Two Days 'till Freedom...

Hello to everyone! Hope everything is going well in the U.S. Things are still swell here! I had a pretty relaxing weekend just chilling with some of my buddies here. We saw a movie on Friday night, No Country for Old Men or Sin Lugar para los Debiles en espanol. It was pretty good, won a lot of Oscars so we thought we'd give it a try. It reminded us of home a little bit because all of the characters had very southern accents. Best line of the whole movie said with a southern accent, "Well, I guess I've seen 'bout everythin'. I work at Wal-Mart." We were the only people in the entire theater laughing, lol. I guess some things just don't translate, lol.

On Saturday, we all decided to dye our hair! I ended up dying mine black which isn't hugely different because my hair is almost black anyway. I had some red highlights back in the States that looked really cool, but when I got down here, they changed to orange from the sun so my head looked like Halloween, lol. So, I thought it was time to fix that, lol. We all had a great time with it, though. My friend Brittney did all of ours for us because she had done it before, and she did a great job, lol.

Sunday night, my friends Amanda and Renee' came over so we could work on a project about the Tango. Needless to say, we were up very late because we had procrastinated all weekend...but, around 12 in the morning it was finally finished and we gave it yesterday morning so I'm pretty much done stressing for a while about school work. We have 2 more days of classes and then we're free!!! We get a whole week off for Semana Santa here, or the Holy Week before Easter. The whole country basically just shuts down to celebrate, lol.

This weekend, Brittney, Renee' and I are going to celebrate by going to the beach! Yay! We're so excited to have a little vacation. On Friday we're going to take a little airplane to a place called Tambor on the Nicoya Peninsula. It takes about 40 min by air as opposed to 6 hours by bus so we're excited to not be taking the bus, lol. We're going to spend Friday snorkeling at a little Island called Tortuga(turtle). From the pictures it looks gorgeous, so we're pumped! After that we're going to spend the night at la playa(beach) Montezuma and then the next 2 nights we're going to spend at la playa Mal Pais. It should be a very relaxing 4 days or so. I'm sure I will have plenty to blog about!! On Wednesday my parents are coming to visit so I'm really excited about that as well!! I love having visitors! :-)

Thanks for reading! :-)

Pura vida,
Amelia

Time flies

Well, my brother is back safe and sound in the good ole U.S.A. This week has definitely gone by quickly. After we did the canopy tour we ended up going to a futbol game. It was great!! The fans down here are slightly crazy, but it made for great entertainment. We were rooting for a team called Saprissa, a professional team here in Costa Rica, and they won! We bought jerseys and tickets for like $16 each, super cheap compared to the U.S.! On Wednesday, Amanda, Frank, and I went to a place called INBio Park. It was pretty cool, kind of half museum and half zoo. We saw spiders, snakes, frogs, caimans, and tons of iguanas! They were everywhere! There was a little pond right in the middle of the park and these iguanas were just chilling out next to it. It was pretty neat. Wednesday night, we went to Amanda's house to hang out. We've decided that her host mom is the coolest out of all of ours. I took my guitar and we all sang songs together in English and Spanish. She made us some amazing hot chocolate as well! It was a great end to a great week. Brittney and I took him to the airport yesterday, and I was sad to see him go. It was really nice to have someone from home visiting me. My parents should be here in 2 weeks so I'm pretty excited to see them, too.

Other than all of that, things are pretty relaxed right now. I have a huge presentation due on Monday, so I guess I'll work on that today or something, lol. I'm such a procrastinator...lol. I played my newest song the other night at Amanda's house and everyone really liked it. I think I like it, too. It has a real bluesy sound to it which is what I've been trying to go for.

So, homework this weekend...beach next weekend? Man, I love living in Costa Rica, lol...nothing's set in stone, and no one stresses out about anything. Everything is just so pura vida...

Paz,
Amelia

Playing tour guide!!

So, it's Day 2 of my brother's visit, and it's very cool to have someone from home come visit me! I picked him up at the airport yesterday, and it's been a whirlwind since then, lol. We showed him around Heredia, the town I live in, yesterday and went to church last night. Today, he went to class with me this morning, which was a trip, lol, and we headed to San Jose to the Artesania Market. It's basically a long strip of market stalls with souvenirs and such, but it's neat nonetheless. Tomorrow, we're going on a canopy tour, which I'm hoping he'll love, and then Wednesday we're going to a place called INBioparque. I've heard it's kind of like a zoo/museum, but my host mom says it's cool, so it should be fun. He leaves on Thursday, unfortunately he won't get a chance to see the beach, but I think he's having fun being in a warm climate and away from school, lol.

Last weekend, before my brother got here, a bunch of us went to see the Arenal Volcano. It was absolutely gorgeous!! We lucked out and had clear skies, so we saw the volcano perfectly. We went on a night tour and saw lava coming down the sides, amazing, and then we spent about 2 hours at the hot springs really close to the volcano. There were swim-up bars where the drinks were $10 a piece!! Of course, we all ordered one...just to say we had ordered a drink from a swim-up bar, lol. All in all, it was an amazing trip! We met a few more people from a different exchange group, one from Nashville, one from Connecticut, and one from Russia, and we had a blast with them, so yay for new friends!

When we got back on Saturday, we went to this club called La Rumba that's really close to Heredia. It was so cool to see people actually DANCING, not the bumping and grinding stuff you see in the States. All of the Ticos and Ticas (Costa Ricans) can dance so well! I wish we had all been brought up learning how to dance in America, lol.

Whew...it's been a busy few days, and it looks like it's going to be jammed packed for the next couple of days as well, lol. Hope all is well for everyone in the States! I miss you guys!

Pura vida,
Amelia