I'm so sorry that I haven't written in a week. Before I came here and even when I got here, I always thought/said I would be the girl who blogged every night or even every other day, but as time progresses while I am here, it is becoming harder to stick to this because I have so much going on during the week. So, my apologizes in advance for how long this might end up being because after all I have to update you all on my life the past week!
I can't necessarily remember every thing I did last week on each specific day because of how crazy/uneventful it was. Honestly most of the days are starting to merge together. But last week was the final week of my Spanish class. Here, the Spanish Classes are Intensive which means that they are 80 contact hours, 5 credits. I basically had class from 8am-12pm Monday-Friday for the entire month of January. Because I learned so much, I decided to move up to the next level and take another Intensive Spanish class for the Month of February. Most of you probably don't know but I am a Spanish major back at home and I have been studying Spanish for the past 6 or 7 years. When I took my placement test before coming to Costa Rica, I didn't place where I probably should have because at home I never speak. I usually only speak sometimes in my class and then that is basically it. I honestly have no idea why I don't speak at home because I live with my Wela who speaks perfect Spanish. But, the class I took in January was a great review for me on the grammar basics that I definitely needed review on. Last week, is definitely when I understood why they call it Intensive. Up until last week, everything was pretty easy but I got really hung up on direct pronouns Monday. I've studied them before and I usually always get super stuck and extremely confused on this. But, I had a final and a final presentation on this topic, so that helped a bit. Unfortunately, I didn't do so well on the final because I made a really silly mistake that cost me about 15 points. Because, I have been doing so well in the class previously, I am pretty sure I ended up with a B or so in the class. I'm not 100% sure however, because I'm not exactly sure how to even find out my grades. It's pretty weird because I'm used to finding out a few days after the class ends back home. But, overall, I still did really well in the class. For my final presentation, I had to make a food and present the directions for the recipe to my class. I definitely not one that isn't extremely confident in my cooking and since I wasn't exactly sure on what I could even make here, I decided to keep it simple and just make a fruit salad. I literally have the best host mom because I asked her where I could buy cheap fruit in my neighborhood, and she basically decided to buy the fruit and make it for me. I'm pretty glad she did though, because it was probably the best fruit salad of my life. It had pineapple, strawberry, kiwi, papaya, and banana! Talk about delicious!
After class was over it was finally the weekend! I went to my friend Rachel's house to hang out for a bit and I actually ended up getting a manicure & a pedicure. Her mama tica owns a salon in their house. This experience was pretty unique and different than getting a mani/pedi in the states. But, I desperately needed one and the opportunity presented itself! But, I'm definitely looking forward to coming back home and getting a mani & pedi from my favorite nail shop near my house. The one thing I really did enjoy was the prices. I paid 9 mil colones, which is about 18 dollars. Usually, at my nail salon, I think I pay either 30 or 40 dollars. Don't get me wrong, that is a lot to pay for a manicure and a pedicure, but they last for almost a month and they are definitely worth it! Afterwards, I met up with my friends for lunch at this amazing restaurant near my house/school. It is called GraniTica and it has the best smoothies! I actually went there twice last week and even today. I'm officially obsessed! Then, we went to Pequeno Mundo. This is a store in Costa Rica, but I can't think of any store in the States that compares to it. They sell a lot of things there like clothes, notebooks, shoes, etc. I went there looking for some more clothes. I didn't really bring that many clothes here and my mom only washes my clothes on Monday & Friday, so because I had to pack for the weekend, I just needed to buy a few outfits to have in case my clothes didn't get washed & dried in time. I ended up buying flip flops, a Forever 21 brand shirt (that literally everyone at my school has), a Target brand bathing suit and a dress. All of that cost me about $36 dollars! Talk about cheap. I forgot to mention that Pequeno Mundo sells American brand clothes there. It was definitely nice to get a chance to see some more American brands, especially Forever 21 and Target, my favorite stores!
This weekend was pretty nice because I had a 3 day weekend. The first Monday of every month, there are no Intensive Spanish classes because new students come to Costa Rica and the orientation takes place on Monday morning. Because of this, I decided to take the advantage and travel. I decided to go to Nicaragua! My program was going, but me and 2 other girls decided to go separately with the travel agency at my school because it was cheaper. So, we left for Nicaragua by bus on Saturday bright and early at 5am. The bus we took was called the TicaBus. I've never taken the MegaBus in the states, but it is basically the same concept. The bus ride was about 8ish hours. Crossing the border wasn't too bad either. It was pretty simple, however not very self-explanitory the first time. Luckily, we met some other Gringos who had crossed multiple times before, so we just stuck with them. The pretty stressful part was probably that we didn't really know where to get off the bus. It was probably self-explanatory to get off in the city where we were going to be staying, but because noone really told us, we were stressing and trying to decided where to get off the bus for a while. We eventually picked Granada, which was where we needed to get off anyways. After getting off, someone was supposed to pick us up from the station, but because they didn't we had to take a cab to our hotel and we basically paid too much for it, but since we were all very tired, we didn't really pay attention to the price until after we had already payed. We lounged by the pool, got lunch and then decided to take a nap for an hour or so until we met up with the girls from our program. Needless to say, the nap never ended until Sunday morning. We slept from 5:30pm to 5:30am. I guess we were super tired!
Sunday was pretty eventful. We woke up and had breakfast then our hotel took us on a boat tour on the Granada lake to see the islands. There are about 300 plus islands that were created from the Volcano when it errupted many years ago. It was super cool to see and probably my favorite part of Granada. We learned that many gringos own some of these islands. So, if I ever get super rich and have enough money to buy an island, I guess I know where I can go to buy one! After the boat tour we went back to our hotel and took a horse ride around the city of Granada. This was pretty sad because we were able to see how impoverished many of the Nicaraguans are. Another huge difference from Costa Rica and Nicaragua are probably the animals. In Costa Rica there are many stray dogs wandering around but they eat well because people generally feed them. However, in Nicaragua, the stray dogs are extremely skinny because they don't have access to a lot of food. It definitely made me miss my doggies at home and it hit close to home because I couldn't imagine my dogs at home not eating very much. After the tour, we had time for lunch before going to the Artisan Market in the next town. I actually bought a dress and a skirt that I'm really looking forwarf to buying. We also finally saw our friends! It was definitely a relief to see them after not being able to see them the previous day. After the market, we checked out a lagoon. It wasn't anything special but it was very pretty. We returned to our hotel to nap/shower/get ready to go to dinner with our friends. We made it to the restuarant to watch the halftime show of the Superbowl! Beyonce killed it! Nothing else needed to say about that performance other than it was amaz! We got dinner at a pizza place and I downed an entire medium pizza alone! At dinner there were many peopel trying to sell us things including a man who carved maracas in front of you with whatever you want on them in literally less than 5 minutes. It was amazing! I would have bought some, but I definitely don't have any use for maracas. After dinner we caught the ended of the Super Bowl and called it a night.
Monday we were returnning back to Costa Rica so we didn't really do much before we checked out of the hotel besides walk around town. One the way back, the ride was a little longer than expected because at the border to get back into Costa Rica, you need to show them your flight itenary of when you are leaving the country. They need to make sure that you aren't staying in the Country for more than 90 days. I guess some people didn't know that so they were having problems getting their passports stamped. It definitely didn't help that they were being pretty rude. So, we were stuck at the border waiting in the TicaBus for them to get it all straghtned out. After about an hour, we were finally back on the road and I got back home around 9:30pm. After dinner, I was extremly tired so I passed out! It was definitely a good trip. I am glad that I went, only I wish I was able to go for longer that just a day.
Tueday I started my new Spanish class for the month of February and my teacher is Cuban. He is really funny and super nice. He just talks super fast! It is definitely really good practice though, because not everyone in the real world is going to speak Spanish slowly. The good think about Costa Ricans is that if you ask them to speak slower, they will. They get really excited and into the conversation with someone learning Spanish tried to talk to them. Today I was feeling a bit homesick. I think it is jsut because I have offically be here a month and I've never been away from home for this long before. Also, I think I just really miss my family. Before I left, I should have tried to arrange for someone to come visit me. But, my two uncles are actually here this week staying in Puerto Viejo, so I think I'm going to try to go there this weekend so I can see them. I think it might help to visit with familiar faces from home even though I'm not super close to them. Today I also went to the Concordia Texas Bible Study. It is really awesome to get a chance to connect with another Concordia and people that have the same values that I do. It made me feel a little better because we talked about living in the moment. I think I definitely can get better with that, so for the next month, I think I am going to try to work on that and work on not being attached to my phone and thw WiFi as much. Nevertheless, I am doing great and I miss everyone back home. I hope you all are trying to stay warm! I'm not gonna brag about the weather but just know that when it gets almost 90ish here, I feel pretty miserable, almost how most of you feel with the cold and ice and snow! So, I feel similiar pain. Congrats! You finally made it to the end of this long post. I'll try to write soon so I'm not writing and your not reading as much next time!
<3 Aracelis
I'm starting to think I'm really bad at this whole blog thing. I literally have been trying to write this entry since I got home on Sunday at 2pm. I just get super distracted and I keep putting it off because I know it is going to be pretty long. Nevertheless, I am finally updating everyone on what's been happening for the last week.
Thursday night I went out with the Concordia Texas group for my friend Nicole's birthday. It was a fun evening and I was really happy that I got a chance to actually hang out with them outside of bible study. I also got a chance to catch up with Rachel! I barely see her now that we aren't in the same Spanish class anymore. Hopefully, I'll get a chance to take a weekend trip with the CUTX group before I go home because they are definitely a fun group. 
We ended up going to Sarchi. It is about an hour away from San Jose. It is the place in Costa Rica where artisans produce the most famous crafts like oxcarts and leather and wood furnishings. It was probably one of the most prettiest places I have been to. It was also pretty exciting because out of the students at my school, I am one of 10 that even really know it exists. We stayed at the parent's house of one of the Tico Mentors. They had a huge house. The 10 of us stayed in their guest house. It was pretty interesting but fun. The first night we got there, we just hung out by the bonfire and got to know each other better. I also got a chance to bust some of my awesome dance moves. (Not Really, but it was still a fun time) After a while, we all went to bed and to our surprise, we were woken up by roosters! When they first started making noises at 2 in the morning, we all thought it was pretty funny, but when they started up again at 6am, we were not very happy at all!
