selippa

01:50 pm: Manuel Antonio
Freedom!!! We finally finished our indentured servitude to the Escuela de Ganaderia, and we ventured out on our own. We went to Manuel Antonio which is about a 3 hour bus ride from Atenas. Yet again I found myself in the dreaded bus situation. Now, this time got my hands on some Dramamine (motion sick medicine for those who do not know). We all took some about 10 minutes before we got on the bus. Pam was also having a bit of a tough day because her debit card stopped letting her take out money and everything that we had to pay for needed to be in cash. But Julie and I just took out a little extra and spotted her for the weekend. Well, when the bus finally showed up, there was a bit of confusion.

First of all I went completely retarded and for some reason I got Quepos (the name of the town right outside of Manuel Antonio, where we were actually supposed to be going) and Jaco mixed up, and so as I am putting my bags on the bus I start freaking out cause I think that we are on the wrong bus. I kept looking at Julie and Pam who seemed unconcerned and kept saying...I don't think that this is our bus...are you sure that this is our bus?...They looked at me confused, like I was completely insane (because I was) and were like - Sue...get on the bus, its going to leave us. I am still highly confused. Then Julie goes completely retarded because she forgot about the whole situation with Pam and the fact that she didnt have any money and abandoned Pam at the front of the bus with no way to pay after we have already discussed for 10 minutes that Julie was going to pay for Pam. So poor Pam is left thinking, what the hell is going on with my friends, within a matter of 45 seconds they all went severely retarded. On well, we did get on the bus so I guess that is all that really matters.

We had to stand in the aisle basically the whole way. This is the worst! Julie, who hardly ever gets motion sick, felt like puking within the first 20 minutes. Well, all things changed when the blessed Dramamine kicked in. It knocked us all on our asses. We went from motion sick, stressed out gringas to Jodie Foster in the movie Nell....Tay in da wind. So after than the bus wasnt much trouble at all. Now we knew that we had to take it 30 minutes instead of 10 minutes before...lesson learned.

Well we stayed in Quepos because it was significantly cheaper than Manuel Antonio. We are talking about a difference in $8 a night verse $150 a night. Now Quepos is gross, it smells like sewage and its beaches are not safe to swim in. But it costs 105 conlones, which is equivalent to a quarter, to take the 20 minute bus ride to Manuel Antonio. Part of Manuel Antonio is a national park. They only allow 100 people inside the park at time and then once there is 100 people inside it becomes a one out, one in policy. Luckily, we always got there early so getting in was never a problem. They have really good hiking and 3 beaches. There is a lot of wild life and little white faced monkeys can be found all over the place. The beaches were beautiful and the water was perfect. The next day this Australian girl named Laurie, who was also a volunteer in Atenas, met up with us. So we spent 2 full days lounging on the beaches. It was perfect. After the park closes at 4 you basically just go out to the beach outside of the park and hang out there till when ever.

The best thing about going out in Manuel Antonio was that at any point there was some bar that was had a...Girls drink for free...promotion. One place would have it from 4:30 until 6 and then the next would be from 6 to 9. There isnt anything more perfect than free drinks while you are watching the sunset.

Next we are going to the Caribbean Coast, more specifically Puerto Viejo. I am really excited and I will let you know how it goes.

02:32 pm: I have stayed away from writing too much about our jobs. That is mainly because I am not totally sure where to begin, and now that it is almost over, it is entirely too much to tell(especially the way that I write) but I will try to tell enough to give it justice but also try not to write a novel...I know, I know, too late! Also, if at points you can't decide if I am trying to be funny or complaining...just know that I am having an excellent time and it is just my attempts at being funny.

Well Julie, Pam and I work at Escuela de Ganaderia. We work about 90% of the time with Estaban, and for all intensive purposes, we are his bitches. Estaban is a great interesting character to work for. He is 23, married with two kids (4 and 2ish), and does not speak any english. He's a goof ball so that really helped from the beginning. When you are self conscious about opening your mouth to do nothing more than desecrate the Spanish language with you attempts at piecing together even halfway understandable sentences, it helps to have a comical Tico poking at the LARGE pile of shit in the middle of the barn, pretending to dip his fingers in it and make some joke about breakfast in Spanish to help break the ice. Although I love Estaban and am so appreciative of him...he is a bit of a slave driver. That is ok, I forgive him (that is what I say now when I am sitting here writing about this stuff, freshly showered and relaxed, while earlier today I contemplated hitting him over the back of the head with a shovel.) He's got a good sense of humor and loves to laugh, especially at us. But how could he not, he is a hardworking Tico farmer who is stuck with three city gringas attempting to learn Spanish while shoveling large piles of shit.

Oh yes...the shit. Yes, I shovel it. So kudos to all who made jokes about me going to Costa Rica and having to deal with shoveling shit. Well, it true and it is as bad if not worse than you think. Basically, here is out daily routine. We wake up Monday, Wednesday and Friday to the lovely sound of my crappy watch alarm that I bought at Target. I know that the essence of an alarm is that it is supposed to be annoying but somehow I feel as though this one is particularly annoying, but perhaps that is because I have to set it to go off at 4:15 am. Vilma, patron saint of Costa Rican volunteers (aka. out host mom), wakes up at 4:40 to take us to the bus stop in town so that we can catch the bus at 5:00 am for Escuela de Ganaderia. We arrive at school right about the time the sun comes up, which would be nice and should inspire the "I want to buy the world a coke" emotion but when you realize that your first task is to shovel the ca ca, somehow the ideals of peace, love and harmony seem to pass you by.

So there are three concrete rectangular container things that are about 3 feet high, 3 feet wide and 15 yards long. They are filled about 2/3 of the way up to the top with what appears to be muddy dirt. Now, if you stick you hands in this dirt type material and pull out a handful you will realize that the containers are chop full of worms. There has got to be billions of those little earthworms underneath the surface. But since I NEVER stick my hands in there, to me it is just muddy dirt looking stuff. So...what you do is you get a wheel barrel and a shovel, go over to the grande pile of shit (which is approximately 4 feet in diameter and 8 inches thick) which to be honest looks like a gigantic chocolate cookie...but a cookie it is not.

You scoop to your heart's content and fill the wheel barrel up with what appears to be pureed cow shit. Once your wheel barrel is full, you cart it over to the worm containers and place a heaping shovelfull about every 2 feet. So, if you add it all up, a heaping pile every two feet for, give of take, 45 yards total adds up to a lot of shit! Around 3 wheel barrels full to be exact. And, if that wasn't tasty enough for you, after you are finished you get to water the shit down. Julie was nice enough to observe that as the water penetrates the pile of shit, it takes on a nice bubbling, oozing Chef Boyardee appearance. So I think you can pretty much guarantee that my Chef Boyardee purchasing days are over! So that is what we do with the ca ca...things begin to get interesting though when you get to use the do do water. Off to the side of the worm contains is a drain that flows into a concrete whole about 2x2x3 feet in the ground. The water that runs off into this container is the water that has seeped down through and drained out of the 2 1/2 foot thick worm/cow shit combination. We have the pleasure of scooping buckets of the do do water out and then using it to water plants and such things around the barn. I still try to determine which is worse: watering the ca ca or distributing buckets of do do water. Some people spend their time contemplating the age old question "great taste or less filling" while I weigh the pros and cons of "watering ca ca or do do water." But whatever, to each his own. After these tasks are complete, it is usually about 6:30 am and now it is time for breakfast.

The rest of the day is less grotesque. We generally feed a bunch of different animals and hose down their cages, which isn't bad at all. The animals include these things called Tepes (which are like a cross between a rabbit and a giant rat, but they are really tranquil and cute and have really grown on me) peacocks, iguanas, baby iguanas, crocodiles and baby baby crocodiles. About once a week we get to go collect a large barrel of freshly slaughtered either cow of pig innards that we get to throw to the big crocodiles. Wednesday we drive around town on tractors and collect items for recycling and then sort it. All that stuff is fun and interesting because I most likely with never again do anything like this....EVER.

Basically I have become a master of shoveling and feeding unusual wildlife...I am Sue Lippa...manual labor extraordinaire. So this is the basic outline of our job and the drama ensues from there. One day I will write about that stuff, but today this had rambled on long enough.

03:00 pm: Bad Words + Beer = Excellent time
This weekend we decided to stay in town. So, on Friday night we met up with these two guys that we know from Escuela de Ganaderia. We were down right gitty...cause we finally had friends! I know that sound lame but for three social people it is very difficult to be in a place where about 80% of the people around you have no idea what you are saying. It is hard to find someone patient enough to actually attempt to listen to what we have to say considering that most stuff comes out like "the food watches good" instead of "looks good." So we were excited to have finally conned some poor "non-english speaking" saps into agreeing to hang out with us. Their names are Leo and Freyman. Leo is not quite as outgoing as Freyman, but he in nice and patient with us which can be really comforting. Freyman is hysterical. He is like the kid brother who you always forget is younger and who seems to always be a part of a situation where you thought something sounded like a really good idea, when in reality it was a really bad idea, but you are glad you did it anyways no matter how much trouble you got into. He doesn't necessarily encourage bad behavior but he seems some how to inspire it. We were very excited to have Freyman with us because technically he should not have been there. There is no way that Freyman's girlfriend Natalie would have ever let him go, but she was out of town so...game on. We meet in the center of town and end up waiting for some taxi driver friend of Leo's to take us to some bar in Barrio San Jose.

This town doesn't really have bars. They are more like restaurants but what ever, they serve alcohol so what do I really care. And most times when you are out drinking you want food anyways, so no worries. Hanging out with Leo and Freyman is so much fun. As the bottles on the table began to accumulate we (like all drunk adults) turn back into 3rd graders on the playground who have just learned new bad words and can´t wait to share them with you friends. Now this game is more fun when we teach them bad words in English, because there is less of a chance that we are going to offend someone in the Spanish speaking crowd. I don't know what it is, but a non English speaker trying to pronounce "Carpet Muncher" (which actually sounds like "Car-put Moon-char") will just never get un-funny to me. Not to mention, I think it was my high point of the night when it even occurred to me to attempt to teach them that word not to mention that I had to explain to them what exactly that meant in Spanish. (And if there is anyone out there who does not know what that means, I am sorry but I am not explaining it. It was embarrassing enough to explain it in Spanish). And you have to be very selective about what words you choose to teach someone because the will ultimately ask you to explain. Certain bad words are quite difficult to explain...attempt to explain douche bag to someone and then you will know what I am talking about.

So we now have had our first successful drunken night out with Tico friends. Now, we had gone out several time before in Atenas, but this is a sleepy little town and we had not really interacted with anyone (well, while we were out drinking) who wasn't forgettable yet.

Thank god for taxi drivers cause even if we had a car...which none of us did...we were in NO condition to drive. I remember the ride home in the taxi being really entertaining for some reason but then again I was drunk, so pretty much everything was more exciting to me; but whatever, that is just the kind of drunk I am.

03:39 pm: Jaco Bob has nothing on Karen Nelson!
This past weekend we went to Punta Leona. Punta Leona is one of the nicest beaches around here. This is mainly because it is a private beach. Now, technically you can not make a beach private because in Costa Rica all beaches should be open to the public, but somehow they get away with it here. Luckily enough, this guy Errnan (who is sort of dating Veronica who we live with) told us that he knows this lady who lives there and he would give her a call and see if she wouldn't mind if we came down for the weekend. I think he mainly did this to impress Veronica, but what the hell do I care! He did and the lady said that it would be fine, but Errnan said we had to say that we were living with him and his mother as opposed to Veronica. I am not totally sure why, but who cares...we were going to a private beach for free and we were even getting a ride via Errnan out there; I will tell some old lady I am from Mars if it will get me a nice place to stay for free.

We get out there and this place is AMAZING! White sandy beaches, crystal clear blue water, waiters who bring you beer...and since the beaches are private, not very many people are on them and NO ONE is sketchy. In fact, I think we were the biggest scrubs out there. People sit around and talk about how they flew out here on their private jets for the weekend, and we are like...oh yeah, well we have to be back in Atenas on Monday to shovel shit at 5:30 in the morning!

Anyways the lady that we are staying with is named Karen. This lady is one of the most strangely terrifyingly fun characters I have ever met in my entire life. She is the daughter of a diplomat who is German...maybe...who was adopted and then lived in Chile or something and then later grew up and lived in Asia or something and then lived in the States for a while and now lives in this mansion type house on top of a cliff side overlooking Punta Leona. I NEVER saw her with out a glass of straight vodka in one hand and a cigarette in the other...now I know some of you are thinking that I look at her and see myself in forty years, but this lady is CRAZY!

In true diva style, she like all other fabulous rich alcoholic women had a gay sidekick named Ernie, who was possibly just as crazy and hysterical as she was. I have no idea what Ernie does for a living but what ever it is, he makes a lot of money. Ernie drank beer from the time he woke up in the morning until past the time I finally called it a night. And the two of them, Karen and Ernie just cruise around life being drunk and fabulously hysterical.

Ernie, who is Jewish, loved telling people that Karen was Hitler's sister. And Karen, who is a widow, kept making joking references to killing her husband...I certainly hope they were joking references! Karen never called anyone by there real name, everyone had a nickname. One guy was Eyebrows...the other was Green Eyes...the next would be My Darling...The Doctor...My Singer...it never ended. Besides Ernie I don't think I actually learned anyone's real name--I think it's one of those "change the names to protect the innocent" kind of situations...with Karen I wouldn't be surprised. Also, on the beach about every 10 minutes we would run into another person that has supposedly saved her live at some point. "Oh you have to meet this man...he save my life!!! Oh no, this one too...he save my life!!" (ok now picture me saying that while trying to imitate a heavily accented drunk woman).

Well when we first got there, Veronica and Errnan were there with their friend's baby Sebastian. Sebastian is one of the cutest babies ever. They were there until mid afternoon and then returned to Atenas. After they left we relaxed on the beach for a while (just me, Pam and Julie), and then went and found Ernie and Karen who were still posted up by the restaurant area. After about 2 hours of completely unbelievable funny story telling from Ernie and Karen, we made our way back up the mountain to Karen's house. We thought that we might hang out at the house and just crash eventually, but when I got out the shower the house was full of young Latin men ready to PARTY...which would have been really exciting if they weren't all GAY! All of them, every single one of them.

We took the 4 wheelers and the their car back down the mountain to this guy Charlie's place...Charlie basically from what Karen had said was the head honcho of this harem of handsome gay men. And like all multi millionaires who have a harem of attractive young men that they fly around on their private jets for the weekend...Charlie was quite fat and unattractive, but very nice to me and my friends. So we then proceeded to have drunk Karaoke with our new friends which eventually lead to some dancing, and for those of you who know Pam and Julie...for them to be dancing explains a lot. Well I do not know what these people are made of but they drink all day in the sun and never eat. Eventually Pam, Julie and I were like--WE HAVE TO EAT!!! We had to basically pry the information out of someone on where we could find some food. So we abandoned the group and set out on an odyssey to find the restaurant. After we ate, we were too tired to even attempt more excitement with our new friends (who were supposed to meet at some bar) so we left a note on one of the 4 wheelers explaining that we had headed back to the house for the night and then walked to the reception area of this private beach/mansion/resort area and had a transport take us back up the mountain.

We ended up being really happy that we had crashed out when we did because we were able to wake up a decent hour and get to the beach early in the morning so we had some time there before we had to return to Atenas that evening. When we finally did go back to Karen's house that afternoon, we tried to figure out how to get the bus back to Atenas. This proved to be more difficult than anticipated. This was not because it was actually a difficult task, it was just that the mega-rich have no idea about buses...they don't ride buses!!! Karen (who was still with Vodka and cigarette in hand)hung out with the three of us for a while and chatted. She really is a nice lady who did nothing but be more than hospitable to me and my friends, but her level of intensity is just beyond me. She is one of those people who should be a fictional character. Well we finally figured out that we thought that maybe a bus left at 3:30. We attempt to leave Karen's house starting at around 1:30. We realize that the way Karen works is that she does not let one set of guests leave until the next set arrives. She almost artistically stalls us until her friends arrive at around 3:15. We finally get down to the where we think we need to go to get the bus only to find out that we have just missed it! Luckily, there was another one coming at 5:30. We spent the next couple of hours HIDING from the people we knew cause that place was like the black hole...you can not leave. By the time we left, we felt like we were in the twilight zone going insane. What the hell are three dirt poor American backpackers doing with the super crazy mega rich...and why are they making it so hard for us to find out how to leave!?! Finally we get to to the bus (which is then dropping us off on the side of the road in front of the gates where we have to wait for the bus to San Jose and just short of flag it down.)

The bus was its own adventure. This is basically the same exact bus that I had projectile vomited out the window just a week prior! Needless to say I was a little nervous because this time we did not have seats and I had to stand the whole time. No movie...no window...huge problem. Luckily this time my stomach behaved itself. Now I did not stand near Pam or Julie on the bus. They were ended up having some guys offer to squish over to let them sit down (the handle between the 2 seats could be lifted up). The guys were supposedly celebrating one guys birthday and were DRUNK. It was like we were in middle school and they were the bad kids on the bus. The guy Julie sat next to could only say three English words...I love VODKA!...while the seventeen year old sitting next to Pam kept trying to make the move. I was glad to be alone away from the madness cause with my luck one of them would have talked to me and I would vomited on him, which in retrospect would have been fitting in the karma spectrum of things considering that the seventeen year old was trying to molest Pam and the other one that Julie got stuck with was just drunk obnoxious...but they did give Pam and Julie a place to sit so I guess it was kind of a trade off.

When we finally return to "casa de Vilma", I was very excited to return from crazy land and be back in the land of reality...well that is considering that your reality is quiting your job in Texas to go to Costa Rica to work on a farm with people who don't speak English and shovel shit and work with gigantic rat type creatures starting at 5:30 in the morning...but what every, you know what I mean.

03:26 pm: A weekend with Jaco Bob...
This past weekend we first went to Palmeras. Palmeras is this town north of Atenas where they were having this big festival. It had been labled the Costa Rican Oktoberfest...well, I don't think that the person who told me this has actually ever been to Oktoberfest. I had a good time and all, but it was sort of like a mini-Fort Worth Stock Show, plus a small town fair, plus lots of food and beer. The main problem with it was that they played the music so loud everywhere that with our limited Spanish abilities it made it even harder to talk to anybody. Even Julie with her much better Spanish had a really difficult time. For a while we just sat drinking beer in the carnival ride area and laughed while we people watched. After a sitting in front of this one thing for a while, I told Julie and Pam...totally joking... "Let go over there and watch some little kid puke." We walked up to the inflatable bouncy thing and, sure enough, we got there in just enough time watch some 5 year old yack all over the inside of the bouncy thing. We all died laughing. It was like I was psychic. I felt sort of bad, like I had caused it or something, but who cares...no es me culpa (Spanish for "it's not my fault"). Which by the way, is the second phrase I learned here besides...lo siento (I'm sorry). We went there on Friday night and were going to go back on Saturday but we decided that there was probably a better place to spend our time. We had seen all there was to see at the Costa Rican Okoberfest-ish thing.

So the closest beach to us in Atenas is called Joca. And for all of those who have forgotten the Spanish they took back in high school, it is pronounced Haco. It is about an hour and a half away...sort of, depending if the bus driver plans on taking his sweet ass time to detour to wave at his family for a minute...asshole, doesn't he know that I have places to go and people to see!!

Well, actually it was quite an effort to even get to that bus. We had planned on taking the 11 am bus and spending the day there and then coming home that night. Vilma, our host mom, dropped us off at the bus station and we sat there for probably 30 plus minutes. We were starting to get nervous about why the bus was so late. Julie asked the lady next to us and she swore that it had already gone by. We were bummed, but we decided to walk into the center of town and kill some time until the next bus at 2. Right as we walked about 40 yards away from the stop, simultaneously our host family drove by in a car and our bus pulled up to the bus stop. Well this triangle of confuse turned into a complete cluster-fuck. Our family is waving their hands like...what they hell are you guys doing, that's your bus!---we are thinking...what in the hell is our family doing here, what are they trying to tell us and oh shit, I think that is our bus. So we try to run back to the stop screaming, bags in hand, waving our arms and the bus driver who just looks at us like we are insane as he drives away. You could tell that the lady who had told us that the bus had already gone by felt really bad (as she should...stupid lady!).

So we go back to the house and decide that we are going to spend Saturday night in Jaco and come back Sunday. Veronica, Vilma's daughter, calls the "economic hotels" for us to get a reservation. This is good because Jaco is quite busy and the only reason we even got a room was because it was a Tico (what people here call a Costa Rican person) calling. I think we literally got the last room in town.

So we take the bus at 2 and arrive at Jaco around 4:30 or so. I spent half the time standing since there were no more seats, but as soon as someone got up...I was all over it. The place we were staying was nice enough (for a cheap Costa Rican hotel) but it was under renovations, so from the street it totally looked like a construction site and not inhabitable at all. So our first instincts were...Dear god, what have we done! Luckily it was not that bad. Our neighbors were really cool. They were some older airline mechanics who came down for the week to do some surfing named Greg and Bill. Super friendly and super nice. We spent probably 4 or 5 hours sitting outside, drinking some beer we bought at the store and chatting with them. There was this other dude that they had give the name of Jaco Bob. Jaco Bob was staying at the same place...i think he had probably been there for 2 weeks or so, or maybe that was as far back as he could remember. Not sure. He was the stereotypical expat, American Vietnam vet who probably enjoyed the sixties a little to much. He was sort of hiding the fact that one of the prostitutes living down stairs had appeared to now be living out of his room, but what ever. Oh and by the way, prostitution is legal here. A couple hours into our balcony shindig, two Sweds from a couple doors down decided to come out and hang out as well. So between me, Julie, Pam, Greg, Bill, the Sweds and good ole' Jaco Bob we had a good amount of entertainment to last us for the evening. We eventually went out late night to some bars, but the scene was pretty lame and not too exciting.

The next day we spent most of our time on the beach/in the ocean. It was nice until it started to rain. Well our bus was supposed to leave at 5 so at like 2:30 we came in off the beach to get our stuff together to leave. I looked in my wallet to see if I have enough money to get some food or if I needed more. This is when I realize that the bus tickets, all of our bus tickets, that are supposed to be in my wallet are not there any more. Ok, which genius of the group thought it would be a good idea to put me in charge of the bus tickets--mistake numero uno!! Anyways we had to run to the station and get new tickets, but we couldn't leave until 7:30 (which was ok, besides the tickets only cost like 2 dollars a piece). We ended up going to this pizza joint and hanging out with some Ticos who worked there. A pizza and a couple of free beer later and we were good to go. So we arrive at the station a little early, stop in at the Pizza Hut for a little salad bar before we left. On the bus we end up sitting next to some Israeli's who were doing a 3 month surfing trip (random, who knew there were surfers in Israel). The bus ride was no bueno for me. I have battled motion sickness since I was little and although I was ok on the way out there, I was NOT ok on the ride back. The bus ride was about two hours long and I had to fight back vomiting from with in the first 30 minutes. The surfers from Israel kept trying to talk to me and Pam, but I mainly ignored them consider I was having to hang half out the window to try to make sure I did not see my Pizza Hut salad bar meal again. Luckily we were in really nice buses that played movies really loudly and had huge horizontally sliding window that started just about your waist. You could open the window and hang out completely from the waist up with no problem and the movie was so loud that you could barely hear much more than the person sitting next to you. These facts would come particularly useful to me later. We got almost back to Atenas...probably 20 minutes left to go and I just know that there is NO WAY I can wait that long. I am going to vomit and I am going to vomit right now. So, open the window goes, and I try to puke as quietly and discretely as possible, but how discrete can you ever make vomiting out of a moving vehicle?!? Anyways, I yack twice out the window and am able to sustain the last 20 minutes with out a problem. I am SOOO lucky because no one noticed. Pam was sitting beside me talking to the surfers and Julie was behind us getting pestered by some little girl and neither of them knew what had happened to me until later. The sound of the movie muffled the sound and the window allowed me to be completely out of view of the other passengers and the high wind velocity cast away any smell. It was as perfect of an absolutely terrible vomiting situation as any motion sick person could wish for.

02:14 pm: Work, Work, Work...
So everybody knows that I went to Costa Rica and was going to volunteer at a national park for one month doing wild life conservation. These people are not messing around. I don't think it could get more hands on than this. We climbed in a river bed and repaired a pipe line thing, we helped feed and hosed down some Tepes (which, if anyone has seen The Princess Bride...they look just like the R.O.U.S's, The Rodents of Unusual Size!!)then we rode around on a tracker all afternoon and helped collect all the stuff for the recycling project that the school is doing. No one, and I mean no one, speaks English that we work with. There is this one guy who works at the school who speaks English, but we do not see him during the day, we only see him at lunch time. It is funny though how much we communicate with such few words to work with. Sometimes I forget that I actually can not understand Estaban (the main guy we work for). We spend most of the days giving each other a hard time and laughing. Estaban is great! The days are a lot of work, but they are interesting and strange (in a good way) so it is ok. My Spanish is coming along. Both Pam and I do not speak much at all, but Julie's is pretty good. She can get us around where ever we want to go and can ask questions for us. I have to keep reminding myself when I get frustrate that I have only been here for four days and I can not learn the whole language in that amount of time. But even considering that, I think my Spanish is getting pretty good.

The town I am in is called Atenas, and in Atenas I live in Barrio Mercedes. National Geographic in 1994 named Atenas as having the best climate in the world, and they were not kidding. It is hot and sunny during the day, but there is always a nice breeze that keeps it comfortable. At night it gets just chilly enough to maybe warrant a light jacket...maybe. I already have a farmer's tan from my watch. There is this festival that we are all going to this weekend in Palmeras, which is a town just north of here. We asked Veronica (one of the people we live with) about it and she said that it is like the Costa Rican Oktoberfest! Needless to say Julie, Pam and I are VERY excited.

Well I will write again soon. Hope all is well.
sue

12:21 pm: Costa Rica
The flight here to Costa Rica wasn't bad. We went first through Jacksonville then through Miami and then San Jose. When we got to San Jose I found out they had lost my bags and I did not get them for 3 more days. It was terrible. I kept calling American Airlines and asking were in the hell my stuff was and they always would say that it was most likely coming today but maybe tomorrow, and of course it was always tomorrow. Oh well, I finally got my stuff late last night. My house here is AWESOME! Our "Costa Rican Mom" is named Vilma. She is quite possibly the nicest lady ever. She doesn't really speak English, but it is ok. She has two daughters-Veronica and Marianna. Veronica is 25 and lives with us. Marianna is older and married and live more in town. Veronica speaks pretty good English, but we told her that we wanted to learn Spanish so she doesn't talk to us very often in English unless it is absolutely necessary. I don't have much time to write today because we have to go home...Vilma is making us lunch.

I promise I will write more soon with more information, but please write me and let me know how everything is going back home.

12:54 pm: Thanksgiving...well sort of.
Unlike usual Thanksgiving mornings that consist of walking up late to the smell of someone else cooking a delicious Thanksgiving meal, this Thanksgiving morning consisted of me waking up early so that I could make it to class on time...yes, class. I tried to explain to my Italian teacher about a traditional Thanksgiving meal, but I don't think I was very successful. The best way I could figure to explain Thanksgiving in general to her at all was basically a day of "grazie." She seemed to understand that and then I started to talk about turkeys (turchia...turkey, or turchie...turkeys, and FYI 'h' in the 'ch' is silent so just say turkey like you regularly would and then add an 'a' to the end.) Talking about turkeys triggered some knowledge of Thanksgiving for her, she said "oh, yeah...the American holiday with all the turkeys...yes I have heard of this one," well...she said it in Italian so I am pretty sure that is what she said. But as for explaining stuffing and cranberries and pumpkin pies, that was a lost cause. Cranberries do not exist in the country. I believe cheddar cheese and cranberries are objects completely lost to the Italian people.

After school, we made our Thanksgiving dinner. Stephanie had her parents come out about a week ago and Josh has two friends who are out visiting right now. We had both of these groups of people bring us certain Thanksgiving items that we knew we could not get from Italy. The things that we had them bring over were boxes of stuffing mix, cranberry sauce and the ingredients for a pumpkin pie. We knew that it was not a good idea for us to buy an actual whole turkey. First of all, I don't even know where to buy something like that here; secondly, our oven is not big enough for a whole turkey; and finally, we were going to be in class all day and we would not have been able to leave the oven on during the day with none of us there, which is how I think you cook a whole turkey, over the course of several hours while continuously basting in during the day (I wouldn't know, haven't really tried to cook a turkey by myself before, but that is what it looks like when my mom does it). So we sent Josh (who skipped class that day to hang out with his friends) to the store to pick up some of the other things. He went to the central market (marcato centrale) to get the turkey. We all figured that he would just pick up 7 or 8 turkey breasts, which we have seen sold. Instead he was able to find a single 7 pound turkey breast. It was unlike anything I have seen before. This must have been one of the largest turkeys ever, this thing was huge. Holding it was like holding a small child. We thought he was going to get individual turkey breast that we could cook on the stove, but you can't cook a seven pound hunk of meet on the stove. The problem was that we did not have a oven pan large enough to hold a seven pound turkey breast so we had to improvise. We could remove this grease pan/tray thing from the lowest part of the oven. So we took it out, washed it and covered it with foil and just like that...you have a turkey pan.

Then we also had mashed potatoes and gravy, Stove Top Stuffing, cranberry sauce and green beans (there was lots of wine involved as well). And like any other good Thanksgiving meal I immediately fell asleep and had one of those amazing, stuffed, post-Thanksgiving naps that is perhaps the highlight of the entire Thanksgiving experience. There was no Macy's Thanksgiving parade to watch and there was no Cowboy game on TV, but the food was really good and the whole experience made for an interesting an enjoyable Thanksgiving.

10:28 am: Pompeii and the Amalfi Coast
This past weekend we went to go see Pompeii and the Amalfi Coast region. Pompeii is just south of Napels and Napels is about two hours south of Rome (And Florence is about 3 hours north of Rome). Anyways, we left early Friday morning and got to Pompeii around noon. It was a little chilly but dark clouds that looked like they were going to open up and pour on us ended up not doing so...which was good. The ruins in Pompeii were really interesting. One of the things that I was really surprised about were the number of dogs running around. Random, stray dogs were all over the city of Pompeii including in the ruins. In fact when we were looking for the main entrance to the ruins this dog basically walked the whole way with us as if he was showing us the way, very strange. We each bought audio guides so there was a lot of walking around like you were on your cell phone staring at a map trying to figure out what in the hell they were actually talking about. When you are looking a pile of rubble, it can be difficult to distinguish one pile of rubble from another. Also, since Europe is filled with ancient ruins, you had to keep reminding your self how old these specific ruins were. It was amazing how intact they still were and the plaster casts of the actual people of Pompeii were really interesting. We stayed there for around four hours or so and left when they closed, which was around 5. Then we took a train from Pompeii to Sorrento.

Getting this train from Pompeii to Sorrento was no easy task. First of all no one told us that there were two train stations in Pompeii. So after we walked the 30 minutes from the ruins to the train stations, we were informed that we had to go to the other train station that was located about 50 yards away from the exit of the ruins. I talked to the lady in the gift shop (in Italian...hehe) and found out that we could catch the number 4 bus and that would drop us off pretty close to the other train station. Now in this region there are two towns called Sorrento and Salerno. For some reason I could not get the name Sorrento correct. When I would ask people which way to go to find the Sorrento, I kept asking for Sorrerno...which is neither Sorrento nor Salerno. I think I asked for Sorrerno probably 3 or 4 times, each time getting the same confused look from the person I was talking too...like, "what in the hell is this girl talking about?" Oh well...

Finally when we got to Sorrento we found our hostel with a relative amount of ease. Stephanie's parents, who were here for about a week but left on Monday, gave her some money to take us out to dinner. We picked this one place that was in one of the guide books. It sounded like a nice place and since Stephanie's parents were paying for at least some of the meal, we decided to splurge. Well Mr. Rick Steves (he is a guy who writes guide book) can kiss my ass. His map of Sorrento is terrible. Well it started raining and it was cold and the terrible map was not helping us, so through a long random chain of events, we found this other restaurant. It was called the Taverna Azzurra. Anyone going to Sorrento must go to this restaurant. The people were amazing and the food was excellent. The bruschetta was the best I have had since I have been in Italy and the fried calamari was really good. But I did have a slight problem with the calamari. In The States you usually have two different kinds of calamari, first you have the ring kind and then you also have the little tentacle kind. Well at the Taverna Azzurra you have mini WHOLE squid guys and the ring things. But you could still see the mini squid guy under they fried batter stuff. You could make out his head/body area, his little eyes, and all his little tentacles. But once I got over this, it was amazing. They gave us complimentary limoncello at the end of the meal and then...the owner had his wife give us a ride home so that we didn't have to call a cab or walk back in the rain. How nice was that! You don't understand how terrible the walk home would have been. Besides it being cold and raining, we also walked all the way down to the coast, which is a pretty steep down hill walk, so the walk back would have been a pretty steep up hill walk.

The next morning we attempted to go see the Amalfi coast (which is a part of the coast that is supposed to have really cute little cliff towns). I had a similar Sorrento/Salerno problem with Amalfi. I kept calling it the Affimi Coast. I did this publicly several times before I was finally able to kick the habit and call it by the correct name. Well on our quest to see the Amalfi coast we ran into a VERY unpleasant Italian woman who thought she spoke really good english, when she spoke really terrible english. She worked in the little store in the train station and I asked her about the Amalfi coast and she starts talking and saying we couldn't go there because the road was road was closed. I was confused considering we had just bought bus tickets to this place so I asked her a couple questions (and I was very polite and very nice) and when I didn't understand what she was talking about this...pardon my language...BITCH started mocking me and yelling "Do you speak english, do you speak english...hahaha...I don't think so." Oh my! I had to step back and count to ten before I went crazy and bitched this woman out Americana-style! Never-the-less we ended up getting on the wrong bus and went to this little town at the top of the cliff named Tormini or something, which had good views, but not what we were looking for, so after we looked around for a while we decided to just go ahead and head back toward Florence.

We had to change train stations in Napels. This wasn't that big of a deal because the stations were pretty close. But anyone going to Italy, do NOT go to Napels. The best thing I can say about Napels is that it reminds me of Detroit. There were several times when I had to walk around the people standing around a barrel of burning trash. Nothing was pretty and everything was depressing looking. If you don't want to vacation in Detroit, then don't come to Napels!

Pompeii was really neat and if we had not had the bus confusion and if we were in that area when we could enjoy the beaches we would have enjoyed the Amalfi coast a lot more. This area is really beautiful as long as you avoid Napels!

03:23 pm: Sicilia! Siracusa & Catania
This past weekend Josh, Lauren Geffert and I went to Sicily for the weekend. First of all, it is a REALLY long way from Florence to Sicily. It is like driving from one end of Texas to the other. We left on Thursday evening at around 8 p.m. and took a night train to Siracusa (Syracuse). The train ride took about 13 hours or so total. So we got to Siracusa around 10:30 or 11:00 the next day. The ride down there was not very comfortable and sleeping did not happen as much as I would have like but it was enough to get through to the next day. The thing that was very unfortunate about Sicily was that it rained basically all weekend. And, of course like how most vacations with bad weather end...it was gorgeous the day that we left. FRUSTRATING! But the plan was to make it to San Cataldo, which is the town that my grandmother's family is from, but because our travels were so delayed because of the rain and I could not figure out the bus schedule, that part of our journey had to be scrapped.

To get to Sicily you have to get across the water between the tip of the Italian boot and the island of Sicily. When you do that on a train, what they do is they pull the train onto a ferry and then take the ferry across the water and then connect the train up again with the tracks on the other side. Siracusa was the southern most point we were going to see so we bypassed all of our other destinations and spent the rest of the weekend working our way back up.

Now, as you would expect from me, I forgot the travel book that discussed all that we wanted to see in in Sicily, most importantly with maps. Josh bought a map in a tabacchi shop, but the guy working there talked him into buying this 5 euro map that was HUGE and we looked like the most awkward tourists every time we whipped it out in public. Luckily while we were in Siracusa, the weather cooperated for the most part. Every once in a while you would feel some drops but it never was a down pour. We walked around the coast for a while and then hiked up toward the greek theater which dates from around 600 B.C, so needless to say it was really interesting. And to make Lauren happy we went to the Archeology Museum. After spending around 5 or 6 there hours we caught a train to Catania where we were staying.

Now the weather in Catania was definitely not cooperating. The skies opened up and released some furious hell on us. This is terrible at any time, but after you have been walking around all day and you are looking for you hostel with all you bags and your only defense from the elements is a little umbrella...it is especially bad. But finally we "swam" to our hostel and were able to rest. Luckily our hostel was above a bar and a restaurant so we did not have to go far to get some food or go out that night. Our dinner was really good. We had a great 3 1/2 hour meal. First we had a Sicilian Antipasta Appetizer. I am not really sure what any of it was, but it was SO good. Then I shared a first course with Josh which was some seafood pasta, that was excellent, and then I had the swordfish. I was so incredibly full after that I thought I was going to die, and then of course Lauren and Josh insisted that we get dessert since it was my birthday and they ignore my protests and force me to order a Tiramisù. I told them NO, but they just would not listen to me. And if that and the wine that we had with dinner was not enough, Josh ordered him and I some Limoncello and then waitress who we had been getting along with really well decided to bring us out three instead. So after taking a breather up in the room, Josh and I ventured back to the bar down stairs while Lauren went to bed early. Down stairs Josh and I met one of the strangest characters that I think I have met since I have been in Italia. His name was Mossimo, or something like that, and he was a jazz musician from Catania. Now he was not one of those cool hippie types, he was more of the self-absorbed enlightened guys who just LOVES to hear himself talk. For example he would say something...you could not understand him so you ask "What?" and he would say "What?" back, which would be immediately followed by another "What?" by me and then he would respond "Exactly!" with this little smirk and a I-am-so-smart/introspective nod. AHHH! WHAT?!? After an exchange like this I usually sat there with a confused look on my face for a good couple minutes while he would blabber on about something else he knew a lot about. Did I mention he had his curly hair in little pony tales? Then he started acting like an ass, and I got into my first non-friendly conversation in Ital-glish (which is two or three words in Italian, two or three words in English and then back again). It wasn't really an argument but more a challenging him of what in the hell he was talking about. I also remember at some point him discussing why Catania was better than Palermo and he something like " Ahh [deep man grunt] We have a volcano. Palermo, do they have a volcano...NO!" How do you argue with that, "yes you are a real man because you live by a volcano, you are all that is man!" Although he bugged me toward the end of the night, before that he was entertaining to say the least. Finally the bar closed and kick us out just in time.

Then next morning Josh and I walked around the fish market that was next to our hostel. Lauren is freaked out by dead animals or something so she didn't go. Now if you can't handle the smell of fish, do not go to a Sicilian outdoor fish market. The smell is at best interesting and usually awful. Many of them were selling swordfish, so they would just chop off the head of the sword fish and have it sitting on the table and have the rest of the carcass in front of them, carving it up. Some of the other vendors were selling other kinds of meat like lamb or pig. Now the vendors selling lamb had several skinned lambs hanging from their feet sawed down the middle. It literally looked like something you see in a science book. Ears were still attached and organs could still be found inside. Places that sold pork often would have a real pig's head that had been recently killed hanging from a hook above their stand. Don't you think that a simple sign that says "We sell Pork" or "Vendiamo Maiale" would do? But no, they let you know by lobbing the head off and basically putting it on a spike out in front of their table. The guy at our hostel said that sometime you can find someone selling horse and they do the same thing with the horse head...very Godfather, don't you think?

We were going to go on a tour of Mt. Etna where we were going to see an active lava flow, but because of the weather it got canceled, so we instead spent the rest of the day checking out Catania some more. That evening we went out with some of the other people who were staying in our hostel. It was one Italian girl, a girl from Chile, two Aussie brothers, three other Americans. It was fun and a good end to Catania. Unfortunately one of the Aussies fell while running in the rain and landed on his chin and ended up in the hospital. I was not there for this, thank god, but those who were did not get back from the hospital until 5 a.m.

We had planned on going to Taormina the next day but because some people didn't get in until really late, we got a late start. Once we got to the Catania train station to get to Taormina we realized that we missed the train we wanted to take and we would have to wait at least 2 hours and then take a train that got us back to Florence at 5 a.m. or we could just get on a train right then that would get us back to Florence at like 1:30 in the morning. We had planned on taking the night train back but after a weekend of getting rained on all weekend and some people being in the hospital until 5 am, we all decided that we were tired and we would rather just get started on getting back. So on Sunday I spent about 14 hours on a train, it is funny how sitting all day makes you so tired. Although we all had a good time it was unfortunate that none us got to do the thing we were most excited about. I wanted to go to San Cataldo, Lauren wanted to go up on Mt. Etna, and Josh was excited about Taormina. Oh well, it gives all reasons go back.