Arenal Volcano and Hot Springs

Friday we went on a zip-lining and crocodile adventure. The Saturday we went to Arenal Volcano & hot springs. We got on the bus Saturday morning, picked up the San Ramon kids and were on our way. We stopped for a bit to get lunch and wander and then got to our hotel...RIGHT at the base of the volcano. It was amazing. We swam for a bit and then all loaded back into the bus and headed to the hot springs.

**note to self. water slides into hot springs classifies as dangerous behavior that should be prohibited with a retarded shoulder. Needless to say, it dislocated again...pretty badly but long story short I was able to get it back into place and the day went on. We left there about 8ish I think and went back and all hung out at the pool until the wee hours of the night/morning.

Sunday we woke up, had breakfast and went to the Volcano for a hike around and across the hanging bridges. It was one of the most beautiful places. We saw all sorts of creatures and wandered around in the jungle, definitely can't complain about any of that. We were back on the bus about 2 and on our way to Puntarenas. My casa mama had dinner ready for us, got some homework done and passed out.

gimme gimme gimme

nuestra mama ♥ !

It’s been a good one. I woke up about 6:30 and went for a run, on my walk home I had a conversation with a local and between his broken English and my extremely broken Spanish we were actually able to communicate, that was refreshing. I’m still struggling to speak (as I assume I will for a longggg time to come) but I’m starting to slowly understand more. I had class, it was productive but I have a lot to study tonight which I’m procrastinating by writing this post. After class I came home to another one of our mama’s amazing meals, went to the beach to study for a bit and then met with one of my professors to talk about my future life plans. Then cooking class…this leads to the best part of my day. We made, I don’t remember I’ll have to look it up later (I’ll add pictures to this post too when I get them). So we all ate ourselves sick, and there was still SO much leftover. So I decided to wrap up all the leftovers and Will and I took them to the homeless couple that lives on the corner near my house. I didn’t understand much other than “Si si si, gimme gimme gimme” from the woman. They were so happy and grateful. Feeding the homeless, check.

hello = hola

Today in class we reviewed the correct use of ser, estar, tener, y haber. We had to describe our home town, to practice I’m going to describe puntarenas. For those of my friends who know Spanish and have nothing better to do than read my blog, try not to hate on my mad skills and perfect grammar.

Soy Amanda y estoy en Puntarenas. Puntarenas es en este costa de Costa Rica. En mi familia tengo un mama, y dos hermanas. Mi mama se llama Elizabeth, mis hermanas sus llamas Adriana y Desiree. Hay dos perros y ellos ladran muchas veces. Nuestra casa es perfecto. Se amo. La comida es muy buena. Yo tengo escuela todos los dias, menos el fin de semana. Me gusta mucho mis clases y deseo aprender muchos. La escuela es cerrca de la playa. Hace muy caliente y es empezando a lluvia. Deseo tengo mas tiempo por viajando, pero mi hombro es estupido. Este fin de semana vamos a las volcan y selva. Estoy emocionado. Pura vida!

Pura Vida!

Saturday we met Joe, he studied here in the Spring and decided to stay for the summer sessions. Sunday we woke up bright and early at 4:30 am (yes, before even the sun was awake) and made our way out on our first adventure. An hour long ferry, two hour bus and we were at Montezuma. First we stopped off and got some Gallo Pinto for breakfast and then hiked to a waterfall, where there was a rope swing and a 30ft cliff jump. So much fun…I sported my sweet shoulder brace. Des was terrified to jump off the rock, but once we got out the camera and we could prove it, she jumped!! Yahoooo. We then hiked back down, got some lunch and wandered the beach for a bit. It was definitely a good first official day.

Sarah: I did the rope swing only once, bugged the shoulder a little, thought of you and knew you would disapprove, sooo I stuck to cliff jumping. You should be proud.


Today I woke up, went on a little run, then had Orientation. That went well, I’m in all my classes and everyone officially got to meet. We’ve definitely got a really good group of people here, I’m really happy about that. I’m definitely taking more classes than I anticipated, but I’m excited about all of them. The lineup is: Spanish 2, Latin American Cuisine, Latin American Dance, and…drumroll, “Purposeful Travel: Insights into ecotourism and Volunteer Travel.” The only class I need is the Spanish class, so the other ones are just for fun. After the meeting we all wandered around the town for a bit and the I went for another run on the beach. I’m actually really excited to start classes tomorrow. Buenos Noches!

Llegamos!

Officially moved into our host families house in Puntarenas.

I’ll start with yesterday, because that’s when the journey started…and it was just a really fun day. Woke up and finished packing, not real plans for the day. Austin Brashears came over and we made bomb cinnamon rolls (which we of course ate way too many of, that's part of the tradition) and got caught up in each other’s lives. We could not see or talk to each other for months and still skip a beat, it’s always fun. He mentioned that Jeff had tickets to Disneyland if I wanted to go after my doctor appointment

about my shoulder…should I have probably been cleaning up and getting ready to leave, yeah…but I said yes and went to Disneyland anyways. So much fun, Colors of Life (or something like that) in CA Adventures is AMAZING!!!

Got home at 10 pm, Des showed up and by 11 we were out the door and on our way to LAX. It was a huge boost in my Spanish confidence level when this scenario happened:
Des and I walk up to the ticket lines, I look around and start to walk left. Des, “Amanda, where are you going?”… Amanda, “none of those signs are our destination”… Des chuckles, “those signs say Open and Closed.”….. FANTASTIC. So, I’m clearly off to a great start.

Get checked in, on our plane, Des makes a fun little scene attempting to change seats, and we are on our way. Such an easy flight, I am constantly amazed by my ability to fall asleep through absolutely anything. I was out before takeoff, and woke up after landing. It’s truly a beautiful gift. Taxi one, a couple hour bus ride, taxi two and we were at the USAC office meeting our host family. They are absolutely amazing, we love them already. Some sad news, upon arriving they told us that the families grandmother passed away this morning, it was terribly sad, but it was a neat early bonding moment for us to be able to sympathize with them. We thought it was just going to be a mom and her daughter but we have already met the mom’s sister, the daughter’s boyfriend, a little girl who sang for us and I fell instantly in love, and a few other family members. We have our own rooms, and are officially unpacked and moved in. I can’t wait to explore this little town.

Junior year, you've been a good one.

Finally done! Actually, I take back some of the excitement. It has been a really fun semester, but these last couple weeks have definitely dished out a fair share of stress. Who thought that 19 units, work, track, and a social life would catch up to me? I figured it probably would eventually, but it was worth every minute. I had only one really rough day that I can think of and that was a couple weeks ago, the Thursday after my shoulder came back out. I have some really good friends, and an wonderful pair of parents who were there and I woke back up the Friday the typical happy, energetic, you can't do anything to get me to stop talking, Amanda. This lat weekend should probably have involved a little more packing and studying and a little less social, but in the end I got it all done. (I got it done, we'll see exactly how well when grades come out haha...but really, I think I did fine). Friday was the Undie Run - it was for charity, which clearly makes running around downtown in your underwear acceptable behavior.
Saturday was another good day at Habitat followed by our annul Hurdler's BBQ at coaches. Sunday was pack, study, pack, study, ect...Major thank you to Kyle and Maddie who helped me move everything, you guys are the best! Monday - 2 finals, Tuesday - 1 final & 3 papers due, moved all my stuff out of my apartment and was on the road home by 6:30pm. note to reader: home is 8.5 hours away, leaving at 6:30pm makes for a long night. No worries though, I got embarrassingly hyped up on caffeine and about 4 hours in I was singing along loudly to the radio and trying to translate the spanish station during the commercial breaks. Pulled into the driveway at about 3:30am, said hi to brother and hoped into bed. Hung out with Sarah, doctors appointments, some family time...the usual. I leave tomorrow for Costa Rica!!!

Another fancy dress

I've had an amazing semester. I've met so many new people, worked really hard and accomplished a lot. BUT...it has come to be tradition that with everything in my life comes a new injury. I don't say this for any sympathy, it's actually become a very comedic part of my life. I'm a constant accident just looking for new places to happen. That is where this story begins.

Stephen (my wonderful coworker) decided to introduce me to the rock wall. It was love at first climb. Tuesday, I took to the wall like a champ, no problem. Not so lucky Wednesday. I met up with Connor Chappell to do a climb or two. There was one route that took him like 4 tries to finally finish...so me being the smart-allick I am decided that I had to try to finish it first try. I was doing so good (or at least I thought so!), got past the first hard part and everything then....bleck (best word to describe the sound/feeling, all the normal ones just didn't work)...remember that lovely shoulder that gave me trouble last spring that I had surgery to fix? Yeah well, re-dislocation halfway up the rock wall seems to fall into my norm. They slowly let me down, Connor helped me untie my harness thing (I think he was freaking out more than I was), I walked over to the rail and got it back into place. So, my Saturday plans about going to see my teams track meet suddenly got cancelled...leading to the happy ending of the story Connor asked me to his formal that Saturday. I obviously agreed under the one condition that he didn't try any fancy swing moves involving my left arm.

Fast Forward to Saturday: I did Habitat for Humanity all morning until about 3pm, then went to the boys Slip & Slide party where I found out about dinner plans. I abruptly went home to clean up the house and get ready...which clearly I couldn't do on my own so I went over to the lovely Caitlin's house. We got ready and I pulled back into my driveway about 1.7 minutes before Connor knocked on my door. We went to dinner at Casa Ramos, so good!

Went to Dj's house, that was a lot of fun, I got to take over driving duties after that as we headed to the dance. The dance was so ridiculously fun. Connor was definitely a fantastic date. Plus there was a chocolate fountain and a completely mirrored back wall that was extremely entertaining. After the dance we all hung out at Danny's for a bit. Dear shoulder, you still really suck, but you did assist in making for a great night.

work hard, play hard

Friday was the WREC bar crawl. Yes, I know what you're thinking, and yes I got away with it with absolutely no problem whatsoever. The crawl map was Riley's --> Normal --> The Bear --> La Salles --> Riley's. It was definitely a lot of fun hanging out with all my coworkers....not at work. I work with the best and most funny people ever. Got home at the lovely hour of like 3am with a 7am wake up call.

This Saturday was my first volunteer build with Habitat for Humanity. If you haven't done this you should, I absolutely loved it. It is the perfect way to spend your Saturday morning. Everyone is out there working hard and giving back to the community. You're really doing something to help someone else, and there is no better feeling than that. I'll definitely be back next weekend.

Then Saturday night I was going to go out with some of my teammates but that didn't work out so I ended up meeting my friend at a paint party his fraternity was having. I thought I might just stop by and say hi...apparently you can't do that at paint parties. Within 2 minutes of being through the door I'd already been pelted with three paint cups (one unfortunately in the face, paint doesn't taste so great). It called for a serious shower afterwards but it was a lot of fun.

Sunday, roughhhhhh. I spent a ridiculous amount of hours in the library. I took a nice break though in the afternoon. I picked up Josiah and we went to watch Kyle finish the Wildflower. Congrats Kyle! I don't think I will have any desire to ever sit on a bike for 100 miles. Good, fun, productive weekend :)