The last post.

Day 327, El miercoles 5 de Junio 2013 23:30

The last days.

vandaag is dé dag, niet meer over 8 maanden, niet meer ow nog 4 maanden, niet meer pas over 1 maand, niet meer een paar weken, ook niet een paar dagen. vandaag is de dag, vandaag vertrek ik naar het mooiste land op aarde voor het beste jaar van me leven, en dat zal ik nooit meer vergeten. Ik zal jullie missen, for the greater good..

This is this exact text I wrote 327 days ago. In English:

Today is the day, no more ‘in 8 months’, no more ‘oh still 4 months’ no more ‘one more month’ no more just a few weeks, neither a few days. Today is the day. Today I leave to the most beautiful country on earth for the best year of my life, and I will never ever forget it. I will miss you for the greater good.

Right now I am 327 days further and again it isn’t months, or weeks, or days anymore. But besides 327 days further I also got further in my life.

Actually I don’t know what to write. I have thought about this moment so much. So many inspirational texts have circled through my head the whole year. But actually I don’t know what there is to say now. There are now words to explain what an exchange is. Nobody can ever understand an exchange until you have gone on one. And when you’ve gone on one you can barely understand your own, and understanding somebody else’s exchange is impossible. So many things happen in one year, even though when you’re not on an exchange. Imagine what happens when you live in a different country, a different culture, family, friends, different everything; nothing is the same. Besides all this a year has also passed and a year is a lot of time. This year has changed me a lot, I can’t describe how and what, but I know it, I feel it.

I could continue telling you how much I loved Costa Rica, how much I’ve learned and how much I changed  but as I’ve said a million times before; it is impossible. I will keep the stories for in The Netherlands to tell them and show them the photos.

I will only leave you guys this poem I just wrote, as last post from Costa Rica.

Ella está viendo mi espalda                                              She is looking at my back,

Ella tan bonita ahora esta tras de mi.                                She is so beautiful, behind my now.

Costa Rica mi hermoso país,                                             Costa Rica, my beautiful Country,

Costa Rica, Costa Rica, Costa Rica.                                   Costa Rica, Costa Rica, Costa Rica.

Ella no puede ver adelante,                                              She cant look forward,

Por que ella ya pasó.                                                       Because she now has passed.

Orotina, mi bella Orotina,                                                 Orotina, my beautiful Orotina,

Orotina, ese lugar tan tranquillo                                        Orotina, this place so chilled.

Ella esta llena de recuerdos,                                             She is full of memories.

Ella es tan linda.                                                              She is so beautiful.

Costa Rica, me enamoré de ti.                                          Costa Rica, I fell in love with you.

Tica linda, me enamoré de ti.                                              Cute Tica, I fell in love with you.

Ella me enseño todo,                                                       She teached me everything,

Ella me dío la vida.                                                             She gave me life.

Orotina, El parque, el río,                                                 Orotina, the park, the river,

Orotina, me esperarás?                                                    Orotina, will you wait for me?

Ella me cambío,                                                               She changed me,

Ella me hizo.                                                                   She made me.

Costa Rica, playas y bosque,                                            Costa Rica, beach and forest,

Costa Rica, Ticos y pinto.                                                 Costa Rica, Ticos and Pinto.

Ella por siempre en mi corazon,                                        She for always in my heart,

Ella por siempre en mi mente.                                             She for always in my mind.

Orotina, Batidos y mangos                                               Orotina, smoothies and mangos,

Orotina, mi hogar.                                                              Orotina, my home.

Ella soy yo                                                                      She am I,

Yo soy Ella.                                                                     I am Her.

Costa Rica es mi,                                                             Costa Rica is me,.

Costa Rica es todo.                                                          Costa Rica is everything

Adelante está lo demas,                                                   Ahead is the rest,

Adelante es adonde yo voy ahora.                                       Ahead is where i am going now.

Costa Rica te amo,                                                          Costa Rica I love you.

Costa Rica te extrañaré tras de imaginación.                      Costa Rica I will miss you beyond   

                                                                                 imagination.

Orotina te amo,                                                               Orotina I love you,

Orotina, siempre estarás en mi corazon.                            Orotina you will always be in my heart.

The first Piñata of my life!

Dia 325, el Lunes 4 de Junio 2013 18:54

Unexpected birthday party!

About 7 months ago I went to this birthday of a faraway cousin. There I spoke with some aunts about how I have never had a piñata in my life. ‘We will make a party for you, with a piñata’ was the answer. I told them that I would love it, but I didn’t really think it would happen; that’s how the ticos are. Now about 7 months later I smashed a piñata; it is so fucking awesome! I am taking the ‘piñata’ part of the culture back to The Netherlands for sure!

My last Sunday in Costa Rica was very nice; it gave me a very warm feeling. I started the day with packing my bags a bit, something which should be a sad event but it wasn’t that sad. I arrived in the state of keeping in all my feelings and emotions; who knows when these will come out? I do everything brainless I think. Later on the day I chilled in Orotina with Yuli and Vero, having heaps of fun and as always, just chilling.

In the late afternoon I headed to the house of Aunt Maira, a sister of my dad. There there were a lot of people, way more as I expected. I was told that we would eat there as a goodbye but they organized a huge party for me! Every uncle, aunt, nephew, cousin I ever met in Costa Rica was invited. Most of the uncles and aunts I know good but there also were some faces I kinda remembered from the big family party we had in January. First I drank coffee with tortillas, a good old tradition I always did at this aunt. There was a beautiful birthday cake and a piñata. It turns out that I did get this piñata they told me about 7 months ago. Besides my goodbye part it was also a forwarded birthday party. It was such a nice birthday party; the best part of all was that it was so unexpected. There was this beautiful birthday cake and smashing the piñata was so much fun, people will never get too old for that. I also got loaded by gifts, something which was even less expected. Now I got with enough souvenirs back to The Netherlands!

Last saturday: working on organic market!

Day 323, Sunday 2^nd of June 2013 8:27

More goodbyes.

Friday I returned to school after a week of absence and I always love coming back to my school again. The school day was pretty normal, I got the photos of the photo shoot we did a few months ago. I gave a lot of my friends a small photo to keep with them as a memory, I also wrote all small texts on it; it made loads of memories come up.

In the night there was the goodbye party of taekwondo. All my friends, all the little kids, and all the parents of the little kids arrived at the party and quickly the salchichon and the carne asada was being prepared on the grill. On the meantime I put on my taekwondo suit and the teacher awarded me with the blue belt, there was no exam I showed enough the day before when we were practicing. The rest of the evening I spent talking and chilling with my friends of taekwondo. They are very good friends and I can talk to them about everything; I didn’t really expect to find such good friends here.

Taekwondo has become a really big part of my life here, and my life in general. A new a sport was not on my ‘to-do-list’ or in any of my plans. But it was a very god decision to do it, and I am very thankful to my friend Chino for that. Taekwondo opened a new world for me, in never considered Martial Arts something for me but now I know that it is for everybody. Taekwondo made me more secure and gave me more self-confidence. But most of all it is importance that it gave me friends. Note for my-self: you want friends? Get into a sport. I hope I will be able to continue with taekwondo in The Netherlands!

Yesterday was a very different day, full of unexpected and fun things. In the morning I went to Jaco with an uncle and my hostbrother, this time not to surf, no this time to work. My uncle goes every Saturday morning to an organic market in Jacó in I asked him to help him. It was a very nice and small organic market, but the amount of gringos which arrived was incredible. My uncle sold top-quality organic products such as mangos, papayas and avocados. I went to past amounts of souvenir stores to buy souvenirs to bring home. Later we went past playa Hermosa to see a surf tournament but that wasn’t really something.

In the night I went to a video game tournament in a private in Orotina to chill there with some friends. I didn’t participate but had fun with my friends there. There were some people from my school with whom I didn’t really talk that much but I did this night and I think that they could be really good friends of mine, to bad I have only 4 days left. That is a feeling I have been living for the last days: ‘what the hell does it matter?’ I am leaving in a few days so why should I care about this or about that? These thoughts go away after a few seconds of logical thinking, I don’t want people to remember me as some kind of douchebag and I really care about the people here. 

The last tour.

Dia 321, el Viernes 31 de Mayo 2013 16:31

The last tour.

Something what I wanted to do was traveling in Costa Rica, and I did it, way more as I could even imagine. After all those tours, trips and mini-holidays I had my last one this week. It was a self-service EF-tour.  EF booked a hotel in Samara for a cheap price and the rest was our business; a perfect way of doing cheap trips I think.

The trip begun, just like some other trips in Valentina’s mansion. After some searching I found the mansion and I was welcomed by Vale her nice family again. We went to a big mall, pretty much just to go there and to eat. The eating was completed pretty well and we filled our bellies with international snacks. I haven’t been to malls that much but I don’t care about that so much either. In the evening some friends of ours come over at the mansion to chill, we spent to night in the pool, we ate pizza and we watched a movie, and as always; we chilled. It was a nice and easy night, too bad it was also the goodbye to some fresh but already very good friends.

The next day we took the bus from San José to Samara, we didn’t buy tickets so it was standing up for 5 hours again. The bus ride was bad but not thát bad, we switched sitting down on the floor with standing up and after a tiring 5 hours we arrived in Samara. We got installed in our hotel, and we headed straight for the beach. It was a nice afternoon swim on the for west end of the beach so we didn’t see that much of the beach yet. We ate our dinner in a cheap ass soda and the price indicted the quality. We spent the rest of the evening hanging out in the pool. It was nice to catch up with some old friends again with whom I pretty much lost contact during the year. It is amazing to share our stories like this at the end of the year.

The next day was the first real beach day! Samara is a very nice beach; it is a nice bay with a 3-4 kilometer long white-sand beach. The town looked pretty touristic, more touristic is I expected actually. But it is low-season so the amount of tourist was okey.  We got settled at the beach after a nice pancake with maple syrup breakfast. We wanted go surfing but the waves were too small so we decided to do kayaking; a very good decision. The kayaking was great; we set the route out along the beach, past the reef and to the island. It took us a bit longer as we expected but after conquering the big waves we arrived at the post-card island. At was a perfectly white small beach with loads of tiny crabs. We rested for a few moments but we went back quickly to arrive on time to return the kayaks. After the kayak tour we got pretty hungry so we headed for cosechas to fill our tummies. Soon it started raining and we headed back for the hotel and there we chilled in the pool while it was raining.

It kept on raining for ours so after waiting for ours we decided to call a cab to go to a restaurant. We found this place where it was ‘Taco Tuesday’ and well, you can’t say no to that. While waiting for our food it was still raining and the water level was raising so much that the employees started to get the water in front of the entrance away with some buckets so it wouldn’t enter the restaurant. I felt like helping them because they were working for us, in the streaming rain (going from the kitchen to tables and back was outside) and now that had to do this as well. So after 5 minutes of watching them I took my shirt of, grabbed a bucket and started helping them under laud applause of the other guests. After 15 minutes of working like a horse my tacos were ready and I rested, soaked by the rain and I enjoyed my lovely tacos. Later Vali, Henry, Emilie and me went to another restaurant while the other went away to the hotel. Here we ate some nice patacones in peace, escaping the chaos of the big group.

The last day already arrived very quickly and that day was used in a good way. We hired some bikes and went to playa Carillo on bike. It was a a nice bike ride and the beach was even nicer, way nicer as Samara for sure. It was a smaller bay with perfectly white sand and sprinkled with palm trees. The best thing about the beach was that it isn’t urbanized at all. There were a few small houses and that’s it. No resorts, no hotels, no nothing there was only a small pulparia. Those are the beaches that I love most, the small quieted and deserted beaches. We chilled a while on this beach, we took some group photos and we went back before it would start to rain. Back in Samara I went to the art store and I got a henna tattoo. I have been thinking about a tattoo even before coming to Costa Rica and I always wanted to bring a memory with my from Costa Rica, to remember it forever. A henna tattoo only last 2 weeks though but I’ll probably make it for real when I am in The Netherlands again. I got ‘Tuanis’ and the inside of my left foot, Tuanis means good and chill in the Costa Rican Spanish; it symbolizes my year in Costa Rica.

The rest of the day we chilled around the hotel and in the evening we went out to eat again, we found a nice restaurant and ate in peace. It was a nice and relaxed dinner; it was the last dinner with my two best friends Henry and Valentina as well. We stayed in the restaurant for long talking and when they were closing up we decided to go back to the hostel. We stayed up really late talking and finally fell asleep for a short night of sleep.

After this short but strength regaining sleep we rushed everything and we got to the bus. Here it was time to say goodbye to Henry, Henry if you read this: you are a really good bro and I will miss riding the brollercoaster so much, but we will ride again my friend, we will ride again. Later on in the bus ride it was time to say goodbye to Valentina. It was very hard saying goodbye to her for the second time since we thought we said goodbye one week ago. Vale if you read this: I love you a lot and I am thankful for all our adventures together, I will miss you a lot!

And that was my last trip, it was a very nice and relaxing trip, a good way to say goodbye to some of my friends. During these days my double feelings about going home kind of flipped over and now I am very excited about going home soon, I actually can’t wait! I will love to see my family and friends again, my house, my city, my culture, the food; everything. It is all waiting for me! I accepted it, my year is over and it has been epic. The best I have done in my life for sure! There is nothing to compare with it. I know I will be very sad about leaving when the moment is there, and when I will be in The Netherlands, but for now it is just enjoying!