It seems to me that being abroad is not a complete abroad experience unless you embarrass yourself on a very regular basis. After all the various fuck ups of being in Denmark (lure=nap, lort=shit) I feel it is much easier to brush off the constant mistakes and mishaps here.
On Friday of last week, our class went on a trip to Cartago, a smaller city about 30 minutes away from San Jose. We visited a church which has in it a statue by the name of La Negrita (the little black one). The story goes that a young girl found the little black statue of the Virgin Mary in the woods and brought it home with her. She went to sleep and when she woke up the statue was gone. The next day she went back to the woods and it was there again, in its original spot. She brought it home three times and the same thing happened. So she brought it to a priest, and the same thing happened to him. So it was decided that the statue was divine. I guess at some point the statue stopped running back to the woods because now it is in a giant golden case inside of the church. Personally I think the story sounds slightly frightening, but people in Cartago are pretty into it.
So now the statue is believed to have healing powers, so when people are praying for someone who is sick or hurt, they come and ask La Negrita. They walk the length of the entire (huge) church on their knees up to the alter to ask her for help. Then after she helps the person in question, they come back to the church and walk on their knees to say thank you to her. It's pretty cool, people come from all over the world to see and pray to this little statue. On the anniversary of the day the statue was found millions of people come to the church.
After the church, our class went to a market, which was really bustling and a lot of fun. Our teacher told my friend Robin and I to be back at 1 (it was 10 at the time). So we walked around the market and then decided to go see a bit of the little town of Cartago. So we had a lovely time, we went to a park, where there were lots of children chasing birds (David - if you are reading this, all I could think of was "mischief knows no language") there was also a man dressed as Jesus who sat down and talked to an old woman for quite some time.
So at about 11:45 Robin and I decided to go back to the market and get some lunch. We took our time getting there and all of the sudden were met by our teacher. She informed us that we were in fact a) supposed to meet at 11, not 1 as we had thought b) we were not supposed to have left the market and c) they thought we got kidnapped so they called the police. Well shit. It was one of the more embarrassing moments of my life, but what are you going to do? And I definitely learned the difference between the words for 11 o'clock and 1 o'clock.
On Friday we had yet another enjoyable night with our boyfriend El Steinvorth. The bartender now knows us which is excellent, it feels good to be "regulars" at a place here. On Saturday we got up early to go to Volcan Irazu, a volcano that is about 2 hours away from San Jose. We rode the bus, which was quite a nauseous time especially because I was being a good Jew and fasting on Yom Kippur. But I made it sans vomiting, so I was proud.
The volcano was really cool, you could see a giant crater with a ton of steam coming off from it. We climbed up a big hill and got an incredible view. It was cold enough to see your breath, which I did not think happened in Costa Rica. Shorts were an unfortunate choice, I only wore them because every other time a Tico has said "it's cold" I have been sweating, so I did not head the advice of my host mother and quite regretted this decision. But what are you going to do? A new phrase I have learned from some Tico youth I hung out with the other night is "Todo bien" which is the equivalent to "it's all good," and/or one of my favorite phrases "don't even worry about it," this will be an important phrase to remember I feel.
On Sunday, Robin and I had opted out of rafting with some of our other gringo amigos because it was rather pricey, so we decided instead to take a bus to Alajuela, a town about an hour away that we had read about in a guide book. There was a coffee plantation near by so we figured we would take a bus to the town and then find our way from there.
The only problem with this plan is that finding places is incredibly difficult here. First of all, they don't have addresses in Costa Rica, which is fun and feels very laid back and cool at times and other times is rather frustrating. Secondly, it seems that Ticos are quite bad at giving directions. I sympathize with this, as I am terrible at giving directions, but literally everyone will tell you a different way to get to the same place. And it usually takes about five tries to actually get to said place. It is something I have never experienced to such an extent as I have here.
So we wandered around Alajuela for a while, following various directions and ending up walking in circles. Finally we broke down and got a taxi. The cab driver was really nice, and when we got to the coffee farm we determined that there was literally no way we would have EVER found it on our own.
After the stress of being lost and not knowing where we were going, we felt completely calm and collected upon our entrance to the coffee farm when we were greeted with "hello friends! the tour starts in 20 minutes, would you like to wait in our butterfly farm?" ABSOLUTELY. We looked at butterflies and talked with our tourguide, a new friend named Dayanna, who we have plans to hang out with again next week.
The coffee farm was beautiful, and HUGE. It was at the top of a big hill and when you looked off the ridge all you could see was coffee plants and trees with giant leaves. It literally looked like Jurassic Park. We finished the tour jittery from all the coffee and in a great mood from the beauty and tranquility of being in the middle of nowhere where it looked like we might encounter Little Foot at any moment.
Instead of taking a cab back down to Alajuela, we got directions to the nearest bus stop, which was only about a mile away. So we walked down the hill, all the while looking off the side of the road at endless green. We got to the bus at 3:07. The bus came on the hour, once an hour. So we had quite some time to kill. We sat in the bus stop and talked rather extensively about the dinosaurs we wished we could ride back to San Jose in lieu of the bus. But the dinosaurs never came and after an hour, the bus did come. We were a bit nervous about getting back to San Jose, because we did not know what time those buses stopped running. However, we got back and after a few misdirections (of course) we found a bus that was going back to SJ and all was well.
It felt really good to navigate (albeit with a few hours of being lost, and missing a bus) our whole day by ourselves. The week has been good. It is our last week of this section of language classes, so I move up a level starting next week. I feel like my Spanish is still rather horrible, but it's getting less horrible every day. I hung out with a Tico the other day and felt like he understood probably 90% of what I was trying to say, or at least pretended to. And I understood about 80% of what he was saying, and pretended with the rest :)
I forgot how silly it is to learn a language. I feel like I am constantly saying things that are slightly off, and therefore have completely different meanings such as "I'm going to go eat a shower" and the Ticos around me just think "Oh well, she probably means she is going to take a shower" The other day I claimed that I enjoyed the fruit, dog (perro=dog pera=fruit) another fun one is that barato = cheap and baracho = drunk.
This weekend I am treking to the Caribbean. The hostel we are staying at rents hammocks, not beds, so I think it will be a wonderful weekend. My plans are to eat a lot and lay on the beach. Until next time, pura vida!
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