Fruit partiesss & some other stuff.

Dia 243, el Jueves 14 de Marzo 9:01

I got two lives.

243 days, is that the time to got a new life? A fully adapted life, speaking a different language and living in a different culture? For me it is. A life consists of a family, friends, more friends, different friends, a culture a rythym and everything you do being normal. The last 2,5 month has been the quickest passing time in my life, it’s undescribeable. And in the meanwhile I still have a life in The Netherlands; my first life. Having this means that I will always be missing people, places and cultures. Missing things is something sad of course, but it means that you have something valuable and I can be happy knowing that. Three months ago my sister asked me if I will miss my Costa Rican friends; I said no. This is totally different now; I will miss my friends so much, not even getting started about the exchange student friends. There is no more sitting bored at home; it is always chilling in the park, chilling before and after Taekwondo practice mountain biking, going to the river or the pool, even better: the beach. Life is just so frigging good right now! And I am so happy!

Dia 248 el martes 19 de Marzo 2013 7:41

Doctor, a bit of Europe and (fruit) partyyyy

Ufff, I finally found some time to write this good ol’ blog of mine. The truth is I have the time because I’m in school now. I just finished a Spanish exam, it wasn’t that hard, if I would’ve studied I might would’ve got a good note, but yeah If I would have. Now, let me tell about the last days.

Last week on Thursday I went to San José with to go to a doctor’s appointment. We got off the bus in the park to take a walk to the park, and there, there my heart stopped for a moment. My wallet wasn’t in my pocket anymore, luckily my brain is pretty experienced in these situation so I directly called to my house to ask for the number of an aunt who was sitting in front of me, but nobody had that. Taxi to the bus station, and there it was my wallet lying on my seat, everybody could see it. It was weird how relaxed I stayed under this situation, even though I had 200 dollars and all my documents in it; it must be the fact that it happened for the 1784^th time and I just take the things how they come, good or bad.

So after the little wallet accident Sarah and I took a bus to Escazu, which is called to Europe of Costa Rica. It’s a suburb of San José where all the rich people live. We went to some shopping avenue to visit to one and only Starbucks of Costa Rica. It was epic to be in a Starbucks again, because yeah I frigging love it. For the interested people: I took a triple shot café mocha with mint syrup with a toffee blondie (o-my-god so delicious). So we spent about 1 hour in the Starbucks, it was an epic Starbucks including English speaking people and Blond hipsters with macs. We walked over the avenue thinking about all the people here who are the ‘1%’ of Costa Rica.  We also stopped at the Lego-store, fuck yeah! Lego is my childhood in a nutshell, and I got so happy being a real Lego-store! After getting declined into the Pricemart we took a bus back to San José and got picked up for the doctor’s appointment. Apparently the bump on my back was coming back and the doctor gave me a small treatment and medicine.

When I came back I ate something real quick and went to the ‘Feria de las frutas’ to meet up my hostbro. This Feria is the big event of Orotina, for 2 weeks long there will be attractions like bumping carts and shit, bull fights, a lot of food, bars, discos and fruit stands, a lot of fruit stands. I only went for a little while because I was pretty tired from the whole day in San José but it was nice getting to know it all.

Friday I didn’t have school so I slept pretty late, cleaned to house and went to the park to meet up with Sarah. We walked around a bit, chilled around and in the evening we went to the Feria again with her and her host brothers.

Saturday was another nice day, in the afternoon there was a ‘tope’ an event of about 500 horses and 1 buffalo walking through the streets of Orotina. When there’s an event to in Orotina the park fills up, the water and fresco selling kids come out of all corners as well as the sate selling guys, by the way they don’t eat sate with peanut sauce her, they’re missing something in life. So this tope wasn’t thát interesting actually, I spent the afternoon with some friends from school watching this thing and a performance of some very fat very guy Mexican singer who sang pretty good and was hella funny.

In the night I went to the Feria again with a friend. We went into all the attractions like the pirate ship and stuff. Something I had never seen in the Netherlands was the ‘tagado’, a circle formed thing with benches on the side on the inside. People sat on the benches or stand in the center while this thing spins around on bumps up and down, no security nothing ‘enter on own risk’ well I did and it was hella funny. As well some time was spent in the bumping carts and that of course is an ‘exito’ as well. We spent some more time walking around and talking on the feria and around 1 it was time to go home.

Sunday the parties continued of course with this day an epic and crazy concert. I went again with some friend, but different friend from last time.  It was crazy alternative Spanish music with first some guy who must be Gotye’s (somebody that used to knooowwww) twin but than on a lot of drugs. He gave a pretty nice show and the around 100 people who showed up had a nice time going crazy to his crazy music. Later another group came with less crazy people but even crazier music. It was an epic concerts and just going pretty crazy for 5 hours. In the night I didn’t go, it’s so nasty from the schools to do the exams so no nobody can go with me to the parties, but yeah I used to free night in a good way, to watch a movie (‘into the wild’ it’s pretty impressive) and I slept late again because I didn’t have any school.

I used to free day good as well; I cleaned to house, cook lunch, went on a small date, had some friends over for coffee, took a nap, went running and in the night I went to the feria again with a friend and I met 2 new friends over there.

Today it’s back to school and I’ll probably end up on the feria again tonight!

Peace, Pura Vida & Love!

just another week in Costa Rica

Dia 233, el Lunes 4 de Marzo 2013 20:44

Mondays...

Last Sunday was relaxed, lunch at one grandmother and coffee at the other one. In the evening I watched the opening ceremony of the Central American Games which are hold in Costa Rica this year. It was a nice ceremony, and it being in Costa Rica makes it even more special. There was some typical dancing, costumes, the athletes walking around, pretty much like the olympic opening ceremony but a bit smaller and less cool; of course. Something which bothered me is that before the ceremony even started there was about 5 minutes of commercials in the form of huge 3D-holograms on the field; Costa Rica is always full of commercials, they probabaly got that from The States. After the show the roof from the stadium caught fire because of firework rests, nobody got hurt so I can safely say that that’s funny!

This Monday was well, a Monday. But I will have a total of 47 Mondays in Costa Rica and actually I don’t mind them that much, and a lot of people would do a lot for 47 days in Costa Rica; especially if they would all be Mondays. This is kind of the part where I need to balance  living the normal life and  day I’ll go with the second. 

So the day went by the following schedule:e

5:05 first alarm clock

5:15 second alarm clock

5:30  third alarm clock

5:37 getting out of bed

5:40 shower still occupied, better pack my bags already or something

5:50 shower free, get in there!

5:57 cold shower finished

6:00 putting school uniform on

6:10  rice , beans and egg breakfast

6:22  brushing teeth and getting ready

6:33  walking to school bus

6:45 schoolbus to school

6:55 meeting classmates and using WiFi of school

7:00 buying lunch ticket

7:10  going to first class; spanish

8:20 first break, better buy some coffee and a sandwhich at the soda

8:50 second class; geography, drawning maps agáin…

9:02 most ugly map every done, talking with classmates about the weekend

9:50 another break, resist not to buy food

10:05 Math classes, suddenly got sad about everything and nothing with any reason, missing    my house, my friends and my family. Didn’t feel like doing maths at all.

10:15 What the Fuck? This never happens to me, why am I so sad?

10:30 willing to go home and sleep, ride my bike and be alone, drowning in thoughts.

11:10 lunch break; suddenly not sad anymore, not at all. Totally got over it, so happy I didn’t go home!

11:25 lunch time: rice, beans and potatoes. The rice and beans were delicious, the potatoes horrible.Kept talking with friends after lunch at the table about random shit.

11:50 washing plates

12:00 brushing teeth again, entertaining a classmate by dancing to trompete music which someone is playing outside the bathrooms while we are brushing our teeth.

12:10 biology class; I love this teacher she’s always nice and funny and writes inspiring sentences on the black board every day. Today’s was: now is a good moment to start being happy.

13:20 another break; ice-cream time

14:10 Civica; the first time of the year, with a new teacher. He looked pretty scary at the beginning being all serious teacher and stuff, he started off with some bad jokes but turned out to be nice after  a while.

15:00 again Geograpy, I don’t really like this teacher, she comes from a private school and treats us that way, which means we have to work.

15:40 psychology class; super epic! I love this class, the class doesn’t have any structure yet but I love the way of thinking of the teacher and I love talking with him.

16:20 school ended, waiting for school bus

16:33 schoolbus arrived

16:50 back home and leaving directly to the center, bought ice-cream for my host mother and brother, and for my self. Also bought marmelade for on bread and picked up my bike from the bike shop.

17:00 sitting in the garden with hostmom and little hostbrother eating ice cream and talking.

18:05 getting ready for taekwondo practice

18:30 going to taekwondo

20:12 arrived from taekwondo, and going to the shower

20:20 beansoup with rice and a cooked egg for dinner.

20:40 getting ready to write blog.

This is pretty much a normal Monday for me, except for the part of sudden sadness and homesickness that almost never happens, but it just hits you when you least expect it. It can be because of somebody making a comment, thát girl not saying ‘hi’ or what ever, it can be anything; I’ve heard of people getting incredibly sad of campfires, as I said it can be anything.

Dia 237, el Viernes 8 de Marzo 21:30

When you can go to the beach, GO!

This week was a bit more unusual as last week, and the unusual is always more fun! It started Wednesday, I got out of school early so I decided to go ride my bike. I rode across all kind of little roads around Orotina which mostly passed by mango farms; always mango farms. It was very nice just to be alone for a while looking at the beauty of Costa Rica and Orotina it self.

Yesterday we went with a few classmates to a classmate’s house in Jesus Maria some village half an hour with bus away. She lives in a very tipical house with a big garden filled with mango trees, there were mangos all over the place. At this time of your there are mangos every where, every where you go you’ll see mangos on the floor, just thrown away, fallen from the trees, and I’m not talking about 4-5 mangos on the floor; no, hundreds!

We first ate some green mango and chatted a while later a delicious lunch was served of Arroz con pollo with the best mashed beans I’ve ever tasted! There also was an delicious chimi-churri and potatoe chips, served with well, you can guess: Coca Cola.

After the lunch we went for a little walk to a big field where there used to be Watermelons. It was extremly windy and we just walked around the field taking photos and having fun. We arrived at the corner of the field and there was a ruined tree hut which probably was somebodies house someday, we used it for photos.

When we came back we ate delicious orange flavour pancakes and I spotted some monkeys, and they were like: ahh, monkeys nothing special; I went to take photos. They also had 2 baby  parrots and they were so so incredebily cute and sweet I hugged them cautionly.

Back in Orotina I met Sarah in the park and we chilled a while in the park. In the night we went to a ‘fraternidad’ an event from the evangelic church where people tell how god changed their lives. There where some insperational stories which gave me a view inside the lives of other people but the part where god helped was kinda vague and me not being religious always makes it kinda awkward. After the event we stood in a circle and everybody said what they needed from god. Instead of asking something from god I thanked the people who helped me in Costa Rica and I hoped that they’ll get the same help and treatment as I got. I still have to think good about god and Jesus and religious stuff, just to figure out what I exactly believe and think.

Today also was an spontaneous day! I had classes until 9 so I called Sarah to go the beach and at 10 we where on the bus on our way to Jaco. We spent the day tanning and playing in the waves. We mostly chatted about the ticos and Costa Rica. An example of something in Costa Rica what drives me crazy: Ticos take to much precautions and worry to much, it just takes to risk and thay way some of the fun out of the life, and sometimes it’s just straight annoying. Did you know that if you come from a bus you can’t eat for 1 hour because if you do that you want have stomach problems later, yeah right? I am then I’ll have stomach problems so what; that still is and will always be a cultural difference. We also passed the souvenirs stores,in one epic but expensive store there was this annoying guy who just didn’t stop talking English while we where speaking Spanish. When I’m in a tourist places I always prefer talking Spanish so the people wont think I’m a stupid Gringo.

Day 240, el lunes 11 de Marzo 2013

W to the eekend!

Who doesn´t love the weekend? And especially when you’re in Costa Rica! Saturday I took the bus early toSan José and met there up with Frida! We went to a nice restaurant to have a good breakfast in a pretty European restaurant; always good to see Frida again! <3. We weren’t really sure what to do but we decided after some doubting to go to Heredia to a Japanse festival there. After a quick busride we met Valentina and Henry at the Japanese festival, so we were all united again. It was so crazy that it is TWO months ago that we saw each other in Heredia, like SIXTY days it seems like yesterday that we were jumping into Valentina’s pool!

The Japanese festival was fun but not like o-my-god fun, there were some stands with Japanese food which was nice and some stands with Anime, Dragonball-z and Pokémon. There were also some sport demonstrations like Sumo, Karate and some eic sword fighting, that was cool to see. Also there were some Bonzai trees which were tuanis as well, but what most mattered is that I got to spent some time with Frida, Vali and Henry again! We ate lunch in an Arabic restaurant where I had some Kebab for the first time in 8 months again which was extremly nice, somehow we always end up eating, always. The busride from Orotina back to San José was pretty horrible since I had to stand for 2 hours and didn’t feel so well after all the food. When I got home there was a small family BBQ so that made me feel better and it was fun, I even ate some carne asada.

On Sunday I went with my hostmom and Sara for a walk over the chompipe, some hilltop around Orotina. It is beautiful walking there, there are amazing villas and you have an amazing view. You can see all the way towards the see, over the gulf and the penisulo of Nicoya. To bad the best viewing point was occupied, but it was occupied but frigging Proffesional Skates with a huge ass half sphere on top of the hill shooting a Commercial for some energy drink, top secret and super serious. It was epic to see it and I got to take some nice pictures of that! About pictures, when I have nothing to do someday which is almost never these day then I wil upload some on my blog!

Vulcano & normal schoolweek report

Day 225, el Domingo el 24 de Febrero 2013 21:09

A vulcano and a tree

It has been a wonderful weekend, again. Saturday was a relaxing day at a pool, we were supposed to go to the river but at the last moment we couldn’t go. Luckily Hernan’s mom guards a pool nearby so we had a private pool for ourselves all day. We spent all day chilling in the pool and eating mangos. It was a very chilling relaxing day.

Today was another epic day in Costa Rica. I woke up at 5 to take a bus to Atenas at 6. I met Julio there, the crazy school librarian. We had breakfast at his house which is full of cool Indian stuff. Later some friends of him picked us up and we set our way to volcano Poás! After 1 hour driving everywhere along the ride there were small stores saying: ‘strawberries from the vulcano’ ‘some other shit, from the vulcano’  I never knew the honey from a volcano tastes better, but well I didn’t try it either. At the entrance I put up a cap and looked the other way while another dude paid so I only had to pay $2 instead of $10; tourist discrimination. There was a pretty modern visitors center and everything which is pretty rare in Costa Rica, but Poás being one of the most visited places does make it logical. The climate was epic, a light breeze with around 18 degrees Celsius; I missed it. We walked about 1 kilometer to get to the crater and there we saw it, the mighty crater of Poás, the biggest in the world cloaked in clouds. We saw just white clouds, no crater nothing. You could smell the gasses and when some clouds went away you could see the volcanic rocks, which looks like the moon but the crater, the crater I never got to see. We took another trail to the volcanic lake, and this one was clear. Wow, it was so beautiful incredible! A turquoise colored lake surrounded by tiny tiny beaches and a lot of green, outer space like plants; breathtaking.

Even though I didn’t get to see the crater it was a beautiful visit to this volcanic, it see gives you a cool feeling, knowing that you are on a volcano. We drove back through a few nice villages and I had a nice view of the central valley. Back in Atenas we chilled a bit and in the afternoon I took a bus back to Orotina. In the bus there were some Canadian hippies, I had some small talk with them but it looked like they started their Costa Rica trip with getting stoned so it was funny small talk. I got off in Desmonte where my family was having a little barbeque, they told we that my hostmom was taking a little walk to I went to same way and found her after 10 minutes.

It was the beautiful road I took a few weeks again going to the mines. Since I was in a good mood I decided to run this road all the way to Orotina and back to my house. The road goes over 2 hill tops so it was extremely hard but it was so worth it, I had to most beautiful and most peaceful view I’ve had in a long long time. It was just me, walking over this hilltop listening to the howler monkeys for away, seeing the iguanas running away and listening to the birds. I could see Orotina, San Mateo, Rio Tarcoles and all the way over the golf the peninsula of Nicoya, which must be around 70 kilometers away. There was a little trail to a viewing point and there it was; the tree. There is a huge tree on a hilltop which I have seen almost every day and I always wanted to go there, and now, I suddenly found it. Seeing this tree was almost as special as seeing the volcano,  (if I would’ve seen the crater probably not, but yeah). This tree just, made me so happy inside, I don’t know why. The rest of the road was just going down, but it was so steep I had to walk carefully, and running was out if the picture at all.     

Dia 231 Sabado 2 de Marzo 2013

A normal school week

It was a nice and normal school week, it passes very quick and I have not been bored at all, which resulted in me not writing my blog. Not writing my blog is nothing bad since it only means that I am probably busing with cooler things. But I will always keep you guys updated, so here is a week report!

Monday:

I think I didn’t mention this yet, so I’ll do it now: because a new year started I also have a new time table, so now it is Monday and Friday ‘basics’; just normal classes and the other days tourism. Even though the classes take around 2 hours each the time flies, while in the Netherlands the 45 minute classes seemed like hours. I’m not the best student in the class, but I have good relationships with the teachers and I am just having fun with classmates, and sometimes, sometimes I do write something down.

Tuesday:

Every Tuesday morning we have to work at the tourism area, which is the camping and trails in the forest around it, the trails got pretty bad in the holidays so we are making them better, these days we are making stairs; it’s working hard but watching monkeys while doing it makes it better.

Wednesday:

This day I had free from school and decided to go to school on this day, fuck logic. I didn’t go to my own school though, I went to the public school of Orotina. Everybody on that school has been telling me for months that their school is so much better so I decided to give it a visit. I met Sarah who is on that school and we walked around the school a bit. Yes, it is bigger, and with way more people but it doesn’t have the same vibes as San Mateo, so I still stick with my point that my school is better.

I also met up with Francisco a friend from Taekwondo and I went with him and his class to the farm their school has, and yes this is way, way bigger as well; it is huge. We drove with a tractor for a few minutes and in some field the students did some work while Sarah and I walked around, I used to go to place like this on holidays sometimes, just going farmland.

Later we went for ice cream; the heat has arrived. It is really hot now during the day but not like I-am-dying hot. It’s funny that the ticos are always complaining about the heat while they live in it for years, and I feel kinda used to it.

In the evening I went to ride the bike of my hostdad which I fixed. And damnn it’s so good to ride a bike again, I love it. I went to the same road where I usually run and there I met Chino’s brother Abrahama nd a friend of him, we rode about 12 kilometers through the hills, rested at his house and at night I was tired, the taekwondo practices from the days before had also been hard. My taekwondo is going very good by the way, I managed to kick some which was 2 meters from the ground!!

Thursday:

In the morning we had tourism but we used those to sell food, currently there is kind of a food war going on in my school ( no not throwin food, we are civilized ( kind of)). I am in the sixth year now and we have to gather money to pay the graduation party and ceremony. So every week we sell food in the school: little plastic bags of ice tea, mango, ice and we made a lottery. It is inspirational how everybody is so motivitad to work to pay the graduation. In the afternoon I didn’t have classes but I didn’t know until 1. In the meanwhile I went to the classroom of the other half of my class who have agro-industria. We played domino and chilled a bit.

Friday:

Again normal classes, on Friday we also havo English and I become a good friend and assistant of my English teacher. Nine hours of normal classes isn’t that bad at all, time flies and I enjoy every moment while I’m in Costa Rica. Always ‘basilando’ (kidding around) in school and having a goodtime; love it. After school I bought some cookies to celebreta the weekend and went to the house of an aunt to drink some coffee.  Taekwondo was fun at night and I really feel and see progress.

In the night there was a ‘party’ at the MaxiPali which opened in Orotina, a big supermarket. I went with Sarah her host brothers and some friends to see whats’up. It turned out to be that the event was during the day but we had fun walking and being crazy in the supermarket, supermarkets will always be this place to have random fun for me. We ate some stuff we bought outside on the empty stage and chilled in the park a while.

Saturday

Today I went to the river with friends from taekwondo, we also went to the MaxiPali and walked pretty far through some fruit farms to arrive at a spot in the river. There was a big rock in the middle which we used to jump from, furthermore it was a lot of basilando and eating. It was an and memorable day at the river.

The last weeks I really got to know the ticos better, I sink deeper and deeper into the culture. I understand everything they do and think, and I do the same. I have serious conversations with them, give dating advice, get dating adivce and I am having fun all the time, just with people from such an different culture. Sinking deeper into this culture means I am getting further and further away from my old culture, and going back will be more and more difficult. There are 3 months left now, and I know that these 3 months are going to be the best, with every day getting better and better.