Funny things

When it's raining it might not be normal to go to the beach, but who says you can't?

A couple of things that I find a bit funny;

 - The other day I was walking down the street when I walked past a man who sold flipflops and necklaces, some other things, and goggles. You know, the ones you wear when skiing. I started laughing because it just didn't make sense that they sold that here. The day after I went around in school telling people about it and they told me that they use it when they drive their quads. Embarrassing...

- I meet people everywhere here, and everybody remembers me, but I almost never remember them. It's really a problem for me because when people say hi I'm not even sure if I know them or if they're just random people. So I just keep pretending I know everybody that starts talking with me.

 - When it starts raining here it's just as when it starts snowing in Sweden. Nothing works and it's hard to get anywhere. They told me that some sportactivities are even cancelled during two months just because of the rain. Also everybody says that you shouldn't be out in the rain, because if you get wet-you get sick.

 - The thing I miss the most when it comes to food here is actually ströbröd. I feel like I can't cook anything without it and I missed it especially while we were making the cake the other day, because with ströbröd, it would have gotten out of the pan perfectly.

 - Embarrasada in spanish means pregnant. I almost never say I'm embarrassed because I'm so afraid of saying embarrasada instead of embarazoso. To say that you are pregnant in an embarrassing situation doesn't really make it any better.

Happy birthday!

At first there was no frosting in the mix we bought (Yeah we cheated because the ingredients are almost impossible to find here) and then the whipped cream we bought as an emergency solution didn't want to be whipped. But anyways;

Happy birthday dad, love you!

...

What I almost forgot to say is that an aunt has died so my hostfamily is in San Jose right now. Therefore I'm currently alone at home but soon I'm going to get picked up to stay with Lorena ( my IEC) for one or two days.

finally, MONKEYS!

Came home from Samara a couple of hours ago. Today it was raining so we didn't do that much. Just took a walk on the beach in our pyjamas and took a swim in the ocean, in our pyjamas. Haha, it was actually really nice. Yesterday though, Lenas dad took us out mountainbiking in the afternoon. We biked about 16 km, past farms and hills, through mud and water and up and down. It was so hard but really funny, especially when we got stuck because we couldn't get uphill as everybody was slipping around in the mud. It was one of the best things I've done, the surroundings were amazing and we could hear the monkeys all of the time. We also got to see them! The one on the picture was the first monkey I had ever seen. What you can't see on the picture is that it has a one week old baby monkey on its stomach. That one was so incredibly cute. So this has been an awesome weekend and if you want to see pictures of our adventures, there are many (too many) pictures on facebook.

Saturday

Had a LOT of fun yesterday. A friends brothers band was playing at countryclub so we went there, and haha so did the rest of nicoya. Came home at four I think and then Beatrice woke me up at eight with chocolatecookies and pancakes, yum. Right now I just want to sleep and then later I'm going to go to Samara. Feeling great!

Also, I got my iPod charger back yesterday so now I can finally listen to music. Couldn't get better. :)

Better

We (Bea, Jess, Lena and I) have decided to have another sleepover in Lenas house at playa Samara on Saturday! I just love that I live so close to the center of Nicoya, but that I still can go to the beach atleast once every week. And I'm especially happy that we can go there this weekend because this week has been so hard. Lots of ups and downs, and mostly downs actually, but now I'm finally starting to feel good again. Now I'm going to eat some chocolate and then I'm just going to hope that it wont start raining so that I can get to the dancestudio tonight.

Bored

Here I end school every day at 12:00, so I have a lot of time after lunch when I don't have anything to do. I always try to keep as busy as possible but sometimes I just run out of ideas of what to do.  Today I went to a cafe in Nicoya to have lunch with Bea and Jess, yesterday we walked up to the cross, and tomorrow I think Jess is going to come over to bake cupcakes in the afternoon. It's so weird not having anything to do, because I'm so used to the opposite. 

In school we don't do anything either, while the rest of the class is studying for their exams we just sit there and stare at the wall kind of. But I like school anyways, my classmates are really nice, and most classes nobody does anything, but since I still can't understand them while they are speaking fast (because my classmates do speak extremely fast) it's practically the same as staring at a wall, I try to understand but so far it's impossible. Hoping for it to get better soon. 

playita escondida

Sunday we went to a teenytiny beach beyond playa Carillo. As the name playita escondido (hidden small beach) might tell it was really small and situated on a very weird place. We were the only ones there and I just loved it. One of my absolute favourite places in Costa Rica so far. S

Buhu

 Because of the rain the floor in the dancing studio is all wet so there is no dance today. So sad.

It gets better

Except for in school I've actually been feeling better today. In school I was a wreck, but after lunch I got to skype with Louise and then one of my friends from school took me out on his quad for an hour or so. So now I feel more positive. And I'm going to dance now so then I'll hopefully feel even better when I go to bed tonight. Love my beautiful friends who have been comforting me, thank you guys <3

Nobody said it'd be easy

Had a great time in Samara this weekend, but when I got home everything just got so hard so this evening have been really bad. Spoke a little bit to Valentina who have changed hostfamily too and she's going through kind of the same thing as me right now. Since I know I'm going to stay here I miss home really bad and it's so hard to keep it together when I don't have anyone here to comfort me. Tomorrow is going to be different though, I will come up with lots of things to do all day and then everything will be better. Just didn't expect it to be this hard. 

Pics from the weekend (because there are a lot of photos) will come up tomorrow.

Weekend

Going to samara in a half an hour to spend the night. Love it.

Yesterday i went jogging with Anna and Beatrice in the woods. It was so nice, the birds were singing, we ran through small streams and there was noone else. Just us and the nature, and occasionally some cars, but mostly just us and the nature. Being there gave me such a kick so the running wasn't even hard. We ran for about fifty minutes and then we walked the rest of the way home. I'm actually kind of impressed.

After that Beatrice slept at my place. Haha we were going to watch a horror movie with my hostsister. But when we put it in it was Ice age 4. Saw about thirty minutes of that and then we fell asleep...

Pero ahora; Vamos a la playa!

~

The dance last night was so much fun. We danced with some of Juan Pablos employees from Gollo and it was so different to dance salsa and merengue for real and not only in the dance studio. We went home quite early though because the others were tired, and I'm actually happy we did because it was a hell waking up at six this morning and if we would have stayed longer, it would have been even worse. Haha since I spent the night at Lorena and Juan-Pablos house Anna had to wake me up this morning. Pobrecita...

lalalala

 I love how ticos always want to dance. Just put on some music and you will find eveyone(no matter the age) shaking their booty.

 Tomorrow is mothers day so we will celebrate with a lunch, then in the evening I'm going with my IECs family and the other exchange students to a dance. Yayy.

Birthdays

We celebrated the fourth birthday of my hostbrothers daughter today. It was nice to get to meet (almost) the entire family.Together we ate a lot of food and also chocolat-caramel cake - they really love caramel here, alomost all sorts of candy is with caramel. Sometimes it is good, but mostly it's just really really sweet. Na, must say I like swedish sweets better. At the same time, here they have white snickers and white Oreos. Hah, that you can't find in sweden, right?!

After the fiesta I went to the dancingstudio to dance, today merengue and salsa. Haha I got to dance with a guy that said that I could move my hips better than two old ladies that also were there could. Thank you very very much!

So this day has been really good, got to talk a little bit with my grandma at home who turns 75 today too, happy birthday grandma!

My costa rican niece

Bigger sister

Little brother and dad

Here together with my two nieces

Hostsis and hostdad

Brothers girlfriend, grandma, brother, sister and mum.

Pinataaaaa

Aunt

Cousins

Unpacked, tired and happy

Miss my roomie :(

 After living in my bag for a month now I finally got to unpack. Feels so freaking good. Now I'm going to kill all of those disgusting ants who love my bed, and then I'm going to sleep. I've put my alarm on at 5:30, lovely.
 

Sunny sunny sunday

The celebration of mothers day was actually quite  cool. Each grade had prepared a dance and I just love love loved it. Everybody is so good at dancing, and even the smallest kids know how to shake. So cool. So except for that we almost died in the heat I really enjoyed it. Also, I just love my new class.

After the celebrations I ran together with Beatrice to a small mountain here. When we got there it was already getting dark so we didn't walk all the way up, but still quite far so on the way down we could see the sun set over Nicoya. Really wish I could show you.

Tomorrow we don't have any classes, so then I will pack my bags and move into the house of my new hostfamily. No matter how much I like my IEC I'm so happy to finally have a hostfamily.

Freaking out

Sometimes the thunder here really freaks me out. In Sweden it is always so far away, but here it's so close that you can actually feel it. Right now I'm alone at home with Anna, and she's asleep so it's practically the same as being all by myself since she is impossible to wake up. A few minutes ago the lightning struck down on our street next to a car so that the alarm went off and I got so scared. So as all of you guys are sleeping at home I'm just sitting here alone, hoping that someone will come home soon. Gaaaah pleeeease come home.

P.S Louise, do you remember that time on Ingarö? That's kind of all I can think about right now.

Pollo de balsamico

I've been living in the house of my IEC for almost two weeks now, and since I'm moving to my new hostfamily on monday I thought it would be nice to cook her family a dinner. So I went to the supermarket, then the butcher, and the fruitstore to buy all of the ingredients (which took me a while, even though Bea helped me, as I haven't really gotten to know the shops in Nicoya that well yet. Eventually I had bought all I needed and went back to the house to start cooking. After a while I realized that I didn't understand how to put on the oven, and Lorenas phone was uncharged so I just had to wait for her to come home. When she came home she learned that it was out of gas so she said that the best thing to do was to wait for Juan Pablo to come home. It was just that at 9:30 he still wasn't home and we couldn't reach him at his cellphone. But at that time, Lorena decided to go out to buy new gas herself instead of waiting for him so by 10 I could start cooking again. Usually the dish I cooked - chicken with balsamico and a lot of other stuff- takes 40 minutes in the oven, but here the potatoes are different, so the dinner was ready at 11:30. Haha by then the chicken was dry, Anna was asleep, and we were all so tired that we barely had the energy to eat. But it was nice, and I think that even though it probably wasn't the best meal they had ever had, they appreciated that I did this to thank them. I'm going to miss this family when I move to my new hostfamily. Luckily I will see them often as Lorena is my IEC, and as Anna goes to the same class as me. Tomorrow I'm going to help my new hostfamily to get my room ready, even though it means I have to get up early, I'm really excited.

Links

This was what I did yesterday, these guys are really pro though. And I'm kind of not pro. I gotta find the songs we danced to last night, they were so good!

Dancedancedance

Did what I like the most today. Went with Bea to a dansstudio here in nicoya, and it was so much fun. Been there one time before and if I remember it right we danced salsa and something else then. Today we got to dance bachata and cumbia. Gaaaah, I just love it! Tomorrow I can link you some videos so you can see what kinds of dances they are, but now I gotta sleep, up at 5:45 tomorrow.

El día de la madre

Playa Samara...

Here in Costa Rica "el día de la madre" (mothers day) is extremely important. Today one of the teachers took every single foreigner in school out of our classrooms and into the aula to give each of a sheet of paper with a speach on. Then she told us to translate it into our own language and practise it a lot for Sunday. Then the school celebrates "el día de la madre" and we will all read the same speach but in different languages in front of the whole school and the relatives of every single student. Since the ticos have many relatives, it's going to be a big audience. Scary.

My very first day of school

Even though I was supposed to start school two weeks ago, my first schoolday was today. Tico-time is sometimes a bit special, nothing ever happens when it is supposed to happen and when you think it will. At first we were supposed to go to school the day after our arrival to Nicoya, then one week later, then the wednesday that week, friday, monday next week, and then finally today, tuesday. Yeah sometimes tico-time can drive me nuts , but mostly it's just really nice with a culture that allows you to do things when you want to and not when you have to.

Since today was the first schoolday it was also decided this morning that I'm not going to the school I thought I would go to, for sure. Since I changed hostfamily I thought it would be better to change school as well. So now I'm going to an even smaller school, close to the center of Nicoya. In my class we are seven girls and ten boys. Out of these seventeen persons, we are four exchange students, all girls.  I go to 11th grade, which is the highest grade in CR. This is their last term in high school so I'm not sure what I'm going to do after christmas. But it's really chill because they start school every morning at 7:00 and end every day at 12:00, while the rest of the school ends at 13:00 or 13:30. Also, from what I've heard, 11th grade doesn't have as much homework as the other grades either. Jihaa! :)

Crocodiles

 In the middle of our long drive home from the borders yesterday we pulled over at this bridge. We didn't understand what was going on at first, but we went out of the car, took our cameras with us, and walked up to the middle of the bridge. When we looked down we could see that there were crocodiles in the river below us. At first we could only see one, but we decided to cross the street to look if we could hopefully spot more of them. And on the other side we could see at least thirtyfive of them. So cool! Now I can finally check seeing real life crocodiles off my list. Next thing I want to check of my list is a Nicoyan monkey. After all, the people here have their own Nicoyan scream for a reason.

Panamapanamapanama:D

Going to Panama tomorrow to shopshopshop. Back on sunday :)

Good to know about Costa Rica

• The ATMs and shops usually only accept visa or mastercard -  meaning that you shouldn't bring maestro for example.
• The Spain-spanish doesn't really work here, you just gotta learn the tico-way of saying everything.
• Everything on TV is in Spanish, and you can only choose between watching a soapopera, a second soapopera or a third soapopera. Muy dramatico!!!
• Ticos gossip - a lot!