10 days

So the day is coming up closer. And honestly, up until three minutes ago I was only feeling sad about leaving Costa Rica. Sure, I felt that once I am home I will feel good  about seeing friends and family again, but I never felt like it would make me feel HAPPY to go home. 

Then now I saw a post my friend Maja had published on facebook. All of a sudden I got some kind of shiver of happiness. I will see Maja in ten days. In only ten days I will get to see the people I've missed during this year. In ten days.

I started laughing about the fact, and for a minute there I felt truly happy. But then I realized, again, that in ten days I'm leaving my life in Costa Rica. In ten days. So I started crying. 

This whole laughing-and-crying-at-the-same-time thing is making it terrible to try sleeping. But eh, who needs to sleep when there is coffee? 

I can waste my time sleeping once I'm back in Sweden.

Countdown?

Some friends ask me why I haven't started a countdown. Why I still don't know the exact number of days and hours until I get to see my family again. Well okey maybe I should have a countdown for that. But for the day I leave Costa Rica? I would like that day to just never arrive. I already have a life here. A home. A family. Friends. 

Do I really need to go home?

 

Some months ago I still didn't consider this my real life. It took me time to get in to all of this, and I also think I thought it was easier to always think of this as my year off. Well it's not anymore. I'm not on vacations. I'm not that fascinated anymore that I almost cry by seeing monkeys, dolphins, trees, sting rays etc. Don't get me wrong, I still consider all of this amazing, it's just that it's a part of my daily life now.

And how do I live without that?

The rice and beans? The cold shower in the morning? The school uniform? The warming sun while waiting for the schoolbus? Seeing all my friends at school? Not really having to study? Sneeking in in front of everybody in the terrible lunchline? Rice and beans? The brushing of your teeth next to the rest of the school after lunch? That heat that almost kills you in the middle of the day? The fact that the schoolbus is always leaving when you're having most fun? Talking to Anita, Hellen, Kevin or Laura all afternoon? Watching the babypigs and feeding them from a bottle? Telling the dogs how they have to stop rolling in the dirt but that they're cute anyways? More rice and beans? Having to sleep before nine to survive the next day in school?

And of course, the beach, the trips, the weeks and weekends with some of the most wonderful persons in the world. The scubadiving and the occasional surfing (haha didn't happen that often). The nights at Las Brisas, the salsa, the times I dance with Mateo in school, and the evenings I stay at La Paz after gymnastics dancing on my own. Every day getting to know new persons, learning new things about Costa Rica and ticoculture and always learning more spanish. The freedom. The happiness. La pura vida.

I just can't, I just can't leave this. But let's face the truth, I can't stay forever either.

Lo único que quiero es bailar

Dancing salsa with Mateo. Gaaaaaaah I don't want to sleep, right now I just feel like dancing!

Visa, rainy season and elections

Nine months later we finally have our visas!

Thursday to Friday I was in San Jose with these girls to finally get our visas. We applied nine months ago, and now we have them! It's just that we're going home in about two months and two weeks. Or atleast I am. Vali is not going home until the end of July and Linnea is going next week.

Being in San Jose I missed the very first rain in Brasilito in six months! But that's alright, today it was raining again. And man, I must say I had forgotten how much water can fall from the sky when it's raining here. It's sick. So now rainy season is here again, but living in Guanacaste it's luckily not that bad at all. Today we've all been helping out at this voting here in Brasilito. I just served tamales, coffee and softdrinks wearing a "vote 3" t-shirt all day. It was cool, but I think my hands will never stop smelling like tamal, haha. 

Tomorrow I have school, but I'll go early to help out at gymnasticsclasses and teach contemporary dance classes. I got sooo surprised when they asked me if I wanted to do that, but I must say it is a lot of fun. And I mean I'm not a pro, but I guess you don't always have to be one, right?

Beaches I didn't know existed

Yesterday I only stayed at the birthdayparty in Tamrindo for a while and then went to Playa Minas, another beach I don't know the name of and Playa Piratas. I've never been to any of those three so it was cool. I actually didn't even know that they existed and thought that the first beach south of Playa Conchal was Playa Grande, when actually there are four beaches in between. Untouched, calm, empty and beautiful beaches.

#Livinginparadise

Miss you <3

Holy week was such a great week as Vali stayed here in the house and Bram and Henry were camping in brasilito. O my god their tent was so so so small, haha. All week we went to the beach, got burned, ate a lot, played guitar in the sand and just had the best time.

One more time please please please.

Birthdayparty in Tamarindo

It has been a very easy week in school with thursday off ( had a sleepover with Patti on Playa Prieta) and sportsday on friday (I danced salsa and played volleyboll for 30 minutes and that was it). I can't believe it's already weekend! Actually school is so much fun here because we don't have that many classes, so I never feel like I'm really in school from 7:00 to 16:15 all week. And since my friends live quite far away I mostly just see them in school and on the weekends I do otjer things (beach beach beach).

Today though, I'm going to Tamarindo to celebrate the birthday of a classmate. I just gotta drag myself out of the bed and in to the shower to then take the bus there.

I don't want to go home in two and a half months :'(

Wonderful week

With some of the best <3

Semana santa

After not blogging for a couple of weeks I feel like I owe you guys atleast a small update.

Right now I have vacations because of easter, and it's hopefully going to be a wonderful week. The entire family from Heredia is here, in one hour Bram and Vali will get here with the bus, and tomorrow Henry is coming. I'm happy we have vacations so that we can go to the beach because this is the warmest part of the year. You feel like a chicharron whenever you step out of the water which is by the way, so warm.

Crazy classmates

Not because school is that difficult or that I study extremely hard or anything, it's just that in the middle of the day I always get so tired! I guess it is the heat, I gotta say, every single day I just want to throw my pants off. They get sticky and aaaaah I just don't like them!

Luckily school is fun even though I sweat like a pig. My friends are crazy, and every day I go home with new memories. "Contra la pared, ¡ey! ¡ey!, contra la pared"

Pura loqueras <3

Cooold dives

I went diving today! Andres picked me up at seven to first go to the diveshop to sign some papers and then to the boat. Today the tour went to Las Catalinas, a 40 minute boatride (we saw dolphins on the way today!!). The first dive started off warm but all of a sudden came a coooold current. It was alright though since the water was warm sometimes too.
When we came up a snorkler had inhaled water so we had to return to the shore so that he could get to a hospital. At first I thought he was a diver so I thought he had decompression sickness and got so scared. But luckily when they handed him over to the coast guard it seemed like he was fine.

Most clients didn't want to do their second dive as they were a bit shaken by the whole thing but three of us stayed on the boat as it went out to Isla Plata, five minutes from shore. This dive was even colder and even though I was wearing two wetsuits I found myself daydreaming about a hot shower and a sauna. So these weren't really my best dives but all dives can't be good, right?

Dormida

I came home from school with various things planned to do. But I fell asleep and in this heat you don't wake up if you don't have an alarm. So I slept for about three hours and woke up with an headache a couple of minutes ago. Great.

It's easier than you think to make a difference

Here is a real case and a real girl that needs your help! Her name is Mariana Beckford and she's nine years old. She has leukemia and in order to get well she needs to get a surgery in USA. The costs of the surgery and hospital care in USA is for the family way too big, and therefore they are asking for your help. You can donate money to the bankaccounts of her parents, and the numbers you find on the picture above. Together we can help this little girl! Thank you!

¡Unidos por Marianita!

School and gymnastics

I woke up early to go to school, almost missed the bus, but ran like the wind and actually catched it. In school we had one lesson and nothing more. The rest of the day we just sat in the hallway singing (loudly and ugly), so the hours passed by quickly. At 1:00 I got permission from the reception to go home so I got to gymnastics in Flamingo at 3:00. After the two classes I stayed there for an hour dancing for myself and then I went home again.

About the weather. It's so windy and yesterday a tree fell down right next to the house while I was sleeping. It's supersunny  every day but this morning it was actually quite chilly. At noon though, it was as hot as always. So that extra shirt I wore on my way to school went off quite quickly.

Update

Since I wrote the last time I have...
-Started school- for real! Now I actually wake up at 4:45 every morning. School is kind of like last year, I don't do so much, I just hang out, talk with friends, play volleyboll, eat, etc. It's actually nice and I mean I'm not really pressured to have good grades or anything.
-I've finished the PADI Open water diver course and am now a certified diver! And soon I'm going to take the next course too. I don't think I ever thought I would enjoy diving so much, but I really do. Snorkling is fun too, but it's nothing compared to diving.
-I've gone to the beach.
-I've gone to different fiestas nearby, and I also went dancing with some  friends the other day.

Ok I actually don't remember all that I've done, because I've been busy all of the time. At least I've had fun, that I do know. And if you look at the pages in my diary, then yeah, I've been doing a lot of stuff.

This weekend I was going to go to Playa Dominical to a music and yoga festival, but because of carproblems we didn't go, and today I was supposed to go to a catamaran but I got invited 15 minutes before they picked up their clients and I didn't feel like running down to Flamingo (which btw takes 30 minutes and not 15) so I didn't go. Instead I went with Laura to Conchal and now I'm eating a mango and washing my schooluniform for tomorrow.

Fiestas de Brasilito

Thursday last week started the fiestas in Brasilito and they kept on until Sunday. We went everyday to see the bulls, eat, meet people, dance, and to see the tope (this time 54 horses that danced through Brasilito). Every village has festivals like this twice a year, and honestly it's always kind of the same thing, but it's also always fun. It took me a couple of festivals to get the whole bullthing, but now I find it just as entertaining as the ticos do.

Saturday I got invited to go out on a katamarantour on a boat that a friend works on. The weather was perfect (surprise) and the tour took us to a beach where we did snorkling. The visibility was quite bad, but there were still a lot of things to see. We then went back to Playa Potrero (where we had started) with the sunset behind us. I took some pictures that I will upload the next time I put on my computer.

(I was going to go out diving but then the boat got full for the day so I'm going some other day instead)

Very hard day at school

Didn't wake up by the alarm today so I woke up at 7:30 instead... I got ready without any rush and was then ready to go out and wait for a bus at 10. Just to be sure I texted Yailyn if there were any, and luckely she answered me that classes ends at 11 today just before the bus came. Imagine if I would have gone all the way there (it takes like one hour) to just say hi and then go home again with the schoolbus. Or better yet, get there when the bus already left.

So then it was just to go home again. Instead I will probably go to the beach to work on my tan. And go to yoga. Good plan.

Different valentinesday

I woke up too early to be healthy to go to school, went to some classes but mostly just talked to people. I get to know new persons each and every day. Me like :)

I came home, made myself ready and fell asleep for about an hour. Then Hellen came home and we went to the fiestas that are in Brasilito from today and until sunday. It started off with bulls and then around 10 or 11 (I wouldn't know because I never check the time) it was a dance in the place where the bulls usually run. It was called "el baile de polvo" as the dust was flying everywhere and we all were dusty all over afterwards.

I danced ( almost without resting) with different guys until it was time to go home at 1. Since I haven't danced since before christmas I had so much fun and I can't wait until tomorrow when the next dance is.

First open water dive

Wednesday I went to the divingcenter again early in the morning, this time to do my first open water dive. It was an amazing feeling and it didn't actually feel bad or wrong in any kind of way, it just felt so right. Me and my instructor made two dives, whereof the deepest one to 12 meters for 41 minutes.

On Saturday we're going out again, this time to Las Catalinas where we might see sharks (crossing my fingers). And after that and some more teori I already have my Padi open water license. Weyhoo!

Still vacations :)

I went up superearly to go to school and just as I thought we didn't have any classes. But it was fun to see everybody again and I had a nice day anyway.
When I came home I fell asleep but luckely woke up in time to go to gymnastics.

Tomorrow there are for sure no classes so I will instead do the first day of the diving certificate course! I'm sososo excited!

Surfsurfsurf

Today I went with Patti and some of her friends to Playa Grande to surf! It was my first time surfing so I can honestly say that I sucked. During my two hours in the water though I think I must have learned something. If not, atleast I had fun and got to know some new people.

When I came home I ironed my school uniform and took a looooong shower. Tomorrow I have to go up at 4:45 to get to school in time. Not because we actually have lessons. Just because I have to buy a new t-shirt for the school uniform. So what day do we actually start? Nobody knows.

Yoga on SUP

Yesterday in the morning I tried Yoga on a stand up paddleboard on Playa Dante. It's doing yoga on a big and quite stabile surfboard on water. The view we had was over the beach so it was lovely, there was no wind at all, and everything was just so perfect. In the beginning of the class we got into the water and on the paddleboards and then we paddeled until we got to a place protected from wind and waves. We did the yoga there for about one hour, and then paddeled back to the beach.

If you ever have the chance to try it, you absolutely should. I wasn't sure when I woke up but I'm so happy I finally went.

School, gymnastics, monkeypoop and yoga

Yesterday I went to school with Hellen and Laura to matriculate me. It took a while as everybody has to do that every year and it seemed like everybody had chosen this day to do it.

Later I went to the gym for the gymnasticclasses. It's really different to train only thin matts as equipment in a building without walls. But it definitely works and it's fun.

After the class I waited for Patti that was teaching a different class afterwards. So I sat on the playground and saw how a family of monkeys came closer and closer. In the end they were going to swing from a tree in front of me to the tree above me. So while they were swinging from branch to branch I was about one meter away from them. Then I was going to take a photo with my crappy cellphonecamera which made one of the monkeys think that I was standing too close. It then started pooping which I'm happy I noticed because otherwise that poop would have been in my hair the rest of the night.

When Patti was done we went to monkey bar in Flamingo where she teaches yoga. You can't really compare yoga here to yoga in Sweden, we had a beautiful view over the beach and and the harbour. Absolutely lovely.

I came home, learned how to make tortillas, took a shower and then watched a soccergame with my hostfamily and some friends. It was between Costa Rica and Panamá so everybody was extremely excited. Hahaha Hellens reaction to Costa Ricas second goal, so cool! :)

Sueciaaa tjalalalala

Watching the game between Sweden and Argentina. GO SWEDEEEN!!

Last days of vacations

Today at about 11 I got on the bus to Tamarindo to go to be with Yailyn and Yulissa. On the bus I met Kevin so lukily I didn't have to go all the way alone. I got off and had to wait for Yailyn for a while because she hadn't even gotten on the bus yet. When she came we strolled around in Tamarindo for a while, went to Subway, the beach, mandarina, and so on until Yulissa came. Then yailyn had to go to work so Yuli and me went to the beach. After about one hour we see Yailyn, a kid (that Yailyn was babysitting) and Kevin and his friends walking towards us on the beach and together with them we then went up to Vista Villas to chill at the pool. The view from there is amazing and you only have to buy something to drink to get to use the pool. When we go to Tamarindo we always go there. We stayed there until the sunset and then took the bus home.

Tomorrow school officially starts, but nobody is going before monday so I still have vacations. Or fake vacations as Vali says. Haha.

Santa María de dota- coffee and tope

Just came home after a long trip in the car from Santa María de Dota. I've been there all weekend together with my hostsister and her friends. Santa María de Dota is a really small town where everybody (and then I really mean everybody) live off coffee. We were there to see "el tope" with 1200 horses and owners passing through the town, but as one of the friends of my hostsister works with coffee, we also had a tour in the coffeefactory. You may think that the process from the fruit to the toasted coffeebean ready to be prepared to drink is easy, but nope, it was actually quite complicated.

It was a cool, but extremely cold weekend. In the middle of the day it was reeeaally sunny and warm, but after the sunset it was terribly cold. Not to compare to Sweden, but here the houses aren't built for cold weather. So I was wearing like three sweathers. All of the time.

Cold

For the first time in more than six months I'm starting to get a cold. I don't want it. If someone else does I can happily give it to you, I just don't want to waste my time here being sick.

So, no zumba today. Beach? Maybe?

How often do you do this in Sweden?

- slice a melon in two halves and eat one part with a spoon?
- take the pickup to the beach with your 12 cousins?
- visit volcanoes? (I've seen four here!)
- go on a bananaboat?
- take walks in the rainforest?
- share room with geckos?
- see horses and cows walking alone pass you on the street?
- go to dances where the saloon is full of people and everybody is dancing salsa, merengue, bachata and bolero?
- get monkeypoop thrown at you?
- go out to a tree in the garden to get lemon, lime, mango or guanabana?
- start or end a conversation with "Pura vida"?
- go to beaches with a quad?
- have fiestas for an entire week in your village? (the 14th starts the fiestas in Brasilito)
- go to fruitmarkets with 1km of just fruit and nothing else?
- run to the beach?
- drive, walk, run and bike through small rivers on normal streets?
- do canopy?

How often do you do these things in Sweden? (go to Costa Rica!)

Miss

The strangest thing about helping out with the gymnasticclasses here; being called miss Frida, no one ever said that to me before.

Don't go on a bananaboat with Pri

Sentada en una banana con todos mis primos

Yo: Estoy resbalando, estoy resbalando!
Pri: Frida? Estas cayendo! *empujandome al agua*
Yo (en el agua): Pri que mierda fue esto?

Sitting on a bananaboat with all of my cousins;
Me: I'm slipping, I'm slipping!
Pri: Frida? You're falling! *Pushing me into the water*

Hahaha lovely.

Costa Rican food

"In costa rica you have three completely different meals a day.
 For breakfast you have rice and beans together- gallo pinto.
 The lunch is all different, then you have rice and beans, but separate - casada.
 And for dinner you have rice and beans, but you have made a soup of the black beans and you put the rice in it.
 All different!"
 -A rafting guide that should be on Sesame street.

The food in Costa Rica really is different from the food in Sweden. You have rice and beans for every meal, and if you didn't have it, it doesn't count as a meal. It might sound strange, but it's wonderful. I love the food here. Atleast where I live we also eat a lot of seafood. This week I think I've been eating fish, lobster (actually first time ever I've had that) or shrimps every single day. We also have "fresco" to every meal. Fresco is like a softdrink, but it's made at home by fresh fruits, water and sugar. You can make fresco of all kinds of fruits.

Sausages, home-made tortillas, platanos, sourcream, and salty cheeses are everyday food too. It's different, but delicious!

Great week :)

Great week with lots and lots  of people (all of my ticocousins were here) and great birthday with beach, cake, ceviche, a fire in the dryforest 200 meters away, a dog hit by a car, and a cozy evening with 10 cousins on my bed at the same time. :)

Hahaha, I don't even know how many they were, but we did have a lot of fun. And they really made me a part of their big family so it was cool. Today they all went home, so now the house feels kind of empty, you easily get customized to being with a lot of people all of the time.

The rest of my vacations I'm going to go to the beach, see my friends, and train gymnastics. I actually found gymnasticclasses here so I will go there to help out as much as I can. I was there yesterday and I realized how much I've missed gymnastics.

So life is good. Great actually.

Home sweet home

Just had to put up a picture of my schooluniform because I realized I still haven't done that.

Went to Conchal with Laura today.

Most of the tourists have gone home so now there are not that much people on the beach anymore.

Always the same problem. Wet bikini. Dry clothes.

 Since I missed the bus on Monday I went home yesterday instead. It was a loooong busride of 7 hours when it usually takes around 3 or 4 with car. Terrible. On top of that in the aisle next to my seat there was this drunk guy who screamed in my ears a couple of times and who hid his liquor in his pants. In the end the driver threw him off, but those 20 minutes with him by my side weren't my best. Later the busdriver didn't close the door properly so a lot of bags flew off and we had to go back to pick them up.  And when I was almost home the busdriver became a postman and started dropping off letters...

Coming home to Brasilito and to the beach I felt just as happy and content as I felt before the busride and before I left Heredia. This has been a great week and it's always so sad to say goodbye, but it's still so nice to come home. In this teeny tiny country me and Vali live so far away from eachother that it's really not the easiest thing to meet up. I mean you don't go on a bus for seven hours every day.

So now I'm home again and I'm going to try to update my blog, atleast a little bit more. There are so many things to say that I don't even know where to start, and, I almost never put on my computer. I think when school starts in February and I don't have as much time to go to the beach it might be easier. But until then I'm just going to enjoy the rest of my two months of vacations.  

P.S Since I got home from heredia yesterday I've recieved like 4 merry christmas letters. Just like one month late, haha. I wonder if my christmas letters have reached Sweden yet...

Tired after an amazing day

So, to get to the volcano we took three different buses (two would have been enough but we met up with Henry at walmart first). Then when we got there and were going to pay entrance we really didn't want to pay 5000 colones (10 dolars) so we just explained that we were not tourists but students and so we only had to pay 1000 instead (2 dolars). Love it. As the weather was great we got a perfect view over first the crater, and then later the lagoon. As we hadn't seen any map and wanted to swim in the lagoon we started running along a trail we thought would lead us there. Well, it didn't. All of a sudden we were just back at the trail between the parking lot and the crater. Sad about not being able to swim but so much more than happy about everything else (the volcano was simply amazing) we sat down looking at the crater and talked for a couple of hours until the bus took us back home.

In Heredia we then took a short trip to walmart to buy some neccesary things before we went to a caribbean soda that had amazing and quite cheap food. Rice and beans just like they always eat in Costa Rica (arroz y frijoles for breakfast, lunch and dinner) but with so much more flavour.

Now we are back in the house and will probably have a short swim in the pool before putting on some nice movie.

(should have been posted yesterday)

¡Volcan Poas!

I'm right now in Heredia visiting Vali! Yesterday we went to San José to see mercado central and just happened to run into some friends, and today we are making a spontaneous trip with them to a volcano. I love my exchange life <3

Om jag rekommenderar Costa Rica?

Det vanligaste är ju att åka till ett annat land, typ USA eller England för att lära sig engelska, men jag kände att det var mycket coolare att lära sig ett annat språk. Innan jag såg att EF hade ett program för Costa Rica visste jag inte ens att detta land existerade så hela beslutet att åka hit var nog baserat på att jag ville plugga spanska och att de pratar spanska här (och att Spanien är alldeles för nära Sverige, haha). Sen när jag hörde om Costa Ricas natur (helt ärligt talat blir man förvånad varje gång man går utanför dörren, det är SÅ vackert) och "Pura vida" så var jag säker på att det var hit jag ville åka, och det har jag inte ångrat en enda sekund.

Allt här är så annorlunda från Sverige, men det är väl för att uppleva något nytt man gör ett utbytesår? I början var det lite tufft, men nu så bara flyger tiden förbi. Jag har rest runt mycket, träffat massvis med människor, upplevt många olika sidor av kulturen, fått vänner för livet, en extra familj och lärt mig ett nytt språk som jag kan använda mig av i många länder i världen (plus att jag bättrat på mon engelska en hel del). Och jag har fortfarande halva min tid kvar!

Fast egentligen spelar det ingen roll vart du åker, det kommer ändå bli det bästa året av ditt liv!

"It's not a year in life, it's a life in a year."