we're counting down from five...five, four...oh, she jumped already....

So I have now come to understand that my extreme angriness and frustration of the past week/few weeks over so many things here is simply a very regular stage of culture shock. I am now thankfully past that stage and once again appreciating the beautiful country I am in, understanding that it clearly has flaws as do all countries and that it’s doing pretty damn well for a developing country. I always get really intense about things when I have extreme emotions, and this time it led me to message everyone I know in Europe, complain about my life, tell them how an experience in Europe is truly what I imagined study abroad to be like, and demand that they give me every last detail about their experience. While still retaining the desire to travel to Europe, I have since returned to my original mindset of believing that being here is great for me-for the language element, the nature element, a greater understanding of the simplicity of life and the issues that this world must face together. And while it is hard to find many of my passions in common with people here, I have so much to learn from them-how to be simply satisfied with life, how to be more easy going, how to be open and friendly and warm, how to be generous. Anyway, this is truly a rollercoaster ride of emotions, but I guess that’s what it’s supposed to be! Lists!

1. I went bungee jumping today. WOWOWOWOWOW SO scary and so much fun!!! It was at a place with the first jump in Central America and for a while the highest. I think it’s still rated among the top ten in the world because of the height and the view-about a 200 foot free fall. It’s also super safe-20 years, 40,000 jumps, and not one accident. That didn’t seem to comfort the parents when I told them haha. But apparently there were famous people jumping with us! I found this out when this group of children came up to the two most beautiful people in the group and asked for their autographs-apparently they’re on this show on channel 6 here where there are teams and they compete in all of these silly contests. And I got creepy pictures of them! Because that’s clearly better than asking to take one with them. Because I think the concept ofbeing famous is dumb anyway
2. My host family is the cutest. Today they had a party at my grandma’s for a cousin that was going back to Germany to study. My host uncle made inappropriate jokes and danced around while the women sang karaoke to super old American songs-from the 50’s and 60’s and 70’s and 80’s which was really entertaining because in the background they had the artists slash music videos and the effects and the videos and the hairstyles were great.
3. I went to a trash pick up organized by the university in Heredia on Friday. Wow, was that ridiculous-it is ABSURD how much trash there was. And the quantity of cigarette butts. Yummmm. But I met this French woman who has been living here for several years and her husband works for the UNA and she cares a lot about the environment and was telling me how hard it is for people to recycle here and how disorganized things are and how hard it is to organize them. Like to recycle they can bring stuff once a month to the central park or they can drive like 20 minutes to drop it off. But many people don’t have cars. Or big enough spaces to store things for a month…
4. After receiving gloves from the trash walk that I should have returned I concluded that I could finally pick up trash on my way to school like I had dreamed of doing…so this morning on my way to meet my friends to catch the bus to go bungee jumping from 6:30 to 7 am I walked through town wearing one glove and picking up trash. Upon arriving at the meeting place with a bag filled with trash my friend was like “dude, we’re going bungee jumping, why did you bring so much?” I was like, “I didn’t, I was just picking up trash…” he looked at me like I had nine heads and a beard. The best part was bringing a bag full of trash I found on the street on the half hour bus ride and then wandering the streets with it until I found a place where they had separate bins for different recyclables. Classic.
5. I’m going to Vertigo, a club in San Jose, tonight to celebrate my friend’s birthday but it is pouring like nobody’s business. How would you feel if I brought my IFSA Butler Study Abroad bag with the giant green frog on it to a club just so I could bring an umbrella?