nuevo ano!

Day 165, el Miercoles 27 de Deciembre 2012 11:38

Time to let go..

I think it is time to let go, a point in my exchange where I let go of my culture, and become a full part of this new and interesting culture. I already adapted to this culture but that means that I adapted my culture to live in their culture. Letting go of that part of myself is essential to be in this culture, to make it my own. I only got half of my exchange left, and that is scary, so scary, I don’t know where the time went; I feel like that I could have used it better sometimes and that is a good motivator to make the best of the time that I have left.

Letting go also means that I will eat everything, to everything I can do to live this culture no matter how contradicted it is to my culture, because if I will do it enough times I will make it my own.

This inspiration comes from an e-mail I got yesterday from my sister, who just finished her exchange in Toronto. It was an beautiful e-mail and it made me think about my time here. My sister will come here within 2 weeks; that as well is a weird-ass feeling. I am very happy to see here again, to travel with her and to chill, happy just because we will be reunited a lot of stories to tell for sure. That by the way, is also something a lot of people tell me: ‘you will have so much stories to tell’ and that is so true, but I have no idea what I should tell people, maybe I don’t know that just because it is not describable in words; I’ll show time pictures since pictures tell more as a 1000 words. But I do not feel like  need to see my sister, I miss her, I miss all my of my family but I do not NEED to be with them, I would be nice but not necessary. But I know for sure that seeing my big sister again will be one of the best feelings of my life and that the weeks she will be here will be awesome, and that it will give me a huge boost for me, for my exchange to finish those last 4 months which will rest me by then. 

Day 167, el Viernes 28 de Deciembre 2012 15:25

Where did my condition go?

‘Go on a exchange, and you will get fat’ they told me. Well I am Bram and I never get fat, I will always be a skinny boy. But I did lose my swimming condition. Yesterday I went to the river with some friends, we chilled, cooked and a campfire and threw ourselves with a rope from trees. Some of my friends where crazy good at it, doing all kind of tricks and stuff, I swear they are half monkeys or something. Anyways, I swam 100 meters through this river and I was tired, damn I’m going to have a hard sumer next year getting my waterpolo condition back. But who cares, I am enjoying now, and I got running shous for X-mas so that’ll help.

In a few minutes we are going to the beach, my family always goes to the beach in the afternoon, probably because the mornings are used for cleaning and you can’t go to the beach just after you ate lunch ofcourse. Ticos really are like that: ‘you just ate a sausage you must rest for atleast 30 minutes before you can do anything’.

I figured out that this year will be the laziest of my life, I just relax, go to the river, the beach or some even cooler trips all around the country. It will be very hard to go back to the real life.

Day 169, el Domingo 30 de deciembre 2012 11:08

Family barbeque

The beach last Friday was cool eventhough it was the ugliest beach  have even been on in Costa Rica. The beach ws actually the secondary activity, the main activity was the BBQ. We went to Caldera beach, the closest beach to Orotina. It is a small beach next to the main highway and a big harbor, there are no waves and it is very undeep, so not my favourite beach. But besides that it was a very nice evening. We went with my family, my aunt, uncle and cousin and the neighbour we is distant family as well. We swam a bit and played a bit soccer before the BBQ. The BBQ was pretty much the same as every BBQ except for the fact that it was on the beach so that makes it more special. At Costa Rican BBQ there are 3 main things, Carne asado, Sal Chichon and coca, supported by tortillas. Salads are not in the discussion but tortilla chips wit beans dip is always welcome. Furthermore it was telling stories and eating a lot. After the BBQ we had a ‘light globe’ a sort of lampion which flies into the air when you light it, pretty cool. we had the same 3 years ago in Belgium on chirstmas holiday, a very epic holiday by the way with the best Iglo ever! So this light globe brought up some memories but they weren’t homesick-memories, they were happy memories.

After the BBQ we went for a swim again, this time with more people. I played around with my little host brother and the little neighbourhod kid. Now I can be the seamonster instead of running away from it, somewhere I didn’t feel really comfortable doing it, I still don’t really know where the border lays for me as ‘big brother’.

Yesterday I finished my application for the university, so now let’s hope for the best so I can have the 3^rd part of my life secured.  I went for a run later, I decided to start a running programm here to get a better condition for both Taekwondo, and waterpolo. That way I wont be a bag of bones when I come back. Also I got the good new that my brother bought or hired a house in The Netherlands. That means that I will get his epic room, that got me pretty excited! But later a realised that our childhood really is over now. A time I can look back to really happy, I could not have been any better. Let’s hope I look back the same way in 5 months to my time in Costa Rica.

In the evening I went rollerskating with my hostbrother. It was nice, not that nice but nice. It was ‘disco night’. But it was mostly just riding in circles, well that’s probably what it is all about then. A did notice the niceness of the Tico’s again. I bumped into somebody on accident and I was like: ‘o shit’ I hope he isn’t mad, but he just said: ‘Tranqui mae’. In the Netherlands people would probably start a fight or something. I think I got used to the niceness of the Tico’s; that will be a hard time when I’ll be back in the ‘rough’ Netherlands’. 

Other good news, I dreamt in Spanish! I dreamt about a candy mountain climbing contest with some if my Dutch friends but we spoke Spanish! I now master Spanish in every aspect, goal achieved.

 Day 170, el Lunes 31 de Deciembre 2012 13:22

The last post of the year

Yesterday was a good day! I didn’t go to any beach or river or something cool like that. I just got another confirmation that taking initiative pays off. I called my good friend Chino f I could come over to his houe and I could! I felt kind of awkward to invite myself like that but I had a good day because of it!

There were some cousins of him in the house as well and they were very nice, they come from Panama City, since I don’t know anything about it asked a few questions and came to the conclusion that I defenitly have to go there, maybe not during this exchange year but later in my life. We gamed all afternoon, I haven’t gamed for 6 months so it felt good to do it again, but it also made me miss my Dutch friends for one of the first times.  It felt really good doing something normal with friends again, being a normal teenager in a different country. I also realised that I really have another life her now. Later we ate lovely home-made burrito’s and we watched Argentinian opera comic which actually was funny.

Day 171, el Martes 1 de Enero 2013 13:35

Año Nuevo!

Feliz año nuevo! Happy new year! Gelukkig nieuwjaar! My best wishes for everybody in my three lovely languages.

New years eve was very nice! I did not except the have so much fun at a party were the avarage age was 50. The party was in Santa Rita, a tiny village on the country side of Costa Rica. It was a pretty tipical house including old-school coffee grainer and some chickens on the loose. First the party was kind of boring and I just played with the music installation. Later there was some improvised crazy theatre which was extremely funny, and some people were like: ‘you must think that our family is crazy’ I replied with no thinking about my own dad dancing in a pumpkin suit. There was pork leg with rice and vegetables for dinner. Tico’s don’t really do big dinner’s where everybody sits around a big table and doing all fancy and stuff, no it is just plastic plate on the lap on a tipical chair made out of plastic wires (I’m sitting on one right now). After dinner and my second cup of coffee a got a energy-boost and started dancng salsa with my aunt with some switches to Gang-nam style and party rock anthem. Later the karaoke set came out and ofcourse I was there to sing the English songs. At 12 we listened to the radio, we all stood in a circle but we didn’t count down or anything. When the moment was there everybody shouted out into nothing and started greeting each other, the weid thing was that most people were crying! Then we stood in the circle again, now holding hands and an aunt said a blessing, I never knew New year also includes a blessing.

After 12 I get a bit boring again but after one more cup of coffee I got my energy back and started dancing again. I still have to learn a lot about dancing but I think I can learn at least the salsa within the 5 months that rests me.

NYE was very special, I will never forget it. Christmas didn’t make me feel a big part of the family but this evening certainly did!