Usually on Fridays we will have hospital visits but since this is our first one we had Engineering lecture and lab instead. It wasn’t bad; we just went over general safety labeled all of our tools in Spanish and made an extension chord for later use. It was all done by 12 so again the mass began walking in search of food. I’m sure we must be an interesting sight to everyone here since we are a large group of Asian, Caucasian, Black and Europeans. But indecision caused me Caitlin, Gavin and Cliff to veer off and do some independent exploring on our own. We had a really good lunch at this restaurant on the other side of town and then just walked around for a few hours. Basically we decided to walk around regardless of the predetermined visitor-safe zone until we reached a point when it actually looked and felt like we should turn around. We ran out of time and real estate before that actually happened. In the process, we saw one of the major hospitals, went through their gorgeous city park, visited the national museum and took pictures with random graffiti.
The national museum is located where the national military used to be housed prior to its disbandment. It’s kinda cool thinking that countries can exist without military. My favorite quote written on the wall is “Las armas puedan dar la victoria pero solo las leyes puedan dar la libertad” or “Weapons can give us the victory but only law can give us freedom”. The museum had some beautiful indigenous artwork, furniture and jewelry in it. There was also a large butterfly garden with beautifully colored mariposas.
After the museum, we took pictures with random murals before stopping for dessert at Giacomin. I had this amazing chocolate shell, mousse and cookie dessert. I don’t know what it’s called but I will be going back for more J After that we split to take buses home at around 4:30.
There was the usual conversation and dinner with the family before we called it a night early.
Tomorrow we go rafting! It'll certainly be different from McNair but it should be fun :) y tan bonita. Which reminds me, I went for a run with some housemates. Its nice being able to run through the city/town and look at the mountains. One day I'll walk the route and take a few pictures.
June 2
In the morning, I met the rest of my housemates who are all EWH students. We’re from all over- Nebraska, Montana, North Carolina, China, Canada, Texas.
Figuring out the bus to school and riding in rush hour ended with us being late for the first day. Introductory stuff talking about culture and safety managed to make everyone, including me hyper paranoid. Half of us had lunch at El Balcon- Salchichas en salsa con arroz y pintos for me and juice is free! We went back to school for more introductory stuff and then off to the mall en mass- mass being the whole 26 person EWH group- for exploring. It was a short trip since my roommates and I were tired but good to know where it is and how to get to and from. The mall was like a lot of things here- Americanized. Things cost the same or more. I got a belt because I forgot mine and it was about $13 although it's technically reversible and you can cut it to the right size- all their belts are like that here. It's a little weird because now I have a random bit of leather with no real purpose.
Oh and I forgot the most important member of the house- Lucas. He is an 8 month Dockson and very cute. Always keeping us on our toes
June 1- Travelling
I'm a little late starting this so I'll catch up as I go. But this is the official account of my travels- work, adventures, and all the good stuff :)
My flight was uneventful- only thing that happened was I began my Spanish practice there since TACA is an international company. Another EWH participant, our TA James, was actually on the flight. He's from Newark, Delaware went to UMD and is now working in Silver Spring- I say that only because its the opposite of me and we found it amusing. I had an interesting time filling out customs documents, it’s funny how they classify things and just expect you to understand them even with the differences between countries. And then they only take one of the 2 documents they have you fill out. When I got through customs and converted my mon, I then met Gladys, my Spanish teacher, JJ- the EWH coordinator -and others from the group: Mace, Brian, Chris and David. After dropping off our equipment at the school, I was welcomed by rush hour in San Jose before I met host family Zeidy and Julie, and other students Anjuli, Robert and Emily. San Jose is just like DC- Northern VA traffic or traffic in whichever is your favorite major city. A delicious dinner of chicken and rice con huevos, salad and mango juice(fresca y tan rico!) came shortly after my arrival. We talked and did hair and other going out preparations to kill the time before we went to the movies to see Pirates 4 in 3D. It cost $8 for the movie AND a large drink! Yo quiero estos precios en los Estados Unidos! Movie was good if you haven’t seen it already and the cheap price probably made it a little more so. It had Spanish subtitles so when I didn’t feel like being lazy, I was able to brush up on some vocabulary.
Unfortunately, it’s really hard to catch a cab at the movies at 1 in the morning so we had a little bit of a wait- and I mean like an hour- before we finally were able to catch one and make it home at 2. Quite the beginning to my trip but I definitely enjoyed it!
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