Vamos a la playa!

Hey hey everyone, and Happy Birthday Paul!!! The big 2-0...ahh those were the days... haha. So, I went to the beach for the first time!!! Well, the first Costa Rican beach, I guess. I have been to “the beach” once or twice in my day, to say the least. Anyhow, I keep getting this stupid song stuck in my head that we listened to in Spanish class on Friday. We learned all these different words that pertain to fairy tales like “wand”, “fairy godmother”, “troll”, “spell”, etc, and then my teacher handed us a page of song lyrics that had a bunch of blanks, and we had to fill them in as we listened to the song. The song was basically a fairy tale about a prince and the beautiful fairy he fell in love with blah blah blah, so, needless to say, I was a bit caught off guard when the song turned out to be a hard rock, heavy metal, lead-singer-screams-all-the-words kind of song. And when I say “caught off guard”, I mean “laughed uproariously the whole time”. Okay, maybe not the whole time, but quite a bit. And now the song is still in my head.

So, back to the beach. We were finally able to take a night “out of site” this weekend, so a lot of people had plans to hit the road. I went to a beach called Jaco (“Hah-koe” not “Jack-o”) with four fellow trainees and one of their host-sisters. Her name was Susanna, and her aunt and uncle own a little condo in Jaco, so we stayed there. We left really early on Saturday morning and got there around 10:30. We had to wait a little while for the guard at the gate to verify that we had permission to use the condo, but as soon as we got through, we put on our suits and headed to the beach. It was beautiful, and I keep hearing that it isn't that great of a beach, so I can't imagine what the good ones are like. The water was really warm, like bathwater pretty much. The waves were pretty big too, and apparently a lot of people have drowned there. Fortunately, that was not the case for any of us this weekend. I was in the water most of the time, and it was a lot of fun.

I was really afraid of getting sunburned though, so I put on SPF 55 (waterproof) and reapplied two times. Strangely enough, though, I felt myself burning after a little while! I ended up getting a sunburn, which both annoyed and perplexed me. Later, upon closer inspection (or rather, noting which parts of me felt like they were on fire), I realized that only my arms and shoulders, face, and toes were burned. Hmmm that is odd, since I wasn't wearing a sleeveless wetsuit with partial footies attached. Then it hit me: I didn't have sunscreen on when we got off the bus and walked to the condo, and then waited (a total of about 45 minutes all together), and I was wearing a tank top and jeans that covered my feet except my toes. Aha! I was happy to have solved The Case of the Mysterious Sunburn, but also mad that I didn't put on sunscreen before I left the house, since I do that every day. I was in a hurry though to get out the door, and then I forgot. Ah well, the best laid plans, blah blah blah, right?

So, that night we ate dinner at a Mexican restaurant which was delicious, albeit a bit pricey (it's a tourist town). They also played a mix of classic 80s and early 90s tunes, which definitely included “The Right Stuff” by the beloved New Kids on the Block. Unfortunately, they only played each song for approximately 20 seconds (no exaggeration), so the nostalgia was frequently interrupted. Later on, we went to a place called The Monkey Bar (haha), which was a lot of fun. They played all sorts of good songs, American stuff at first, then Reggaeton. Two of the guys I was with were joking around about how they were going to milk the Peace Corps thing and say stuff like, “Oh yeah, I saved four kids this week...Oh, you went on a four-hour hike? Yeah, I went on a four-week hike, and that was just to find some water for the kids...Yeah we just built a pool for the community--out of their tears...etc etc” (obviously none of this is true...yet...jk, it isn't true). Oh, that reminds me, my Spanish teacher taught us a pick-up line once that goes “Me gustaria ser bizco para verte dos veces” which means “I wish I were cross-eyed so I could see you double” which I thought was hilarious especially since I think being cross-eyed would kind of hinder one's chances in that department.

Anyhow, at one point in the evening, this 45ish year old man started talking to me and was asking where I was from (since I was obviously a fellow gringo). Anyway, he was wearing this crazy red and white Hawaiian shirt and was in CR to surf and was just “livin' the dream”. He asked what I was doing in CR, to which I replied “Peace Corps” and he was like “WOW!” and then he asked what my degree was in, and his jaw dropped again, but THEN he saw me dancing by my Peace Corps buddies and he literally shouted, “Kate!!! You continue to impress me!!!!!!” and offered to buy me a drink. (Don't worry Dad, I declined!). Ah, drunk old guys, I guess they're good for the old self-esteem, haha just kidding. Actually, I am going to start a series of workshops with some 5th graders in my town on Self-Esteem for part of training; maybe I should just tell them to go the Monkey Bar and look for Jim...

Anyway, we got back Sunday afternoon/evening, but we had Monday off for a holiday. My host parents told me that they wanted to take me to their “casita” (little house) in the country, so on Monday we went up with two of their sons and their wives and kids. The casita is in the little town where my host mom grew up, so she has a lot of other family there too. It is surrounded by coffee fields, so I finally saw what coffee looks like au natural. It was up in the mountains too, so it was really pretty. Pretty much, it was just green wherever you looked. They have banana trees and lime trees and avocado trees mixed in too, and some others, so it was pretty cool, needless to say. We just had lunch up there and they gave me a tour of the little town and whatnot, and then got back around 5:30. I really had a good time though, and I liked being out of the city too.

Well, I have a loooong day with all the other trainees Tuesday, then another loooong one with just the CYF (children youth and families) program on Wednesday, but then we have Thursday off since it is another holiday. This is the one that people from all over the country walk to a city called Cartago (it's called a “Romeria”), and it's a really big deal. I am planning to walk with my host parents' sons and their families (I don't think my host-parents are making the trek), which should be a pretty cool experience. We aren't too too far, but it will still be a 5-6 hour walk or so. Apparently the roads are just full of people walking, and in fact, some people have already started, but I haven't seen any yet, just on the news.

Well, that's all for now. Adam, I hope it's up to par with your standards and you don't need a jar of anti-wrinkle cream by the end. Maybe you should learn how to read faster...oh! As for the rest of you, chao!