Costa Rica Bound (2012)// Samoa Bound (2017): Once again, busy weekend!

La Cena
So last Friday I went to a celebration for one of my host sisters' and her graduating class. I believe it was in Grecia, a town near us and surprisingly, it was very nicely decorated and set up. We left around 4 30 and got home around 2 in the morning. There were a lot of things that surprised me about this celebration. The fact that many parents were serving their kids a little alcohol from the bottles that were passed out to each table, the extent of dressing up that people went to, the way people danced in front of their teachers and parents, the people that showed up in ridiculous costumes, and the surprise maryachi band. (I have no idea how to spell maryachi.) Anyways, it was actually really fun and I'm glad my sister invited me to come! It was great to see her friends again! I have found that it is a lot more fun hanging out with kids a little bit older than you here, since the kids in my class usually don't do things out of school and when they do, it's to study.

Trip With Ryan And Raina
The next morning I woke up at 5 to start making my way to San Jose to meet up with Ryan and Raina(two friends from the US). We went to Volcano Poas which was absolutely gorgeous, and even provided a little excerise which is much needed for almost all of the exchange students! When we got there, we bought a few different kinds of fruit that were extremely cheap and I decided to buy an apple pie which turned out to be absolutely amazing! (I had been missing it since I know that currently all my friends and family are enjoying it since it's apple season) So after the volcano, we went to Puntarenes(a different place in Costa Rica) to spend the night at a cheap hostel and go to Doña Ana the next morning. Doña Ana is a beach that is very popular with tourists because of the monkeys that love to hang out in the trees and come down to eat your food. Honesly, that was the coolest part of our trip for me. Since we were unable to find bananas, we used my fruit loops from my dinner the night before and I'm pretty positive they liked those better than the bananas that other tourists were giving them! The beach there was absolutely gorgeous, and of course the water was the perfect temperature to make you want to stay the entire day in the water. Unfortuantely, we all had to get back to our families and I had another birthday party to go to!

Feliz Cumple, Leon!
After returning from my trip, I immediately started getting ready to go to an exchange student's house for his 17th birthday with the rest of the Naranjo Commitee. It was nice to see everyone, but once again I hung out with the older ticos because all of the exchange students were speaking in German. There were a couple that would sometimes try to translate things for me into english or talk to me in english, but I told them that I understand that sometimes it's nice to speak in your own language. So, that night I became closer with some of the locals who were all about 18 and 19 years old which was fun!

I have about 9 weeks left in Costa Rica.....and I almost cried when I recieved my flight itenerary in my e-mail. There is still so much I want to do, and I look forward to trying to cram it all in once school is over and before I leave for the US.

I hope everything is going well, and I will try to keep up on my posts better so that I don't have to make two in one day and barely go into detail!