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Thursday was spent in school, doing homework, taking a taxi from Cenna Plano to Santa Elena, having a nice lunch in a local restaurant, shopping and chatting with a local.

In school, we chatted for a few hours – both students struggling to put words into the proper tense for each sentence (present & past). My travel to San Joaquin was finalized with the B&B reservations and a end of class survey was presented to me.

I stopped by my Tico casa and dropped off my books and backpack and grabbed a taxi from Cerro Plano to Santa Elena – a little over a mile away. There I ate at a recommended restaurant named Restaurante Maravilla. It was full of locals and there was a waiter there who looked exactly like one of the zip cable guides from yesterday. I asked if he worked at both places and was met with a your crazy look. Then he admitted he had a brother that worked there. I asked what was good and went with his selections for entre and drink. Grilled chicken con mashed potatoes and steamed mixed vegetables. To drink, a papaya smoothy. It was primera bueno – a new expression learned in class – Excellent. While eating I met an older couple from Nova Scotia, another 2 girls from Atlanta, and a young couple from Dallas.

Next was the shopping for trinkets – a coffee cup and t-shirt were on the list. I checked every shop in Santa Elena searching for something with Pura Vida tastefully placed on both items. Eh, I settled on a cup and t-shirt and started looking through the art galleries for something to be displayed in my home. 5 galleries later and nothing jumped out at me within my price range. I found a few items, but they were over $1k each. Most of the items in my price range were nude sculptures, not my taste.

I searched for a taxi, none were around, so walking back to Cerro Plano was the next action (future tense rocks, I can’t wait). Along the way, I stopped for a famous ice cream at the local creamery. The ice cream is made locally by the relocated Alabamans who fled here from military service during the Korean war, or so the story goes here. Anyway, 2 very rich scoops later and I was sitting outside on a bench to catch the breeze.

As I sat down, a young girl also sat at the table and started speaking Spanish to me. We had a long chat, my Spanish was better than her English, sad, I know. We talked about ice cream, her school and my school, and where we both lived. As the ice cream was finished, so was our conversation and we each headed home. That little chat showed me how much my Spanish was lacking. I’m good for transportation and food, not general conversation yet. It will definitely take more time to bring my vocabulary up to conversational levels.

Home to do some homework and enjoy my last night in Monteverde. Mucho tarea tonight before the big test tomorrow. Spelling and writing is fairly easy. Listening is hard and speaking is nearly impossible for me still. I´m functional in an airport, bus or probably a subway provided they have a good ear for what I should be saying. And best of all, I can order in restaurants and not be surprised with what comes out – Well, any more than I am in Atlanta.

Wednesday, a few of us decided to do a zip-line tour after class. The shuttle came to pick us up around 12:20p, though we were told it would be there are :05. There were 4 of us going to the same place. Two 20-something British girls, a Canadian woman and myself.

The girls had already done an extreme zip line the day before so they elected the skywalk, frog and insect tours. The Canadian and I did the zip and skywalk. Next time, I’d pay for a guide on the skywalk or not bother, but I’ve already hiked for hours in the forest, so this walk on semi-paved walkways and across steel suspension bridges wasn’t very interesting. Without a guide, you don’t know what you are seeing other than lots of trees, plants, mosses, vines, a few flowers, birds, and if you are lucky, a few monkeys way off in the distance.

On the skywalk, the most interesting part was seeing monkeys about 30 meters away in the treetops swinging and jumping from tree to tree.

OTOH, the zip-line was really fun. Obviously, the first zip was just a tiny bit scary, but it is really fun, so the next is more about practicing all the techniques for slowing down, seeing more of the sights in the 20 seconds between bases and enjoying it a little more. By the 3rd line, you’re trying to get as much speed as possible, yet still be able to stop at the platform. I had a little too much speed for a few stops so special safety stoppers had to be used by the catcher. In total, there were 19 zips and 1 step-off-the-stand and Tarzan back and forth until they can stop you from swinging. I accidentally pumped like on a swing set and kept going for a long time. Sadly, I have very few photos since I didn’t want to drop the camera and the gloves were very thick and had an extra leather insert to aid with breaking.

3 of the zips were long and high between two hillsides. They lasted about 40 seconds with fantastic views. I have now idea how high we were, but 300 meters seems about right. Highly recommended. Oh, listen carefully to the 5 minute zip technique and safety training. If you are really light or don’t want to go alone, they will taxi you with a guide controlling everything. I’d do it again in a second, regardless of the price.

BTW, it hasn’t rained here in Monteverde except that drizzle the first evening. The dry season here really appears to be dry. The dirt roads are very dusty.

Today is my last full day and night. I leave for San Joaquin tomorrow after school. I am looking forward to normal food, a hot long shower, and washing/drying my clothes. Clothes hung out to dry don’t get the fabric sheet treatment, so they aren’t as soft. Sorry for the lack of food photos. I’ve not been eating much lunch or the food wasn’t particularly good this week. For example, I had and apple and banana for lunch on Wednesday. For dinner, my tico family had modified spaghetti with chunks of beef and a very thin sauce.

Time to study for class.

I think I’ve figured out the slow internet here. All their office computers are on the same WiFi access point that the students share. Each user cuts the bandwidth in half again … 5 users means a 5Mbps connection is worth 50Kbps on a good day. Then you have the remote Costa Rica DSL problem. Heck, cell phones with line of sight to the tower don’t always work here.

Yesterday I was caught by tourista mathematica and paid $17 for 2 beers and a personal pizza. She was really cute tho. The beer was cold and good and the pizza was the best I’ve had in … 3 weeks. A much needed break from gallo pinto – beans and rice and chicken.

Thankfully, this morning, my host mother cooked French toast for breakfast. As I typed that last sentence, the Spanish words were flowing in my head.

Off to class. We’re doing past tense IR / ER verbs today! I know you’re all jealous!

After school and a chat with another student, I headed to the grocery store and a recommended bakery for an inexpensive sandwich. In the grocery, I didn’t find anything except apples and bananas appealing. There were cans of other things, but only the sardines stand out in my mind. Normally, I’d grab a can/bag of walnuts or some other nut, but they were extremely expensive. The price of the apples and bananas weren’t listed, but it ended up being 1350 colones – about $1.50. I needed to get something for lunch on Wednesday since my zip-line tour starts at 12:05pm – just after class ends.

Ok, so back to the bakery sandwich. There’s a little bakery in the town that posts the costs and seems honest about them. The chicken sandwich on fresh bread was perfect. A little tomato, lettuce, and grilled bread made it fantastic. To drink I felt that I had to try a Costa Rican drink – Frutes y Leche. That’s your choice of fruit blended with milk. Blackberry was my choice. Yummy.

I did my homework while at the bakery AND a little more than was assigned then headed to the house.

The house is on the side of a mountain with trails that lead to the top. Today, I was going to climb to the top. I prepared for a 3 hour hike and headed out around 3pm. 2 dogs came with me. Before I got to the trail, the pretty one turned back home. The little white scruffy looking dog stayed with me the entire trail coming when I whistled and being still and quiet when I was trying to locate a bird or other animal.

The dogs are outdoor dogs left to fend for their own water. I suppose they get fed, but I don’t know for certain. With the climate here, there’s no concern for the dogs health. They seem very happy running free accompanying humans on walks or just playing in the yard together.

Ok, so back to the hike. At points, the trail became less than clear, "whitey" took me the correct way (most of the time). Basically, I’m on a trail in the Costa Rican mountains with a dog and a walking stick headed some of the steepest trails I’ve tried so far. Heaven.

Sadly, when I finally get to the top, there’s no view of the surroundings, just trees and bushes and other native foliage. Going back down was 3x faster than going up. I’m back home by 5pm and need a shower badly. For once, the cold water felt nice.

I can’t say this enough, DEET is a wonderful thing. I sprayed on a 30% Deet repellent (as recommended by the Cobb County board of health) and didn’t get bit a single time. There were some HUGE flies buzzing around me. They’d land for less than a second, then jump off quickly. All the other insects – mosquitoes and tiny wasps (sweat bees) didn’t even land. Deet is my friend. Whitey is too. That little dog came along and followed directions without question. Ah, and had no water the entire time.

As usual, I took a bunch of photos and a few movies to try and capture the feel of the place. They never do justice to the scale of a place – well, except for the leaf cutter ants. These ants were doing what leaf cutters do, but they weren’t huge, just large by my Georgia ant experience. Sadly, almost all of my close up photos were fuzzy and you can’t see the ants. Lo siento.

Dinner was steamed cauliflower, egg and spinach something, rice and a leafy salad. Nutritious and tasty.

I played with Veronica (6 yr old) as we waited for my Tica mother to return home and for dinner to be ready. I guess she doesn’t mind that my Spanish is terrible. It is odd to be corrected by a 6 yr old, she reminds me of my niece Rachel. My fatherly instincts kick in when I’m around her. I guess part of it is that she has some health problems that require pills and injection treatments.

Monday was my first day of school at the Monteverde CPI campus. My teacher, Jose, has a great sense of humor and we spoke in Spanish getting acquainted. To be clear, it was just simple sentences that we both used and I had to ask him to repeat himself a few times.

There is another student in my class named Roger. Oddly, he is retired from Telcordia/Bell Labs and worked for PAC Bell et al. We briefly discussed out telecom background in English as Jose listened. Roger has picked up Spanish in his home from both his wife who teaches Spanish and is fluent and a housekeeper. He’s not had any training, but has a significant vocabulary – well beyond mine. However, he is lacking in grammar and verb conjugation. I suspect he’s already caught up tonight with what I learned last week. Anyway, the class will be very good with both Jose and Roger.

After class got out, I checked the activity board and signed up for 1 tour. I plan to do the skywalk/cable zip-line tour. My afternoon flight on Saturday will force me to leave Monteverde on Friday to ensure I can catch the flight due to the 4 hour (2 on dirt) excursion. This means I’ll spend Friday night in another B and B near San Joaquin.

Ok, so after checking email, catching up on a minimum of web sites, I strapped on my backpack for a walk around town. Monteverde is a very hilly place. The hills are windy and steep with fast moving traffic always coming around a corner too fast, so pedestrians need to pay very close attention. Anyway, after eating pure Tico meals for a few days, I was starving for some non-Tico food. My new Tico family’s address is relative to Johnny’s Pizzeria – sounds like a plan for lunch. Except Johnny decided to renovate the place and wasn’t open. I walked further down, up then down the road and came to a place marked Steak House and Pizzeria. I had to search for the entrance since there were 4 other businesses in the same building and the restaurant entrance was around the side up a set of unmarked stairs with no name at the top. It was mid-afternoon and completely empty. I yelled "Hola" and the owner came out from around a corner looking very American. Fresh from my Spanish class, full of confidence, I was slightly disappointed in finding a gringo owner and spoke to him in English. He responded in extremely broken English – BONUS! He handed me the menu and started talking about how good the steaks were today. I had pizza on the mind – a different menu. Beer and Di Kaye pizza ordered. I figured $10, which is VERY expensive for lunch. Last week, my lunches were usually $2 at a soda. The pizza was pretty good and the Imperial beer was similar to Michelob in taste. $17 later, which I complained about to the girl working the register. The price was because I’d specified the brand of beer and I’d had 2 of them – I guess. I sipped the 2nd beer and worked on my homework for about an hour before heading home.

At home, I searched for a Spanish book to practice reading aloud, but only found a TU magazine. I’m not certain, but I think I understand what boys like in a girlfriend now. Very helpful in getting the current lingo down as used by teenage girls. The hints on makeup – guys prefer natural looking girls according to the article – will really help me. Sure.

A short siesta before the family arrived at home and my tico mother – who is 2 years my junior cooked rice and lentils with some stew meat. At least it wasn’t beans!

My job for the evening was working with 6 and 7 year olds on their English vocabulary. The 6 yr old girl new it all. The 7 yr old boy appeared to know the first 3 answers, then didn’t know any of the rest. At that age, boys are very restless as you know, so getting him to concentrate was impossible. It ended with them quizzing me on my colors in Spanish. I’d not studied them at all – only looked over them 5 days ago briefly. Girls see 200 colors. Men see 8. Pink is pushing the color spectrum for men. Within 10 minutes with lots of laughter over a few of my answers, I had the 8 colors down. Next we were onto animals.

On Sunday I traveled to Monteverde over dirt roads and a fairly nice highway for 4 hours. Saying goodbye to my San Joaquin family was tougher than I thought it would be, but necessary to meet my new Tico Family. The ride was bone jarring with my insides hurting afterwards.

The chartered minibus was packed with every seat taken – only students for CPI. I met a teacher going home to Monteverde who was originally from Suriname. That is a South American country formerly a Dutch possession. She’d lived in Miami and didn’t have much of an accent – odd tho Dutch is her first language. She began as a Spanish student at the same school I’m attending and basically never left. I don’t seem to have taken any photos of her - she had a club-girl look with short purple hair and a quick wit. We figured the school put someone like her on every minibus for entertainment. It’s May as I fill in this detail and I can’t recall her name.

The climb to about 9000ft into the Monteverde area – Santa Elena was on windy dirt roads. I was met by my new family and taken on a short trip around the homestead on the side of a mountain. They have 4 dogs and a number of horses to be determined later. One is a calf of 13 months. After having a beer, they took me on a short hike up the mountainside. Along the say, we saw a macaw, wild sugar cane and Orlando used his machete to chop off some sugar cane that we chewed. As we climbed higher, the growth changed into canopy and we headed into a heavily forested area and found a trail. Along the trail we saw many strangler fig trees. These grow outside other trees and eventually kill the inner tree. Lots-o-pictures of this including from inside where the originally tree had disappeared completely and only the strangler was left. Then it was time to head home, but not before snapping some high quality photos from the mountain out over the gulf and into the pacific ocean many, many miles away.

It seemed there was a fair today at the town fairgrounds, so we headed there to see what was happening. It was a fairly tiny extravaganza – perhaps 4 rides for the kids and 7 or so food stands. There were 2 stages with music on opposite ends of the grounds. Tejano on one side and rap on the other. People watching was the main attraction with a mix of ethnic skin, to Indian, to black, to white and very white. The touristas stick out on site. As far as the locals go, most of them seem to have lived in this place all their lives. They know everyone else and their entire life story. There’s usually history between their families with interrelated businesses of some kind.

After eating a plate of veggies and some kind of meat/fat/crusty thing (later learned these were chicharonnes), we people watched some before heading home. The sun had already set and it was pitch black. The parade walked by as we walked home. Somehow we found our way to the end of their road and up the step hill to their home with just a hint of twilight remaining from over the pacific.

We watched a Disney movie Agent Kody Banks I think and I found myself dozing off around 7pm. As I write this, the fair is still going – echoes heard off the mountain slopes.

I’ve left out the mosquitoes and other flying insects that I can’t identify. I was able to snap a few photos of flowers that I’ve never seen before, but missed a huge purple butterfly. I was too slow and it was raining. Ah, the rain. It is a light rain and nobody seems to notice it. They don’t wear raincoats or bother with umbrellas. It rained like this as we walked to the fair. Even my cotton shirt didn’t get soaked. Somehow it was as though there was no rain when it ended. I don’t know why.

Tomorrow is my first day of school here. It should be interesting.

I don’t know where to begin describing today. Simply amazing does not come close. For $65 each, we were picked up at our homes, taken into San Jose, provided a driving tour of the downtown area – all the parks and cows, then taken to Volcano Irazu, Paradise, lunch, a botanical garden and home again. All entry fees paid and lunch was free. WOW.

Volcanoes are notorious for for having a micro climate that prevents viewing of the crater floor. Today we were lucky – we arrived, walked and viewed all that Irazu had before the clouds rolled in. It felt surreal since there were places were vegetation was trying to take hold – fighting the noxious out gases. BTW, this volcano is around 12000 ft, add that to being near the equator, clear skies, 11am and you have a recipe for sunburn. The entire bus gooped on sunscreen, wore rain jackets and long pants since we were warned the weather here could change drastically in 5 minutes.

The volcano was the main item on my list as I headed out, but that’s not the way the day ended.

After getting to the volcano as early in the morning as we could, we back tracked to Cartago to visit the church – Our Lady of the Angles Basiluca. Since it was Saturday, there was a wedding. The attendees that I saw weren’t dressed up and the church is so large that I could only see the bride and groom kneeing in the distance. There’s a little statue of a black mother Mary, La Negrita. We lost a few tourist there, then went back to pick them up and headed off for lunch.

After driving on small winding roads for 45 minutes, I was positive the food would be bad and the trip was simply some way to get kickbacks for the tour operators. I was wrong. Along the way, we stopped at a lookout point over the famous Orosi Valley. No high quality photo can do it justice. Picturesque doesn’t cover it either. When you image Paradise, this is probably what your mind creates if it appears to be a valley with manicured farms, small homes, and a few locals tending.

Next, we traversed over the Cachi Dam – a hydroelectric plant. The lake appeared to be 30ft low due to el Nina. On the other side, we headed into a coffee plantation to the La Casona del Cafetal restaurant. This location is recommended in Foder’s CR Guide. The food was good, but the views were better. With the lake higher, it would only be better. After desert, they brought out a coffee cup with a filter bag held over it on a wooden stand. The coffee was tasty, not double roasted/burnt like some places in the USA do it. I haven’t seen anything but local coffee houses here. Britt coffee seems to be the most marketed – similar to Starbucks.

Next we headed back towards Cartago but veered of the main road to hit the Jardin Botanico Lankester. This is a world class botanical garden concentrating on rare orchids with more than 1100 varieties. Sadly, my camera battery ran out of charge before the tour finished, but I was able to nurse another 25 photos out of it and get the best of the remaining flowers, trees, plants and cacti.

After all the sun and outdoor viewings today, we were done and headed home.

I thought my day was complete, but I was confused. After dinner, I settled down to read a book – actually, I quickly dozed off. Anyway, my host father and mother came and told me we were going to Barro. I didn’t think they drank, but perhaps tonight, they’d let lose? It turned out that Barro is a nearby town that was having a fair. Fairs are just like we all remember, good for people watching, seeing old friends and family, but not much else unless you’re interested in buying junk. We quickly left the fair after looking over all the over sized masks. Barro is close to Heredia, so it was an excuse to stop near the central plaza there and get some ice cream at Pops, yummy. As we drove home, we saw some fireworks in the San Joaquin central park – celebrating a wedding. The finale happened too quickly, but what can you expect from a private party fireworks set off in the central plaza of a small town?

Not too bad for a last day in the central valley.

Ok, so my first week in Costa Rica is almost over. In this week, I’ve:

• Been sunburn
• Hiked at least 4 miles a day, over 12 last Sunday
• Learned a full semester of college Spanish
• Been propositioned
• Met a wonderful family
• Learned about middle class Tico lifestyles
• Ate Tico food
• Didn’t lose any weight
• Saw Heredia – a nearby city
• traveled on a bus-quite an experience
• learned about slow internet connections – sorry about the lack of photos in my gallery. My upload connections keep getting reset.
• Met some really nice people from CR and around the world.
• Was heckled by elementary students on a bus – heard this is very common.
• I’ll miss the CPI family in Heredia. They were very kind and helped me to learn faster than I could have imagined. Thanks to Karla, my teacher, for putting up with my garbage, but there is a difference between ol and d <rbg>.
• Was taken on a quick ride to church that turned into an E-ticket ride through neighborhoods, down dirt roads, picking up family members, stopping at a mom-pop quick-e-mart, driving on the wrong side of the road (on multiple occasions), being passed by cars and motorcycles, stopping to let a 2 yr old pee, and finally dropping off the daughter at church for an overnight retreat. To be fair, it was a 20 yr old Costa Rican driving. He was much safer than I would have been on the same roads/conditions. It didn’t seem to me like he broke any Costa Rican traffic laws based on what I’ve seen here already, but that didn’t take away from the thrill experienced.

Dinner was rice, black beans, a cabbage and tomato salad with a fried chicken cutlet. I washed it all down with fresh squeezed cass juice. YUMMY. Either white or Spanish rice has been provided with almost every meal at home. This is not the way to lose weight for me since I love rice.

If I mixed any Spanish in, I’m sorry. Also, if my sentences sound simplistic, I blame it on the simple Spanish that I know for this week. Coming up with sentences when you only know a few hundred words isn’t easy. I only know present tense verbs, so complex sentences aren’t conducive. Next week in Monteverde, they will cover past tense, I hear.

Tomorrow (Saturday), we’re going to Volcano Irazu for a day trip. The trip starts at 6am and goes into the evening. I think I’ll be spending 4+ hours on buses. There are hiking trails so I hope to get a few hours in after I get the major site – the volcano. I’ve been warned that clouds often block all views at volcanoes, so this trip could be just to look where the volcano is covered in clouds.

On Sunday I’m traveling by bus to Monteverde in the mountains to study there for a week. I’ll be living with a country family of Costa Ricans. The family information that I have now is the couple are both about my age with 2 girls – 12 and 7 yrs old. A taxi driver and an artist. Their address is relative to Johnny’s Pizzeria, so that’s a good sign.

Thursday was an early morning so I could study for another test on verbs. I hopped on the family scale – no lose or gain since I left home. It was yet another day with the rooster determining what time everyone in the valley needs to get up. Later today, I got within 6 feet of him and his bride, but only to take a picture. Fortunately, I didn’t have any other plans as the family that lives in the rooster house drove up. He was still announcing his presence at 5pm.

After school, I walked home and decided that it was too early in the afternoon to start studying more verbs. Verbs seem to be the key to this phase of my learning. I took a bus to Heredia, the capitol of this Provence located about 3 miles away from San Joaquin. Since I wasn’t sure where the bus ended, I did my best to guess when to get off. THEN I had to figure out where I was in a town that doesn’t have street signs, an interesting problem. Also, I didn’t get off the bus at the same place everyone else did, outside a grocery store. It just didn’t feel like the right place.

The next major stop half a mile further felt about right if not a little early. So I headed north up a hill towards the center of town until I found a Big Building with a name on it. It was a Ginasium de Regional – Regional Gym but more importantly, it was on my photo copied Heredia map from CPI. Bueno! I was only a few blocks from where I wanted to be AND I’d gotten off at the best bus stop possible.

In every Costa Rican town, there’s a Church, a Futball field and a school – usually side-by-side. Heredia was different. They have a church (actually more than a few) – HUGE church. It is next to a central plaza which was full of people walking, talking, meeting, and people watching. It really was a nice plaza. I took lots of photos of both the church and the plaza.

As I was walking around, I stepped in to an entry way to get a little better angle for a photo. Then this old lady from the street started talking to me and telling me all about the church – in Spanish. I told her my name and that I was a new Spanish student. Any way, I think that’s what I said. Well, it turns out that she simply wanted to get into her house and I was standing in her doorway. I honestly believe that she asked me my name and said that the church was beautiful. Her manner was pleasant. I took a snapshot of what she called her house – it didn’t look like a house to me and was surrounded by other businesses.

Next I headed to the tourist section of town only to find them selling clothes (mostly womens and intimates), tennis shoes, and used ipods. There appears to be a huge market here for ipods. The government taxes imports heavily, so if you are an adventurous traveler, you may be able to earn an extra $100 off a new 60GB model in good condition.

Following the map on the walking tour, I entered the central market. This is a 2 full block building full of vendors selling different types of food. Fish, meats, chicken, sausages, Jansport backpacks, and a very few leather and other knick-knack goods. It was about an 5×10 grid of rows with 5 vendors per side and all the way around on the outside. It appeared to me that people were there buying food for the next day or so. Very fresh – except the fish didn’t look or smell very good. I only snapped a few pictures from outside. If you’ve ever been in a foreign country and in a market like this, you know the feeling – locals don’t really want to be in snapshots in places like this. Don’t get me wrong, there didn’t appear to be anything illegal happening and there was a police presence at every entrance. Still, I kept my hand on my bag around front. My wallet was double buttoned in a front pocket and I only had $20 in US and CR currency total. You don’t carry your passport with you here. Rather a photocopy is used except at banks and when you leave the country.

My impression of Heredia is a 20k person town with a vibrant center with shops to support all the surrounding towns. Heck, they had 2 Pizza Huts that I saw! Ah, and the women were a mixed bag. One of the female vendors in the market actually approached me like the men do with every woman, girl, and lady here. I’ll just say, she was extremely forward and extremely large with more facial hair than I have after a week.

Next was the adventure of finding the opposite bus back to San Joaquin. In my search, I found another church and another plaza. Neither were very nice, but the bus pickup was on the far side of the plaza.

The bus had a line forming outside it, so I got into the line. There was a sign with 2 different city names on them, so I forced out enough Spanish to verify I was in line for the correct bus. BTW, the other city (cuidad) was to Santa Barbara. As I got on the bus, I handed the driver 200 colones and he handed me some change – I asked if that was all and showed it to him, since I couldn’t figure out how 2 coins would provide 65 colones in change. I was short changed, but didn’t think any more about it until later that evening. 25 cents is still money.

For dinner, I had rice, soup (beans y chicken y potatoes) and fried green beans. To wash it down was fresh cass juice. Very tasty. Cass is a fruit that I’ve never seen before, but I understand it is grown in Florida. Think of a walnut sized citrus fruit with a pear/lime taste. Yummy. This fresh juice was provided at a number of meals and tasty.

Breakfast was fruit, an inverse grilled cheese sandwich and decaf coffee.

Then I was off to school – ready for a test. Note the guard dog along the way in the gallery. He was fierce (not really) and about the size of Gayle’s Billy.

After class, I took a CR cooking class. See the photos. It was tasty and not bland, but the handmade tortillas were less than tasty. No salt (salt is bad luck in CR), and I didn’t see any oil used in making them.

Dinner was chicken-rice, salad, black beans and chips. I was good and only ate a few chips. Then I spotted a scale under the TV and stepped on it. No change. I’ll need to alter my eating to keep losing weight.

Ok, so Tuesday began with a damn rooster crowing around 4am. Then a HUGE jet buzzed the town causing all the car alarms to sound. Not just with a simple woop, but with the woop, woop, e-ah-e-ah-e-ah sounds.

My host family learned that I avoid caffeine, so Claudia picked up some decaffeinated coffee yesterday. The entire family has been unbelievably kind and open. They have only a slightly simpler life that we in the USA. Their kitchen is basically the same as mine with the exact same equipment. I haven’t seen any boxed food, it is all fresh made by Claudia and tasty.

Class begins later today at 720am, beginning with a test (written and oral). The sun has been up for over 2 hours. Costa Rica is on Central time, but they don’t have Daylight Savings, so it is Mountain time now. The country’s longitude places it almost on Eastern time – so the sun comes up very early indeed. It takes some getting used to. Also, since I’m located in a valley surrounded by mountains, the sun has to get fairly high before you see it, but not before the light and clear blue sky is seen.

My classmate was sick today, I don’t know why, so I had 1 on 1 training. That is until 3 other much more advanced students were brought in. It must have been by mistake, since they had already had 4-6 years of Spanish training. It turned out that another person in that other class of high school students had gotten lost on the way to school and had gone home. A few of the teachers and her adult escort went searching until they found her. She was from the Bahamas – like most of the students here, perhaps 30 in total.

Anyway, after class was over, I took a dance class in meringue and salsa. I suck, as expected. The class consisted of me and 2 retired ladies – just a few years younger than my mother. We had fun and sweated a bunch. My pedometer showed over 5 miles after the 1 hour class.

I was given so much homework that I had a quick bite to eat at the diner across the street – just a pollo burro con no mucho case – a chicken burrito with just a little cheese. See photo.

Back at home the studying began. Describe about 20 photos as interactions between people AND be polite. The other part of the homework was to memorize about 100 regular verbs (-AR, -IR, -ER). I haven’t been a student in years, so I was only able to memorize about 30 of them before my brain said enough, but I did look up and understand the present tense conjugations for each of those types of verbs. Since I’m a visual learner, having my teacher tell me the words doesn’t help very much.

Dinner was spaghetti-like and tasty. I took photos.

Then back to memorization – that didn’t get anywhere, so I listened to a Pimsleur lesson that I’d already heard, but found too difficult. It was very easy this time.

The wind was really blowing here all day, but really picked up over night to where a corner of the roof became loose and banged around. Jorge was up at least 3 hours doing something to stop the noise. By that time, the 5am airplane and damn cock started. No car alarms this morning, so I guess the plane wasn’t really that close today.