Costa Rican Farmers Market

Saturday Jessie took Martha and I to the Farmers Market in Guadeloupe. It was one of the most interesting cultural experiences I have had in Costa Rica. Most people are going to the market to buy their families fruits and vegetables for the week. They bring their own carts to help them carry everything they need.

We are being so sustainable bringing our own cloth bags!

There were so many stands lined up next to each other...so much spanish being yelled out to the crowds and so many new tastes that I experienced. Most of the venders would let you sample their fruits and vegetables before you bought them.

The entrance!

10 Rules for A Good Day

A couple of weeks ago our Education Seminar professor gave us a piece of paper with these suggestions to having a better day. I thought I would share them with ya'll!

TODAY I WILL NOT STRIKE BACK:
If someone is rude, if someone is impatient, if someone is unkind...I will not respond in a like manner.

TODAY I WILL ASK GOD TO BLESS MY "ENEMY":
If I come across someone who treats me harshly or unfairly, I will quietly ask God to bless that individual. I understand the "enemy" could be a family member, neighbor, co-worker, or a stranger.

TODAY I WILL BE CAREFUL ABOUT WHAT I SAY:
I will carefully choose and guard my words being certain that I do not gossip.

TODAY I WILL GO THE EXTRA MILE:
I will find ways to help share the burden of another person.

TODAY I WILL FORGIVE:
I will forgive any hurts or injuries that come my way. TODAY I WILL DO SOMETHING NICE FOR SOMEONE, BUT I WILL DO IT SECRETLY: I will reach out anonymously and bless the life of another.

TODAY I WILL TREAT OTHERS THE WAY I WISH TO BE TREATED:
I will practice the golden rule-"Do unto others as I would have them do unto me"-with everyone I encounter.

TODAY I WILL RAISE THE SPIRITS OF SOMEONE I DISCOURAGED:
My smile, my words, my expression of support, can make the difference to someone who is wrestling life.

TODAY I WILL NURTURE MY BODY:
I will eat less; I will eat only healthy foods. I will thank God for my body.

TODAY I WILL GROW SPIRITUALLY:
I will spend a little more time in prayer today: I will begin reading something spiritual or inspirational today; I will find a quiet place and listen to God's voice!

Arenal on a clear afternoon. Amazing. This was looking out the door of my hotel room. There was even an Observatory Point on the resort property. Jessie, Jessica, and I walked up to what we thought was the Observatory Point but were later told that that wasn't even two thirds of the way there. We were glad to find the shelter that we had found though take in the beauty of the Volcano because the hike up to it was pretty steep and unforgiving.
Los Lagos had three water slides! Two of the water slides went into cold water pools and the third went into one of the "hot springs". Los Lagos is not the home to the natural hot springs but the hot tubs they have are still pretty nice!
We took a walk through the butterfly farm, frog house, and ant farm before going to the pool on Saturday. The ant farm was home to thousands of leaf cutter ants..it was crazy to see! We also saw a crocodile which I was not expecting at the time and it scared the begeeebers out of me!
Self-timed pictures are the best! Jessica (wearing pink scarf) and Jessie are my Spanish classmates and are also in the Education class with me. They are pretty fabulous and tons of fun to hang out with!
When we first got to the hotel we were just relaxing, laying in our beds watching TV in English. Then we got a little antsy, but only had a little while before dinner. Jessie, Jessica, and I decided to have PROM! We took the decorative blankets from the end of our beds and fashioned our own dresses. Our theme=Tropical Asian Fusion. We even got crosages from the boys!

Hummingbirds!

We all learned how to identify four different types of humingbirds by the time we were finished with our experiment. The hummingbird in this picture is of the Fiery Throated species. We caught the birds by setting up mist nets near the flowers they like to drink from. As soon as we realized that there was a hummingbird in the net our TA or professor would immediately detangle them so they would not sufficate themselves. We marked their claws with finger nail polish so we would only collect their pollen once.
On Saturday we hiked to this Mountain Bog. It is the Mountain Bog at the highest altitude in Central America. Because of the high acidity the plants in the Bog have been preserved for millions of years. During our hike we had to romp through very muddy areas. I jumped too short once and ended up knee deep in mud with slime slipping into my boots.
Happy students before we left for our hike to the Mountain Bog! (We were happy when we came back too)

The Smith Family Comes to Costa Rica!

When I went to the hotel to meet Mom, Dad, and Taylor I was so excited! After catching up a little bit we walked to MesoAmerica where I go to school and I showed them around the school building. Then we walked 30 minutes to my Tica house and I introduced my host family to my family! We had a great time drinking fresh juice and even got to eat lunch with my host family! Next I took my family to downtown San Jose and showed them a few of the sights.

After a long trip, a broken down car, and a miscommunication about which hotel we were supposed to stay at we finally made it to Arenal. That night Mom, Dad, Taylor, and I went to watch the lava exploding out of Arenal Volcano.

Friday morning Dad had to go to the airport to fly home but Mom, Taylor, and I stayed in Arenal to go on a zip-line tour. The tour had ten zip lines...one of them was 1 kilometer long! Mom did a good job making it across the first line but then started to brake too much on the next too and decided it would be a better idea to take a "taxi" on the rest of the zip-lines so she could make it safely across! On the last zip-line she was very brave and rode the line on her own! We had a great time zipping on top of the trees and seeing beautiful views of the Arenal area.

Once the group was finished zip-lining we went to an "indigenous village" where we learned about the Male-cu culture and heard one of the men speak in their language. After that short presentation the entire group rode horses back to the reception area.

We had lunch at a local restaurant with typical Costa Rican food then headed to "las cataratas". The hike down to the waterfalls included 480 steps. Walking down was fine, but walking up was quite a trek!

Our night at the Hampton Inn was a sweet treat after a long day full of activity. I was very sad to say good bye to Mom and Taylor at the airport.

Nicaragua Visa Trip..aka the time of our lives!

We spent the first two nights in the city of Granada at a wonderful hotel. Our journey to Nicaragua was an arduous one though-we spent three hours at the border waiting to get our passports stamped. Carmen was continuously told to go to a different window-no one wanted to help us. Finally we did get through and arrived at a hotel with plush beds and two nice pools for us to relax in.

Our first full day in Nicaragua was spent touring an old prison, walking around the active Masaya Volcano, shopping at the market, eating lunch over looking the crater lake, and taking a boat tour of Central America's second largest fresh water lake!

The last night we spent in Nicaragua was spent in San Juan Del Sur--a place where everyone should go on family vacation and stay at Hotel Olas y Pedrias. This is a FIVE STAR! hotel and we were split up into groups of five to stay in HOUSES!! The house that I was in decided to make dinner together instead of going out to a restaurant. The views overlooking the city were amazing and we all had a great time relaxing by the pool and ignoring the piles of homework assigned to us before break.

Spring Break

For the first part of Spring Break Elisa and I traveled 6 hours on the bus from San Jose to Dominical. I have never been as hot as I was on the bus ride and during our three days in Dominical at any other point in my life. Every night I took a cold shower and was so thankful that we did not have hot water. Crazy!

During our time in Dominical we spent many hours on the beach as well as time zip-lining and horseback riding to the waterfalls. Zip-lining in Dominical was very different from Monteverde. The lines were a lot shorter, but faster and much more eco-friendly. Our guides told us all about the woods around us as we walked up to the first platform. The most interesting fact that I learned was you can use Leaf-Cutter Ants as stitches!

After traveling to Dominical I flew from San Jose to Charlotte to surprise Taylor! Taylor seriously had no idea that I was coming home-but everyone else did. While at home I got to hang out with Sarah and Claire as well as my family. Thursday Sarah met my grandparents when we met them for lunch! John-Paul was our trusted choffer to and from North Lake. On our way back home from North Lake we somehow ended up halfway to Columbia, South Carolina!! We had driven an hour past our exit in Charlotte because we were telling stories, laughing and not paying attention to the road.

Saturday I got to watch Taylor play in her lacrosse game against Charlotte Latin and it was AWESOME! Taylor had a little fan club on the sidelines of friends and family.

Coming back was strange. It is nice to be back in Costa Rica where the sun is always shining, but it was definitely hard to leave my family and friends again. I am looking forward to this last month here-there are so many trips left to go on! This weekend I will be in Nicaragua with the whole group for our Visa trip!

YAY FOR BIRTHDAYS!

My Tica family loves me so well!

Yesterday morning when I woke up I received two birthday hugs from mi Tita...one from her and the second from my parents, brother, and sisters. Jose Daniel ran to my room with mi madre y mi tita and they all sang Feliz Cumpleanos to me! Before finishing singing Jose Daniel jumped up on my lap to give me a hug and a kiss on the cheek-seriously one of the sweetest things ever.

The director of Mesoamerica, Linda, made two lemon cakes for my birthday and I got to blow out 20 candles! The lemon cake was so delcious. The cake that is pictured above was made from scratch by mi Tita and was served after we ate a wonderful pasta dinner!

So much love was felt during my birthday! It was AMAZING!

Zip-Lining

This weekend the entire group went to Monteverde. We stayed at Hotel Montana. The view outside our hotel rooms looked over the mountains and across to the Gulf of Nicoya. Absolutely breathtaking!

Saturday morning we woke up and went to the reserve where we had a guided tour. The main goal many have when going on the tour of the reserve is to see a Quetzal. The Quetzal is the national bird of Guatemala. WE SAW THREE! The male birds have some of the coolest colored feathers I have ever seen: blue/green and red.

A few interesting facts:
Female Tarantulas do not eat their mates...they molt and eat their own skin which is why people believe that they eat their mates.
Tarantulas live in holes
There is a Hollow Tree in the Cloud Forest
Costa Ricans are very supersticious

Saturday afternoon we went zip-linging! It was so fun! We had to ride a skilift up to the first high tower to start our descent on zip wires. While we were riding up to the first tower I was in the lift with Jessica and Ellen as well as three of our guides. The guides were all guys. As we rode up they only spoke to each other in Spanish because they thought we would not be able to understand what they were saying. It was entertaining for me because they were talking about us. Ellen continued to listen to them talk about us during the whole two hours that we were there going down the zip lines. At one point Jessica told them that we could understand what they were saying but they did not seemed phased by that...oh well. :)

Eaves dropping to Spanish has become one of my new favorite things to do. Most of the time people assume that we don't know what they are saying because we are so obviously American...

Practicing English

I have been helping Paola and Alejandro with their English homework for the past three nights. Paola had to practice for her presentation on Scotland. In her presentation she needed to pronounce really large numbers (the population of Scotland is 5, 116,900 and the area it covers is 79,772 sq. km...in case you were wondering) Alejandro needed help with studying irregular verbs. I pronounce the verbs for him and he repeats.

Trying to explain what the past participle in English was as opposed to the simple past tense was really difficult. However I was able to explain it to him in Spanish and spoke without stuttering a lot! I WAS SO PROUD! I smiled to myself once I realized that I can actually carry a pretty good conversation in Spanish! :)

I love helping them with their homework. Helping them makes me so excited to be a teacher and so much more confident with my Spanish skills.

cooking for mi familia

Last night I made an American meal for my host family! I made meatloaf, mashed potatoes, blueberry muffins, and a salad. I was a little nervous because I had to convert the temperature from Fahrenheit to Celcius and I did not have any measuring cups to use to measure the ketchup, breadcrumbs, salt, or pepper for the meatloaf. Luckily I did not over pepper the meat and everything turned out really well!

I did not think that I cooked that quickly but everyone kept saying "Caroline cocino muy rapido! Mas rapido que nos madre"

Everyone seemed to like the food a lot! I asked mi madre if she would like the recipe for the meatloaf and she said YES! So last night after dinner I translated the directions into Spanish. I had to use my dictionary for some of the words-I am really hoping that I wrote it correctly.

Little known fact: Blueberries are not widely available in Costa Rica...I bought a mix and that is how I was able to make the muffins. At the dinner table mi familia kept asking me what was in the bread and I tried to tell them. Paola, mi madre, y mi tita could not think of the word for blueberry in Spanish. This morning when I tried to ask my Spanish professor she was not able to give me a word for blueberries either.

"May I wac my hands?"
Jose Daniel was trying to say "May I wash my hands?"
Hearing him try to speak in English was seriously one of the cutest things ever!
I wish that at the end of my time here I would be able to bring him home with me so everyone could meet him. Everyday he brings a huge smile to my face.

Two days ago I was washing my dishes after breakfast and Jose Daniel came running out of his grandma's room screaming "Caroline! Caroline!" He ran right up to me to give me a tight squeeze and a kiss on the cheek.

My Favorite Phrases

Mi Amor-my love..it is so endearing to hear mi madre y mi tita talking to Jose Daniel and referring to him as mi amor. Even the lady that rented us the bikes in Puerto Viejo called us mi amor as we were negotiating with her.

Mucho Attencion-great attention...the math teacher that I observe for my Practicum says this when he wants to emphasize to the students that what he is about to say is very important.

Muchacha-a girl...this is what Jose Daniel calls me when is asking me to share my headlamp or my Nerds Candy with him. Hearing him say this is seriously one of the cutest things ever.

Mi Familia

Left to Right: Paola, Alejandro, Mi Madre (Brenda), Jose Daniel

Paola is turning 15 in a week and a half! Her 15th birthday is pretty much the equivalent to our 16th birthday. She is having a HUGE party..150 people have been invited. The dress that she is going to wear is a green princess dress that is ABSOLUTELY gorgeous! I wish I could say that I am going to the party but unfortunately I have an Environmental Science weekend trip that I must go on. Paola knows the best English in the family so when I am having a hard time finding a word she is kind enough to help me.

Alejandro is 11. He and Paola are tight. Alejandro and I watch TV together in Spanish. Most of the time I am not exactly sure what is going on..I pay close attention to the body language to get the general gist. Alejandro is very patient with me when I ask him what is going on. Every now and then I teach him a new word in English...last night I taught him how to say "trash" because he was taking the trash out.

Mi Madre works in the Balistics Department. Originally I thought she worked at the hospital because she wears scrubs to work, but I was wrong. She is a great cook and always asks me if I understand the conversation at the dinner table.

Jose Daniel is my little buddy. He is four years old. This year he started Kinder which is like our preschool. His backpack looks like a Penguin! Jose Daniel gives the best hugs and has the cutest smile!

I was not able to get a picture of Mi Tita. I love the sound of Mi Tita's laugh. She laughs a lot and it is WONDERFUL! Every morning before I leave for school she gives me a big hug and tells me "Buen Suerte" (good luck)!

I have an Uncle that lives in the house. I still haven't figured out what he does. I have another Uncle that lives across the street and is in the house a lot. He parks his car in our garage because his house is on a steep hill and my family does not have a car. He is an illegal taxi driver-at least that is what I have been told. Today he gave me his card so I could call him if I ever need a ride and instead of saying taxi driver it says "private transportation".

I finally got the picture to upload! This is my four year old host brother. :-D He loves to take pictures and have pictures taken. He makes me smile so much everyday.

Precious Moments

A couple of days ago I finally opened the box of nerds that Natalie sent with me and Jose Daniel saw me eating them. Of course he wanted to know what they were so I let him have a few. Now everyday he comes into my room when I get home to ask me if he can use my headlamp and to see if he can also have a few nerds.

Last night I had to take my computer home so I could get some work done. For those of you who don't have a Mac there is an application called PhotoBooth where you can distort pictures you take on the computer. Jose Daniel loves to use my camera so I figured he would like to take pictures on the computer. This was seriously one of the cutest memories I have so far! Jose Daniel sat on my lap for twenty minutes pointing to which distortion he wanted to use and we took so many pictures. His favorite distortion was the one that is like a mirror and slices your body so that you can see two of your faces on the screen at the same time.

I will try to upload the pictures later but I am currently having problems uploading files.

Cooking with Mi Tita!

Wednesday night was one of the best nights yet! For our General Studies class we all had to cook a Tican dish with our host mom or grandma. I made Ensalada de Papas Con Atun with mi tita! (grandma). I had such a great time being in the kitchen. Mi tita and I laughed a lot. I absolutely love her laugh, it brings a smile to my face. The potato salad turned out really well too! Everyone seemed to enjoy it at our group lunch!

I did make one mistake though...The potato salad calls for Culantro and I have never bought it before nor did I know what it looks like. So when I went to the store I found the herbs section and picked up whatever was under the sign that said Culantro. When I took my groceries home mi tita told me that I had not gotten Culantro (I am not sure what I got because I couldn't fully understand what she said)!

Going to the grocery store by myself was quite an experience as well. I was really nervous to go alone and have to find everything when all the signs were in spanish. The last item I had to get was the Tuna and I just couldn't find it. I asked the worker who was on the aisle in my broken spanish "donde es el atun?" To my great surprise it was directly behind me!

I told mi madre y mi tita that I wanted to make an American dish for dinner sometime. Mi madre wants to learn how to cook the American dish from me! I think I am going to make a beef noodle bake. :)

Puerto Viejo

Friday morning I woke up at 4:30am so that I could meet five others at a park near by to catch a taxi to take us to the bus station. I had no idea when the sun came out until Friday. The stars were still out as I left my house and I was definitely nervous to be walking in the dark by myself for 7 minutes. In order to make myself feel safer I held onto my key chain that has a small pocket knife on it. (There was recently a robbery in my neighborhood where someone was held at gunpoint..so I had reason to be a little worried)

When we got to the bus station there were not many other people there. Our bus was scheduled to leave at 6:00, by 5:45 the area was full of travelers with surfboards and large backpacks. Almost everyone had a heavy duty camping backpack full of their clothes. Two boys who are studying near San Jose sat in front of Jessica and I on the bus. We only talked to them long enough to realize that one was from Holland and the other was from Brazil. They were going to Puerto Viejo to enjoy the waves and also staying at Rocking J's Hammock Hostel. After we had been in the bus for a couple hours the boy from Holland started talking to an older local man who was sitting across the aisle from him. I practiced my listening comprehension by eavesdropping on them (because everyone else was asleep and I had not brought my ipod with me). To my great surprise I was able to understand a lot of what they were saying! I learned that the boy from Holland (I later found out his name is Yurit) can speak five languages fluently! Needless to say, I felt unaccomplished after hearing this.

Upon arriving in Puerto Viejo we were greeted by those who had left the night before from our group in San Jose. Everyone told us how much they loved being there and how friendly the locals were. The Rocking J's is a collection of art everywhere. The place is covered with beautiful mosaic tiles and paintings on every surface. Unfortunately I do not have pictures because we were warned that Puerto Viejo was "muy peligroso" (very dangerous), so I decided to leave my camera safely tucked away in a drawer at my Tica house.

Saturday we watched a surfing competition at a beach that was a ten minute bike ride down the road from the hostel. Biking was definitely an experience. We rented our bikes for 3,000 colonnes from a lady who kept calling us "mi amor". This translates into paying about $6 to have the bikes for two days! Our group of six definitely got the best deal! The bikes were road bikes with baskets in the front. The roads were not designed for road bikes; they were littered with pot holes. It was necessary to pay close attention to where the bike was going to navigate on a level path. Many people had their chains fall off or get caught in their bikes. The locals were very nice and helped us fix the broken bikes. I even learned how to fix the chain myself!

Being in Puerto Viejo was very different from being in Manuel Antonio. Manuel Antonio is a much more family friendly beach resort destination. Puerto Viejo was full of backpackers and young travelers from the UK. The beaches were not as pretty-but still nice. There was a lot of coral in the ocean and a few of us cut up our feet from swimming.

It was a wonderful feeling to come back to my Tica house and have dinner with my host family once the weekend was over.

I wanted to share this because it is so beautiful.

Thing I am more grateful for now...

WELL MAINTAINED ROADS
Manuel Antonio I learned today is only 100 miles away from San Jose. It took us FOUR HOURS to get there. We traveled through windy mountain roads and there were so many potholes! On our drive to the beach where we went horseback riding the driver had to slow the car down to almost a complete stop to maneuver the van around the potholes.

Being able to flush toilet paper
For the first week I had a difficult time remembering to throw the toilet paper into the trash can instead of into the toilet. At my tica home I am able to flush the toilet paper, but not at Mesoamerica or most other places.

HOT WATER (for showers)
The houses do not have hot water heaters. Instead there are little machines that are attached to the shower. I think I have finally gotten the hang of how to maneuver the nozzle so I get warm water. The first few showers I took were the quickest showers I have ever taken in my life because they were so cold.

INTERNET
I am only connected to the internet when I am at school. This has been a pretty cool experience though and allows me to spend more time talking with my tica family while I am at home. It has also given me a chance to spend more time reading! :)

Manuel Antonio

On the way to Manuel Antonio we crossed a bridge that stretched over a river full of crocodiles. There were three crocodiles hanging out on the edge of the river and we even saw some of them swimming upstream.

As soon as I walked out of my hotel room which I shared with Jessica I was greeted with a beautiful view of the area right before the beach. Jessica and I had a hammock on our porch that I lounged in for a little while.

The beaches in Manuel Antonio National Park were absolutely beautiful. The sands were white and a lot of wildlife lived in the "wet forest" that bordered the beaches. Before we actually went to the beach we went on a guided tour of the forest. In the forest we saw sloths, monkeys, land crabs, bats, and many plants. One of the trees grows pepper, our guide told us that the process of getting the pepper out of the tree takes about two weeks. We also smelled the stem of a leaf that contained a natural insect repellent. The repellent smelled like a nice citrus. Two of the people in the group even ate a leaf that had quinine in it, which is used in malaria pills.

After spending some time at the beach in Manuel Antonio I went horseback riding with Jessica, Rebecca, and Landis on a rural beach about 40 minutes away from our hotel. The rural beach was extremely different than Manuel Antonio. We did not see anymore than 20 other people while we were on our horses. The guide told us that in Manuel Antonio there are over 200 hotels and in the area that we were in only had 3 hotels. Our guide was so nice and told us a lot about his life. His name was Roberto. Roberto owned the horses and had been working with Iguana Tours for over 20 years. Previously to working with Iguana tours he had also worked as a teacher in the mountains and on the ranch with his father. Roberto was extremely pleased to hear that Jessica, Rebecca, and I were all education majors. He told us how Costa Rica does not have a military army, but rather an army of teachers. On our way back to where we began riding the horses we got to see a beautiful sunset over the Pacific Ocean.

Sunday was spent traveling back to San Jose. I was looking forward to seeing my Tica family again. I missed having breakfast and dinner with them over the weekend. Jose Daniel greeted me at the door with a huge hug and I spent most of the evening hanging out with him. We even had a pillow fight!

Nature is beautiful

This morning in class Jessica and I looked out the window to see our second rainbow in two days. The spanish word for rainbow is "arcoiris".


As I was walking home yesterday after class with Eric and Jessica we saw our first rainbow! We were nervous to take a picture of it because we have been warned to be very careful with our more valuable belongings.



After taking a picture of the rainbow I turned around to look down the hill and was greeted with this picture. There are so many beautiful colors surrounding us in nature around here. Everyday I am in awe of the views on my walk to and from school.

A few differences

In spanish class this morning we were playing Bingo to learn more vocabulary. Jessica, Jesse, and I noticed that there are a lot of words that we learned in our Spanish classes in the US that are not the same here. We had all learned pastel as cake in America but here it is caque (pronounced cake-ay)...also I don't think I spelled it correctly. We are also not learning the vosotros form for verbs because they do not use that form in Central America. The word for socks is different as well.

Families live a lot closer together as well. In my house the there is the grandma, her daughter, the daughters kids, and one of the grandma's sons. Across the street lives another one of the grandma's sons with his son. Familly walks in and out of the house all the time.

The sidewalks are not well kept either. There is a lot of broken glass and tile littering the streets. There are a lot of holes and pot holes in both the streets and the sidewalks. It is necessary to be very careful when you are walking around so you don't trip over yourself.

My family does not turn any of their lights on in the house unless it is absolutely necessary. Most of the time I think that it is going to be dark outside but it is always so bright.

I am getting used to the differences and learning to appreciate them for sure.

I am going to state the obvious..this is the bed that I sleep in. It makes a lot of noise when I sit on it. I try not to move around too much because mi tita's (my tica grandma's) room is right across the hall from mine and I don't want to bother her while she is trying to sleep. My room is right next to the eating area and the family room.

Jesus es Amor..that is the only decoration that is in my room besides what I brought and the furniture. My tica family is Catholic. The three year old boy tries to say grace before dinner with much assistance from su tita y su madre (his grandma and his mom).

The courtyard is in the backyard of our school. We have on big classroom on the first floor. There are no other rooms with desks like that, but there are meeting rooms upstairs where I think we will be having class.

Mi tita saw the yarn on my nightstand near my bed and showed me all the scarves and vests that she has knitted/is in the process of knitting. We now have plans to sit out on the porch together and knit. :-D

Yo llegue!

Yesterday we arrived at the San Jose airport and were picked up by Professor Lyday-Lee and Linda Holland. We rode a charter bus to Mesoamerica where we had a short orientation and then met our Tica Moms. My Tica Mom gave me a huge hug and is so cute! My new name is Carolina.

Some of my tica family was at the beach last night so Dona Brenda presented me to them on the phone. I said three words: hola, bien, y si. Most of what I have said to my Tica family is how much I like the food. The pineapple (pina) is DELICIOUS! I also had papaya for the first time...and liked it at alot. :-D

Brenda's granddaughter is five years old and was at the house last night. We played with her dog...Gesbita. Gesbita is TINY. The granddaughter (her name is either Nicole, or Suzi) put a leash on Gesbita then walked the dog into the house with me. Brenda got upset about it and then Nicole (or Suzi) blamed it on me. I didn't understand a thing that she said other than the fact that she was pointing to me.

I absolutely love the weather here! The sky is a blue like I have never seen it before and the flowers are so vibrant. Pictures will be put up soon!

PURA VIDA (which means...cool, or great...life)