Hola!!!

So I finally made it to Monteverde in Costa Rica! The whole journey there was a bit painful. It was 7 and a half hours to Newark, New York, 5 hour transfer in Newark then a 5 hour flight to San Jose (no TVs on this one!). However, in the 5 hours I have in Newark, I did a cheeky wee visit to the Big Apple! Hopped on a train to Penn station (thanks for the idea Marion!) saw Maddison Square Gardens, the Empire State Building, Times Square, ate a pretzel and dunkin doughnuts donut and hopped back on the train to the airport.

New Your City, DONE.

We were an hour late arriving in San Jose so I was a bit worried whether my lift would still have waited. When I left the baggage collection it was complete carnaige. People everywhere!! Loads holding signs with names, I was checking for mines nope, nope, nope, no Caroline Findlay. And finally in a corner, a man and wife with a baby were chatting, and the baby was holding a bit of paper I happened to see had the word "Findlay" on it. Thank God.

Then, you guessed it, they started speaking Spanish to me. Crap. If they werent saying "What age are you?" or "What time is the next train to Barcelona?" I had no clue. At this point I was shouting at myself in my head as to why I hadnt paid attention more in my classes. Oh well, too late now, eh?!

So Fernando (I got that at least!) drove me and Jessica, an american girl he was picking up at the same time as me, to our accomodation. I was in a quaint B&B in San Juaquin, kinda like a small village, accomodation was a spare room in a local womans house - but really nice. I was so tired at this point I couldnt remember my own name, never mind fernandos, think I may have been avake for 24hours by now. Collapsed in bed and konked out (11pm in Costa Rica, 6am in Scotland!).

That was until the rooster in the back garden decided to wake me back up at 4am and was determined to keep wakening me up every 10 minutes.Trust me to be at the house with chickens! Eventually dragged myself out of bed to get ready for my 5 hour bus trip to Monteverde.I quickly learned that the H on the taps didnt stand for Hot, and the C stood for calor (which is Hot -I think!)This was after a good 5 minutes in a cold shower! Oh yeah, and costa rica is oe of those countries where the toilet paper doesnt go in the toilet. Great.

So Jessica, myself and 2 american tourists hopped on a wee bus to Monteverde. For about 2 hours of this we were driving pretty horizontal on a road that had more twists and pot holes than I have seen in my life (dad, imagine the road to colin and junes before the fixed it for 2 hours). The rain was LASHING (oh yeah, rainy season!! Are you kidding me! Dont you mean monsoon season!!). We were driving through mud slides on a single track road with cliff drops to one side - best bits were when trucks were coming the other way. Life flashing before your eyes stuff! But a wee adventure none-the-less!

So got dropped off at my host family. Crap. I remembered I dont speak Spanish again. I have all of Sunday here before even one class. Doh! They are really nice, mum Ana, Yoselin, 14, Stephanie, 12 and Jose, 1.5y. So after the first hour I had said every phrase I knew in spanish wondered how I would make it through the evening! But Ana was really nice, I learnt loads of important stuff like eat, sleep, toilet, brothers, sisters, uncles, nieces, nephews (yup! all 12 of them came round for sunday coffee- talk about being petrified! they were all really nice to me though)

So had my first class today, the school isnt busy so I have one to one tuition. Am learning so fast. All of the other students are american and they are all have the same rabbit-in-the-headlights look as I do so I dont feel so bad.

Gonna do my homework whilst looking out at the tropical, coconut sized plops of rain dropping outside. Leave me a message on the message board!!

Hasta Luego

Caroline