Saturday, December 4, 2010

and then we saw a giant hamster...

I have been a bady bad about writing lately, and for that I apologize. I just haven't really known what exactly to write about. I still don't know exactly what I should write about but I'll give it a go anyway.

Things in the house are silly as always. Our tree has been decorated ENTIRELY with Snoopy ornaments and the 16 inch skiiing Snoopy greets me every time I come home. I also was home alone the other day and I took the opportunity to peer into my host mom's ever secret bedroom. The woman has more snoopy stuffed animals than I could count in the minute before I got nervous she would come home and catch me looking at her secret lair. She also had a man friend spend the night the other night, which made for an awkward "buenas dias" when I was eating breakfast before school the morning after.

Today I was sitting in my room when all of the sudden I heard repetitive honking coming from the garage. It didn't stop for a solid minute and I thought my host mom might have been in some kind of peril, so I went out to see if I needed to save her or something. What I found instead was that there was a SCHOOLBUS of CHILDREN that stopped for a minute (not parked, STOPPED in front of the house and she was honking and screaming/swearing at the bus. She sure is a treat sometimes.

Another good anecdote about her is that we ask her to order pizza rather frequently because her food is borderline inedible more often than not. She finally ordered pizza, however, (I think this was to get back at us in a charmingly passive aggressive way) she only gave us each two TEENY TINY slices. And when we asked for more, she said there was no more. HOWEVER, after dinner my roommate and I walked past her Snoopy Liar and there was, in fact, half a pizza sitting on her bed.

The past two weekends I have actually made it to my planned destinations, which was delightful, although it didn't hold the same element of "who know where the hell we'll end up" which I have come to know and love in the past three months. 

Two weekends ago, four girlfriends and myself made our way to Montezuma, a beach on the Pacific Ocean. We did have the wrong bus time, which made our getting there process a bit complicated, but we made it.  Montezuma was touristy, but charming. It was a little beach town teeming with hippies. Most of the hippies who roamed the streets of Montezuma, shoeless and smelling like pot and body, were from the States, or Australia, or some other country, and again, it seemed that they visited and then decided to make a hippie life for themselves selling jewelry and smoking pot on the beach.

We had a lovely and relaxing weekend. We played on the beach, hiked to an incredible waterfall and indulged in some hippie-like activities, if you catch my drift. Good times were had by all.   

Last weekend I went to Monteverde, one of only five cloud forests in the world. It was extra touristy as well, but beautiful and really really fun. And it does feel kind of good to meet people who live here who speak Spanish as poorly as I do (sometimes even worse!).

Friday night there was a little bit of the element of mystery as we arrived not having any idea where we were going to stay. We found a cool hostel in the center of the little town, the guy that ran it was really cool and upon our arrival gave us a map and his recommendations of what touristy activities were the best.

On Saturday we did a canopy tour, which was SO MUCH FUN. It was three hours of ziplining over the jungle, one "tarzan swing" which was more like a bungee jump and one "superman zipline" where you literally felt like you were flying...for half a mile. After the canopy tour, it was nap time and then in the evening we visited the Serpentarium, which was basically a zoo for snakes, it was AWESOME.

Sunday we visited the National Park and hiked around for about three hours. It was really cold, and I did not pack properly AT ALL. but it was still lots of fun. After the park we went to a butterfly garden and frog pond. We saw tons of butterflies and frogs and ALSO a mysterious animal that looked like a giant hamster. We chased it for some time, but it was too quick and agile for me to get a photo.

This week has been a good one in Chepe. Lots of school work as the semester is coming to an end, which I am most certainly NOT a fan of. I also ate pizza which was shaped like an ice cream cone...you might be asking yourself, what the hell does she mean? I mean it exactly how it sounds, and it was silly and awesome. I only have two weeks left of classes and after that I'm going to take one more trip to an undetermined tropical/Jurassic park type location before heading back to Seattle.  I am excited and not to come home. I can't wait to see my peeps, but I feel like I'm just starting to get comfortable with Spanish and Chepe and it is a shame to leave now. I guess I'll just have to come back :)

1 comment:

  1. but where was the giant hamster? did i miss that? a snake zoo and a pizza shaped like an ice cream cone sound awesome, no wonder you don't want to leave. good luck in the last few weeks, don't let pizza stealing, snoopy fanatics get you down...and watch out for australian hippies, they're the worst kind.

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