In case you were curious about this huge change, it's because I got mugged last Sunday. YES, I know, AGAIN. My luck is awesome. Two guys followed and snuck up on Lauren and I two houses down from ours and grabbed us from behind. It didn't register to me that they were robbing me, I thought they needed help at first, but then once I realized he wasn't letting go of me, I threw my coke in his face. I went to kick him, but kicked the asphalt first (I now have no skin on my big toe), and fell down. Yay now I'm on the ground too, part flailing part fighting. While this is going on, Lauren smacked the other guy in the face with her purse, then threw her purse so they would go away. Thankfully a motorcycle was coming up, so they were satisfied with just one purse and ran. Unlucky for Lauren though, because it had the house keys and gate clicker in it, plus it was a nice gift from her boyfriend. :/ So, now the both of us are pretty over the whole "you're gringas and you have a huge target on your backs" thing. We were lucky though, and it could have been way worse.
That aside, I haven't updated in a looonnggg time! Mostly because I have been turning in my final work and papers for my internship (I have one more thing to do and then I get to just hope and wait!!) and because one of those weeks was Semana Santa (our spring break). As you know, my mom came and visited, and I had planned a trip for us to jetset all over the country! I am proud to say, the whole trip went off without a hitch. I even forgot my passport once, and didn't have a copy (well I didn't think I did until I got home and found one unpacking! Haha) but that even went smoothly. We didn't miss any flights, we saw everything we planned (and more!) and we had a few adventures along the way. I think the most fun things for me were staying in the treehouse in Montezuma, going ziplining at Arenal Volcano and Lake, and discovering La Fortuna's crystal blue jungle waterfalls. The scariest thing was flying in a little, teeny-tiny twin engine through 2 huge storms in which the weather was so bad that I saw little splashes of water/rain/hail coming through the cracks into the cabin!!! We also landed in some pretty tiny airports, even one that had runways that literally ended on the beach and others that had only a pavilion to wait under. We saw monkeys and iguanas and toucans, and went on a pretty cool jungle hike around Arenal Volcano too. The best beaches were at Montezuma, and we enjoyed collecting shells that got caught in the tidepools. We had a great time, and I'm glad my mom could come visit me and see why I love traveling as much as I do. My mom even got addicted to the Tico breakfasts here, Gallo Pinto, which is basically rice and beans with fried eggs! It sounds gross, but it's really, really good! I'm also glad she got to meet Oky, my host mom, so that she knew I was in good hands. And since "pictures are worth a thousand words" and since I don't want to write a thousand words for each of the gajillion pictures we took, you can check out the pictures in my Facebook album here:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.3304606406236.2136749.1000260093&type=1&l=a50dd15a60
Kelly and I also went to Volcan Irazu last weekend, which turned out to be super pretty. Luckily, we got there early. Irazu is Costa Rica's largest and highest volcano, and in the morning, we were ABOVE a blanket of clouds! The whole crater was clear, and you could see the little turquoise lake in it SO well! The water is full of minerals that make the crater lake bright blue, but the color is said to change with the weather! Kelly and I said it was like Mother Nature's mood ring haha We were lucky to be there on such a clear morning because after the clouds came in early afternoon, you almost couldn't see 10 feet in front of you. The landscape was barren, with barely any trees, and the soil was only volcanic ash. There was a fence with several signs telling you not to cross it, but we couldn't resist. We got some amazing pictures, and we climbed way back on the side of the crater where you weren't really supposed to go, but we went anyway because we saw other people doing it (I know, I know, "if you saw other people jumping off a bridge would you do THAT too?" Yes, maybe, if the bridge wasn't too high so hush). We were then notified by two guys with us that there was a park ranger's truck waiting for us at the fence. Surely, a country like Costa Rica that has basically no police force wasn't going to get us in trouble for crossing one little fence. Nope, they didn't, the guy just basically told us we were stupid and to get on the other side of the fence. Haha the pictures we snapped are in this album:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2713345305078.2125129.1000260093&type=3&l=f911e8c988
Now off to Dominical with Nurse Jessica this weekend. Dominical is known as a small little surf town on the south Pacific full of surfers, hippies, artists and "do-nothings" according to Lonely Planet, and it sounds like paradise. I have wanted to go there SO BADLY and I'm glad we are finally getting a chance. We will be flying in with Nature Air Saturday morning early, spending the weekend, and then shuttling back Sunday afternoon. I hope to take surf lessons or maybe just rent a board Sunday morning if the waves are not too big. It should be a good weekend, and don't worry, I won't take so long to update about my travels this time. :) I just hope I don't get stuck there like I think I will haha To all my Ecuador/ISV friends who went to Montanita, I left a little piece of my heart there and I have high expectations that this will be a place just like that.
Now that everyone is updated on my travels, I should probably write about the final weeks of my internship. The week after Semana Santa, I gave up teaching Language Arts, which I was happy about because it's my least favorite subject. I was nice to have one extra period of free time too since I was still teaching all the other subjects. This week, I gave up Math since we were starting a new unit and MAN I am not happy about that. Monday it was cool because I needed a little break after a stressful weekend, but now I'm so BORED!! Today is my last day doing all the little things like handwriting, spelling, etc, so next week I am ONLY teaching ONE lesson on Africa, and then we are practicing for the Africa Fair on Friday. Then next weekend is my last weekend, Monday is my last day at school, and I fly home on Tuesday. Wednesday is for catching up with my wonderful friends, Thursday is for running errands for graduation, Friday Kamden comes home, Saturday I'm taking pictures on campus, and Sunday is graduation and grad party!! So I guess I won't be bored for long! I can't believe I graduate in 2 weeks!!!
The rainy season has officially started here. It decided to start on Monday, and everyday now it is beautiful and sunny until about noon. Then it gets cloudy, starts thundering around 1:00 or 2:00, and starts pouring from 3-5ish in the afternoon. Go figure since I sent my rain boots home with my mom last week.
Well I hope you enjoy the pictures, and I'm sure I will update about Dominical soon now that I have no life haha See you, USA, in 10 days!
PURA VIDA,
Jessica
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