Quiere a bailar?

It is ridiculous to me that it has not even been two weeks since my arrival in Costa Rica. There is much to report on. Last week, after my second dance class, some gal pals (Kelsey, Robin and Brianna) and myself felt that we were competent enough with our moves to hit the club scene in San Jose. As it turns out, I at least, could have used a few more lessons. The clubs here are kind of like in movies, where everyone seems to know the same exact dance. Which would be awesome if a) I could keep up/knew said dance and b) if I had a dance partner, which seems to be a requirement for the clubs here. After the initial shock of how good EVERYONE was at dancing, Kelsey and Robin were invited to dance by 2 Ticos and I scoped out the partner situation. There were quite a few gentlemen standing on the side of the dance floor, seemingly ready to get their groove on. After choosing my victim, and practicing my best Spanish accent, I sauntered over with confidence and asked "Usted quiere a bailar?" the gentleman in question responded IN ENGLISH "uh...maybe later." Not quite what I imagined, which was a) him saying yes and b) us showing up every single person in the club with our wildly fantastic and ground breaking dance moves. But what are you gonna do? I had a lovely night dancing with my amigas.  The world will have to wait on the ground breaking dance moves.

After class on Friday we went into town to hop the bus to the beach town of Jaco, which is (theoretically) 2 hours away from San Jose (it took us about 4). On the way to the bus stop, me, Robin and our token gentleman friend Buck got a bit turned around. Getting turned around in San Jose is easy because there are no street names and often times the sidewalk just...ends. ANYWAY we got lost trying to get to our bus and were just one street over from the main street when all of the sudden we were literally stepping over people sleeping in boxes. And every other person we passed whispered "cocaine? heroin? cocaine? heroine?" I wasn't nervous about being there, because we were all together but it was quite jolting to me to just go off one street and really feel like I am in a poor, dirty, sad city. I felt uneasy with the situation, just because that is a world that I have never experienced before, I have never seen that kind of thing up close, let alone literally be walking through it.

We quickly made our way back to the main street and found the bus. Clearly our first inclination was to run away from what we were seeing, and that is the logical response. But isn't that part of the problem? That most peoples first response to a homeless person is to look away? That's not to claim that I know a better approach to world poverty or that I have any idea how to curb it, but it is upsetting.

Once we were on the bus, we were about 5 minutes into the ride when we met Jason. For those of you who are familiar with the television program "Jersey Shore," you may have an idea of Jason's personality. For those of you who are not familiar, just try and think of every stereotype possible for a big Italian dude from Jersey. Jason was basically the reason that people hate Americans, he was loud, he was rude, he was cursing so loud that the other cars on the road could probably hear him, he was sexist as shit, he was racist, through our conversation (conversation is a loose term, it was essentially nearly 4 hours of Jason's views on the world), we learned that he has approximately 8 children, none of whom live in Costa Rica, where he resides. However, the one positive thing that Jason contributed to our lives (possibly the one positive thing he has ever contributed...ever) was that he recommended a sweet hostel for us to stay at.

We checked into The Surfer Factory and kicked it in our room for a while with one of the employees, Chapu. It was monsuning HARD outside, like I have literally never seen rain like I saw the night we arrived in Jaco. So we waited it out with some beverages and card games in our room and then went with Chapu to a local taco shop where we dined like kings on fish tacos. After dinner we went to the common area of the hostel and hung out with lots of new friends and lots of cervezas (Imperial is the Costa Rican beer...it is wonderful). Then we hit the clubs for round 2.

This time was much improved over the last time. First of all, the music of choice was reggaeton (LOVE LOVE LOVE) versus salsa and merengue at the first club. Much easier to dance to. Secondly, it seemed less necessary to have a partner for every single song. We finished off the night with a delightful swim in the hostel's pool.

The next morning we woke up for surfing lessons with Chapu and some other surf instructors we had met the night before. Surfing is awesome, and ridiculously difficult. It is the kind of thing that I would like to do, but I also do not think I could do it by myself unless I spend the next few months doing many many MANY push ups. It's not getting up that is the challenge for me, that part is easy, but getting the board (which is bigger than me) out far enough through the waves (which are also bigger than me) is the part that I cannot seem to conquer. After surfing we were quite tired but still managed to rally for a second night out. We went to a bar right next to our hostel that had cheap Imperial and karaoke. Robin and I sang quite a few songs including one in SPANISH...by the one and only Selena (I am glad I have watched that movie an unnecessary amount of times).

On Sunday, after a swim in the ocean and a swim in the pool, we headed back to San Jose. The busride was much more relaxed sans Jason. We arrived back to rain and a delicious meal prepared by our host mom, Emilia. This week it has been a lot of school and not much else. San Jose is growing on me. It is definitely not a city that one falls in love with immediately. San Jose is a city where if you want to  like it, you have to put a bit of effort in. On Tuesday I had a lovely afternoon just wandering around the central market with Kelsey, Brianna and their new roommate, Diara. In spite of the rain, which comes every afternoon without fail, Robin and I are venturing downtown this afternoon to have some sort of adventure in the thunder and rain. Until next time, pura vida!