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.