Yo estoy en la jardin de tranquilo con mi amigo Jaimini. My last post was yesterday in the morning before my first Spanish session. This post is the day after, after my second Spanish session. That means I’ve had 10 hours of Spanish lessons already! I’m actually quite surprised at the progress I’m making. Before I came here I knew maybe 10 or so words in Spanish. Now I’m actually able to communicate in Spanglish with my hostess and other Spanish speaking people. It’s a lot of fun.

The First Lesson

My teacher’s name is Margi. She’s a Costa Rican woman who speaks decent English and has worked for the school for quite a while. I have two other classmates, Isabelle and Martin. Isabelle is a 20 year old American girl who has never been out of the country before. She’s going to leave in a  week and continue studying Spanish at another school closer to the coast for 2 more weeks. After that she’ll also do a few weeks of volunteer work like me. Martin is a 21 year old French speaking Belgian. He arrived here on Sunday as well and is going to be at the language school for 4 weeks. After he’s going to do another 4 weeks of volunteer work. All of us were beginners at Spanish, so we started with the complete basics of introducing ourselves. The nice thing about being in such a small class is that you get a lot of attention and learn very quickly. It also makes the lessons a lot of fun.

After an hour and a half we had a break of about 15 minutes. The school offers drinks in the main area next to the relaxation garden, so that’s where everyone is during the breaks. I met up with Gerry and his group of college friends. They’ve already been here for 4 weeks and were telling me about the cool things that they’ve been doing. Apparently the night life is quite fun and cheap, and they asked me if I wanted to join them tonight. I was definitely up for it! After 15 minutes I had to head back to the class with Isabelle and Martin. We continued the class until lunch time. We have an hour break to get lunch, either from the school cafeteria or from the mall two blocks away.

Gerry and his friends told me that the mall had a large food court. Martin and I joined them and walked towards the mall. The mall is pretty big and has a two floor food court with at least 20 different restaurants. Almost all of them were American fast food brands with the exception of a few where you could get local food. Until now there’s always been a moment of suspense for me when I got to cash register to pay for something here in Costa Rica. It’s because I don’t have any local currency yet (colones), and thus I want to pay with dollars. The problem is that not all places accept dollars, which means that I either have to hope they accept my credit card (which they have so far) or that I just have enough colones with me (because they always give colones back in change). During lunch I got to know Gerry’s friends a bit better. There’s Jenna, Jessica, Carissa, Elaine and Kyle. Kyle, was a beginner at Spanish as well when he came here. He likes to mention as many Spanish words as possible in every sentence, conversations with him are in constant Spanglish, which is hilarious.

After lunch Martin and I headed back to the class, we were slightly late, but so were Isabelle and Margi, punctuality isn’t incredibly important. The rest of the lesson was aimed at learning necessary phrases, counting, being able to say more things about yourself and talking about food. At the end of my first class, I could count to 999,999 (not quickly, but I know how), describe myself (what I like, who I am, where I’m from, how old I am, what I do and more), say things like I would like something to drink/eat and well, many other things.

An hour after class I had an information session during which they would give me information about Costa Rica and other essential information. But before I had an hour to talk to some of the new people who just arrived like I had. I sat down with Jaimini a Math and computer science student from Iowa. I found out that Jaimini is also Dutch and American like I am. He’d been studying Spanish for quite a while and is in a class higher than I am. He told me he’d been to the Netherlands a few times but didn’t really speak Dutch. He had also lived in India for a year when he was young. After an hour we both walked towards the information session and sat next to JJ, a law student who was here to increase his level of Spanish because he was going to do an internship at a law firm here.

Information session

During the information session we got survival tips about San Jose. Traffic was one of the major topics as Costa Rican traffic is quite dangerous and unregulated. I had noticed that this morning when I took the bus with Ana to the school. Every bus ride is a near death experience, there are almost no traffic rules and people challenge eachother constantly, driving towards eachother at full speed and only stopping at the last moment, hoping that the other will stop earlier. Crossing the street is also scary as cars do not stop for pedestrians and are more than happy to plow them over. When crossing the street in San Jose, always run.

They also told us about trips we could make during our free time in the weekend. Two of the trips that I plan on making with a small group are the rainforest natural park Monteverde and the port town at the Caribbean coast of Puerto Viejo. Both are about a 5 hour bus drive away from San Jose, which means that we’ll get a hostel there and stay the night during the weekend. Jaimini and I decided that we would probably go to Monteverde the first weekend and Puerto Viejo the second weekend.

Volunteer work

Earlier on in the day I also got a package with some information about the volunteer work options. There are social projects, community projects and environmental projects. The social projects are mostly centered in San Jose, which means that I would still be able to use the school’s facilities, stay with my host family, and have the weekend off to do some travelling. Most of the social projects involve taking care of orphans or people with disabilities. A lot of them also involve teaching and entertaining. The only thing I am not entirely sure about is whether or not I need a certain level of Spanish to be able to work on these projects. Next week monday we have a meeting with all the volunteer workers, where we can ask any questions we have about the projects.

The community projects are actually divided into two projects in the rural areas of Costa Rica where you help on farms and in small villages. If I would choose one of these projects I would live with one of the locals and I would live without electricity or any English speaking people. I’m not exactly sure if this would be the best option, seeing as the other projects seem more interesting and I’d probably be of more help.

The last group of projects is divided into three different groups: Sea turtle protection, reservation work at natural parks and working at an animal rescue center. I would have liked to work at the animal rescue center, however that project was currently unavailable. I’m not entirely sure why, but there are a few rumors going around the school, some claiming that someone died while working on the project a few weeks back, and therefore they had to shut it down. The sea turtle protection projects mainly involve protecting the eggs from danger, the biggest danger being the locals that live near the beach. The locals like to eat the eggs because it increases male testosterone levels. The turtles are endangered and suffer a lot due to this. Therefore the main tasks of the project are building hatcheries and maintaining them, collecting eggs and putting them in the hatcheries, patrolling between 8pm and 4am to protect the eggs from the locals, releasing baby sea turtles from the hatchery and collecting information on the whole process. There are several locations to do this project, either on the Pacific coast or the Caribbean coast. Most of the locations don’t have internet, electricity or phone service. It is said that this project is quite intense seeing as you have to patrol during the middle of the night, even if its raining. In my case, it will definitely rain seeing as its rain season, which means patrolling in tropical rain storms. Despite that, you do get to interact with the locals quite often, and you get to experience a lot of nature which makes this project a lot of fun. If I would do this project I would probably want to go to a location at the Pacific coast called Camaronal Wildlife Refuge because it has the most different types of turtles (Leatherback, olive ridley, hawksbill and black turtles), and it is high season between May to November, which means that I’ll get to see quite a lot of them. This location also has electricity and phone service, although I’m not entirely sure about internet, that’s something I’ll ask next week. The national park maintenance projects involve general maintenance chores, providing tourists with information and patrolling. One project also involves intense construction work. The national parks require a lot of help because of large budget cuts towards nature reservation. Going to these projects would mean that I would get to see a lot of nature, but there would probably be less interaction with locals. If I would go to one of these projects I would probably choose Cabo Blanco Absolute Reserve, which is the project which includes intense construction, or Marino Ballena National Park, which is quite close to San Jose, and near the Pacific coast. I’m not entirely sure about the electricity/phone service situation in these projects, so that’s something I’ll have to ask as well. When reading through this information I got really excited, and I’m really looking forward to working on one of these projects!

Night life in Costa Rica

After the information session I was picked up by Ana and we took the bus back to the house. I studied some Spanish, Gerry came home at some point and we had dinner. After dinner Gerry and I went to meet up with the rest of his college group (the ones I mentioned earlier). During the time they spent here they also made a local friend, who was the son of Kyle’s host family. He’s our age and knows a lot about San Jose, so it’s great to have him along to help talk to taxi drivers and other Costa Ricans. We went to a street with several bars that they had been going to quite often over the past 4 weeks. The bars here are really cheap, which is great, however the only problem is that they often don’t accept dollars. The music is also really different than the clubs in the Netherlands, which was a nice change. People are also much better dancers, and there’s a lot of incredibly quick salsa-like dancing, which looks awesome. At 12 AM it was Elaine’s birthday, she turned 21! We celebrated and stayed out quite late. We ended up taking a large taxi back, and Gerry and I got home around 3:30 AM. Which wasn’t all too great seeing as I still have jetlag and I only got about 3 hours of sleep that night. Thank god for coffee!

Day 2

The next morning I woke up quite early, had breakfast and headed over to school with Gerry. We were slightly late so I headed to class quickly. The class continued where we left yesterday, about food and we went on to telling time and other things. Again, I’m really surprised at how quickly this is going, and I think it’s really cool. What also really helps is that there is so much Spanish everywhere, music, radio, tv, people, signs, books and even the people at the language school that speak English switch to Spanish once in a while. We went to the mall for lunch again, this time Martin and I decided that we should have some American fast food that we don’t have in Europe and that we’ve never tried. We ended up at Wendy’s, getting square hamburgers with a lot of bacon. The rest of the group lives in America and thought this was pretty funny, as they didn’t think Wendy’s was special at all. After lunch the tiredness hit me. I made sure to get a large cup of coffee, which did it’s job.

After classes Jaimini and I went out to the relaxation garden to do some planning for the weekend and I started writing this blog post. Halfway through writing however I decided to take the bus back before it started raining, which was a good choice because while I was in the bus it started pouring. It was the first time I took the bus back alone because Jerry was not going to go back to the house for dinner tonight. He was going to a live soccer match between Costa Rica and Panama at the San Jose stadium. While sitting in the bus I noticed that I actually had no idea where to get out. Taking the bus is an adventure, not only because of the adrenaline rush watching the driver almost crash into several cars every 10 seconds, but also because there are no signs or names for stops, you have to recognize the location you want to get out. I knew I was able to recognize the bus stop where I was supposed to get out, however only once we would be there, which is a slight problem seeing as you have to let the bus driver know on time if you want him to stop otherwise he’ll drive straight past your stop. This is made even harder because bus drivers drive like maniacs and with incredible speed for such large vehicles and so little space. Somehow I managed to press the stop button on time and got out at the right stop. Now here I am sitting in my room finishing this blog post. I am really tired and will probably head to bed soon after dinner as I need to catch up on some sleep. Tomorrow is Wednesday, I’ll probably go to the movies with a few people because the theaters here have discounted prices on Wednesdays. You can buy two tickets for the price of one.   I’ll probably write another blog post tomorrow evening. So: Hasta Mañana!

Right now I’m sitting in the ‘relaxation garden’ of the language school. It’s already really sunny and warm, the wifi is fast and there’s free drinks and coffee. I’ve got to say, this is quite perfect.

A New Phone

My last post was before dinner yesterday. Before we started dinner more people came in. The oldest daughter of Ana and Esteban came to visit, because it was Father’s Day. She brought along a friend called Shirley. They had brought along a new mobile phone for Rebecca, and everyone sat down at the dinner table while they were configuring it. I little extra news about Rebecca and her boyfriend Jose. Apparently, they’re not boyfriend and girlfriend anymore. They got married last week! I also thought they lived in the house, but apparently once they got married they also got their own appartment 15 minutes away.

Shirley spoke english very well. She works for HP and visits the US quite often. She translated a few things Ana wanted to tell me, such as that there was another student staying with us called Jerry, he would be arriving around the evening just before dinner. Shirley told me about life here in Costa Rica. Even though she lived here, the wildlife and environment in general was amazing to her as well. She visits national parks quite often and does a lot of hiking. She is part of a hiking group and their training for a hike up the tallest mountain of Costa Rica. She said that at the top of the mountain you can see both coasts of Costa Rica. The Pacific coast and the caribbean coast. She also likes movies a lot and told me about a few cinema’s in the neighborhood.

In the mean time Abigail was running around the house playing with everything she could get her hands on. Seeing as there was a new phone in the house, there were plenty of cables, sim cards, phone batteries and phone casings to grab and play with. At some point she was punished by being put on the sofa and not allowed to leave it for 10 minutes. She would try to get everyone’s attention by hanging off the sofa and screaming bloody murder. It was really funny.

Jerry

Then Jerry came in. Jerry is a 21 year old college student from Chicago. His Spanish is very good and he’s in one of the highest language classes here at the school. He’s taken Spanish off and on for the past 3 years, and he’s been here in at the language school for around 4 weeks. This is his last week, and he’s leaving on Thursday. Jerry told me about the many things he and his friends have been doing here. Apparently he’s here because it’s a project that his college offers. Thus a lot of people from his college are here as well. Every weekend they would go out on excursions, like this weekend they went to a beach area and rented two beach houses with 8 people. Jerry told me about a few things things that I should know while I’m here. He told me about the usual hang out spots, like a few bars close to the local university. He also told me where to get lunch when getting lunch at CRLA. Another thing that was important according to him was taxi’s. Always take a taxi when it’s dark, and pay attention to the meter and the taxi driver. If the taxi has no radio, don’t get in.

Dinner time

Rebecca, Jose and Abigail headed home just before dinner. Ana made us a very nice pasta with little pieces of meat in them with a nice sauce. That’s one of the things I’m really happy about, Ana is a great cook! In the meantime the rest of the family was watching Captain America in Spanish. It’s really funny how every single TV show and movie on the TV is dubbed over in Spanish, the voices are hilarious. After dinner I headed for bed though, the jetlag got to me and so did the lack of sleep. I crashed in my bed and slept like a baby.

Morning

I woke up quite early in the moring just a bit before 6 AM. I knew Ana would have breakfast for me ready at 6:30 and that we were going to leave just a bite after 7 for the school. So I got ready and took a shower. Once I was in the living room I met Esteban who was going off to work. Ana came down after and made me breakfast. I had toast with peanut butter and jelly, a fruit mix with several kinds of fruit, and some cereal. Then Ana and I went off towards the school. We walked through the town of Vargas Arayas towards the bus stop. I wish I could post some pictures of it, because it’s really interesting to see.

CRLA

We got out of the bus and headed towards the language school. At the school I got some general information and safety rules, after they showed me around. The school is actually kind of like a giant villa. They have classrooms scattered around and have a few places that you can sit and relax outside. They also have a cafeteria, however Jerry advised me that it is much cheaper and better to get lunch at the mall close to the school. My classes will start at 9 AM, and we’ll see how that goes. I’m hoping to pick the language up quickly!

I’m currently sitting in the living room of my Spanish host family while there’s a tropic storm going on outside. A 4 year old girl is running around the room with little shouts of excitement while she’s being chased by her father. Almost no one here really speaks English, and I barely speak any Spanish, so this will definitely be interesting.

The flight

Going to Costa Rica was much easier and faster than flying from Amsterdam to New York. No delays, and a short flight. It was a shame that you had to pay for onboard entertainment this time, but that was compensated by me sitting next to the window and having great weather, which resulted in an amazing view while flying. I was sitting next to an old couple who slept the entire flight. Which made sense seeing as it was really early in the morning, and unless you had jetlag like I did, you would probably be dead tired. Anyway once I landed I quickly got my bags and went outside.

Leo’s Escuela

Once I came out of the customs area I was greeted by an old Spanish woman who held a marker bord with my name on it. She greeted me in Spanish, and started speaking in Spanish, after which I quickly said: “No hablo espanol”, with a smile. She laughed and then said: “My english not so good”. Somehow, we managed to communicate. We talked about her husband, a taxi driver who was going to pick me up and bring me to my host family, about her children (who were by now adults), and a few other things. Sometimes we had to use a pen to draw a few things, while also using two miniature dictionaries that I brought with me. Her husband Leo called her after about 10 minutes telling her that he had a flat tire and that he would be a bit later. She told me that Leo was an avid marathon runner, even though he was in his late fifties and that he had even run marathons in Europe.

We enjoyed the sun and after another 10 minutes Leo arrived. Leo and I stepped into his taxi and we started driving towards my host family. I asked Leo about his marathon running, and he told me all about it. He had run 12 marathons in Costa Rica and 2 in Europe. He had been doing this for around 20 years and was actually quite well known in Costa Rica. He was specifically proud of the marathon he ran in Berlin and he pulled out an old, weared magazine that was folded in all different ways. He said he was on the front page and he wanted to show it to me, but he held it back because he was slightly embarrassed. “I look silly” he said. I told him that I really wanted to see it so eventually he gave it to me. There on the front of the magazine was this 50 year old taxi driver sitting next to me, however he looked completely different. It was mainly the paint and the costume that made him look different. See, the reason Leo was a pretty well known marathon runner in Costa Rica was because he ran marathons in an indian costume. He had paint all over his body, he wore feathers on his head and he ran with a bow and arrow. Not only is that impressive, but it’s also incredibly awesome! He happy I was so enthusiastic and he pulled out another magazine with another 4 page article about him. He then told me that normally when he runs past the crowd of a marathon people greet him with a “Haow.” or start making indian noises “ooioioioioioi!”.

After that he started teaching me Spanish. He taught me a few phrases and called his taxi Leo’s Spanish School. In the meantime I was enjoying the Costa Rican view, it was beautiful. Everything is green here, and it’s also pretty mountainous. Before I knew it, we had already arrived at my host families house. When we stepped out of the taxi we were greeted by my hostess Ana.

My Spanish Family

Ana was the only one home, and doesn’t speak much English. She showed me around, the house, which is quite nice. I have my own room with an attached bathroom and shower. The room is attached to the main living area, which has a kitchen, dining room and living room all connected. This is pretty nice because that means there’s always someone in the room to talk to. Ana started making me lunch, and sat me down on her couch and turned on the TV. All the normal shows but with Spanish dubbed over. While watching TV the rest of the family arrived. Ana’s husband Esteban who is also a taxi driver like Leo, her daughter Rebecca, Rebecca’s 4 year old daughter Abigail and Rebecca’s boyfriend Jose.

Abigail is incredibly hyper but also really shy, it’s hilarious. She keeps running around in circles, and whenever she sees me looking she quickly turns around and covers her eyes with something. But she does love attention, she started pushing an office chair around the room with her head on it and pushing the chair with the rest of her body. Every time she came by me with the chair she made special effort to crash into me. Rebecca is the only one in the family who speaks decent English, which makes communicating a bit easier. I haven’t really had the chance to talk all too much with the family, but I’ll get to know them a bit better during dinner hopefully!

Tropical Rain

At some point it started raining, and lets just say that tropical rain isn’t normal rain like we’re used to it in the Netherlands. Or for that matter anywhere in Europe. It announces itself by incredibly loud thunder sounds after which it starts pouring down, soaking everything that’s outside. I’m glad I was inside. It ends quickly though, I heard that even though its rain season, it will only rain around the afternoon for about 1 to 2 hours and then stop. That’s good news.

All in all, I’m really excited about this trip. Learning Spanish will be easier I think because it’s kind of a survive or die situation. Either learn the language or starve because you have no idea how to ask for food. I can’t wait to go to the language school tomorrow.

Just a little extra note: I can’t upload pictures yet because my camera loads all the pictures on a SD card, while my laptop doesn’t have a SD card opening. I’ll have to find a solution for that tomorrow once the shops are open.

As I’m writing this I’m having a steak sandwich for breakfast with mushrooms and wonderful white cheese. What makes this 5 am breakfast even more delicious is that fact that I forgot to have dinner last night.

The flight

About 24 hours ago, I left the Netherlands in a plane towards Newark airport. It was supposed to be around an 8 hour flight, and I would have had about an entire day in New York. But that’s not how traveling with an airplane always works, delays tend to happen. I woke up early in the morning and headed towards to the airport. Once I was checked in and at the gate, they were already boarding, which meant that I could head straight through the security check and into the airplane. After waiting for quite a while, 20 minutes past our departure time the pilot made an announcement that we were having some delays because they had just fixed an issue with the hydraulic landing gear system and were waiting for some paperwork. The pilot had a strong southern accent and was pretty sarcastic about the whole deal, saying that he had no idea what was taking so long. About an hour later they announced that the hydraulic system was fixed with the wrong tubing, as they had used a tube for the wrong type of airplane. 2 hours later, and we were finally off.

In the meantime I had started speaking to a an old couple sitting on both left and right of me. Their names were Harry and Pat. Harry used to be a financial director and had worked all over the world. He was born in the Netherlands, but moved to Canada when he was 13. It had been a long time for him since he had spoken Dutch. He could understand it but he said he didn’t speak it all too well. They had just been to a birthday of a 92 year old aunt of Harry’s, and were heading back to their home in Florida. The problem with this delay of the flight was that they had missed their connecting flight. Once I told them about my plans for Costa Rica, Pat started telling me about how she was actually planning to do the same things two years ago with an old college friend of hers. She was going to work in an orphanige in Costa Rica. However due to circumstances she couldn’t go, and her friend went alone.

After arriving at Newark, we stopped in the middle of the runway. After about 10 minutes our friend the sarcastic southern pilot came back on the speaker: “Ladies and gentleman, I have great news…” He didn’t say anything else for a second and we were all quite clueless as to what he meant with great news, we were already over 3 hours late. “Seeing as we arrived late, the gate that we were supposed to go to has been taken and will only be available in about 10 minutes. This means that we have to wait even longer. Again, I want to thank all of you for bringing your patience today.” Great.

Meet Leonard

After going through customs, I took an airtrain to the hotel shuttle area, took my hotel shuttle to the Econo Lodge. This is where I would be staying for tonight before I would leave the next morning. I quickly dropped my bag off in my room, took a shower and went straight to the train station. It took me a 30 minute walk to get there, and boy was this walk amazing. It’s been at least 2 years since I’ve been in America. Despite the fact that America is also a western country like the Netherlands. I forgot how different it is! It was really warm, and I was walking through the suburbs of Elizabeth. Little supermarkets and shops were everywhere, and every house was made of wood, which is strange for me seeing as houses in the Netherlands are all made of stone bricks.

At the train station I had to wait for half an hour and sat down next to a 50 year old black man named Leonard. Leonard was also in the area for only a few days because his son was trying out for an MBA team. At my train station he saw that a woman was stuck and needed a bit of help to get off the train. While doing so he forgot that his bag was open and all his stuff fell outside of the train. While packing up, the train doors closed and the train left. His son was still in the train, so he was going to meet him 2 stops further where they were actually supposed to get out. I told him about my trip and about the Netherlands. He asked about Amsterdam and if it was true that we have basically legalized everything from drugs, to prostitution, to same-sex marriage. He was pretty interested in this, after we started talking about his faith and the church of Christ. After getting on the train, we parted ways and I was heading towards New York!

Holy …. This place is huge

Yup, that was my first reaction the moment I came out of Penn Station in New York. It’s been over 8 years since I’ve been in New York, and wow, had I forgotten how huge it was. I only had a few hours left, and I was already pretty tired since I had only had about 5 hours of sleep. I bought a coke off a street vendor and off I went. There were so many people, and well, so many STRANGE people. Timesquare was absolutely amazing. There was an artistic exposition, and there were a whole lot of people dressed up in costumes. There were a lot of cultural displays and stands with foods and cheap (probably fake) jewellery. As much as I would like to upload pictures of this, right now I don’t really have the time seeing as the boarding starts soon.

I passed through a few more streets, made a quick visit to the Hard Rock Cafe and kept on walking straight, heading for my main goal, Central Park. It’s probably really easy for local New Yorkers to tell who the tourists are and who the locals are, seeing as I noticed myself staring up for more than half of the time, in awe at the sheer size of the buildings around me. After walking for about an hour I made it to Central Park. At the entrance there was a group of guys gathering people around because they wanted to do a breakdance show. They had a little 4 year old boy with them who was probably going to do something as well. Once they started they did a few pretty cool things. The kid was really energetic and did a few handstands here and there, while getting loud cheers from the crowd around him. He was having the time of his life.

Central Park

Central Park was great. There were so many people, sitting down in groups everywhere having dinner and drinks in the sun. It looked like a lot of fun (the perfect word to describe it would be the Dutch word ‘gezellig’). Even Central park was huge. There were baseball fields, soccer fields, large grass areas, water with boats, it was really cool to see all of that in the middle of a huge city like New York. I only went through half of it after which I asked the directions to Rockefeller Center. By the time I got there my feet hurt, and I was incredibly tired. I walked towards the Emprie State building hoping to go to the top, but you had to pay a 25 dollar entrance fee. I decided that I would save that trip to the top for when I go back to New York on the 27th of July.

Bye bye New York

After all of that I headed back to Penn Station and back towards Elizabeth, where the Econo Lodge was. While walking back in the dark it hit me all of a sudden that I forgot to have dinner. I was so caught up and excited with everything I saw that I forgot to eat. Yet I wasn’t incredibly hungry, so instead of getting something to eat, I just got a large shake at the local fast food restaurant. After getting back to my room, I crashed on my bed, set an alarm for 4 AM and went to sleep.

Now here I am at 6:30 AM at Newark airport again, and my boarding has just started. Now the real trip begins. I’m off to Costa Rica, and I’m really excited!

Hasta Luego New York!