Hello All!

This week has been pretty uneventful. Monday we celebrated the birthday of leonard, a 30 something guy from holland. We went out to a restaurant and then went bowling! Tuesday laura and I decided to venture out and went to San Jose Central where we attempted to find souvenirs, but ended up getting kinda lost! Here I realized how important it is to be aware of everything around you. We were crossing the street and a taxi almost hit me! Luckily for me laura saw it coming and grabbed my arm to get me out of the street or I probably would have been hit! I will definately be more careful from now on! Wednesday I had dance class where I danced the Salsa and Cumbia. It was super fun, and most of the students from our school all 10 of us were able to come. It was a great workout. After dance class I waxed the eyebrows and lip of my mamatica. She informed me that here in costa rica they don´t have wax available for you to buy in the store, if you want your eyebrows waxed you have to go to a salon to have it done for you. Carlos my ¨papatico¨ thought the whole process was hilarious. At first he didn´t understand really what was going on. After Heidi explained everything to him, he was cracking up and making fun of Heidi. At one point I looked at heidi and told her that Carlos wasn´t being very nice today at which he laughed even harder. The laughing continued until I suggested that we wax his moustache. At this he was pretty quite, but heidi was laughing soooo hard! She thought it was a great idea! Carlost continued to make fun of Heidi while we applied the wax. With all his cackling I told Heidi that I thought Carlos might be sleeping on the couch. Carlos then became pretty quite while Heidi was dying laughing! She though this was hilarious. She even told me that if I came home from my movie and found him on the couch that it was because he was still being mean. I haven´t laughed that hard since coming to Costa Rica. Funny Times! This was the first real time I felt like I really truly belonged there. It was great!

sorry its been a while...

Wednesday
I have been told by my professor that I’m going to become a “gordita” because of all the carbs in the foods here. I’m hoping that isn’t the case! He says everyone eats rice, beans and bread all day long. This is true for the most part, but I have found that I can usually cut it down to one meal. My breakfast usually consists of fruits, coffee, and some sort of bread/tortilla with cheese and meat. Lunch is whatever restaurant I choose to eat at which usually is pretty healthy, and dinner is where I eat rice, beans, meat, soup etc… The one huge difference I have noticed is I walk a ton here! On a typical day I usually walk at least 2 or more miles a day and don’t snack throughout the day which I do in the states. What I don’t think my professor understands is how I eat, and my lifestyle on a day to day basis back home. It’s extremely rare that I eat fruit, and if I do, it’s an apple smothered with peanut butter. Most of my meals at my townhouse consist of pasta (carbs), sandwiches (carbs) burgers (bun=carbs) or fast food (carbs and tons of fat)! In addition I always eat dessert after dinner and usually close out my night out with a bowl of ice cream or cereal around 11pm. All in all I don’t think I’ll become a “gordita” if anything I eat much healthier here, everyday I seem to fulfill a really balanced diet of fruits, veggies, and all. Add in the walking and lack of snacking and I think I’ll be good.
The last few days have been rather uneventful. I started a new book, which has kept me occupied, watched the inauguration and went on a short tour of small indigenous towns. Today we have a “rosary” with our “mamaticas” or Costa Rican mom, where they celebrate the end of the Christmas season and thank God and Mary for the last year and pray for the new one… should be interesting. The only other excitement here is Laura (from MSU) and I talked to the school and for our final month in Costa Rica we’re going to re-locate to Manuel Antonio, where we will finish classes overlooking the Pacific Ocean!!! After talking with the school, they have said they will find us a host family which can accommodate both of us so we can stay together for out last month.

Sunday-
Well my first class if finally over!!! The last few days of class really sucked! Thursday we had an oral presentation, that we couldn’t use notes on and was about 10 minutes, it was really tricky having to talk about drugs in Costa Rica. Having to think of the words I wanted to say, translating them into Spanish, and then conjugating them was a little harder than I would have expected. After our oral, we (Laura and I) ended up having to tell Fairy tales in Spanish as well as tell a few other stories. Oh and our teacher wanted us to tell fables from the Bible. Both Laura and I believe that everything in the Bible is fact not fable, so when he wanted us to tell fables, we became quite upset. I then explained that we don’t believe the Bible is filled with fables but that we believe everything from the Bible is real. So after all that, we said we would tell a story from the Bible, but that it wasn’t a fable. I have had to state my beliefs in God and the Bible before in English, but having to do it in Spanish was a little trickier, I do know that my point came across the way I wanted it to. All in all I think we both talked for about an hour or more in Spanish, which was interesting. Then if that weren’t enough we had to write a 300+ word Final composition on our experience at the Rosary ceremony thingy and how church in the states differs from church here. WOW!!! Let’s just say after class on Thursday we didn’t want to speak Spanish for the rest of the day. Friday was worse… we started out with our final exam which included about 10 pages of fill in the blank, finish the sentence, multiple choice, and 3 more compositions! The test took about 2 hours to finish and was pretty hard. Luckily our day was finished with a game of Scrabble in Spanish. After school Laura and I celebrated finishing our first class by going to the mall, window shopping and eating the most amazing crepes I have ever tasted! Later Friday night, Laura, Kristin (from Norway) and Laura’s Hermanotico (Costa Rican brother) David and his friend Pablo and I went to a Techno dance club. That was interesting… After all the smoke and lights and head pounding music I started to feel nauseous. I think the mixture of things was just too much. After the club, we went across the street to Taco Bell, because taco bell is open after 3 AM. There we proceeded to eat French fries, which come with a meal there, with guacamole. I have found I like to order things, wherever I eat, that come with guacamole as it is so amazing here. Saturday Morning Laura, David, Pablo, another one of David’s friends and I all went to Puerto Leona. This was the most beautiful beach ever! The sand was white and here the Pacific Ocean was green/turquoise. It was gorgeous! So we spent the day at the beach, got sun burnt again, not sure why I’m burning all of a sudden, at a late lunch at one of David’s favorite place and proceeded home. Sunday morning it rained so I stayed home until to my surprise, Laura and Andrea (another girl from school) came over and rescued me from boredom. We went to the mall, had lunch, got the most amazing McFlurry from McDonalds, with Canterbury chocolate, rented 5 movies that are showing in the theater, but here you can rent them at the store. Crazy how things across country are… That’s all for now!

my address here...

My mom has been buggin me about putting up my address here so here it is...
COSI-Costa Rica Spanish Institute
atn: Ashley Collins
PO BOX 1366-2050 San Jose, Costa Rica
Also I don´t really have a lot to say today so I´ll either write later or tomorrow!

Puerto Viejo

well since I havent written in a while Ill catch everyone up on life this weekend! Friday was a graduation day for some students so school was not the same... we played some games and had a quiz, that was about it. After school I went out to lunch with 2 girls from school where we ate at an Irish Pub! The pizza there was great! From there we met up with everyone for our trip to puerto viejo. We took a bus 4 hours east to the Carribbean coast where we were to stay. While on the bus we met a girl from England who was traveling alone named Becky, who later we ended up partying with. We arrived in Puerto Viejo around 930 pm. The first thing we did was look around for a hotel as we were told before our trip that it was not necessary to book a hotel. Initially we were going to stay in a hammock hotel but after visiting it and seeing all the drugs, and people that were there we decided against it. 2 of the girls decided that tenting it was what they wanted to do... Laura( from MSU), Kristine( from Norway) and I decided that sleeping with bugs just was not our idea of a good time. So we searched for a hotel, and decided on hotel puerto viejo. After that we changed and went to Rocking Js which is was a hammock hotel with tons of people smoking pot and having a [good] time. I don't understand how people can do drugs like that and enjoy themselves. From there the party moved to Johnnys a bar filled with weed, Bob Marley look alikes, dreds and all! There we met some people, from england and boston and danced! Good time! Once we were finally tired we left for our hotel but stopped at a little restaurant where we had tacos and burgers! Super tasty! The boys who worked there thought us Americans were hilarious and could not stop laughing at us. I think my favorite part at the restaurant was when Laura order a ham and cheese Hamburger without the Hamburger! It was not on the menu but they made it for her anyways! After the restaurant we met a man on the street named Chance who was in his middle 40s but was super good looking! We chatted with him for a while and then returned to our hotel... The next day (saturday) we woke up early to go in search for a nice hotel, which we found in Casa Verde.... this place was beautiful! So we found a room and then went in search for the other half of our group who slept in tents so we could have breakfast together... We ended up eating at the hotel which was delightful, and later took a bus to Manzanilla a nicer beach, there we were able to soak up the sun. We rode home around 4, showered and got ready for the night. We went to dinner, which was aweful and felt really exhausted so after spending all that time getting ready to party just to go back to our hotel room and Crash! The next morning we had breakfast at the same spot and rented Bikes! We attempted to ride a 2 person bike but to no avail, the locals kept looking at laughing at us. After getting normal bikes we took a 7 mile bike trip to a nearby beach and then it started to rain, so we stayed for about a half hour and went back. Back in Puerto Viejo we ate lunch and then went to a great icecream chocolate store where we met the owner, a man from MINNESOTA! Then we left for home. All in all it was a great weekend, the locals were super nice, almost too friendly, there were tons of drugs, alcohol, and DREDLOCKS!!! Drugs and Alcohol really aren't my thing, but to watch everyone else was pretty entertaining. It's like there were 100 hippies, that all looked like Bob Marley pretty funny, I've never seen anything like it. No drugs for me no thank you!

Hola!

Hey Everyone! The fruit here is absolutely amazing! I could eat it all day! The pineapple is to die for and the juice is amazing also! My favorite is the guava and naranja! Very good! Yesterday was a pretty interesting day! Had class, then went to San Pedro which is within walking distance of San Jose, where I had lunch with 3 girls from school, which we later followed with Icecream! Later in the night we went to see "la duquessa" or the Dutchess as we know it in the US. I had no idea to the extent that people ate bread, rice and beans but I do now! They have it with every meal! I'm sure I will be sick of it by the time I get home, but right now i'm enjoying it a lot! I also have found that I really enjoy Coffee and tend to drink it at least 2 times a day! Today I went on a tour of San Jose and enjoyed the people watching and souvenier shopping. What I'm super excited about right now is this upcoming weekend, where 4 girls from the school and I will be going to Puerto Viejo, A beach/city on the Carribbean Ocean Coast! Super excited!

Hey guys!

Hello Everyone! I really like this whole blogging thing and having everyone able to check and see how i'm doing. Anyways, yesterday was a super busy day and I really didn't get a chance to catch my breathe until late last night. Well I realized how much different Costa Ricans and Americans are different. First my host family is great but I realized yesterday that money is really a huge deal and that whatever they do for me I will basically have to pay for... being that I lost my luggage and had to go back to the airport to get it, my host family is having me pay them 22$ for the gas money and parking. I thought this was quite odd and almost offended, but then I had to remind myself that Costa Ricans make a ton less money than Americans do and that it's not as to appear rude towards me, but they really do need the money. So i definately realized that I need to be culture savy and realize that things are indeed different. Anyways enough of my whining. Yesterday was filled with stuff! Had school in the morning, where we talked about drugs and how cheap they are here. No thank you! Then I went on a tour of a volcano and the basilica! Across from the basilica/ church/ we had lunch! To make things easy they explained to us that we should order the "plato del dia" or plate of the day because it includes rice, beans, chicken fish or beef, dessert and a drink. Later I went to spinning class with my host father which was pretty crazy. There is nothing more boring than sitting on a bike, having your butt kill from the tiny seat and sweat! I don't think I want to do that again! Gotta go for lunch! bye

start of school!

I woke up this morning at what I thought was 6:45 for school at 7:30, little did I know my ohone never changed time from New York to San Jose, so I woke up at 5:45! My house parents kept commenting on how early of a riser I am but I didn't realize the time change until I was already awake and dressed, or as dressed as I can be in the clothes I slept in. Hopefully I will hear something about my luggage. All I want is a shower! which is too much to ask for right now.
Started school, which was great! Even though it's early I really enjoy being here with english speaking people! I had an oral placement test thingy which I think I did well on, as I ended up in a class with 2 other american girls who speak spanish quite well. The class i'm in now, I will be in for the next two weeks, and then I go to a new class. I have my first paper due on wednesday, which contrary to MSU has to be handwritten. All of the students and staff of the school went out to lunch today which was pretty good. Signed up for 3 activities during the week... 2 tours, 1 of a volcano, one of San Jose, and a dance lesson on wednesday. I'm excited to finally feel like I have a place to fit, and people who can speak both spanish and english to me! I'm loving it! write soon! Ash

I'm finally here!!!

Yesterday-
Saturday was a day brimming with emotions. Excitement, fear, joy, and pure sadness. Leaving friends and family to travel is probably the thing I like least about this whole experience so far. I just have to remind myself that it's 3 months. The plane ride to new york was pretty good for the most part. Being that i'm only 5'3 it was a little tricky putting my carry on, which i swear weighs 50 lbs, into the overhead compartment. It probably took me a good 2-3 minute struggle to attempt to find any sort of upper body strength to get it up there but I did it. There was quite a bit of turbulence and all I could thkn was , this is it, i'm going to die. I stayed in the new york airport all night and got noooo sleep, but saw some interesting people. Right before i was to board my next flight i had a nervous breakdown on the phone with my mother and cried for the good part of an hour and then had to board my plane to Costa Rica which was filled with only spanish speaking people including the pilot and flight attendants. Lost the one book I really wanted to read " the shack" it must have slid somewhere on the plane but I couldn't find it to save my life! Arrived at the airport to discover that my luggage did not make it with me. So after even more crying in the san jose airport I was able to speak with someone, who spoke very little english, about finding my luggage. She informed me that it never made the plane to Costa Rica. So after an hour or so of trying to figure out my luggage situation I finally left the airport and was greeted by a man from COSI holding a sign with my name on it! He was the 1st and last person I would meet that day who spoke any english. He drove me to my host family where I was greeted by my host mom and her very noisy dog Toto. She only speaks spanish! At this point all I want to do is sleep but she is so excited to see and talk to me, so I sit, talk and realize I'm in for quite the adventure. So we talk about family, my luggage and life. She then invites me to go to her sister's houe for a Rosary service thingy/ birthday gathering for her grand daughter. Althuogh I am both physically and emotionally drained I decide to go with her. This gathering consists of 20-25 of her family all spanish speaking people. I have never felt more like a fish out of water as I did at this party. Throughout the night I am offered 2 different beverages, 1 milky coconutty thick drink that I choke down as to not appear rude and 1 "fresco" that is a pulpy banana, orange, pineapple tasting drink that isn't too bad! I also am offered cookies and lunch consisting of black bean mush, rice and potato chips. Super tasty! I came home to my room to find a cockroach scurry from beneath my bed, and all I could do was screech! It's going to take a little getting used to having the house so open to bugs and birds! there were 2 birds that flew into the kitchen! All in all so far an experience. I'm praying my luggage finally arrives so I can get clothes and my toothbrush, as I haven't changed or brushed my teeth in going on 3 days!