Busy Bee

Life in Costa Rica has been pretty hectic recently. Thursday night me, Willem and Shelly went out to a local club. There were lots of people from the school there to so it we had a good time. Mostly because there were free drinks!!! We danced, chatted and me and Shelly left early because I had school in the morning and Shelly had arranged to go to the beach with Willem. Willem, the lady's man, partied until four and they missed the bus in the morning!

Friday was the big night for us. Our dance teacher (who Shelly has a crush on) gave us free tickets to a huge club near our house where they have a live band playing Latin music for us to dance to. We went with Adrianne, Katja and Orlando (the dance teacher from the cult) and it was amazing fun. I think we will be regulars there!!!

On Saturday we attempted to see a volcano near San Jose. But unfortunately me, Shelly and Willem managed to go to the wrong bus station. So instead we went to Cartago the old capital city. There isn't that much to see there because all of the old buildings have been destroyed by earthquakes. But we saw an old church which has been turned into a garden. And we also saw La Negrita. La Negrita is a small carving of the virgin Mary which according to the legend was found by a young girl. She took it home and the next day it was back in the same spot where she had found it. She tried to move it again but everytime it kept mysteriously disappearing and reappearing in the same spot. So they built a church there. There were people worshiping in the church and crawling up to the altar on their knees. It was very beautiful and serene. That is until we arrived and kept tripping over the pews and getting in peoples way. Also at this church they make small silver models of parts of the body that you wear on a necklace to try to help that part of the body to heal. I bought a little foot because my foot had mysteriously swollen (though I think it was all that free dancing). We'll see it if works!!!! That night was Willems last night in San Jose so we watched Kingdom of Heaven (awful) and drank a few beers in a bar.

Sunday we managed to find the right bus stop so we went to Volcan Paos, It's an active volcano and its very beautiful. It has occasiounal small eruptions the last one in 1994. There was also a small cloud forest nearby so we walked around looking for the wildlife. Unfortunately we only found a caterpillar, a beetle and a glimpse of a squirrels backside as it ran away from us. Hmmm these animals are tricky!!!

So as you can see its been a hectic weekend. It was a lot of fun and I was only slightly hampered by a foot the size of a watermelon. But next week we promised ourselves less partying and more studying.....we'll see how long that lasts!!!!!

Be free!!!!!!!!!!

I had to write because me and Shelly had a bit of a weird experience last night. Basically we nearly joined some kind of cult. We had been complaining that the dance classes at the school only covered Salsa and meringue and that we wanted to try other dances. So when a really lovely German girl called Katja told us about her friend who was a dance teacher, we decided to go with her to one of his classes. Now, she was a bit vague about what kind of dances they did but when she said they were different to the ones we did at school, naturally we thought....Tango! I knew something was off when we arrived there and the owner of the school started squeezing my hand and said ..Welcome back, they are waiting for you!!! So basically we joined in this class were we were meant to close our eyes and let the movement guide us. It was meant to be some kind of meditation where everyone was all over the place doing weird movements and pushing and pulling each other around. It was a good job that the lights were off cos I was just staring at everyone in amazement thinking....what the hell is going on? Anyway as we were relying on Katya for a lift back we ended up dancing for 2 hours with everyone saying.... let your energy guide you...be free....etc. I wasn't very good at it but its hard to relax with a bunch of sweaty strangers touching you!!! Anyway it was an experience... and after we went to see Hide and Seek with Willem but it wasnt very good...

Finding My Way Around!

Friday I had classes on my own because everyone else (it seemed) had gone to the beach for a long weekend. But as I am here to live, not holiday, I decided to stay in San Jose and get started with the job hunt. I managed to join the local gym, find a decent internet cafe (but not one that can take the pictures off my camera so for now this site will be pictureless...boo!) and figure my way around the neighbourhood. I also wandered around downtown San Jose, went to the Pre Columbian Gold Museum, fed pigeons with a nice man who got upset when I didn't want to go to church with him (there are a lot of Catholics over here) and then I went home and hung outside the local bar (for locals) asking strangers to go in and get me some cans of beer (because it was packed full of old men and my Spanish is crap). It was just like being fifteen again! I think Raquel is under the impression I am a raging alcoholic (she's also thinking of giving up the Catholic church because it isn't conservative enough for her!!!). Then Shelly and Willem came back from the beach and we watched about 10 minutes of The Motorcycle Diaries on Shelly's laptop before the batteries ran out........

Swapping Families

I ended up changing my host family on Wednesday. Mainly because the house was too far away from the school. It was about 30 mins by bus in the mornings but in the evenings during rush hour it could take over an hour to get home. Standing up in a packed bus, when its dark and I have no idea where my stop is, wasn't much fun.

Also I was beginning to think the family were a little strange. They were really nice to me but most of the time there was no one home. So I had no choice but to spend most of the time in my room and only came down for breakfast and dinner, which the maid prepared. Even when they were home, they were rushing around doing stuff so I felt a bit in the way. I was the first student to stay there so I don't think they knew what to do with me. I did really like Ignacio, the 7 year old kid, he was funny and we immediately bonded over his bug collection but I thought it was a little bit weird that he didn't know the alphabet or numbers. Not even in Spanish! He's seven!!! Also there was one awkward morning when Gloria told me that they were going for a walk and had left Ignacio alone in the house, making jelly by microwaving jugs of water. I helped him out but eventually I had to leave for school praying that he would still be there when I got back!

So after all this when Shelly told me her homestay had an extra room, I asked the school if I could swap. So my new Mama Tica is Raquel and she's totally crazy in a really nice way! She doesnt speak any English and laughs like a mad woman. But her house is really nice and homey even though she parks her car in the kitchen!!! Plus she lives only a ten minute walk from the school and living with Shelly means that we can go out in the evenings together.

Also as I moved into Raquels house Shelly told me that a guy who used to live there had popped in to say hello to Rachel. He had invited us out to the bar area near the University of Costa Rica (which is very near our house) And so Later that night I met Willem, 19, from Holland. He has been in Costa Rica for 6 weeks and knows his way around pretty well. We went to a few bars and drank the local beer (Imperial). All the bars have their own guards outside who check your ID, check bags and give the guys a pat down before you can get in, which is a little strange but once your inside the bars are really nice and relaxed.

It turns out Willem had been at the school three weeks and had left to do some volunteer work for the turtles. He will be coming back to the school next week and will be staying with Rachels daughter who lives right next to us. After that he's going to travel around Costa Rica for a while before returning to Holland to go to university.

So in all I am much happier in my new home! Tonight Me, Shelly and Willem are going to the cinema to see the new Star Wars movie!

First Day of School!

Monday morning I took the bus to school. Costa Rican Language Academy is a really nice school. It has a garden to study in, an internet room (with dodgy but free computers) and all the staff are really friendly. My classes are from 9 to 12 and 1 to 2 and then in the afternoons there is two hours of dance classes!!! Ill put some photos of the school up here later. I was put in the beginner 1 class (of course!) with two other students. Adrianne, 22, is from Germany and Shelly, 32, is from Minnesota, USA. There was another woman called Cindy who was older and from the US who started the class with us but disappeared after the first break and we never saw her again. Our teacher is Ericka and she's really nice and patient with us which is a good job because, to be honest, we are all pretty bad. Adrianne is having problems because she has to translate Spanish into English into German and she keeps getting confused. And for some reason I keep speaking French or Italian instead of Spanish. I didn't even know I knew any French or Italian!!!

Made It...................

So I left early (really early!) Saturday morning from Heathrow. Thanks to Mum and Nigel for the lift to the airport. Practically had to run through Madrid airport to make the connection. Managed to not get off the plane in Guatemala (though I was very tempted) and arrived in San Jose, a little sleepy but otherwise fine. I was taken straight to my host family's house. The host family is a Tico (Costa Rican) family who I will be living with and practicing my Spanish on while I am at the school. My Tico Family is Gloria, her husband Mario and their two sons. Ignacio is seven and Alonso is 17 (though I havent met him yet as he seems to have disappeared for the weekend).

Sunday, Gloria took me for a pleasant drive around San Jose. It looks lovely actually, Gloria (who lives in a huge wooden house in the hills with triple locked security gates) kept pointing out how dirty and dangerous everything is but it didnt look too bad to me. I was imagining a lot worse! Then we went to the farmers market to buy groceries and I managed to sweet talk (with very bad Spanish) almost every fruit stall to give me a sample of their watermelon, bonus! I think Im gonna like it here a lot!!!

Not There Yet ................

Ok, here's the story so far........... About 20 years ago I came up with a vague life plan of travelling the world and doing something "animally". About 7 years ago I finished a degree in zoology and moved to Thailand. Thailand was fantastic and I travelled around doing all kinds of jobs on the way; hotel work, zoo keeping and teaching English. It was here that I realized that while it's hard to find people who will pay you to do "animally" things, lots of people will pay you to teach them English. Speaking English being one of my amazing talents, I took a course in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages), got the certificate and thus had a backup plan for anytime I was stuck in a foreign country with no money. After about 2 years, I came back to the UK and did a Masters in Biodiversity and Conservation (sticking to the animally theme) but left uni with a huge overdraft. So naturally I went to South Korea! There I worked as an English teacher for 2.5 years. Though I loved living in Korea (mainly the money) there is very little in the way of wildlife there (not counting my students!). So about five months ago I came back to England with no clue what to do next. Except that whatever it was, I wanted to do it in South America! About two weeks ago I decided I'd had enough of the grey skies and should be getting a move on. But which country to go to? There's so many of them and they all sound fab. Four days ago I pulled myself together and decided to start off in Costa Rica and travel my way south, living and working in each country on the way. Two days ago I booked my one-way ticket to San Jose, Costa Rica.

So the plan is to stay at a Spanish school for the first month, learn the language, get to know the area and find an English teaching job. Then when I'm set up with a job and place, I can travel around the country, look into local conservation projects, do volunteer work and basically get lots of experience in anything and everything animal related.

So on May 14th at 7.20 am, I'll be leaving English soil and I could be gone a long while......I'd better get packing!