My-See from Costa Rica!

Hola everybody! (My-see is close to how my name is pronounced here).

Well I've officially been in Monteverde, Costa Rica for a full week now and I have to say, if heaven were a place on earth... it would be here. I have not stopped having fun since the moment I arrived and so far I've had no major disasters (which probably means I'm due for a big one).

Ok, so the basics... I'm living in a homestay with a great family in a neighborhood called Barrio Cementerio which is about a 20 t0 30 minute walk away from town and most other establishments. I have 3 sisters who live with me, another who has moved out, and two brothers who both have wives and children. Needless to say, my family is huge. My mom's name is Idaly and she speaks basically no English, as is the case for my sisters Jayme (19) and Amanda (14), though Kelly (10) is pretty fluent. The girls and I first bonded over music (and chocolate that I brought for them... we now share a love of kit-kats), primarily Shakira, 50 cent, Korn (? I know, right?), and Eminem - all the kids here love American music, though I did score a few "legit"points with Amanda when I knew all the words to some Latin songs on the TV (thanks Arizzle!). My house is incredibly fun and the girls are wildly entertaining... there's never less than 10 people crowded into our little space, not counting babies!  

I'm currently attending a school about a 30 minutes walk from my house called CPI where I'm taking 5.5 hours of Spanish a day, one-on-one, with teachers who don't speak English. I sure as hell better know my stuff when I get back. I'll take classes at CPI for four weeks and then in February I start teaching at the Cloud Forest School about 20 minutes (and straight uphill) from my house. I'll be working with the special education teachers for three months - met both of them and they're very nice. Most all the teachers at the school are young and fresh out of college, so everyone's super enthusiastic. I'll also be working with about 10 other interns who'll be helping and teaching in other classrooms at the school, though they've started already.

The weather here is absurdly great - it's currently 75, sunny, and dry as a bone. This is a mountain in the cloud forest region, which literally means we're in the clouds... so while it does rain here, most of the moisture you'll encounter is just water droplets sort of suspended in the air. I've actually walked through clouds. Because Monteverde is a mountain, everything's also straight up hill... or rather, straight up the mountain. I figure I walk about 4 to 5 miles a day which is great for exercise, not so great for smelling nice. The food here is also amazing - I've been eating mango and pineapple and plaintains and guava like it's my job! We usually eat gallo pinto for breakfast (and pretty much every meal) which is simply rice and black beans together. Last night, I helped my mom make tortillas and she didn't even mind when mine were hideously misshapen... though Kelly refused to eat them this morning, ha!

Everyone here gets up really early, usually before 6 and the radio comes on at 6:15 whether you're awake or not. I'm up by 6 to get to my class by 8 and usually in bed by 11... I've spent every night this week studying Spanish for like 5 hours after class. It's like Swat on steroids, but it's pretty amazing to study only one subject so intensely and be able to use what you learned in class at the dinner table later in the day. Pretty cool stuff.

Some of you may have heard about the massive earthquakes affecting many parts of Central and South America - while some parts of Costa Rica were really devastated, this region is fine, even though we are close to Volcan Poas. One little story about that before I bid you adios... so in the afternoons, I have a "conversation class" with this great Tico (native costa rican) named Carlos, which means we just chill in this little room for an hour and a half and speak only Spanish. So on Thursday at around 1:30 we were chattin' it up (probably about love or life or something crazy deep like that cuz that's what we usually wind up talking about) when all of the sudden the room started to tremble. I must have made a ridiculous face like, "What the hell is happening?!" because Carlos immediately said, "Es ok, es ok... es a, how you say... poquito air-th quack."

Love this place.

ps - I'll be posting pictures, just as soon as I find out how to upload them, ha. Also ladies, get your shit together and update us on your adventures!

As they say here... Pura Vida!