It's Been A While...

Sorry about never posting on this blog. I should do it more frequently, but the adventure has not allowed me to get on the computer for much more than schoolwork. I'm trying to remember about my last post. I believe I left off right about before the homestay experience. So I'll just start there and try to include what I can remember about that experience.

This blog might get a little out of hand as I'll just be uploading pictures and trying to fill in what all I remember. Hang with me.

If you have wondered what sort of accomodations UGA provides us, then here is your answer. Double this by 2, stick 4 guys in it and a bathroom and you have the standard room here. It's usually not this messy. It looks pretty good in this picture. you can actually see the floor and some of the furniture.

I  just want to take a minute to tell you that this might be my favorite food in all Costa Rica. It's like an ice-cream sandwich on the outside, but so much better tasting than any sort of Mickey-Mouse bar or sundae cone that I have ever had. The sandwich buns are like chocolate-chip cookies as in incredible home-made ones and the meat of this sandwich is rich vanilla but with chocolate syrup inside McGriddle style. 

The night before the homestay some of us ventured from campus and went to a tilapia farm to eat dinner. I've never had better. The tilapia came out head and all fins of the fish. No U.S. restaurant would be so bold to even have your dinner slightly resemble what you were actually eating; yet, here, the fish was practically staring at me and trying to start a conversation. Lelo's truly did lay low; it was just this hole in the wall shack on the outside, and then we went into it and it looked as if it were some incredible Martha Stewart decorated restaurant. We were given a tour of the farm, and the scenery was beautiful. He even had his own soccer field and invited us to come play on it sometime, fish for some tilapia and eat again, so hopefully that will work out soon.

We then went to our homestay the next day. I was paired up with Davis Webb, and we were then sent to Dona Alicia Mendez to homestay with her. You'd probably laugh your socks off if you were a fly on the wall in her house. Communicating sometimes gets tough since both of us are limited in our Spanish as of now. Yet, somehow, we survive. Her cooking is AMAZING. She makes her own chile sauce that would make Lizano cry. I never thought tuna in a taco could possibly good, yet somehow, Dona Alicia makes it work. She has two dogs: Frijoles (in Spanish means 'bean') and Canela ('cinnamon'). It's obvious she likes Frijoles much better too. She ahs pictures of him and then none of Canela. Frijoles usually always gets the attention from her while Canela seems invisible sometimes. I think this is so because Frijoles reminds her of her deceased husband. God bless her. She has been incredible to us. One time for dinner she didn't make rice and beans, so I thought I would make a joke of it and next thing I know there is a plate of rice an beans sitting in front of me with Dona Alicia laughing at me. She has 11 kids and probably over a hundred grandkids I hear. she might have given birth to this entire town as far as I know. Anyway she's been a great homestay and hopefully I'll remember more stories later to share about it.

There was also a festival for the patron saint of San Luis around the day we went to our homestay. To get to the festival Davis and I had to walk around one hour and thirty minutes to get to the festival. Once there though it was all good food and fun. It seemed that the entire town was there. Our homestay mom did not go though. The picture above resembles one of the games played. you get on the horse and with a pen like thing you try to stick that pen through a hole suspended on a string in the air. If done so, whoever made a bet and their name was on that ring, then he won a prize: a rope usually. Davis D. ended up winning a rope.

Davis and the Golden Rope

Frijoles and Canela fighting it out. Frijoles is a punk.

My new motto: Salud, Dinero, and Corn Flakes.

Caught sight of a bell bird.

Next on the agenda was to go to San Jose. I've got to roll out to class so I'll try to finish this up tonight.

But here are some more pictures: 

I saw a quetzal. It was splendiferous.

Santa Elena

Where to start... It's been 2-3 days since the last entry, and it's all muddled up together in my mind...

Classes started, and those are going well. So much Spanish though... by the end of the day I'm about Spanished out. I guess it's been since Wednesday night since I threw anything down on this blog. On Thursday it was all classes mainly, but we watched a movie that night (most of us for fun and the other kids are taking a latin american film class so they had to) called Nueve Reinas or Nine Queens. Netflix it. I recommend it. Not much else crazy that day happened.

The next day Friday, i was frantically awoken by one of my roommates alarm clocks at around 5 30 in the morning. Some of them got the chance to go milk cows that morning. I missed the sign up for it apparently, but after not being able to go back to sleep 3 of us went out bird watching before breakfast. Didn't see too many crazy things (hummingbirds, flycatchers and what not. But Friday persisted on and somehow I made it through class. I'm trying to think what else happened on Friday but I can't think too well over everyone's talking right now. The walls of these bungalows are paper thin and I'm kind of half trying to listen to this conversation on lord knows what. 

Anyway, later that Friday we received word that we would have no curfew that night. So of course everyone went out to the town. We went to Los Amigos and they had a band called Calle 8 playing. I tried my hand at salsa dancing and that was interesting for others to watch nonetheless. The venue was pretty large and filled with locals, euros, high schoolers, UGA fratstars and many other ethnic groups. The band wasn't half bad, and the lead female vocal basically wore a bikini on stage. Interesting. Wonder if they'll be the new latin american superpopstars someday. I can say I saw them in the beginning if so. Anyhoo... We stayed there at the venue for quite a while into the night and had a blast and then came back to campus. Everyone was pretty tired. Some went on a hike but I didn't see the reasoning in that at 2 AM so I preceded to my bed like most people. PS I've been trying my Spanish with the locals when I go out and I think I'm getting better. Whoop! Snarf!

Then after that long night of course we have some activity at holy crap AM. So around 7 somehow everyone made it to breakfast even the nocturnal adventuring hikers. Wonder if they saw anything cool. Apparently they woke up the resident naturalists at UGA Costa Rica. After breakfast we hopped into the taxis and made a trip to the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve. Probably my favorite thing so far. Could have stayed there all day bird watching. Did I mention I saw a quetzal and a bellbird. Don't believe me? Well, cool. I have a picture to prove it. I think I can mark 'seeing a quetzal off my bucket list now. I can't cross off 'having a pet lion' yet though. Do you know what a quetzal is? 

 Male Quetzal

Well, besides seeing how awesome it is, it's a pretty rare bird to catch sight of. It's dying out. Glad I got a glimpse of both the royally blue male and the grass green female. Quite a sight. 

 Female Quetzal. Got a nut in her mouth :)

The three waddled bell bird. Great to finnally see one in real life there rather than hearing it as my alarm clock. Their croak can be heard about a mile away said Oscar, our field guide. Oscar was no grouch. He was a Costa Rican bird encyclopedia on feet and with a telescope. I had to take most of the pictures through the telescope to get a picture. Great technique. Saw toucanets, bugs and plants galore, a redstart nest (pictured),  a turkey (yeah they live in Costa Rica too), many other flying creatures.  There's a sort of ficus tree that has a hollow inside in Costa Rica. Forgot the name. But anyway if you weren't a sizable human being you could honestly get inside one tree in the cloud forest. 3 of us couldn't fit in the tree. We couldn't join the club. It felt kind of like getting picked last for kickball.

 If I got lost in the woods here I would probably find this sort of ficus and live inside it. A real tree house. 

Discouraged that we could not fit into this tree. 

Verdict: fun trip.

Sunset from the main lodge

I'm loving the atmosphere here. Loving not having to bath in dry skin lotion anymore.

After the cloud forest we hit up a taxi to a pizza joint in Santa Elena to eat and observe on a TV if the US could beat England like in 1776 and 1812. But yeah, pizza. In Santa Elena. Surprised it's not tacos? I haven't seen a single taco yet. Know what I got? Ham and pineapple pizza. Was it good? so good... the pineapple was incredibly fresh and honesly made the pizza. After eating we went to the Los Amigos venue and sat where they had TVs and watched the rest of the game.

 Walking in Santa Elena

I was kindly introduced to the Trits while wandering through the supermercado for some sort of cheap ice cream for a desert. It was an awesome kind of Ice cream sandwich. Wish the US would get with the program and get the Trits. I could live on this delicately crafted ice cream sandwich. Then taxis took us back to campus. A nap happened. Dinner happened. then a night hike came about. It rained during the night hike and I got pretty soaking wet, but I did get to see this sort of plant that glows in the dark. How cool would it be if you could glow in the dark? 

I don't really know what else to go into right now. 2 of my roommates are asleep right now if you wanted to know. the other one likes to blog too. Tomorrow we're going to see a waterfall. I'll let you know how it goes. I've already got quizzes and tests coming up AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! But don't worry about poor old me, I'm in Costa Rica. I think I'll get by. Have a great time doing whatever you're doing. Try to smile. I like that most Costa Ricans here do that. Adds a nice touch to the beautiful birds here. Be safe and have a wonderful day! 

No class. Whoop!

 Cutter Ant-Worker and Minima on the Leaf

A beaming light hit me right in the face. I looked at the clock, and it was 6 AM. So of course I did what any rational college boy would do and went back to sleep.

For breakfast: rice and beans, of course. Also there was some dank fruit and other good things. I tasted the Lizano salsa. Everyone seems to love it, but it's just not my sort of taste.

My head is in the clouds. Literally. Every now and then I seriously find myself surrounded by a cloud here in San Luis de Monteverde.

Instead of torture rising professionals with class today, our professors did the much cooler thing. They took us to town. We took some taxis to the nearest town, Santa Elena, about 7 km away from here at UGA Costa Rica. The road to there produced some pretty incredible sights. While there the group just wandered aimlessly around the town looking into tiendas and supermercados after going to the bank to exchange some US currency for colon. I smell bad mom. I need more colon. :) I grabbed a pretty tasty dessert called Tres Leches at the panaderia (bakery). I have no idea what it comprised of but it was like a glorious cake wading in a pond of milk topped by a mountain of whipped cream as chocolate sauce streamed into the milk pond.

 Santa Elena

After Santa Elena, we grabbed some taxis back to the homebase and went on a little hike. The resident naturalist and hiking guide, Kate, had dreds and really loved plants. I learned quite a lot about what was edible and touchable and some keen observations on the nature of a few birds in Costa Rica from her. I plan on trying to grab some birding action probably when another beam of light blinds me tomorrow morning. On the hike a chestnut-mandibled (but in this picture looks keel-billed) toucan put itself before my very own eyes. Here's a picture. It's a far away one but my Olympus tried it's best. And that's all I can ask.

 Toucan Sam

So of course after learning about the incredible birding opportunities here at UGA Costa Rica, I raided the library's ornithology section as any student product of Mr. Sam Pate would do.   I think I'm all set with a Birds of Costa Rica (this book lacks the pictures but has more information than I could ever google) and another book of similar title with short descriptions and vivid illustrations. Chyeah...

It rains here for like 10 minutes incredibly hard; however, most of the time it feels like it's going to rain. So many clouds, I haven't even broke out the sunscreen yet.

Then dinner came about. And somehow I found myself cleaning dishes with the cooking senoritas. I tried my hand at keeping a conversation with them. It went all right for the most part,  but I found myself asking questions like "what is your favorite bird" and other awkward questions. A giddy feeling always overtakes me when I whip out the espanol in conversations. I don't understand it, but I can't wait for the homestay. 2 weeks.

Class tomorrow. I don't think I'll be blogging cause I'll be doing homework sadly, but I'll try to get back to it wen I get the chance and have some fun things to write about. Thank you if you read this and have a great day!

I made it!

Well, I made it to the Monteverde valley here in Costa Rica. It's very nice... I'm feeling pretty awesome since I just completed my first time riding an airplane by myself, and I did so very successfully I must say. As I look out into the jungle outside the window of my bungalow here at the UGA Costa Rica campus while the thunder roars and the rain pitter patters on the green of the earth and the beautiful air caresses my skin, I can't help but notice how hungry I am. I have not eaten crap in forever... like since Chick-fil-a chicken minis with honey and a Coke this morning. But as all American heroes must do, I shall persist through the hardship that is life in Costa Rica during the summertime.

The plane ride was incredible. They played Valentine's Day on it! Third time I've seen it! All I did was homework! Yay! Upon landing in Liberia I was awestruck by the truly air conditioned airport as it consisted of just a roof on top of your head while we sweated until passing through customs and into the bus. Before the bus took off I exchanged some "dolla$" for colons (Costa Rican currency). Their coins look straight out of Pirates of the Caribbean. It's incredible. Then the bags were strapped to the top of the bus, a tarp was thrown on top of them to "protect" them from the rain, and we then set off! Vrooom!

I'm surprised we didn't die. Our driver nearly hit a car or motorcyclist every turn on the mountain. We nearly swerved off the mountain every turn. And with the rain, the bus should have slipped down the mountain. But defying all laws of anything and everything we made it here!

The first dinner was dope. It was all fresh. This was not some crazy Taco Bell catastrophe. There was rice and beans and then this inexplicable concoction of holy goodness that was some sort of salsa salad deal that I washed down with lemonade squeezed by the hands of an Aztec god I believe.  Then I was basically given a pop-tart for dessert. Only this was no ordinary pop-tart; it was freaking delicious. I forgot what it was called.

Anyway, no promises on updating daily... but this whole Costa Rica study abroad is looking to be one fantastic party and learning adventure. I mean my profesor's name is Chacha. So I'm about to Cha-cha in Ticoland. So tune in and join the cha-cha. I'll try to keep you up to date on "what I'm doing" and "where I am" as I "study" for class and wreak havoc through Costa Rica! Tomorrow no class whoop! We're going to Santa Elena!