So it might be a little harder than I thought to have a complete Pura Vida attitude, but there are many things that help me through it...

So today was the day that I started thinking too much. I guess I knew it would happen, but I just didn’t know when. It has been raining pretty much constantly here in Liberia, and I’m really not too great with a lot of bad weather. It frustrates both me and my very large hair. It’s the rainy season here, but apparently during this month it especially rains a lot in Liberia (where I am for orientation).

After Spanish class during which I, as usual, made a fool out of myself, we had Costa Rican dance class where at least everyone made fools out of themselves and possibly myself a little less than some people. Then, Stacy’s (a girl here from North Carolina) host family picked her and me up from the University of Costa Rica to go to the beach. I, like the brilliant individual I am, was wearing a bathing suit and a dress and brought a towel even though it was pouring and did not bring my camera. I have yet to take a single picture. But I did bring my lovely purple rain jacket my wonderful father bought me. We went to three beaches which were beautiful. Oh, and as can be assumed, they would have been much more beautiful if it wasn’t raining.

Stacy’s host family consists of a 17 year old girl Stephanie and two parents (there is an older brother who is a dentist who works all day) and at the beach her parents bought us something called a “copo” which has shaved ice and milk and flavored syrup and was delicious (I know I know I ate milk but I figured it was a plato tipico and I needed to try it and I was really hungry because I’m used to being fed huge quantities of food here and I hadn’t eaten lunch-only a huge breakfast and a snack-clearly not enough). So then we went to this canopy place where tons of gringo tourists go to zipline through the rain forest. But we went to see the monkeys and the snakes. Which made me sad because I never liked zoos and seeing animals in boring cramped little cages when they never did anything to deserve it. But then we GOT TO HOLD THE SNAKES. And it was really REALLY cool and the snakes were smooth and you could feel their muscles and they could bend their bodies in super cool ways while you were holding them! So I liked it more then. And then they asked us if we wanted to hold monkeys. And I didn’t want to seem like the wimp I am who is kind of freaked out by monkeys because they’re too smart and too nimble and too much like humans except they have the sense not to talk. I feel like they know everything, and they really like to mess with us. Anyway, I went into the monkey’s cage with Stacy and this man who was probably on his luna de miel (honeymoon is the same in Spanish!) but first we had to take off our rings and bracelets and hair ties because monkeys will steal things (again, because they really like to mess with us). They’ll even go into your pockets and take things! And then monkeys jumped on my head and tried to go up my dress and felt me up and cleaned my scalp and it was seriously so weird but really cool (don’t worry fam, Stacy brought her camera and there will be pictures on facebook). And one monkey even took out one of Stacy’s stud earrings and put it in his mouth! I have no idea how he did it or how we got it out. And it’s so weird because all of us on the trip only speak Spanish to each other and everyone else even when people speak English.

 So I had a lot of fun, but I was getting that blechhy feeling all day like I get when I haven’t worked out in a day slash it’s raining and I got kind of homesick and was really sick of the rain and wanted to talk to someone easily without having to work so hard to know what to say. And then I was questioning myself like should I have gone to Costa Rica at this time of year? And is this too much of a culture shock for me? And then I couldn’t even recognize my house when they brought me back and it was really pathetic and kind of hilarious because my sense of direction has hit a new low. But we called my host brother and we found the house. Then everything got better because I found a way to get exercise! When I got back I asked my host siblings if they wanted to play Frisbee in the park even though it was drizzling, and we had so much fun! They got so much better in the mere hour we played for. I taught them how to catch and how to do “up” calls and everything! And we returned with all of us really dirty and really sweaty, and I still had monkey juice in my hair. I did some conditioning exercises in my room (typical…), told my host mother that I would of course eat some dinner, took a shower, then ate rice and beans and squash stuffed with vegetables which I covered in picante which I am now OBSESSED with even though I thought I didn’t even like spicy food. Then I talked to my host mom for an hour about the love lives of her previous host daughters and how I plan to bring home a Tico boy (just kidding Mom…actually, maybe not?) and about her trip travelling the United States through US AID and how through all of her trips to the states she still doesn’t know English and has no desire to and we looked through old photo albums and talked about the prices of college (here public is FREE and private is $400 a semester! Es loco!) and of real estate and it was really nice and I understood everything she said! And I think she probably understood most of what I said. It was a really nice ending to the day, and now I’m still a little homesick, but I’m feeling good about everything. I think I just need time to adjust. It’s weird how much more open space there is here but how much less there is at the same time-between the houses and in the streets and everything. I think that’s what’s hardest for me to adjust to. I probably expected everything to be on huge chunks of property, with tropical vegetation surrounding everything, but it’s definitely different…Vamos a ver que manana llevara…Wow, that all made much more sense in my head. When I read through it it sounds ridiculous and super scatterbrained, but I guess that’s how my mind works. Sorry about the run on sentences and the lack of paragraphs and my awful attempts at being funny…