Blog 17

Ok, so I had my frist day at school, everything went fine. I got on the bus back to the house at around 6 in the evening. I went home with Diana, Robin and Steven, my housemates and we chatted in English for our precious hour before getting back and turning it all over to annimated hand gestures, giggles and frantic searching in the dictionaries for words we should know but don't haha.

Cecilia, my host mum is a wonderful cook. She is, if you can imagine, this short sweet caring lady who loves being in the kitchen. She loves playing host and loves being a hard core house wife. I have never seen her without her apron and she lives to run the household. So dinners and breakfasts are always home made and so fresh and delicious. We had stew that night with juicy tendor meat, rice and vegetables with of course a glass of fresh fruit juice. And so far we havent had a single meal or flavour of fruit juice repeated! And its been nearly a week here.

I find I am constantly hungry, in England I could go for hours without eating and had no problem, never really wanted to eat much as I just wasn't ever hungry but here? I'm STARVING !! haha and not hesitating in the slightest to eat whatever Im given. Everything is so fresh aand juicy and the fruit is to DIE for.

The days have been passing pretty quick, I can't belive I have nearly completed a week here. For the first few days I was taking in so much and working so hard making flash cards, writing out sentences, doing my home work, that I ran myself into the ground. I got home yesterday from school totally exhausted. I got the bus home on my own as I finished early and as dangerous as it is for a girl to be on her own, its not so bad in the day time here, its the night time you gotta be careful of.

The moment I got home I went straight to my bed and slept fro 2 and a half hours. I got up when they served dinner, sat in dire silence while eating, smiling and nodding but not really talking much and then returning to my bed when we had finished eating to sleep the rest of the night.

I didnt even wake up when my alarm went off and thats saying something! But I did however wake up nice and fresh and ready to learn and today was much better for me.

I had started to get frustrated as I was working so hard and so damn determined to succeed that I was getting angry that I still wasnt able to construct a sentence in the present tense, never mind in the past and future and lets forget pronouns while we are at it, but today when i woke up all fresh, it was like the button had clicked and I was much better today, still a long way to go but slowly and surely.

The school offers excusions at the weekends and its a very popular way to get around the country as they have 'connections' and get great rates, however even with the rates its still pretty expensive but some of them are a must-do.

I decided to book myself onto the volcano and hot springs tour. There are 5 or 6 active volcanos here and everyone who I have spoken to has raved about the trip. I opted for only a single day trip so it will last around 15 hours in total where you visit the volcanos, watch the lava fall down and go into the gardens and then finish up with a dip in the hot springs and since its rainy season here , sitting in a hot spring in your swimsuit surrounding by exotic flowers and plants while the rain falls down sounds idilic to me.

A new friend of mine in my class from the US called Somto invited me to join her for the festival of Jazz tomorrow night. Unfortunately I missed the last night of an Opera of Mozart music which I would have LOVED but I was only informed of it today and didnt have time to let my host know. shame, but never mind! many many more things to do. Im going to meet her at 6 tomorrow and get there for 7.30. I think it lasts a couple of hours and then I will get a taxi back home. Im a little scared as thats the time where things happen plus I will be completely on my own but I have to bite the bullet, can't be a chicken, just have to make sure I get a proper red taxi with a yellow triangle and try and look less like a tourist as possible. Hummmmmm.

Eating is a very special and important time for us in our household. The six of us sit around the little table and stay for well over an hour each meal discussing the day or learning about our hosts lives. It's like a little family, the sad things is everyone has to leave sooner or later.

For breakfast we always have fruit as Cecilia thinks its good for the brain. We have fresh mouthwatering mangos, papayas, and bananas. With a cup of fresh coffee and some sort of carbohydrate; bread, rice. Today we had vanilla pancacks, homemade!! ummmmmmm was delicious!

My lessons are from Monday to Thursday , giving me three days off to either revise , look around the area, or do an excursion. Tomorrow i have booked myself in for two private lessons, just to get myself up to scratch and go over all the damn verbs I have been told to memorise. I cant memorise to save my life, but practice makes perfect!

The bathrooms here are an interesting room to visit. Two things are very different to the western ways. Firstly, there is a small box next to the toilet, almost like a little bin. The water system is really old here in Costa Rica and so the water pressure is also slow and old. Therefore its important not to put paper down the loo. Instead they provide you with a box by every toilet that you deposit your used toilet paper into. I rememeber that from my last visit to South America but it took me by surprise when I saw for the first time again.

Secondly, the shower. They tell me its electric and the way to work it is to turn it on only a tiny weeny bit, that way the water heats up dramatically and once its boiling hot you then turn it more to increase the pressure and add colder water.

I didnt know this until AFTER my first shower. If you just turn it straight on you will get freezing cold water and it wont go hot at all. I waited for ages for it to turn to at least achilled temperature but alas it didnt happen and I stepped into it with my teeth chattering.

Now, Im getting the hang of it so all is good in the world.

I went into the mall that is close to the school yesterday at lunch time and bought myself three kids books. I wanted to buy kids books as I have always thought it was good for learning words and phrases. I looked along the sections until I noticed a small yet totally adaquat Disney section and my heart skipped a beat. There, in the middle of the shelf was La Sirenita, (the little mermaid) a beautifully made book , not disney in charactures but following the same story and I just HAD to have it. I grabbed beauty and the beast and cinderalla for good measure as well and am reading a little each night, trying to work out what its saying.