Monteverde

Well this past weekend we went to Monteverde as a group, Monteverde is much colder then San Jose but a really nice temperature. We took a really long hike Saturday and Sunday did the skywalk, some of the others did the zipline but since I had already done that I decided to try something different. Something really interesting I got to do when we got there on Friday was visit two alternative schools, the Monteverde Cloud Forest School, and the Quaker Friends School. I'm really interested in alternative educational systems and other countries systems so this was definately what I enjoyed the most of my weekend, my professor, his wife, and Scott and I went and did this when we first arrived. There are some pictures that you all can see, but because of the crummy weather we didn't see any animals but there are still some nice pictures you all can see. This weekend is still up in the air, the rest of the group is in an environmental studies class but since I'm doing an internship I'm not in that class, well they have a field trip this weekend, so I may or may not go out of town so we'll see. I can't believe it's almost October time is absolutely flying, we have to do our visa trip and we are going to Nicaragua and then for fall break I'm heading to Guatemala and Honduras hopefully and I'm really excited about this!!

Hope everyone is doing well,

Coral

Paragliding, Juanes, IMAS internship, and Español x2

Well the end of last week and my weekend were quiet interesting. After I wrote the last post I went to my semester internship for the first time. I work at IMAS- Instituto Mixto de Ayuda Social, which is basically the government run HUGE social services department. They do all sorts of work basically all the work that you think of a social worker doing except this is on a regional and national scale. I work at the national headquarters in San Jose and basically help out with whatever projects are at hand that week. My focus is within the educational programs and more specifically their ADVANCEMOS program for kids ages 7-21. That was an interesting experience because from the beginning my internship experience here has been a bit of a run around and this is actually the second location where I was sent to as my original internship ended up falling through. It is also really interesting switching from a working mindset in English to one in Spanish, even for me who comes from a Spanish speaking family this transition has most definately been an interesting and challenging experience so far. I literally had more literature to read as "homework" for my internship then my other four classes combined this past weekend. But even though it is tedious it is really interesting to see how this style of company works in another country.

I also found out that day before my classes and internship that the group was going to a Juanes concert, I am beyond excited about this as I've never been to a concert and my first one happens to be an extremely popular Latin artist right now. I am sooooooooo excited so that is in two weeks and I'm really looking forward to it.

Over the weekend I went back to San Ramon, which I've come to feel is my home away from home. I live with a local family here in San Jose and have classes and work in the city but being able to leave the city and enjoy some time with other friends has been a great stress reliever and lets me just get away every once in a while. Well Jose, a friend I visited who I've already mentioned is a paragliding pilot well I got the opportunity to do this again this past weekend and to just enjoy that gorgeous view from where the flights take off, if you don't know what I'm talking about go check out some of the pictures.

Because of some switching around on hours with the internship I'm getting to take a second more focused Spanish class by myself with a professor so I actually get to work on what I really need which is writing and literature in Spanish. Well I had this class today for the first time and I absolutely love it, my instructor is great and I get to work with a lot of interesting material so it's actually great to just have a one-on-one class instead of dredful thinking you are the only one with an instructor, but I really like it and am looking forward to that class.

Well this weekend the group is off to Monteverde, which is supposed to be one of the most beautiful places in Costa Rica so I'm really excited and am sure I'll have some great pictures from that too, we are all also doing the ziplinning again so that should be fun. I'll write about that next week.

Hope everyone is doing well.

Rambling Man on Bus, Monkeys, Lizards, and Beaches

So as you can see it's been another busy week here in San Jose. About mid-week last week I was taking the bus home from downtown and at the next stop everyone got on and off and sat down, and then all of a sudden this man just decides to talk about his school in natural medicine and about different plants that heal, well I'm interested in that but everyone just completely ignored the guy, so imagine this man talked for a good 20 minutes and no one was listening, it was quiet sad but apparently they are used to it because nothing seemed to bother them. I was thinking to myself I'm in London and Paris again in the subway where no one speaks and when they do they look at you like you are nuts, apparently that is the way of life on public transportation in other countries.

This past weekend the group got to go to Manuel Antonio, which on the Pacific side and supposed to be one of the nicest beaches in Costa Rica. Well I've got to say I'm still in love with our beaches in Costa Rica but Manuel Antonio beach was nice, and it was nice to go to the Pacific which I had never been to. Manuel Antonio is really known for its national park more then its beaches so we started out early last Saturday and hiked through the park I got to see monkeys, lizards, sloths, frogs, spiders and a whole lot more extremely close and personal, forget the zoo you should just come hike the park ( and it's much much cheaper). I really enjoyed the park and the beaches but I would have to say the park was better in my opinion then the beach.

This weekend is a long weekend as it is Independence Weekend here in Costa Rica and I was originally planning on going to Panama but unfortunately I wasn't allowed to go, so hopefully near the end I will at least get to go down to the canal and a border city that is supposed to be stunning. Our plans changed way too many times to count in the last week so after everything was said and done I'm heading back to my mountain retreat in San Ramon and hopefully going paragliding again. I've heard about some interesting traditions about independence day so it should be interesting and I'm sure I'll have stories about that next week.

And as usual I am uploading pictures as we speak and you can you go check them out at

http://picasaweb.google.com/LuvLatinDance

Hope you enjoy!

WII FIT, "usted, vos" and catering mom

As you can see this past week has also been quiet interesting. My Tica sister, Gabby has a WII and the FIT to go along with it. Well let's just say that she is completely kicking my butt at any game we try but the FIT was the most humorous of them all. Me and Gabby are now having competitions with the FIT so everytime she beats me she laughs and so now its a competition so any time I beat her it is the same way, so you can just imagine miss competitive having her sister beating her is not a fun thing so we've turned it into a friendly little competition ( you really have to visualize us falling over doing yoga and the hulahoop it's quiet funny).

The next random comments are the differences between the formality spoken here and what I've been used to speaking in Spanish. Everyone calls everyone else usted it is never the informal (friends/family) version of tu, even my Tica mom calls her daughter usted, I thought that was so odd. They had told me that they use usted here more but I didn't realize it was even going to be spoken between family members and close friends, vos goes along with that. I was always told not to learn to vosotros form of verbs because that is only used in Spain and you can get around without using that, well my teachers were definately wrong people are always calling me vos or usted instead of tu it's truly quiet odd when you are not used to hearing or using that form.

My Tica mom has been given the honorary title of caterer. She does not own her own catering business but she might as well have one, it doesn't matter what kind of occasion is going on she is always the one asked to cook. So she has been up several days really early or cooking through the afternoon for an event that she is in charge of. It's quiet nice to have the best cook as your host mom, and for all of you that know how picky I am should be happy to know that I have tried pretty much everything they have given me.

The rest of the group got here last Thursday and Friday we had orientation. Saturday we went and visited Poas volcano and La Paz waterfalls, I had already been there with my family but La Paz has been my favorite place so I had no problem going again and I had a great time. After we got back to San Jose I took the bus to San Ramon where we stayed when my family was here as they had there yearly festival yesterday. I got to see the festival which was a little disappointing but me and Jose Eduardo were laughing so much at it that it was still a good time. Our family friend Delia was also here so I had dinner with her and Jose before returning to San Jose. This week will be my first full week of classes and this weekend we will be going on another excursion.

I hope you are all enjoying the pictures and I will be posting some new ones in the next few days. Here is the link once again.

http://picasaweb.google.com/LuvLatinDance