even though we were still groggy. the sculptor is famous here and was given an offer by disney but turned it down to work on the garden to support his church, according to paulo. the next stop was breakfast, where we had pre-ordered pancakes or eggs and gallo pinto. i went with the pancakes and had the most amazing hot chocolate i have ever tasted. as many of you know, that means a lot. my spanish professor tells us the hot chocolate here is milk with sugar and pure cocoa mixed in a big metal pitcher with a whisk. i'll have to take a lesson. then we got back on the bus and a few hours later arrived at la fortuna, a waterfall in which i believe is near monteverde. we climbed down 400 steps to an amazing waterfall [see the pictures] where everyone went swimming. i feel like here in costa rica we get the 'best of' album of beautiful and cool places. 400 steps back up and we had all earned our lunch. poor amalia forgot her water bottle at the bottom and had to do the climb twice! i sat next to staysha on the bus and we had a nice chat. that afternoon we pulled into our hotel 'los lagos' and to our surprise the sign said RESORT AND SPA which was very exciting. it was a beatiful place but the architecture left something to be desired... my architecture professor max tells me the arenal area is the example of what not to do and the reason that architecture in costa rica is going green. after checking in we all piled back into the bus [i was sick of the bus by now] and went about 10 minutes down the road to the baldi hot springs resort which is this crazy unreal place with layers and levels of hot springs pools with waterfalls and waterslides and all sorts of crazyness and some of the water is too hot to go in but other places were okay... it was all very overwhelming especially because the 'look' is nowhere near natural. it looks like layers of cement pools. how strange. the water felt nice and the swim-up bars were fun [it might be a good thing i hadn't brought any money, glasses of water were fine for me]. it was nice to relax for the afternoon/evening after such a long day on the bus. we ate dinner there and then headed back to our hotel, everyone was exhausted. that night a bunch of us sat out on the porch of one of the rooms watching the volcano. we could hear it rumbling like thunder but all we could see was a red glow through the clouds at the top. meanwhile, fraser made friends with a bird by whistling back and forth, it was some good live entertainment in leiu of spewing lava.
sunday morning was sunny and beautiful and the hotel breakfast was stellar. garrett and i caught a cab over to the arenal volcano national park and had a nice hike -more horizontal than vertical- to a lava field with a great view where we met up with a bunch of other isa-ers who had left a little earlier in the morning. we could hear the volcano hissing and spitting rocks, which then tumbled down the sides. que chivas. when we got back to the hotel we had just enough time to jump in the pool and test out the water slide before climbing back on the bus for another 7 hours of joy.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Weekend 2 Photos: Zarcero, La Fortuna, Baldi Hot Springs, and Arenal Volcano
Sculpted park in Zarcero by Don Misael Solis Alvarado
The park was in front of this church, to benefit the church.
Arenal Volcano by night
Hike to the Volcano
This artificial lake is to prevent development near the Volcano
We could hear it hissing and rumbling, and the rocks falling down the sides
Crash Party
¡Fiesta a la Plazoleta de Veritas!
Slightly (read "very") awkward at first, but better once they finally got music going. After dance class we filtered out to the "Crash Party"... lots of gringos mingling with gringos and Ticos mingling with Ticos. Go figure. All the gringos had midterms for Spanish classes the next morning - Friday - but some braved the Imperials to break the ice. Luckily by the end I talked to my first few Ticos, a nice girl Mercedes and her friends, and some guys with dreads, Eric and Leo and Daniel without dreads. And some little guy Carlos who doesn't go to Veritas.. not
sure where he came from, or why he was there, but he was nice if not a little clingy. The wierd thing is it's now Wednesday and I have yet to see a single one of my new Tico friends at school. Where are they? Who knows. I had a good time dancing. Rosi the dance teacher
facilitated a little, especially when the Creolo Suin ("swing") came on and we only knew one step which we
repeated over and over. Oh well. Not many of the Ticos would agree to dance. Familiar to the guys at home. In the middle all of a sudden we heard drums approaching and in the gates came a whole bunch of drummers and belly dancers and a guy on stilts. The beat took over and everyone joined the conga line before long. It was pretty cool and reminded me of Junkanoo at the Island School. It was also a good ice breaker because you didn't have to interact with anyone to enjoy the show.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Monday, January 14, 2008
Monteverde
Hola a todos! Still can't figure out how to do the upside down exclamation point on these keyboards.
Friday afternoon all the ISA students (pronounced EE-sah here) climbed on a giant green Mercedes bus to go to Monteverde, a cloud forest. For about 5 hours we bumped along (the last hour and a half was REALLY BUMPING ALONG with no paved roads) with a very odorous bathroom smell and watched movies and the mountains out the windows. Garrett later told me he saw 5 monkeys on the way - I should have payed more attention. We stopped at 2 rest stops for less smelly bathroom breaks and some got ice cream, etc. I had bought a snickers earlier which I thoroughly enjoyed. When we finally rolled into Monteverde in a cold misty rain we stopped at the supermercado where Paulo told us we could but "soda" for cheaper than it would be at the hotel, so everyone stocked up for the weekend. 30 Minutes later we were at Villa Verde, our adorable hotel which had a main building with a dining room and office and then a bunch of bedrooms surrounding an interior grassy courtyard featuring an open-air room with ping pong and some benches. It was FREEZING. PTL for long johns. We braved the cold for a little while socializing and playing around the world with music courtesy of Calvin-the-party-saver's ipod speakers, and then went to bed.
6:30 am brought a VERY cold shower (I don't think I stayed in it long enough to really call it a shower) and a delicious breakfast con muchas frutas. First on the docket was a Canopy Tour: a series of ziplines where you go whizzing through the treetops and over valleys putting all your trust on a reinforced gardening glove as a brake. The end of the tour was The Tarzan Swing. I consider myself pretty gutsy on ropes courses and such but my heart literally almost stopped as I free-fell and waited to hit the bottom of the rope and start swinging. I think that's what bungee jumping is like. Don't worry, I took some videos which I will have to figure out how to post - Elena from Boston let out a good scream. After the canopy tour we headed back to the hotel and by this time it was beautiful, hot, and sunny. Garrett from Oregon, Kniccoa my housemate, and I decided to follow the signs for a waterfall and took a little hike (about 4 miles?) down a very steep hill (not sweet on the way back) to a lookout point which was gorgeous and in the distance we could see a waterfall - oops. Worth it either way, I took lots of pictures. Back at the hotel a bunch of students were laying out on the grass enjoying some sun and relaxation, which we promptly joined. It was nice to finally have some down time to just chat and get to know each other. At 5:00 a smaller group of us met up to go on a night walk, where our guide pointed out lots of cool plants, some monkey-like animals, a TARANTULA (I'll post a picture, don't you worry), a snake, and a giant ant hill. I mean giant. Like 3 or 4 meters high, it looked like an actual dirt hill with a bunch of little holes and if you listened carefully you could hear thousands of little ants scurrying around in there. The bummer of the trip was that my favorite blue bandana fell off my head somewhere in the night. Oh well. Dinner was more fruit and rice and beans and chicken and sausage and vegetables and mashed potatoes..... and don't forget the fruit smoothies. So many smoothies. I made friends with Melvi the smoothie guy because I asked for so many banana ones. That night a few of the Ticos who worked at the hotel brought out a real sterio and pumped the reggaton and we had a serious dance party, practicing our moves from last week's dance classes! We were all sore the next morning and I don't think it was all from the hike. En la manana we hiked around a bilogical reserve in the Cloud Forest which was SUPER green and pretty. I walked with Stacia from Tennessee and we took lots of artsy pictures and tried to speak only in Spanish. I've been attempting that but it's hard because people here are of so many different speaking levels, most people talk a lot in English. The bus ride home was long but good, we all needed some rest. Traveling to see another place was really cool, but the best part of the weekend was getting to know more people and learn more names - our group is over 50 people so it's a lot of new faces!
Today is the first day of classes for the Tico students. School is crowded and I'm a little intimidated. This Thursday we have a "Crash Party" for the whole school which they say is a great place to make Tico friends - let's hope!
Thanks for reading, and keep me updated what you're all up to! You can also "comment" on my posts, I think the button is below.
Hasta pronto!
Eleonora
Friday afternoon all the ISA students (pronounced EE-sah here) climbed on a giant green Mercedes bus to go to Monteverde, a cloud forest. For about 5 hours we bumped along (the last hour and a half was REALLY BUMPING ALONG with no paved roads) with a very odorous bathroom smell and watched movies and the mountains out the windows. Garrett later told me he saw 5 monkeys on the way - I should have payed more attention. We stopped at 2 rest stops for less smelly bathroom breaks and some got ice cream, etc. I had bought a snickers earlier which I thoroughly enjoyed. When we finally rolled into Monteverde in a cold misty rain we stopped at the supermercado where Paulo told us we could but "soda" for cheaper than it would be at the hotel, so everyone stocked up for the weekend. 30 Minutes later we were at Villa Verde, our adorable hotel which had a main building with a dining room and office and then a bunch of bedrooms surrounding an interior grassy courtyard featuring an open-air room with ping pong and some benches. It was FREEZING. PTL for long johns. We braved the cold for a little while socializing and playing around the world with music courtesy of Calvin-the-party-saver's ipod speakers, and then went to bed.
6:30 am brought a VERY cold shower (I don't think I stayed in it long enough to really call it a shower) and a delicious breakfast con muchas frutas. First on the docket was a Canopy Tour: a series of ziplines where you go whizzing through the treetops and over valleys putting all your trust on a reinforced gardening glove as a brake. The end of the tour was The Tarzan Swing. I consider myself pretty gutsy on ropes courses and such but my heart literally almost stopped as I free-fell and waited to hit the bottom of the rope and start swinging. I think that's what bungee jumping is like. Don't worry, I took some videos which I will have to figure out how to post - Elena from Boston let out a good scream. After the canopy tour we headed back to the hotel and by this time it was beautiful, hot, and sunny. Garrett from Oregon, Kniccoa my housemate, and I decided to follow the signs for a waterfall and took a little hike (about 4 miles?) down a very steep hill (not sweet on the way back) to a lookout point which was gorgeous and in the distance we could see a waterfall - oops. Worth it either way, I took lots of pictures. Back at the hotel a bunch of students were laying out on the grass enjoying some sun and relaxation, which we promptly joined. It was nice to finally have some down time to just chat and get to know each other. At 5:00 a smaller group of us met up to go on a night walk, where our guide pointed out lots of cool plants, some monkey-like animals, a TARANTULA (I'll post a picture, don't you worry), a snake, and a giant ant hill. I mean giant. Like 3 or 4 meters high, it looked like an actual dirt hill with a bunch of little holes and if you listened carefully you could hear thousands of little ants scurrying around in there. The bummer of the trip was that my favorite blue bandana fell off my head somewhere in the night. Oh well. Dinner was more fruit and rice and beans and chicken and sausage and vegetables and mashed potatoes..... and don't forget the fruit smoothies. So many smoothies. I made friends with Melvi the smoothie guy because I asked for so many banana ones. That night a few of the Ticos who worked at the hotel brought out a real sterio and pumped the reggaton and we had a serious dance party, practicing our moves from last week's dance classes! We were all sore the next morning and I don't think it was all from the hike. En la manana we hiked around a bilogical reserve in the Cloud Forest which was SUPER green and pretty. I walked with Stacia from Tennessee and we took lots of artsy pictures and tried to speak only in Spanish. I've been attempting that but it's hard because people here are of so many different speaking levels, most people talk a lot in English. The bus ride home was long but good, we all needed some rest. Traveling to see another place was really cool, but the best part of the weekend was getting to know more people and learn more names - our group is over 50 people so it's a lot of new faces!
Today is the first day of classes for the Tico students. School is crowded and I'm a little intimidated. This Thursday we have a "Crash Party" for the whole school which they say is a great place to make Tico friends - let's hope!
Thanks for reading, and keep me updated what you're all up to! You can also "comment" on my posts, I think the button is below.
Hasta pronto!
Eleonora
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Good News
First good news is, they're letting me take Tropical Design and Architecture as an independent study. Looks like I will be getting major credit. Classes started yesterday and already I feel like I've been in my Spanish class for a week - probably because it meets for 4 hours a day, ouch. My midterm is in 2 weeks, how crazy is that? Intro to Drawing is fun so far, our teacher Jim is from New York and is funny and nice. Both of these classes are only about 7 people which is very nice. Intro to Latin American Tropical Dance is taught by Rosi, a hilarious Tica dance enthusiast. That class is big, like 15 people, and will include night field trips to Discotheques and a Salon de Baile. It will be a combination of dancing and theory, learning about the history of the dances and the music associated with them. I'm pretty excited. Last night we had the first of the free dance classes, also taught by Rosi, which was attended by pretty much all of the ISA students. It was a total blast. We learned Merengue and Salsa and everyone was SUPER into it, I think because they know they can use these moves at the clubs at night. The guys had trouble with Salsa but I think we'll do a lot of Merengue because it's pretty much just walking while switching your weight from one hip to the other. This weekend we have a trip to Monteverde, a cloud forest area. They say it's going to be cold. Uh oh. I've finally taken some pictures!
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