Zombies attack San Jose!

This weekend marked 6 weekends since I had stayed in San Jose, so I decided to chill out in Chepe (the nickname for San Jose) for Halloween weekend. The week leading up to Halloween was uneventful. School, home, professional chilling, homework, palling around, etc.

My every day life in San Jose is pretty silly. Mostly that is because my host mom is one of the quirkiest individuals I have ever met. Not to say at all that she isn't very nice, because she is. But she is one odd duck. As I may have mentioned, she earns her income by hosting exchange students, so she does not work. So what does she do with her time you might ask. Well let me tell you. She plays Wii. All day. Every day. For hours and hours on end. Her favorite game is Mario. She recently ordered Donkey Kong online and talks about it literally every day.

Other quirks include an extensive collection of Snoopy chatskies. All over the house. I have a snoopy keychain on my keys. My favorite is an airplane that hangs above a shelf in the kitchen with Snoopy hanging on. The best part is that said shelf is filled with various other Snoopy figurines and for no apparent reason a bowl covered with a salmon colored cloth with a face on it. She also has in the dining room a rather large portrait of herself, which I just find to be a bit ridiculous. She drinks one beverage and one beverage only. Coca Cola, in a glass, with ice, with a blue drink cozy, through a straw.

She is not a good cook. Which again, is fine, and I am not meaning to be ungrateful. It is mostly just silly. Tonight for example we had chicken that had the unmistakable taste of hot dogs. And I like hot dogs, but chicken, my friends, is not meant to taste like hot dogs. And I think that when it does, it is kind of a red flag. Another red flag is that she never NEVER eats the food she cooks for us. Suspicious? I think so. 

All that said, she is treating me well, and feeding me (although the food is questionable), and housing me, so I shouldn't poke fun. The Wii thing is just too silly though. So is the portrait.

School is mundane, learning a language is a tedious process. I do feel like it's going relatively well, but 4 hours of Spanish class every day is a whole lot. And certain classmates with certain RIDICULOUS over-pronunciation can be a bit draining - impressions will be done upon my return. My other class, Human Rights in Latin America is interesting when it isn't canceled (which is often). In the evenings I go out or kick it at friends houses. One unpleasant aspect of living with a host mom is that there are rules much akin to when I was 10, I am not allowed to have friends over after 11, nor am I allowed to have boys in my room.

On Saturday, some friends and I went to a party at a hostel we had heard about from a friend of Robin and I. Not only was the informant absent, but we arrived to the party and were greeted by an overly creepy dude dressed as The Riddler. He gave us glowstick wristbands and we entered the party. It was in fact more of a rave. Now, I don't really like raves to begin with, but unexpected raves are even more jolting. Also there were an unnecessary amount of people in dominatrix type costumes. And one guys walking around in his underwear with a tray of paint, asking various ravers to paint him. We were all kind of waiting for some weird sex shit to start happening, and we left at one, so it very well might have gone down at three or four. So not what we were expecting, but a silly night nonetheless.

Sunday was epic. San Jose does Halloween right. I had gotten an invite to a "Zombie Disco Bloodbath" at El Steinvorth and noticed on the invitation that it was the after party for the Zombie Parade. So I researched this, and it was EXACTLY WHAT IT SOUNDED LIKE. My friends and I (in awesome Zombie attire, I might add) showed up to the park the parade was rumored to start at at 8 and there were literally hundreds and hundreds of zombies. We all walked down the main street in San Jose and every so often a person would start to scream and soon everyone else would follow. It was invigorating and fun and slightly terrifying all at once.

We went to El Steinvorth after the walk and were pleased to see that it wasn't just us Gringos who went all out for Halloween. Our cover included a shot taken out of a plastic syringe and then we entered a dance party of zombies. A note from the evening, everything is better as a zombie.

I have about six weeks left, and that is tripping me out a bit. It's a long time and it's not. I'm not sure yet how I am going to feel when I leave, but we'll save that for another entry. I miss home (or at least the people who make it home). Until next time.