My mind is fried from the most jam-packed two days I've ever had so please excuse any grammar or spelling issues the following post may have. And please kindly overlook the irony that a future English teacher doesn't care if these things are 100% correct right now... Thanks. Let me fill you in on why my brain feels like a bowling ball that was just rolled with so much spin that it knocked down a 7-10 split.
One day before I was to leave for Costa Rica I received an Email from Maximo Nivel, the school I'm attending here, with an update on my housing situation. Basically it said that I wouldn't be staying in the shared apartment that I had expected for the last few months, but rather in a traditional family homestay. Now, after my last homestay included a slight falling out after my host-mom accused me of having a threesome in her house with two beautiful fellow-travelers, I wasn't so keen on the idea of another homestay - even if there would be more beautiful fellow-travelers living there again. When I got to the airport, ready to ship out, my flight had been moved to the previous day, and a certain 3rd party booking site had failed to notify me despite their service claims. I don't want to be caddy so I won't divulge who it was, but I will tell you that you could probably still trust Orbitz, Hotels.com, Kayak, and really any of those sites that don't start with T and end with ravelocity. So I was put on a flight the following day... night. (11:55 pm). I landed after little sleep and was driven directly to school where I started class less than two hours later. Since then I've been an information-absorbing machine.
I won't tell you about class yet, except that today I was at school from 8:30 am until 9:00 pm, 7 of those hours being in-class time. It's a very intensive, quick paced class. I have a feeling my ability to explore and get to know Costa Rica is going to be dampened for the next month and will move very slow. So far I don't know terribly much more about this country except their accent isn't as different as I thought it would be and I've had absolutely no troubles using Spanish here - (even with the immigration officer who reluctantly let me in the country after at least 6 warnings not to get a job here... I blame my serial-killer passport photo.) The roads are frightening as all get out, and even though I've seen motorcycles zip in and out of traffic that would make L.A. blush, I've pretty much changed my mind about getting a little motorcycle to zip around on. There are intersections where 5 independent streets converge with no streetlight. It's a free-for-all.
In addition to these country exploring hinderances, my housing has changed again and I've spent a considerable time memorizing the route. My host-family turned out to be a unique situation and I am the sole person in an apartment above their house. There are three apartments up here in all, one with 4 people, one with 3, and one with just me! So all alone I had to brave the streets, figure out the route, and get lost in the neighborhood after dark for a half hour. There are no street signs or addresses in this city. Mail, I'm told, is virtually impossible. Finding my way home after the bus consisted of locating the Chicago bar, the toothpaste sign, the river sound in the trees, the yellow key, the big tree stump, a couple correct turns trusting my gut, and a fair amount of wrong turns.
But I'm very satisfied with my apartment despite not having hot water at all. (I took the coldest hooker-shower this morning and had to heat up water on the stove to shave.) It's spacious: I have my own living room, TV, bathroom, bedroom, and kitchen with a big, wrap-around window and a simply gorgeous view. Here are some photos of my place and the way to and from the bus stop.
Holy cow dude! You are brave!! Make some new friends at school and bring them to your place! XXOO!
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