Things that interest me so far:
1) How much I like them music they play during the green light to cross the street on Ave Central.
2) How homogenous the population is, there is nowhere a tall white hombre doesn't stick out.
3) All of my spanish teachers write in cursive
4) Trust doctors trained at the public University, don't trust those trained at the private med schools, they are for less intellegent kids, whose parents have a lot of money.
5) How regulated the buses are, they all have virtual gates that count the number of people who get on the bus, and each complete route is timed and recorded.
6) How out there prostitution is, it is all over the place in San Jose.
7) How changing how I dress, causes people to react to me extremely differently
8) How depressing I find the lack of sanitation and waste management faclities (there aren't any!! at the beach your crap literally flows into the beach front water.)
9) How much I miss conversations in english.
10) That I'm the only forienger I have met who misses his cell phone, but then again maybe I am the only honest one, or the only one not running from parts of his past.
11) How many of the foriengers I meet or most of them (this is the low season for tourism) are mid 20's-early 30's and are only in Costa Rica because they have nothing else to do with their lives, no ambitions, no future goals, they are just kind of existing. Depressingly interesting to me.
12) How after a month I can still get sunburned by half an hour of mid day sun, skin cancer here I come.
13) How I my slightly off humor and strange openess easily crosses the language barier even when I can't communitcate via words. ( I mean who really spends his first class with a female teacher discussing birth control and breast feeding)
14) How thankful I am that facial expressions can tell more of the story than most people are willing to admit.
15) That I already have at least 5 new moms and 3 new older sisters. I guess I am strangely endearing, or maybe there is just something to my height and smile than makes me a fun son/ younger brother to the generally short population of women in Costa Rica.
well that's enough for now, one more week of escuela and then it is off to the beach for a couple weeks.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Costa Rica thus far
So I am now starting my third week in Costa Rica, and it feels like months since I have been in Seattle, a very strange feeling. Living in San Jose has and has not be what I expected. Or as my favorite spanish phrase has changed from "No entiendo" to "Entiendo...pero no entiendo".
On the weekdays I get up at around 6:20. Desayunar es a las sies y media, entonces tomo una ducha, me pongo la roba, doy mis libros and saligo para escuela. aka I eat, shower, dress and head to school. The bus that I catch is always full and in the morning it takes about 40 minutes to get to into the city center literally stopping every other street. The seats are way to close so I, and only I have to ackwardly put my legs in to the aisle which is full of standing people. not a big deal though.
School starts at 8, an hour of conversation and then three of grammer fun. Then it is off to hang out and people watch in San Jose before yo devuelvo. (go home) The bus ride home is ussually quicker and only about half full, aka more pleasent. More than likely I am forced on to the bus do to the afternoon rain shower that happens just about daily between 2:30 and 5.
I live in a barrio just outside the capital, houses are no bigger than they need be, every block is a continous fence with the houses behind them of course, the sewage runs down the side of the street at least to some extent, quickly flowing underneath the streets though. Garbage is everywhere outside the house but inside is probalby more sterile than most american hospitals.
the people are warm and friendly for the most part, I have only been yelled at once and made fun of a few times, although I did not let them know I knew what they were saying so I think the joke is kind of on them.
As long as I do not speak in english, people assume I am from europe. As they say I am too tall and too skinny to be an american (I guess that is okay with me).
I play basketball twice a week where the next tallest person ussually comes to about my shoulders. The costa ricans find it quite humorous.
On the weekends its time for the beach. Get up early on Saturday morning to catch the 6 or 7 oclock bus to the beach of your choice 3 to 5 hours away. Spend the night and return the next day. The beaches a quite impressive, but the rainforest may be equally if not more impressive.
Sadly though the towns surrounding the beachs are quite the stark contrast, dirty does not ussually begin to explain it and the more popular CR becomes the more filth abounds and the more spills into the water destroying CRs beauty.
Well that is enough for one post, but in my next post, I will have to get to what has suprised me, and all the strage parts of my personality that are being tested and put on display via living in Costa Rica.
Ciao,
On the weekdays I get up at around 6:20. Desayunar es a las sies y media, entonces tomo una ducha, me pongo la roba, doy mis libros and saligo para escuela. aka I eat, shower, dress and head to school. The bus that I catch is always full and in the morning it takes about 40 minutes to get to into the city center literally stopping every other street. The seats are way to close so I, and only I have to ackwardly put my legs in to the aisle which is full of standing people. not a big deal though.
School starts at 8, an hour of conversation and then three of grammer fun. Then it is off to hang out and people watch in San Jose before yo devuelvo. (go home) The bus ride home is ussually quicker and only about half full, aka more pleasent. More than likely I am forced on to the bus do to the afternoon rain shower that happens just about daily between 2:30 and 5.
I live in a barrio just outside the capital, houses are no bigger than they need be, every block is a continous fence with the houses behind them of course, the sewage runs down the side of the street at least to some extent, quickly flowing underneath the streets though. Garbage is everywhere outside the house but inside is probalby more sterile than most american hospitals.
the people are warm and friendly for the most part, I have only been yelled at once and made fun of a few times, although I did not let them know I knew what they were saying so I think the joke is kind of on them.
As long as I do not speak in english, people assume I am from europe. As they say I am too tall and too skinny to be an american (I guess that is okay with me).
I play basketball twice a week where the next tallest person ussually comes to about my shoulders. The costa ricans find it quite humorous.
On the weekends its time for the beach. Get up early on Saturday morning to catch the 6 or 7 oclock bus to the beach of your choice 3 to 5 hours away. Spend the night and return the next day. The beaches a quite impressive, but the rainforest may be equally if not more impressive.
Sadly though the towns surrounding the beachs are quite the stark contrast, dirty does not ussually begin to explain it and the more popular CR becomes the more filth abounds and the more spills into the water destroying CRs beauty.
Well that is enough for one post, but in my next post, I will have to get to what has suprised me, and all the strage parts of my personality that are being tested and put on display via living in Costa Rica.
Ciao,
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