My life in Costa Rica.

The last post.

2013-06-05T23:34:00.002-07:00

Day 327, El miercoles 5 de Junio 2013 23:30

The last days.

vandaag is dé dag, niet meer over 8 maanden, niet meer ow nog 4 maanden, niet meer pas over 1 maand, niet meer een paar weken, ook niet een paar dagen. vandaag is de dag, vandaag vertrek ik naar het mooiste land op aarde voor het beste jaar van me leven, en dat zal ik nooit meer vergeten. Ik zal jullie missen, for the greater good..

This is this exact text I wrote 327 days ago. In English:

Today is the day, no more ‘in 8 months’, no more ‘oh still 4 months’ no more ‘one more month’ no more just a few weeks, neither a few days. Today is the day. Today I leave to the most beautiful country on earth for the best year of my life, and I will never ever forget it. I will miss you for the greater good.

Right now I am 327 days further and again it isn’t months, or weeks, or days anymore. But besides 327 days further I also got further in my life.

Actually I don’t know what to write. I have thought about this moment so much. So many inspirational texts have circled through my head the whole year. But actually I don’t know what there is to say now. There are now words to explain what an exchange is. Nobody can ever understand an exchange until you have gone on one. And when you’ve gone on one you can barely understand your own, and understanding somebody else’s exchange is impossible. So many things happen in one year, even though when you’re not on an exchange. Imagine what happens when you live in a different country, a different culture, family, friends, different everything; nothing is the same. Besides all this a year has also passed and a year is a lot of time. This year has changed me a lot, I can’t describe how and what, but I know it, I feel it.

I could continue telling you how much I loved Costa Rica, how much I’ve learned and how much I changed but as I’ve said a million times before; it is impossible. I will keep the stories for in The Netherlands to tell them and show them the photos.

I will only leave you guys this poem I just wrote, as last post from Costa Rica.

Ella está viendo mi espalda She is looking at my back,

Ella tan bonita ahora esta tras de mi. She is so beautiful, behind my now.

Costa Rica mi hermoso país, Costa Rica, my beautiful Country,

Costa Rica, Costa Rica, Costa Rica. Costa Rica, Costa Rica, Costa Rica.

Ella no puede ver adelante, She cant look forward,

Por que ella ya pasó. Because she now has passed.

Orotina, mi bella Orotina, Orotina, my beautiful Orotina,

Orotina, ese lugar tan tranquillo Orotina, this place so chilled.

Ella esta llena de recuerdos, She is full of memories.

Ella es tan linda. She is so beautiful.

Costa Rica, me enamoré de ti. Costa Rica, I fell in love with you.

Tica linda, me enamoré de ti. Cute Tica, I fell in love with you.

Ella me enseño todo, She teached me everything,

Ella me dío la vida. She gave me life.

Orotina, El parque, el río, Orotina, the park, the river,

Orotina, me esperarás? Orotina, will you wait for me?

Ella me cambío, She changed me,

Ella me hizo. She made me.

Costa Rica, playas y bosque, Costa Rica, beach and forest,

Costa Rica, Ticos y pinto. Costa Rica, Ticos and Pinto.

Ella por siempre en mi corazon, She for always in my heart,

Ella por siempre en mi mente. She for always in my mind.

Orotina, Batidos y mangos Orotina, smoothies and mangos,

Orotina, mi hogar. Orotina, my home.

Ella soy yo She am I,

Yo soy Ella. I am Her.

Costa Rica es mi, Costa Rica is me,.

Costa Rica es todo. Costa Rica is everything

Adelante está lo demas, Ahead is the rest,

Adelante es adonde yo voy ahora. Ahead is where i am going now.

Costa Rica te amo, Costa Rica I love you.

Costa Rica te extrañaré tras de imaginación. Costa Rica I will miss you beyond

imagination.

Orotina te amo, Orotina I love you,

Orotina, siempre estarás en mi corazon. Orotina you will always be in my heart.

The first Piñata of my life!

2013-06-03T18:15:00.001-07:00

Dia 325, el Lunes 4 de Junio 2013 18:54

Unexpected birthday party!

About 7 months ago I went to this birthday of a faraway cousin. There I spoke with some aunts about how I have never had a piñata in my life. ‘We will make a party for you, with a piñata’ was the answer. I told them that I would love it, but I didn’t really think it would happen; that’s how the ticos are. Now about 7 months later I smashed a piñata; it is so fucking awesome! I am taking the ‘piñata’ part of the culture back to The Netherlands for sure!

My last Sunday in Costa Rica was very nice; it gave me a very warm feeling. I started the day with packing my bags a bit, something which should be a sad event but it wasn’t that sad. I arrived in the state of keeping in all my feelings and emotions; who knows when these will come out? I do everything brainless I think. Later on the day I chilled in Orotina with Yuli and Vero, having heaps of fun and as always, just chilling.

In the late afternoon I headed to the house of Aunt Maira, a sister of my dad. There there were a lot of people, way more as I expected. I was told that we would eat there as a goodbye but they organized a huge party for me! Every uncle, aunt, nephew, cousin I ever met in Costa Rica was invited. Most of the uncles and aunts I know good but there also were some faces I kinda remembered from the big family party we had in January. First I drank coffee with tortillas, a good old tradition I always did at this aunt. There was a beautiful birthday cake and a piñata. It turns out that I did get this piñata they told me about 7 months ago. Besides my goodbye part it was also a forwarded birthday party. It was such a nice birthday party; the best part of all was that it was so unexpected. There was this beautiful birthday cake and smashing the piñata was so much fun, people will never get too old for that. I also got loaded by gifts, something which was even less expected. Now I got with enough souvenirs back to The Netherlands!

Last saturday: working on organic market!

2013-06-02T07:55:00.001-07:00

Day 323, Sunday 2^nd of June 2013 8:27

More goodbyes.

Friday I returned to school after a week of absence and I always love coming back to my school again. The school day was pretty normal, I got the photos of the photo shoot we did a few months ago. I gave a lot of my friends a small photo to keep with them as a memory, I also wrote all small texts on it; it made loads of memories come up.

In the night there was the goodbye party of taekwondo. All my friends, all the little kids, and all the parents of the little kids arrived at the party and quickly the salchichon and the carne asada was being prepared on the grill. On the meantime I put on my taekwondo suit and the teacher awarded me with the blue belt, there was no exam I showed enough the day before when we were practicing. The rest of the evening I spent talking and chilling with my friends of taekwondo. They are very good friends and I can talk to them about everything; I didn’t really expect to find such good friends here.

Taekwondo has become a really big part of my life here, and my life in general. A new a sport was not on my ‘to-do-list’ or in any of my plans. But it was a very god decision to do it, and I am very thankful to my friend Chino for that. Taekwondo opened a new world for me, in never considered Martial Arts something for me but now I know that it is for everybody. Taekwondo made me more secure and gave me more self-confidence. But most of all it is importance that it gave me friends. Note for my-self: you want friends? Get into a sport. I hope I will be able to continue with taekwondo in The Netherlands!

Yesterday was a very different day, full of unexpected and fun things. In the morning I went to Jaco with an uncle and my hostbrother, this time not to surf, no this time to work. My uncle goes every Saturday morning to an organic market in Jacó in I asked him to help him. It was a very nice and small organic market, but the amount of gringos which arrived was incredible. My uncle sold top-quality organic products such as mangos, papayas and avocados. I went to past amounts of souvenir stores to buy souvenirs to bring home. Later we went past playa Hermosa to see a surf tournament but that wasn’t really something.

In the night I went to a video game tournament in a private in Orotina to chill there with some friends. I didn’t participate but had fun with my friends there. There were some people from my school with whom I didn’t really talk that much but I did this night and I think that they could be really good friends of mine, to bad I have only 4 days left. That is a feeling I have been living for the last days: ‘what the hell does it matter?’ I am leaving in a few days so why should I care about this or about that? These thoughts go away after a few seconds of logical thinking, I don’t want people to remember me as some kind of douchebag and I really care about the people here.

The last tour.

2013-06-01T06:01:00.001-07:00

Dia 321, el Viernes 31 de Mayo 2013 16:31

The last tour.

Something what I wanted to do was traveling in Costa Rica, and I did it, way more as I could even imagine. After all those tours, trips and mini-holidays I had my last one this week. It was a self-service EF-tour. EF booked a hotel in Samara for a cheap price and the rest was our business; a perfect way of doing cheap trips I think.

The trip begun, just like some other trips in Valentina’s mansion. After some searching I found the mansion and I was welcomed by Vale her nice family again. We went to a big mall, pretty much just to go there and to eat. The eating was completed pretty well and we filled our bellies with international snacks. I haven’t been to malls that much but I don’t care about that so much either. In the evening some friends of ours come over at the mansion to chill, we spent to night in the pool, we ate pizza and we watched a movie, and as always; we chilled. It was a nice and easy night, too bad it was also the goodbye to some fresh but already very good friends.

The next day we took the bus from San José to Samara, we didn’t buy tickets so it was standing up for 5 hours again. The bus ride was bad but not thát bad, we switched sitting down on the floor with standing up and after a tiring 5 hours we arrived in Samara. We got installed in our hotel, and we headed straight for the beach. It was a nice afternoon swim on the for west end of the beach so we didn’t see that much of the beach yet. We ate our dinner in a cheap ass soda and the price indicted the quality. We spent the rest of the evening hanging out in the pool. It was nice to catch up with some old friends again with whom I pretty much lost contact during the year. It is amazing to share our stories like this at the end of the year.

The next day was the first real beach day! Samara is a very nice beach; it is a nice bay with a 3-4 kilometer long white-sand beach. The town looked pretty touristic, more touristic is I expected actually. But it is low-season so the amount of tourist was okey. We got settled at the beach after a nice pancake with maple syrup breakfast. We wanted go surfing but the waves were too small so we decided to do kayaking; a very good decision. The kayaking was great; we set the route out along the beach, past the reef and to the island. It took us a bit longer as we expected but after conquering the big waves we arrived at the post-card island. At was a perfectly white small beach with loads of tiny crabs. We rested for a few moments but we went back quickly to arrive on time to return the kayaks. After the kayak tour we got pretty hungry so we headed for cosechas to fill our tummies. Soon it started raining and we headed back for the hotel and there we chilled in the pool while it was raining.

It kept on raining for ours so after waiting for ours we decided to call a cab to go to a restaurant. We found this place where it was ‘Taco Tuesday’ and well, you can’t say no to that. While waiting for our food it was still raining and the water level was raising so much that the employees started to get the water in front of the entrance away with some buckets so it wouldn’t enter the restaurant. I felt like helping them because they were working for us, in the streaming rain (going from the kitchen to tables and back was outside) and now that had to do this as well. So after 5 minutes of watching them I took my shirt of, grabbed a bucket and started helping them under laud applause of the other guests. After 15 minutes of working like a horse my tacos were ready and I rested, soaked by the rain and I enjoyed my lovely tacos. Later Vali, Henry, Emilie and me went to another restaurant while the other went away to the hotel. Here we ate some nice patacones in peace, escaping the chaos of the big group.

The last day already arrived very quickly and that day was used in a good way. We hired some bikes and went to playa Carillo on bike. It was a a nice bike ride and the beach was even nicer, way nicer as Samara for sure. It was a smaller bay with perfectly white sand and sprinkled with palm trees. The best thing about the beach was that it isn’t urbanized at all. There were a few small houses and that’s it. No resorts, no hotels, no nothing there was only a small pulparia. Those are the beaches that I love most, the small quieted and deserted beaches. We chilled a while on this beach, we took some group photos and we went back before it would start to rain. Back in Samara I went to the art store and I got a henna tattoo. I have been thinking about a tattoo even before coming to Costa Rica and I always wanted to bring a memory with my from Costa Rica, to remember it forever. A henna tattoo only last 2 weeks though but I’ll probably make it for real when I am in The Netherlands again. I got ‘Tuanis’ and the inside of my left foot, Tuanis means good and chill in the Costa Rican Spanish; it symbolizes my year in Costa Rica.

The rest of the day we chilled around the hotel and in the evening we went out to eat again, we found a nice restaurant and ate in peace. It was a nice and relaxed dinner; it was the last dinner with my two best friends Henry and Valentina as well. We stayed in the restaurant for long talking and when they were closing up we decided to go back to the hostel. We stayed up really late talking and finally fell asleep for a short night of sleep.

After this short but strength regaining sleep we rushed everything and we got to the bus. Here it was time to say goodbye to Henry, Henry if you read this: you are a really good bro and I will miss riding the brollercoaster so much, but we will ride again my friend, we will ride again. Later on in the bus ride it was time to say goodbye to Valentina. It was very hard saying goodbye to her for the second time since we thought we said goodbye one week ago. Vale if you read this: I love you a lot and I am thankful for all our adventures together, I will miss you a lot!

And that was my last trip, it was a very nice and relaxing trip, a good way to say goodbye to some of my friends. During these days my double feelings about going home kind of flipped over and now I am very excited about going home soon, I actually can’t wait! I will love to see my family and friends again, my house, my city, my culture, the food; everything. It is all waiting for me! I accepted it, my year is over and it has been epic. The best I have done in my life for sure! There is nothing to compare with it. I know I will be very sad about leaving when the moment is there, and when I will be in The Netherlands, but for now it is just enjoying!

The beginning of the end

2013-05-25T22:41:00.001-07:00

Dia 315, el Sabado 25 de Mayo 2013 23:20

The beginning of the end.

The end now really is near. These days have been days of doing things for the last time and I even had my first goodbye party already.

On Tuesday I went to Chino’s house last time to watch a movie and chill a bit, I loved being there; as always. Wednesday I went to school just to ‘make’ some exams and I spent the whole afternoon in the park with my friends. I had a dinner in Esparza in the night as a closing event of EF, another thing which indicates that it really is the end. Thursday was a wonderful day; I woke up early and walked the Chompipe Mountain with my hostmom. It was a beautiful walk and it was very nice to spend some time with my hostmom. We got all wet by the rain on the way back and after I had a quick shower I took a delicious nap with the rain streaming outside; the best naps there are. In the night I had a futsala game with my hostbrother and I must say that I played pretty good, I was the goalie and I saved our time a few times. We won 14-8 and ate some tacos afterwards; overall Thursday was a wonderful day.

Yesterday we went to the University in Heredia with school, while I was there I noticed that I have already been there on the very first days of my year, it is beautiful to realize something like that, and it also indicates how fast the time really went. It was a fun day just vasilando with my classmates.

Today was my first goodbye party; it was the party of the family of my host mom’s side, the side which always makes the parties. It was a very nice party at the house of an uncle where also the first family party was, that made it extra special for me. There was plenty of food as always and I danced a lot and even sang a few karaoke songs. I had to say goodbye to a few uncles and aunts already because they live for away but it was no sad event, it was a very happy event.

Over the last days I realized that I really am done with my year now. It really is over; at least my normal life. I will go to school again 2 days but I won’t receive normal classes anymore, I don’t have taekwondo classes either. These things are driving my mind crazy, it is trying to make the best of the last days; something which is going pretty well for me. I am not bored for any moment, I invite a lot of people on a lot of things; pizza, ice cream or hiring a movie I am busy all the time. If I would by sitting alone in my house these days that would mean that my year would have been a failure; something which is not that way, and something I mean so damn thankful for.

I decided not to give a goodbye party by my own; I will just let everything happen to me and life moment to moment until I leave. This Monday to Thursday I have my last trip; we are going to Sámara with some EF students so those will be a few nice days of and chilling.

A message to all the exchange students out there in the whole wide world:

2013-05-21T21:52:00.001-07:00

Who can understand a culture shock?
Who can understand this double feeling you're feeling in the last weeks?
Who can understand having 2 families?
Who can understand platonic love?
Who can understand how it feels to build a life from nothing to leave it behind later?
Who can understand that there is no ''home'' no more because there are 2?
Who can understand double patrionism?
Who can understand the sacrifices of an exchange?
Who can understand the gains of an exchange?
Who can understand an exchange?
Who can understand...
Who can..
Who..

YOU can because you are an exchange student.
Exchange students are a special society and sub-culture in this world. You can be proud to be part of it, because it isn't something everybody could do.
You have been very strong over the last year, you've learned thing you thought you'd never learn.
You did amazing things, you helped people and people helped you.
You took everything to a new limit, you found your borders and crossed them, litterly.
You are new bicultural and a world citizin.

My exchange year is the best thing that has happened to me in my life, it wil effect my life for ever.

High class weekend.

2013-05-20T12:57:00.001-07:00

Day 310, Lunes el 20 de Mayo 2013 13:07

Surfing for da’ weekend

The school week was full of loads of fun during the ‘propagandas’ double daily events had nothing to do with politics. It was just jokes, dancing, singing, games and selling food; we took the change to sell loads of food while all the students got together. Friday was the big voting day but I was kinda suck so I missed the first part, which of course was the best. So I just voted for the party with the nicest looking flag since nobody really convinced me why they were better, most people base their votes on the games they think of.

Later this Friday Frida arrived to Orotina after a long hug we got ready to go with the bus to Jaco. Once I arrived in Jaco my life rolled into the ‘high-class’ Costa Rican life. I hopped in the convertible and the 4 by 4 big ass pick-up truck followed us with the bags. We drove to Playa Hermosa where our gated-community apartment is. There I got to hug Vali and Franz and Ruff as well; they are the friends we made in Semana Santa and Franz was an epic bro by inviting us to this epic weekend. We unpacked the bags and a mountain of quality international food and later we headed for the big ass pool at the beach. We chilled and caught up about everything in the pool listening to the waves and floating around; I love being in the water. The dinner was delicious but the fact that I was sick was working against me and I couldn’t eat a lot. We spent the night chilling on the roof and looking at the perfectly clear sky full of stars. Just chilling, dancing and talking about life.

The next day it was surfing time, after a nice international breakfast of cereal, toast and gallo pinto we got back in the convertible and drove high speed to Jaco. Being at the beach with a lot of people and cars is so much easier and relaxing as going in a small group; no worries about bags and shit (: . We surfed for about 4-5 hours straight with just some small breaks to drink something. Surfing, as always was epic. I really see some progress in my surfing skills; to bad surfing is near to impossible in The Netherlands. We picked up Henry we arrived later and headed back to the house in the afternoon to relax a bit in the pool. After an early and again delicious dinner we got ready to go to a live music bar to chill there for the evening. In this bar we met some professional surfers we were on the surfing contest earlier that day. We chilled a bit in the bar and later we went back to chill on the roof. On the roof we all fell asleep under ruff’s meditation music.

On Sunday we stayed at Playa Hermosa to chill at this huge and quiet beach. We played in the huge waves and had a great time together in the sea, later we switched the sea for the pool to switch pool for the sea again later on. We basically passed the day just chilling and after a hamburger lunch it was already time for me and Henry to go home. It was a sad goodbye, I will see Frida again in August when I am going on a holiday to Sweden but Valentina; I don’t know when I will see her again. After loads and loads of perfect hugs we hopped in the convertible for the last time and we set of to Jaco to catch our busses.

Back in Orotina the next party was already waiting, this time the goodbye party of Sarah. It was a very nice and relaxed party. We chilled a bit and I enjoyed the available Costa Rican food. I didn’t have a lot of time with Sarah but I already have had plenty of time with Sarah in Orotina, even though it never seemed enough time. We had an emotional moment with a few small speeches. Mine was just a few sentences about our time in Orotina but it almost made my cry. Orotina will not be the same with Sarah. If you read this Sarah: TKM BBY :&%

This weekend existed o fast cars, nice food, pools and surfing. I lived a weekend like the upper class of Costa Rican. I love the fact how my life gets thrown around from one life style into another, you can spot the differences and the equalities. There is something to learn from every life style.

Monteverde and the school elections

2013-05-13T17:23:00.001-07:00

Day 303, Monday 13^th of May 2013 17:39

Monteverde & Elections!

From pretty much my first weeks everybody told me that I should go to Monteverde, a national park on a few mountains with the fairy tale-like cloud forests. So this weekend I finally went, Sarah invited me to go to visit here and her parents there and Valentina also came with me. After some early morning bus rides through the middle of nowhere just going up and up and up we arrived in Monteverde. Arriving there was just back to the normal world; everything was highly developed: good streets, international food; pretty much like all the touristic places but yes, Monteverde is a nice village.

The people were very right about the fact that it’s a place where you have to go, it is beautiful. I am glad it was low-season because I can imagine the amount of gringos walking around there. Actually, that is not right. In Costa Rica there are various types of tourist places with the 2 most important types: Gringos, think of Jacó and Manual Antonio and the other type: Hipster / Indi, think of Monteverde, Dominical. If you come to a hostel in those places you will find hipster / indi types of people, and you will make friends with them; they have nice travel stories and they are mostly from cool countries like UK, Canada and New Zealand.

So when Vali and I dropped our stuff at the hostel we started looking for Sarah, too bad we have to crappy Movistar provider and we couldn’t call her. We decided to go to the Santa Elena Reserve instead. For just $7 we got the transport and entrance, awesome to be a resident, normal tourists have to pay about $24. It was a very nice walk through the cloud forest this national park really is very different as all the others, you can see it in the vegetation and the amount and types of birds. Monteverde isn’t known for its wildlife even though it does have it, it is more known for its vegetation and birds. We saw some nice birds and we the nature was stunningly beautiful.

When we got back to the village in the afternoon we managed to have some contact and we to her hotel through the rain, me and Vali under the umbrella; such cuties. At the hotel we met Sarah her parents (yeah Europeans J ) and we stayed to talk with them for a while. Later Sarah, Vali, some friends of Sarah and me went back to the village to eat pizza. After the nice pizza dinner we took Sarah back to her hotel and Vali and I returned to our cheap-ass but epic hostel. At the hostel we became friends with those Hipster / Indi people I spoke about and all the sudden we decided to go out with them. We spent a lot of time in ‘bar amigos’ practicing our salsa moves, I am getting better ; that pretty much means that not ALL hope is lost for my dancing skills.

After a short night of sleep we had an breakfast of Nutella and white bread (O MY GOD YESSSSS :DDDD ) and a banana. We went – this time with Sarah and her parents- to climb the ‘Cerro amigos’ which goes to the highest point of Monteverde. It was a pretty big climb over a pretty normal gravel road. When we arrived at the tope we had a small pick nick and we enjoyed the little bit of view the clouds gave us. Going down was less tiring and we were luckier; we got to see the Quetzal. This really is the most beautiful bird I’ve ever seen and I managed to take a perfect picture of it, besides this beautiful turquoise long-tailed bird we also saw different species of toucans.

But the best things of whole trip came last, the Ficus tree. We had to walk another small trail to as Sarah told us ‘some kind of magical tree’; I was suspicious. But there was no reason to be suspicious I should trust more in Sarah. This tree was so F*CKING EPIC LIKE O MY GOD SO FRIGGING INCREDIBLE EPIC LIKE FUDGE PUDDING! (I miss you Ellie). I have no idea how it is formed but here is an photo so you can imagine how it is (finally a photo on my blog).

I climbed the tree all the way up to about 30 meters. Here I chilled for a bit with Sarah living the adreline rush it give us and enjoying one of the most epic things I have done in my life, the best thing is that it came so unexpected. Another nice thing is that this tree is completely unknown, of the 23230953 tours you can do in Monteverde this one is not in it, it is totally Gringo free; and I love that.

Then we said goodbye to Sarah and her parents. I will see Sarah one more time on her goodbye party next week but she will never be with me in Orotina again, a part of my –our- life ended there. I will miss you a lot in Orotina, these weeks won’t be the same without my Sarita baby girl <3.

Going to Monteverde was a very good decision and I enjoyed to the max. The only sad thing is that now it really is almost over. I have 23 days left in Costa Rica and that is less as nothing. I cannot really believe that I am going back to The Netherlands so soon; my life is here, isn’t it? It is so close that I am scared.

On Sunday I went to a visit a friend to eat lunch at her house. They are a very traditional and the loveliest family. I ate a delicious lunch and later we made some Dutch pancakes, it was a lovely afternoon chilling with friends.

And today, Monday; the day which is most hated but the people was another nice day in Costa Rica. I returned to school after being absent for 2 weeks. It was nice to see most of my friends again and to catch up with them. This week is extra special because there are school elections, here called ‘propaganda’ a bit ironic I think. But if there is something out of the pattern of the ticos with a positive feeling then there is a reason to party and that’s what we’ll do this week. We have 2 ‘acto civicos’ (cultural meetings) where to political parties can show their ideas and say what they want to say. We don’t really care about these campaigns because we are last years and we are almost leaving the school. But I personally, I ,I love it. I have never seen something like this in the Netherlands and the Ticos will have their own cool way of doing it.

The ‘sextos’ almost need to raise money for our graduation so we will be using these cultural meetings to sell food and drinks to raise the money. This might be the most inspiring thing of the Ticos; they do everything to raise money for pretty much everything: Taekwondo tournament, a school trip or the graduation. This way they learn that there is no money for everything, except for IPhone’s and big TV’s there is always money for that. Living in the Tico community you will also walk around with some ‘rifa’ tickets, local lotteries people make to raise money.

mommy and daddy visiting!

2013-05-09T14:19:00.001-07:00

Day 299, el Jueves 9 de mayo 2013 11:52

MUMMY AND DADDY!!

After 290 days without my mommy and daddy I got to spent 10 awesome days with them before having to say goodbye, but this time for only 4 weeks; 4 weeks.

I got to hug them on the airport and I welcomed them with a warm heart to my country; Costa Rica. We drove to Orotina with our rental car and after a visit to my school we drank coffee and ate tortillas ate an aunt’s house I couldn’t really stop talking about everything all the time. We visited some more family and they got installed in their hotel. We drove over the chompipe mountain with Sarah and there we enjoyed the perfect view. We arrived at Desmonte and there we had the welcome party, all the uncles and aunts were invited and there was plenty of typical food which my parents had tot taste of course. They chatted with some people and Sarah and me worked as translaters since they don’t speak Spanish.

The next day we set off to Uvita, to the Marina Ballena National Park, where I’ve also been with school. We had a nice eco hotel with pool and first rested from the drive at the pool, we wanted to go to a small beach but it started raining really hard but we did get to spot some Scarlet Macaws! We had delicious dinner and I pretty much just chilled with my parents at the hotel.

The second day in Uvita we had to get up a bit early to get to the speedboat trip I also made with school. We saw the nice beaches and a lot of dolphins, the trip was very different as with school, first of all because it was with my parents which made it extra special but also because of the fact that tour guides treat international better than a huge group of students.

After the boat trip there was another long ride ahead since we headed for the Penísula de Osa, in the far south of Costa Rica. After 4 hours we arrived at our destination; finca kobo, an organic chocolate farm, CHOCOLATE FARM! My whole life the thing I wanted most was going to a chocolate farm, and I finally got there and it was A to the W E S O M E plus some more epicness. We just read our books and chilled in the hammocks. I read ‘The hunger Games’ in pretty much one breath, it’s such a good book, thank you so much Marleen for giving me this book. The nice dinner came with the best cold chocolate milk ever.

The next morning we had the chocolate tour, after seeing the fruit trees which were pretty normal to me we headed for the cacao plants, which are actually trees I found out. We saw the whole production process and got to taste pure cacao beans and grained cacao beans, so damn bitter! After the trip we had a chocolate fondue, and I am pleased to let you know that it was the best ever. Later we went to check out the village of Puerto Jíminez, a very nice harbor village, one of the nicest villages I’ve seen in Costa Rica actually.

The 5^th day is was time for the main event of our trip: parque nacional Corcovado, a national park which I wanted to go to for a long time. It is the most bio diverse place on earth and just the best preserved primary rainforest in Central America, a must go for Costa Rica visitors. First we went with a special taxi 20 kilometers to the entrance of the park, you have to go there by taxi because, well how shall I say it? You have to cross a river, 20 times! Getting to the park itself already I so much fun, imagine how awesome the park is.

And yes the park ís awesome! The first hike was about 27-28 kilometers first through some hills with slippery mud and later flat. It was a beautiful hike, being so far away from the world in the middle of the nature, just nature, nature and more nature. I caught a glimpse of a puma and we saw several birds and all 4 monkey species of Costa Rica. We crossed several beautiful rivers which gave some beautiful jungle images. We arrived at ‘La Sirena biological station’ where we stayed the night. This station was full of 20-ers estilo backpacker and indi, I felt so on my place as a 17 year old schoolboy and my parents.

We got up at 4 for the second hike, so we could so some night hiking, both because of the heat and to be able to see some night animals. We got the see the Tapir, better known as giant ant eater, and yes it was giant it was about 2 – 2,5 meters big ant eater, very impressing to see. The hike was along the beach switching between walking on the abandoned, windswept beaches and primary forest. We saw a lot of scarlet macaws and monkeys on this hike. After 6 hours and 22 kilometers we arrived at the end of the park, and the end of our tiring but beautiful hikes. We slept in a nice hotel at the border of the park, I slept but the afternoon and evening because there was a lot of energy to get back.

To get back from the park to the normal world we had to walk a bit more the next day and we had to take the ‘collectivo’ a truck where some 14-16 people fit in the back. The road wasn’t thát crappy but it wasn’t that good either, but going with the collective was an experience itself as well. We returned to the chocolate farm where we were staying one more night and headed to a small beach where we could rest some more. At was a nice and quiet beach and we got the nice surprise of Toucans when we arrived there, something else very special about this beach is that it is covered in (dead) coral, also impressing to see.

The day after this day we had a long ride ahead of us, over ‘el cerro de la muerto’ or in English the dead’s pass. It’s a highway which goes over some of the highest mountains tops of Costa Rica, at its highest point 3500 meters. The view was nice but the smell when we got out of the car even better, nice and fresh air and no heat at all, for the first time I felt a temperature below 15 degrees Celsius. We went through the city of Cartago to see the church and we moved on to the small town of Orosi where we stayed in a nice lodge for the night. At night we had a very nice dinner which was as well our goodbye dinner, again.

The last day was an easy day with some sightseeing, we first went to the Irazu volcano which again gave even more impressive view and the air gave me a skiing feeling; I love fresh air. After the volcano we went to the ‘haunted hospital’ on the mountain slopes, again something very impressive to see. Later we went to some botanic gardes and the day trip ended in San José, we ate a nice lunch and we went to the Mercado central. And then, then the trip was already over. The time went so fast but I enjoyed it so much. Saying goodbye to my parents wasn’t that difficult since it’s only for 4 weeks.

I loved showing them my country, letting them get to know my life. Besides the epic places we went to there was also just the fact that I was reunited with my parents.

Now I have only 4 weeks left on the double feelings are starting to get stronger and weirder, I have almost all my time fully planned and it is time to stop. This is the beginning of the end. I have done so many things, I did everything I wanted to do and even more, way more. Could I say that I’m done? Finished? Ready to go? No I don’t think so; I am ready to go for the part of things I needed to learn, but I am not ready to leave my life here, the life I built over the last 300 days. The life I live like it has been my life for years. For that, for that I am not ready to leave and I don’t think I’ll ever be.

A nice week and my second TKD tournament.

2013-04-29T09:01:00.001-07:00

Day 289, el Lunes 29 de abril 2013 9:40

A nice school week and another TKD tournament.

I owe you guys a nice post, because I honestly were just too lazy to write these days. Now I found some time, lying in my bed after I good night of sleep. My big toe hurts, and both upper arms, but about that later in the post.

The school week was normal and nice, I had a lot of fun in classes and the breaks and I never felt more part of the life here. Everyday something or someone gets added to my Costa Rican life, and every day my Costa Rican life gets shorter. You could say that it isn’t fair, working so hard building up your life and having to let everything behind. Could you say that an exchange is a ‘beautiful lie with an ugly truth’? In some way yes.

Friday was celebrated with pizza by 2 classmates and me in my house. I don’t do that much with my classmates so it was very nice, and I like pizza.

During the week I went almost every day to the park, something which I’ve been doing the last weeks actually, just drinking smoothies in the park. Mostly with Sarah but also with other friends, and maybe on an occasional date.

Saturday was cleaning the house day and today as well actually, my parents are coming tomorrow (!!) so the house must be 110% clean! Clean houses is a big thing in the latin culture, something which can drive the ‘cochino extranjeros’ crazy.

So yesterday was another cool day, not because of an cool trip or a nice day on the beach, no it was because of a cool fight. I woke up early and 5 friends, the TKD teacher and I went in the car to San José to the biggest gym of Costa Rica for a national championship of taekwondo. It was very nice to see all the fights and some people were so good. I had to wait 8 hours before my fight started so by that time I was pretty tired of doing nothing (so weird getting tired of doing nothing), but a good warming up woke me up. I was in the pool of 74-78 kilo, yellow belt and year 1993. Because there was nobody of my age and weight I got tossed in with the twenty year olds; more challenge, more fun. My first fight was with a pretty big guy, I was taller but way skinnier but I feared nothing and went in the fight with full power. Within 20 seconds I was facing a 4-0 loss; the guy used simple kicks to score fast points and didn’t give me the space I needed to kick. I wanted to knock him out so I didn’t use to simple kicks or the spinning kicks, I didn’t have enough confidence in those. I kicked him in the face 2 times and made him fall multiple times but he didn’t want to give up. He kept doing the same kicks and we defense was failing. In the end I lost with 15 to 8. I didn’t feel bad about it, I gave all I had and the other guy was better; it was a nice fight. I did hurt to guy a lot while he didn’t hurt me at all so that says something as well. And secretly I am very happy that I didn’t get hurt badly, because that would destroy my trip with my parents.

So tomorrow my parents are coming and that is going to be A to the W E S O M E. I will pick them up from the airport and show them around in Orotina. I am so happy to see them again; it is 290 days since I have seen them for the last time! And I can show them my life and my country; Costa Rica.

Easy Time

2013-04-21T10:25:00.000-07:00

Day 281, el domingo 21 de abril 2013 11:13

Just school, surfing and an tranquillo weekend.

A relaxed weekend makes this easy and normal school week complete. The only ‘special’ thing I did was going to the beach with Sarah to go surfing on Friday, gotta love Costa Rican school if you know what I mean. On our way to Jaco there was an accident right on front of us, so it took very long to get to the beach, I think it is around the 10^th traffic accident I saw her in Costa Rica, way more as in my whole Dutch life. Surfing was fun but the sea was very strong and irregular which made it very hard. Later while eating ice cream I made a list with Sarah about things we dislike about Costa Rica / Ticos, don’t get us wrong, we love Costa Rica, making this list was more ‘vasilando’ but I let you know that we reached 106 and still counting.

The school week was relaxed a spent almost every afternoon drinking smoothies with Sarah and sometimes other people, smoothie = life. I will miss those smoothie stores some much in The Netherlands, especially because here there opens a new one every 2 weeks; so much fun. On Wednesday we went to the university of Puntarenas to an open day. First it was fun listening to the sometimes horrible presentations but after 2 hours in the heat of ‘el puerto’ it got a bit too much, luckily we went to the boulevard in the afternoon. At the boulevard we ate ice cream, a granizado and chilled on the peer.

This weekend is just ‘tranquillo a la casa’, yesterday we cleaned the house and I helped my little brother with English; something I do about 10 hours a week these days. Today I skyped with my parents, they are coming in 10 days and it is going to be so damn epic! We are going on a super cool tour I planned and well yeah, I’m going to see my parents after 291 days!

It’s very nice to have some easy time again, I have been at of the house a lot and that is tiring, for the first time in weeks I feel like a slept enough. And it is also good to be more with my family now, something I maybe have forgotten the last weeks.

Big cities

2013-04-15T20:37:00.001-07:00

Dia 271 el Jueves 11 de abril 2013

Batalla de Rivas

Today is another national holiday in Costa Rica. Unfortunately I spent the whole day being bored at home. We are going back to winter so yesterday it rained pretty hard so it was impossible to go to the river. The beach wasn´t possible either because most people have to study for the exams, and other people simply don´t have money to go out. So I´m lying on my bed for the last hours listening to the 100 best songs of the 00´s.

Last Monday we had a photo shoot at school for the graduation that was funny and the other school days were normal. There is a taekwondo tournament coming up so I went running and I´ll be training more the coming days.

I´m hoping to go to Cartago this weekend to visit Henry and chill with some friends we made during the holidays.

Day 275 el lunes 15 de abril 2013 21:05

Cartago & Heredia

Saturday I got into the bus to San José not really knowing where I was going or what was going to happen, but that is Tico-style, and so totally normal for me. I had a nice cookie, donut and muffin breakfast with Sarah in Musmanni in San José and later we walked through San José center to the Cartago bus station.

The plan was to go with Henry and some friends we made to a creepy psycho hospital near volcano Irazu, but there appeared a problem so there was a slight change of plans. I went to the famous Basilica with Sarah and we waited for Henry to come. Wit Henry we walked around Cartago city. Cartago is the nicest city in Costa Rica; it has the most culture of all ‘big’ cities in Costa Rica and a nice climate. We went to a cool park in the middle of the city within some ruins and chilled there for a while. After a smoothie in of the thousands of smoothie stores there are all over Costa Rica, I will miss those so much. Drinking smoothies became part of my daily life, I life on smoothies some days, they are so damn good! Since we were in the big city we had the possibility to go to Taco Bell and that opportunity should not be left untaken.

In the afternoon we took a taxi (paid be EF, aw yeah) to Heredia to Valentina her crib. Here we were invited to stay the night in the mansion and we spend the rest of the afternoon and the evening chilling in the pool and Jacuzzi. For dinner we were pleased with nice European food (macaroni in Swiss cheese sauce :3) and in the night we watched Harry Potter and we ate Swiss chocolate, so good to have all this European things again! Breakfast was even better with real European bread and something like Nutella but with crunch and shit, so epic. Also there were fresh fruits, jam and orange cake; I was in breakfast heaven.

The day spent in the pool and the lunch was a delicious coconut / mango curry. Then we took a taxi (EF paid again, so that’s probably where all our money goes) to Orotina. In Orotina I had coffee and a tortilla at an aunt’s house. We watched ‘el Classico’ between L.D.A. and Saprissa, the best two clubs of Costa Rica. A very very far away cousin plays with the L.D.A. and wanted to fight with the arbitry after the match, that was kinda funny watching with the whole family especially when he said ‘carapicha’ (Dickface) on national television.

Today was a long and tiring day and it was extremely hot, when it is so hot you get so sleepy and tired; hard to stay awake.

Uvita!

2013-04-06T20:08:00.001-07:00

Day 266, El Sabado 6 de abril 2013 19:25

Uvita!

My school helps me so much making my exchange year the best year of my life. It is a nice school where I can be myself, I have a lot of friends, I can be lazy as shit and of course the school trips. This time it was time to go to Uvita, Bahía Ballena; the Whale bay.

First on Wednesday, I got the disappointing news that I had to go to immigration in San José on the day we were leaving for the trip. After some googling and some calling I fixed myself a ride there with a public bus later on the day. Getting the visa was just some signatures a photo and done, I got some kind of ID-card which is pretty cool.

I got to the busstation around 4:30 so I had to wait 2 hours which isn’t that much or bad, I just waited, waiting more as 30 minutes for a train or bus in The Netherlands is NOT done. On the way with the bus there was a pretty bad accident with a car and a tourist rental car, the bus passed before the police and everybody arrived so it was all very fresh. Some people got out to see if they can help or just to see the accident. I’ve never heard some screaming like that, so helpless, hopeless so, hollow. Seeing the smashed cars wasn’t that bad but hearing the screams of the people who are trapped in sight in probably in pain; that took away the color from my face. The bus went on and I realized that this is probably a tourist, who was going to have a nice holiday, and now her life is marked forever. Some people in the bus kept so cold under situation they were like: ‘hey I gotta go to work’, maybe they are already used to the accidents.

Now the adventure starts. The bus stopped at a highway restaurant near Uvita to stop for dinner, this was about 10 in the evening. I got off here since it was a direct bus and it wouldn’t stop any closer to Uvita. I walked about 1 kilometer to Uvita, while is walking I called 2 teachers who were supposed to pick me up, but they didn’t answer the phone; neither any of my classmates, I figured out that there must be no signal at the camping. So I had to look for the camping myself. After asking some people I took a half dark dirt road which leads to Uvita center and from there on I should ‘get there easily’. This half dark road was about 2,5 kilometers long and took my past a school bus which made me think I already arrived but it turned out not to be ours. In Uvita center I took another dirt road which I saw as my only option. While walking there I heard a bus stopping back in the center so I ran back to ask about the camping. They told me that there are various camping’s so I figured out my school is probably camping at the national park itself; so I asked where the national park is. They told me 2 kilometers that so I walked 2 kilometers more. By this time my classmate Hernan finally picked up the phone and described an entrance of the camping exactly the as I was looking at, I thought I arrived; wrong, very wrong. It turned out that there are 2 gentrances; I was at the wrong one. The fastest and safest way was to walk 4 kilometers over the beach to arrive at the camping. I had 8% battery left so using the flashlight had only little time so I walked very fast to arrive quicker. I passed a sign saying: ‘Watch out for crocodiles.’ A dog followed me all the way to keep me company; this is a big and easy noticeable change of me: I like animals better as before. I pretty much hated dogs I didn’t know, and now I am one of these persons petting unknown dogs. A few classmates went to meet me on the way and when I finally met them I was pretty relieved. I put all my stuff in the tent one tried to sleep, but how I tired I was after walking around 8 kilometers I couldn’t sleep of the heat. After I drank some water I finally fell asleep; around 1.

The next day I woke up at 6:15, I showered etc. and we prepared our cereal breakfast. When everybody was ready we did some volunteering cleaning up the forest which borders the beach. After that we played soccer and latter we made lunch. It was nice to be on a trip like this with just Ticos again, it all felt so natural. Cooking lunch went ‘Tico-style’ we cooked rice and ate it with tuna. When the people don’t feel like cooking they always eat rice with tuna, which is pretty nice but food of the lazy; apparently.

In the afternoon we walked to the main thingy, to tail of the whale. It is a weird form of the beach coming together and that way forming a beach in the shape of a whale’s tail. The cool effect is that you walk over the beach and there is water coming from 2 sides. We found a dead turtle there, the turtle was pretty big, but too bad also pretty dead. It chocked on a plastic string, real proof of direct consequences of pollution. Later we got to some a bit and I as always went deep into the sea with the big waves. Since to Ticos are scared of pretty much everything I was pretty lonely so I went back to the group the play with them in the tiny baby-waves, no just kidding but yeah nobody went with me so I stuck more in the back with the group.

In the evening we walked to the supermarket which was like half an hour away over another dark dirt-road but we had to buy our food. On the way back I told some nice ghost-stories about demon monkeys. Something which was pretty scary was seeing a sign: ‘beware of thieves’, the road light going off and a car coming out of nowhere. This was all a coincidence, but the guys in the car did ask if we could sell them weed, but we couldn’t so we quickly walked on. Later in the evening we told more ghost stories on the beach and we moved to a big tent later when to sea was coming up. We stayed up until around 3, chilling and talking and we woke up at 5.

Today, we had a tour with a small boat into the sea to see some island and to spot whales and dolphins. We got to see a lot of dolphins which is always cool, but it wasn’t whale season. We also did some snorkeling, I thought about the fact that a turists do tours like this

And that this is already my 4-5^th time on a boat like this, life is beautiful.

Now I am very very sleepy, I probably won’t post photo’s but check my facebook, there they are!

got some rest :)

2013-04-03T20:14:00.001-07:00

Day 263, El Miercoles 3 de abril 2013 20:27

Some easier days

After this epic holiday I got some days to relax and get back to the normal life. Monday was a normal school da but extremely tiring, spend all classes talking about the semana santa, and when I arrived at home I helped my lil’ bro a bit with his English homework. I slept at 8 because of this extreme tiredness.

Tuesday I needed some more rest so I chilled all day with Julio in the library sending some e-mails, checking facebook and 9gag and I also spoke with my mom about our trip. My parents are coming in 25 days now, it is so so little! I will be seeing them for the first time in 9 months by time. I am extremely excited for our trip; we are going to Southern Costa Rica where the pearl of Costa Rica lies: Penisula de Osa. I the evening I brought up the energy to go to Taekwondo and as well to stay up to late talking to people.

Because I stayed up late I had to pay a price to next morning which was getting up early. I imagined no having classes while eating my gallo pinto and turns out what when I arrive at school: no classes. I had to wait 2 hours until to next bus though and in Orotina I did some shopping for the trip coming up tomorrow.

I am very excited the trip tomorrow, we are going to Bahía Ballena, whale bay. The name has a double meaning, first: there are a lot of whales in the right season, second: it has a one-of-a-kind beach in the form of a whale tail. But some complications showed up and it turns out that I have to go to San José tomorrow for some visa stuff. But I did some googling and I’ll hop on a bus to the border with Panama but jump off in Uvita.

Next time will be about the trip!

Semana Santa

2013-04-02T07:15:00.001-07:00

Day 260, March 31, 2013 19:40

Semana Santa

Semana Santa; the holy week. This week wasn’t that holy, but it was epic, let’s say that again: EPIC. Even though I’ve had loads of epic moments, days and weeks but this week is without doubt the best of all, and that’s a lot to say if you know what I’ve done here.

I could describe all of it, every day a nice and detailed report. I could write about the beautiful beaches I went to, camping with my Japanese brawh Henry in a tiny tent, about the parties, the concerts, surfing, smoothies, ice cream, reggae, hitchhiking and tons of more stuff. But I don’t it’s just too much to tell, and words won’t be able to describe how it was.

If I would write everything I won’t have any stories to tell when I’ll be home, and to be honest I am too tired to write now. I stood up 7 hours in a bus, waited 2 hours more for another one and then sat 1 hour. I had a delicious dinner when I got home but I will miss the Mexican food at Don Brasilitos as well.

I did miss out at a big cultural thing of Costa Rica, but my host family said that it wasn’t that special and that I should enjoy weeks like this by travelling. And the next two weeks will bring more travels as well. Oh, by the way I suck in uploading photos on my blog, so just check facebook, I spend my time better these days.

I also was disconnected to the world for one week, no internet and I lost my phone; it was great. No worries, no needs. On the way back in the bus I had plenty of time to think and I have to face it: This is the beginning of the end. My exchange year is ending, it is almost over. Before I know it I’ll be in The Netherlands. Worse: I got my flight information. For all the interested people: 7^th of June 10:00 at Schiphol Airport. I’ll have a few hours stop in Miami: beach, beach, party, party.

That’s it for today, I’ll be back with a normal report soon!

Fruit partiesss & some other stuff.

2013-03-19T16:23:00.000-07:00

Dia 243, el Jueves 14 de Marzo 9:01

I got two lives.

243 days, is that the time to got a new life? A fully adapted life, speaking a different language and living in a different culture? For me it is. A life consists of a family, friends, more friends, different friends, a culture a rythym and everything you do being normal. The last 2,5 month has been the quickest passing time in my life, it’s undescribeable. And in the meanwhile I still have a life in The Netherlands; my first life. Having this means that I will always be missing people, places and cultures. Missing things is something sad of course, but it means that you have something valuable and I can be happy knowing that. Three months ago my sister asked me if I will miss my Costa Rican friends; I said no. This is totally different now; I will miss my friends so much, not even getting started about the exchange student friends. There is no more sitting bored at home; it is always chilling in the park, chilling before and after Taekwondo practice mountain biking, going to the river or the pool, even better: the beach. Life is just so frigging good right now! And I am so happy!

Dia 248 el martes 19 de Marzo 2013 7:41

Doctor, a bit of Europe and (fruit) partyyyy

Ufff, I finally found some time to write this good ol’ blog of mine. The truth is I have the time because I’m in school now. I just finished a Spanish exam, it wasn’t that hard, if I would’ve studied I might would’ve got a good note, but yeah If I would have. Now, let me tell about the last days.

Last week on Thursday I went to San José with to go to a doctor’s appointment. We got off the bus in the park to take a walk to the park, and there, there my heart stopped for a moment. My wallet wasn’t in my pocket anymore, luckily my brain is pretty experienced in these situation so I directly called to my house to ask for the number of an aunt who was sitting in front of me, but nobody had that. Taxi to the bus station, and there it was my wallet lying on my seat, everybody could see it. It was weird how relaxed I stayed under this situation, even though I had 200 dollars and all my documents in it; it must be the fact that it happened for the 1784^th time and I just take the things how they come, good or bad.

So after the little wallet accident Sarah and I took a bus to Escazu, which is called to Europe of Costa Rica. It’s a suburb of San José where all the rich people live. We went to some shopping avenue to visit to one and only Starbucks of Costa Rica. It was epic to be in a Starbucks again, because yeah I frigging love it. For the interested people: I took a triple shot café mocha with mint syrup with a toffee blondie (o-my-god so delicious). So we spent about 1 hour in the Starbucks, it was an epic Starbucks including English speaking people and Blond hipsters with macs. We walked over the avenue thinking about all the people here who are the ‘1%’ of Costa Rica. We also stopped at the Lego-store, fuck yeah! Lego is my childhood in a nutshell, and I got so happy being a real Lego-store! After getting declined into the Pricemart we took a bus back to San José and got picked up for the doctor’s appointment. Apparently the bump on my back was coming back and the doctor gave me a small treatment and medicine.

When I came back I ate something real quick and went to the ‘Feria de las frutas’ to meet up my hostbro. This Feria is the big event of Orotina, for 2 weeks long there will be attractions like bumping carts and shit, bull fights, a lot of food, bars, discos and fruit stands, a lot of fruit stands. I only went for a little while because I was pretty tired from the whole day in San José but it was nice getting to know it all.

Friday I didn’t have school so I slept pretty late, cleaned to house and went to the park to meet up with Sarah. We walked around a bit, chilled around and in the evening we went to the Feria again with her and her host brothers.

Saturday was another nice day, in the afternoon there was a ‘tope’ an event of about 500 horses and 1 buffalo walking through the streets of Orotina. When there’s an event to in Orotina the park fills up, the water and fresco selling kids come out of all corners as well as the sate selling guys, by the way they don’t eat sate with peanut sauce her, they’re missing something in life. So this tope wasn’t thát interesting actually, I spent the afternoon with some friends from school watching this thing and a performance of some very fat very guy Mexican singer who sang pretty good and was hella funny.

In the night I went to the Feria again with a friend. We went into all the attractions like the pirate ship and stuff. Something I had never seen in the Netherlands was the ‘tagado’, a circle formed thing with benches on the side on the inside. People sat on the benches or stand in the center while this thing spins around on bumps up and down, no security nothing ‘enter on own risk’ well I did and it was hella funny. As well some time was spent in the bumping carts and that of course is an ‘exito’ as well. We spent some more time walking around and talking on the feria and around 1 it was time to go home.

Sunday the parties continued of course with this day an epic and crazy concert. I went again with some friend, but different friend from last time. It was crazy alternative Spanish music with first some guy who must be Gotye’s (somebody that used to knooowwww) twin but than on a lot of drugs. He gave a pretty nice show and the around 100 people who showed up had a nice time going crazy to his crazy music. Later another group came with less crazy people but even crazier music. It was an epic concerts and just going pretty crazy for 5 hours. In the night I didn’t go, it’s so nasty from the schools to do the exams so no nobody can go with me to the parties, but yeah I used to free night in a good way, to watch a movie (‘into the wild’ it’s pretty impressive) and I slept late again because I didn’t have any school.

I used to free day good as well; I cleaned to house, cook lunch, went on a small date, had some friends over for coffee, took a nap, went running and in the night I went to the feria again with a friend and I met 2 new friends over there.

Today it’s back to school and I’ll probably end up on the feria again tonight!

Peace, Pura Vida & Love!

just another week in Costa Rica

2013-03-11T20:59:00.002-07:00

Dia 233, el Lunes 4 de Marzo 2013 20:44

Mondays...

Last Sunday was relaxed, lunch at one grandmother and coffee at the other one. In the evening I watched the opening ceremony of the Central American Games which are hold in Costa Rica this year. It was a nice ceremony, and it being in Costa Rica makes it even more special. There was some typical dancing, costumes, the athletes walking around, pretty much like the olympic opening ceremony but a bit smaller and less cool; of course. Something which bothered me is that before the ceremony even started there was about 5 minutes of commercials in the form of huge 3D-holograms on the field; Costa Rica is always full of commercials, they probabaly got that from The States. After the show the roof from the stadium caught fire because of firework rests, nobody got hurt so I can safely say that that’s funny!

This Monday was well, a Monday. But I will have a total of 47 Mondays in Costa Rica and actually I don’t mind them that much, and a lot of people would do a lot for 47 days in Costa Rica; especially if they would all be Mondays. This is kind of the part where I need to balance living the normal life and day I’ll go with the second.

So the day went by the following schedule:e

5:05 first alarm clock

5:15 second alarm clock

5:30 third alarm clock

5:37 getting out of bed

5:40 shower still occupied, better pack my bags already or something

5:50 shower free, get in there!

5:57 cold shower finished

6:00 putting school uniform on

6:10 rice , beans and egg breakfast

6:22 brushing teeth and getting ready

6:33 walking to school bus

6:45 schoolbus to school

6:55 meeting classmates and using WiFi of school

7:00 buying lunch ticket

7:10 going to first class; spanish

8:20 first break, better buy some coffee and a sandwhich at the soda

8:50 second class; geography, drawning maps agáin…

9:02 most ugly map every done, talking with classmates about the weekend

9:50 another break, resist not to buy food

10:05 Math classes, suddenly got sad about everything and nothing with any reason, missing my house, my friends and my family. Didn’t feel like doing maths at all.

10:15 What the Fuck? This never happens to me, why am I so sad?

10:30 willing to go home and sleep, ride my bike and be alone, drowning in thoughts.

11:10 lunch break; suddenly not sad anymore, not at all. Totally got over it, so happy I didn’t go home!

11:25 lunch time: rice, beans and potatoes. The rice and beans were delicious, the potatoes horrible.Kept talking with friends after lunch at the table about random shit.

11:50 washing plates

12:00 brushing teeth again, entertaining a classmate by dancing to trompete music which someone is playing outside the bathrooms while we are brushing our teeth.

12:10 biology class; I love this teacher she’s always nice and funny and writes inspiring sentences on the black board every day. Today’s was: now is a good moment to start being happy.

13:20 another break; ice-cream time

14:10 Civica; the first time of the year, with a new teacher. He looked pretty scary at the beginning being all serious teacher and stuff, he started off with some bad jokes but turned out to be nice after a while.

15:00 again Geograpy, I don’t really like this teacher, she comes from a private school and treats us that way, which means we have to work.

15:40 psychology class; super epic! I love this class, the class doesn’t have any structure yet but I love the way of thinking of the teacher and I love talking with him.

16:20 school ended, waiting for school bus

16:33 schoolbus arrived

16:50 back home and leaving directly to the center, bought ice-cream for my host mother and brother, and for my self. Also bought marmelade for on bread and picked up my bike from the bike shop.

17:00 sitting in the garden with hostmom and little hostbrother eating ice cream and talking.

18:05 getting ready for taekwondo practice

18:30 going to taekwondo

20:12 arrived from taekwondo, and going to the shower

20:20 beansoup with rice and a cooked egg for dinner.

20:40 getting ready to write blog.

This is pretty much a normal Monday for me, except for the part of sudden sadness and homesickness that almost never happens, but it just hits you when you least expect it. It can be because of somebody making a comment, thát girl not saying ‘hi’ or what ever, it can be anything; I’ve heard of people getting incredibly sad of campfires, as I said it can be anything.

Dia 237, el Viernes 8 de Marzo 21:30

When you can go to the beach, GO!

This week was a bit more unusual as last week, and the unusual is always more fun! It started Wednesday, I got out of school early so I decided to go ride my bike. I rode across all kind of little roads around Orotina which mostly passed by mango farms; always mango farms. It was very nice just to be alone for a while looking at the beauty of Costa Rica and Orotina it self.

Yesterday we went with a few classmates to a classmate’s house in Jesus Maria some village half an hour with bus away. She lives in a very tipical house with a big garden filled with mango trees, there were mangos all over the place. At this time of your there are mangos every where, every where you go you’ll see mangos on the floor, just thrown away, fallen from the trees, and I’m not talking about 4-5 mangos on the floor; no, hundreds!

We first ate some green mango and chatted a while later a delicious lunch was served of Arroz con pollo with the best mashed beans I’ve ever tasted! There also was an delicious chimi-churri and potatoe chips, served with well, you can guess: Coca Cola.

After the lunch we went for a little walk to a big field where there used to be Watermelons. It was extremly windy and we just walked around the field taking photos and having fun. We arrived at the corner of the field and there was a ruined tree hut which probably was somebodies house someday, we used it for photos.

When we came back we ate delicious orange flavour pancakes and I spotted some monkeys, and they were like: ahh, monkeys nothing special; I went to take photos. They also had 2 baby parrots and they were so so incredebily cute and sweet I hugged them cautionly.

Back in Orotina I met Sarah in the park and we chilled a while in the park. In the night we went to a ‘fraternidad’ an event from the evangelic church where people tell how god changed their lives. There where some insperational stories which gave me a view inside the lives of other people but the part where god helped was kinda vague and me not being religious always makes it kinda awkward. After the event we stood in a circle and everybody said what they needed from god. Instead of asking something from god I thanked the people who helped me in Costa Rica and I hoped that they’ll get the same help and treatment as I got. I still have to think good about god and Jesus and religious stuff, just to figure out what I exactly believe and think.

Today also was an spontaneous day! I had classes until 9 so I called Sarah to go the beach and at 10 we where on the bus on our way to Jaco. We spent the day tanning and playing in the waves. We mostly chatted about the ticos and Costa Rica. An example of something in Costa Rica what drives me crazy: Ticos take to much precautions and worry to much, it just takes to risk and thay way some of the fun out of the life, and sometimes it’s just straight annoying. Did you know that if you come from a bus you can’t eat for 1 hour because if you do that you want have stomach problems later, yeah right? I am then I’ll have stomach problems so what; that still is and will always be a cultural difference. We also passed the souvenirs stores,in one epic but expensive store there was this annoying guy who just didn’t stop talking English while we where speaking Spanish. When I’m in a tourist places I always prefer talking Spanish so the people wont think I’m a stupid Gringo.

Day 240, el lunes 11 de Marzo 2013

W to the eekend!

Who doesn´t love the weekend? And especially when you’re in Costa Rica! Saturday I took the bus early toSan José and met there up with Frida! We went to a nice restaurant to have a good breakfast in a pretty European restaurant; always good to see Frida again! <3. We weren’t really sure what to do but we decided after some doubting to go to Heredia to a Japanse festival there. After a quick busride we met Valentina and Henry at the Japanese festival, so we were all united again. It was so crazy that it is TWO months ago that we saw each other in Heredia, like SIXTY days it seems like yesterday that we were jumping into Valentina’s pool!

The Japanese festival was fun but not like o-my-god fun, there were some stands with Japanese food which was nice and some stands with Anime, Dragonball-z and Pokémon. There were also some sport demonstrations like Sumo, Karate and some eic sword fighting, that was cool to see. Also there were some Bonzai trees which were tuanis as well, but what most mattered is that I got to spent some time with Frida, Vali and Henry again! We ate lunch in an Arabic restaurant where I had some Kebab for the first time in 8 months again which was extremly nice, somehow we always end up eating, always. The busride from Orotina back to San José was pretty horrible since I had to stand for 2 hours and didn’t feel so well after all the food. When I got home there was a small family BBQ so that made me feel better and it was fun, I even ate some carne asada.

On Sunday I went with my hostmom and Sara for a walk over the chompipe, some hilltop around Orotina. It is beautiful walking there, there are amazing villas and you have an amazing view. You can see all the way towards the see, over the gulf and the penisulo of Nicoya. To bad the best viewing point was occupied, but it was occupied but frigging Proffesional Skates with a huge ass half sphere on top of the hill shooting a Commercial for some energy drink, top secret and super serious. It was epic to see it and I got to take some nice pictures of that! About pictures, when I have nothing to do someday which is almost never these day then I wil upload some on my blog!

Vulcano & normal schoolweek report

2013-03-02T18:38:00.002-08:00

Day 225, el Domingo el 24 de Febrero 2013 21:09

A vulcano and a tree

It has been a wonderful weekend, again. Saturday was a relaxing day at a pool, we were supposed to go to the river but at the last moment we couldn’t go. Luckily Hernan’s mom guards a pool nearby so we had a private pool for ourselves all day. We spent all day chilling in the pool and eating mangos. It was a very chilling relaxing day.

Today was another epic day in Costa Rica. I woke up at 5 to take a bus to Atenas at 6. I met Julio there, the crazy school librarian. We had breakfast at his house which is full of cool Indian stuff. Later some friends of him picked us up and we set our way to volcano Poás! After 1 hour driving everywhere along the ride there were small stores saying: ‘strawberries from the vulcano’ ‘some other shit, from the vulcano’ I never knew the honey from a volcano tastes better, but well I didn’t try it either. At the entrance I put up a cap and looked the other way while another dude paid so I only had to pay $2 instead of $10; tourist discrimination. There was a pretty modern visitors center and everything which is pretty rare in Costa Rica, but Poás being one of the most visited places does make it logical. The climate was epic, a light breeze with around 18 degrees Celsius; I missed it. We walked about 1 kilometer to get to the crater and there we saw it, the mighty crater of Poás, the biggest in the world cloaked in clouds. We saw just white clouds, no crater nothing. You could smell the gasses and when some clouds went away you could see the volcanic rocks, which looks like the moon but the crater, the crater I never got to see. We took another trail to the volcanic lake, and this one was clear. Wow, it was so beautiful incredible! A turquoise colored lake surrounded by tiny tiny beaches and a lot of green, outer space like plants; breathtaking.

Even though I didn’t get to see the crater it was a beautiful visit to this volcanic, it see gives you a cool feeling, knowing that you are on a volcano. We drove back through a few nice villages and I had a nice view of the central valley. Back in Atenas we chilled a bit and in the afternoon I took a bus back to Orotina. In the bus there were some Canadian hippies, I had some small talk with them but it looked like they started their Costa Rica trip with getting stoned so it was funny small talk. I got off in Desmonte where my family was having a little barbeque, they told we that my hostmom was taking a little walk to I went to same way and found her after 10 minutes.

It was the beautiful road I took a few weeks again going to the mines. Since I was in a good mood I decided to run this road all the way to Orotina and back to my house. The road goes over 2 hill tops so it was extremely hard but it was so worth it, I had to most beautiful and most peaceful view I’ve had in a long long time. It was just me, walking over this hilltop listening to the howler monkeys for away, seeing the iguanas running away and listening to the birds. I could see Orotina, San Mateo, Rio Tarcoles and all the way over the golf the peninsula of Nicoya, which must be around 70 kilometers away. There was a little trail to a viewing point and there it was; the tree. There is a huge tree on a hilltop which I have seen almost every day and I always wanted to go there, and now, I suddenly found it. Seeing this tree was almost as special as seeing the volcano, (if I would’ve seen the crater probably not, but yeah). This tree just, made me so happy inside, I don’t know why. The rest of the road was just going down, but it was so steep I had to walk carefully, and running was out if the picture at all.

Dia 231 Sabado 2 de Marzo 2013

A normal school week

It was a nice and normal school week, it passes very quick and I have not been bored at all, which resulted in me not writing my blog. Not writing my blog is nothing bad since it only means that I am probably busing with cooler things. But I will always keep you guys updated, so here is a week report!

Monday:

I think I didn’t mention this yet, so I’ll do it now: because a new year started I also have a new time table, so now it is Monday and Friday ‘basics’; just normal classes and the other days tourism. Even though the classes take around 2 hours each the time flies, while in the Netherlands the 45 minute classes seemed like hours. I’m not the best student in the class, but I have good relationships with the teachers and I am just having fun with classmates, and sometimes, sometimes I do write something down.

Tuesday:

Every Tuesday morning we have to work at the tourism area, which is the camping and trails in the forest around it, the trails got pretty bad in the holidays so we are making them better, these days we are making stairs; it’s working hard but watching monkeys while doing it makes it better.

Wednesday:

This day I had free from school and decided to go to school on this day, fuck logic. I didn’t go to my own school though, I went to the public school of Orotina. Everybody on that school has been telling me for months that their school is so much better so I decided to give it a visit. I met Sarah who is on that school and we walked around the school a bit. Yes, it is bigger, and with way more people but it doesn’t have the same vibes as San Mateo, so I still stick with my point that my school is better.

I also met up with Francisco a friend from Taekwondo and I went with him and his class to the farm their school has, and yes this is way, way bigger as well; it is huge. We drove with a tractor for a few minutes and in some field the students did some work while Sarah and I walked around, I used to go to place like this on holidays sometimes, just going farmland.

Later we went for ice cream; the heat has arrived. It is really hot now during the day but not like I-am-dying hot. It’s funny that the ticos are always complaining about the heat while they live in it for years, and I feel kinda used to it.

In the evening I went to ride the bike of my hostdad which I fixed. And damnn it’s so good to ride a bike again, I love it. I went to the same road where I usually run and there I met Chino’s brother Abrahama nd a friend of him, we rode about 12 kilometers through the hills, rested at his house and at night I was tired, the taekwondo practices from the days before had also been hard. My taekwondo is going very good by the way, I managed to kick some which was 2 meters from the ground!!

Thursday:

In the morning we had tourism but we used those to sell food, currently there is kind of a food war going on in my school ( no not throwin food, we are civilized ( kind of)). I am in the sixth year now and we have to gather money to pay the graduation party and ceremony. So every week we sell food in the school: little plastic bags of ice tea, mango, ice and we made a lottery. It is inspirational how everybody is so motivitad to work to pay the graduation. In the afternoon I didn’t have classes but I didn’t know until 1. In the meanwhile I went to the classroom of the other half of my class who have agro-industria. We played domino and chilled a bit.

Friday:

Again normal classes, on Friday we also havo English and I become a good friend and assistant of my English teacher. Nine hours of normal classes isn’t that bad at all, time flies and I enjoy every moment while I’m in Costa Rica. Always ‘basilando’ (kidding around) in school and having a goodtime; love it. After school I bought some cookies to celebreta the weekend and went to the house of an aunt to drink some coffee. Taekwondo was fun at night and I really feel and see progress.

In the night there was a ‘party’ at the MaxiPali which opened in Orotina, a big supermarket. I went with Sarah her host brothers and some friends to see whats’up. It turned out to be that the event was during the day but we had fun walking and being crazy in the supermarket, supermarkets will always be this place to have random fun for me. We ate some stuff we bought outside on the empty stage and chilled in the park a while.

Saturday

Today I went to the river with friends from taekwondo, we also went to the MaxiPali and walked pretty far through some fruit farms to arrive at a spot in the river. There was a big rock in the middle which we used to jump from, furthermore it was a lot of basilando and eating. It was an and memorable day at the river.

The last weeks I really got to know the ticos better, I sink deeper and deeper into the culture. I understand everything they do and think, and I do the same. I have serious conversations with them, give dating advice, get dating adivce and I am having fun all the time, just with people from such an different culture. Sinking deeper into this culture means I am getting further and further away from my old culture, and going back will be more and more difficult. There are 3 months left now, and I know that these 3 months are going to be the best, with every day getting better and better.

la vaca negra

2013-02-22T16:36:00.000-08:00

First of all: Thanks everybody for voting for me in the blogger competition! I reached 12th place, it's not the first, but hey! I beat 244 blogs so I am very happy!

XOXO and keep enjoying my blog

Dia 220, el Martes 19 de Febrero 17:56

Spontanous ice cream

Last Sunday was an easy day which felt like a ‘Costa Rican’ Sunday. In the morning I joined my hostdad to a mango farm to see his cows and to pick up some mangos. My hostdad new every mango type by seeing it just hanging there, mango knowledge is pretty normal in Orotina. The ‘Feria de las frutas’ has announced by the way: 14 to 25 of March will be the biggest fruit event of the year! I’m still not very sure what will happen since people always give vague answers when I ask them, but I’ll see.

Later in the evening I went spontaneous to Puntarenas with Sarah to get some ice cream, our first ice cream was way too expensive but nice and we couldn’t resist a second one which was way better and way cheaper; I found my favorite ice cream spot in Puntarenas. It was nice to be with an exchange student again, I hadn’t been with one for a long time. It was nice to let all your complaints out and talk about how annoying or hard some things are, and then always ending the conversation with: ‘I love Costa Rica’.

Yesterday and today were two normal and nice days in school, I ate a lot of mangos and we now always have to go to a bakery outside the school since the school soda was closed. I was in a good mood yesterday so I invited on ‘bolies’ basically frozen syrup in a plastic bag. Something else: it is the very normal to drink from a small plastic back in Costa Rica, something which isn’t that weird actually and pretty practical.

Today was extra nice because I spotted two big groups of white-faced monkeys in the school forest where we were working. These things always make me so happy for choosing Costa Rica.

Day 223, el viernes 22 de febrero 2013 18:10

Vaca Negra

School is pretty exhausting but I’m getting used to waking up early, but sleeping early still has its difficulties, because of this I totally lost the ‘write-my-blog-everyday-mentality’ but to be honest I lost that a long time ago. This isn’t bad at all, because it mostly I’m having a wonderful time!

Last Wednesday was just a half school since my classmates had to take a test to see if they can be official tour guides, something I really want to be but can’t be because it takes 10 months to take the course, too bad. Yesterday I was free the whole because the teacher had a free day. Because I left early the day before I didn’t make any plans and my phone being crappy doesn’t help either. But it was a nice day and I spent most time chilling with my host brother which also has to be done. We made a ‘vaca negra’ which means black cow, some traditional food which is well, uhmm interesting. It is vanilla ice cream with Coca-Cola; yes, ice cream with Coca Cola; Ticos love Coca Cola. It got 1 layer of foam which tasted like Coca Cola vanilla and later it was vanilla ice cream with a little bit of Coca Cola taste and gas, ice cream with gas, that was interesting. Now the weirdest thing is that for this local tradition dish they ask about $5 dollars in the ice cream store, so we just bought ice and Coca Cola. In the night we went to a roller skating track in another village, there were just 3 other people and us but we had a good time, even with this black cow in my stomach.

Today was ‘basics’ day in school which means normal classes and no specialty, I don’t mind it at all, switching classes prevent it from getting boring and these classes we have with the other half of our class which are my friends as well, so that’s always nice as well. We kinda missed Spanish classes because we searched through all of San Mateo for food since the soda of the school hasn’t opened yet. In the afternoon we went again the San Mateo centro; well San Mateo ‘centro’ her we bought a lot of bread and Coca-Cola and we made sandwiches in class to ‘keep the concentration up’ but we spent all time shopping the stuff and making the sandwiches.

Now the weekend is ready to start, tomorrow I have to river on the schedule and on Sunday I am going to Vulcano Póas; finally I’m going to see thé biggest crater in the world!

First week of school: survived!

2013-02-17T12:55:00.001-08:00

Day 212, Monday 11 February 2013 20:40

Back to school!

I must honestly say that I didn’t sleep very well yesterday, I didn’t feel any nervousness; maybe it was the mosquitos. But going back to school was pretty cool. In the morning there was a lil’ speech from the director; who according to me needs to practice a lot on giving speeches. Only 7 of my classmates came today, just because not everybody signed up for school yet, yes the classes already started but why sign up? Gladly 5 of the 7 were really good friends of mine so it was nice chilling with them. We first had geography for 2 hours which was simple earthquake stuff and Costa Rican’s geographic history.

After that the biology teacher didn’t show up so we went to chill in the park. I saw a lot of people again after the holidays and it was nice to see them again, these holidays really changed me, not so much the view of the world and shit but more how I am living my Costa Rican life, I am living it way more Costa Rican now with more Costa Rican friends. After lunch we had Tourism class but everybody went home because, well just because. I stayed because I am of course the perfect student and I still had to sign up as well. I met an Australian exchange student who is in my school now as well, I spent some time with her and my tourism teacher in a classroom learning her Spanish. It was lovely to talk with her, she answered me a lot of questions and I was nice to be ‘that dude who is here so long already’.

I thought it was a nice idea to show her the school farm and camping because I was stunned when I saw it for the first time and that was when I was in the school for 1 month or something, so I thought it would be nice for her to see on the first day. On the way we found a lot of mangos which fell and the trees where well filled, too bad the mangos were too high and the ones on the ground half-eaten by iguanas. And the way back I found a star fruit tree and I picked some, they turned out not to taste so good; so it was dog food.

So it was really nice to go back to school, I feel that it is very different from the times before the holidays, I know a lot more people, I have more friends, and they became better friends. I once said to somebody: ‘it is impossible to have a normal and good conversation with a tico’; I was wrong.

Dia 216, El Viernes 15 de Febrero 2013 21:35

First school week: survived.

I have a nice cliché moment of: ‘oh-no-I-didn’t write-my-blog-for-days’; but yeah it is true, but with a good reason; I was and still am pretty damn tired! Getting back to the rhythm of waking up at 5:30, 9 hours of school and sleep at 10 was hard, so hard that I didn’t find the energy to write.

But the school week was very nice! I caught up with everybody and as I wrote in my last post, school is just different. I feel more comfortable, and I just like everything more. On Wednesday it was my hostmom’s birthday so I woke up at 4:45 to clean the kitchen (my hostmom can’t stand dirty things, so cleaning the kitchen is a huge gesture. After school I bought cake and 2 bottles of Coca-Cola, the thing my hostmom loves must after a clean house. I called an uncle and a cousin and we had a nice little barbeque in the evening, I think it was my first ‘carne asada party’ of 2013 and it was a nice one.

Furthermore we had mostly introducing classes about you are now the last year you have to be strong blah blah blah.. That made me think about the start of my last high school year, but hey that’s long-gone.

I also got a few new classmates which is always fun, our class now it Tourism with Cooking class people instead of agriculture. Always nice to get to know more people. I also made a lot of plans for the weekends coming up, so those’ll be ‘tuanis’

Dia 218, el Domingo 17 de febrero 2013 14:31

Close secrets

Waking up early got awarded again; never ever stay in bed when there’s cool stuff to do. Yesterday I went with my hostmom and a walking group for a walk over the famous Orotinian train tracks. It is a walk I’ve always wanted to do, just because walking train tracks has something special. After about 1 hour we arrived at the first station, there was a ruin of the old rock smasher and a big hole in a mountain where they mined rocks for Costa Rican industry. Half an hour later we arrived at a small abandoned train stations with a few houses in it. Mine workers lived here but when the train was cut off they lost their jobs and had to move out, now there are creepy houses full of bats. We descended a few hundred meters to get to the pool which was our final destination. It was a beautiful pool with a nice waterfall coming from a tunnel. The water was very cold but nice on such a hot day. After swimming and lunching it was time to walk back, on the way back I had a nice conversation with a women who also had an exchange student a while back. When we were back at the first station my hostmom, some guy , some women and me decided to take another route back over the mountain, we had a very nice view and it was a better road as the train tracks where you walked on rocks all the time. After 1 hour we were back at our starting point which was pretty close to the house of my friend Chino. So I decided to pop by them and there I spent a nice while chilling with Chino and his brother watching a movie and playing playstation. I always have nice conversations there over the always delicious dinner. People always told me that I am so rich and blah blah blah and I aways responded with: ‘no no we are just normal people’ but over the last months I realized that I ám rich, but I just didn’t know it myself.

I sometimes forgot that Orotina is in the mountains, and in the mountains there are always nice trails to walk, I should go for a walk more often and get the mountain bike fixed. It also made me realize that living in the mountains is pretty damn cool, we don’t have mountains in the Netherlands so that makes the change bigger, and mountains come with a lot of cool things like rivers and mountain biking!

Vote for me!

2013-02-14T04:24:00.000-08:00

I normally don't update like this but I have little time cuz the school bus is leaving!

but there are 3 days left to vote and I would really appreciate if you vote for my blog! ( My life in Costa Rica)

It gives me motivation to finish this blog for the last 3,5 months!

I'll update soon!

Have a nice valentine's day! Hope you'll have a date ;)

XOXO,

Gossip-boy

( I actually did got a bit if an gossip-addiction here, but hey! I just adjust to da culture!)

:*

Food talk, monkeys and CARNIVAL!

2013-02-09T19:52:00.002-08:00

Day 209, el Jueves 7 de Febrero 2013 8:16

Tico’s fav food.

Last Tuesday I went to school to sign up for this year, it’s funny that I can do this this late even though classes start next Monday. It was nice to be back in school, a few people thought I already left and it was nice to see them happily surprised. I met 3 classmates and we chatted a bit while filling in papers. It felt like Dutch summer that day, being in school with just a few peeps on a sunny day made me remind the old days. I also spoke with one of my best friends from my Dutch highschool and I kind of missed these times.

Yesterday there was another arrozarium a.k.a. singing to baby Jesus. This time we got Rompepe and Nachos. Rompepe is a typical drink which tastes like ‘leche dulce’ but with a bit alcohol. Leche dulce is sweetened syrop like milk and Ticos love it, they put in and on everything, another Costa Rican favorite is Pollo Frito, fried chicken. They sell the greasy but o-so-good fried chicken everywhere and the greasy smell fills the streets. The worst what can happen is sitting next to somebody eating his pollo frito next to you in the bus, it has happened. The nachos were better as the rompepe, way better. You have some ‘nice’ nachos in The Netherlands if you put them in a bowl with plastic cheddar cheese and put it in the microwave, here, here nachos is a whole meal. You’ll get a mountain of nachos, meat, tomato, natilla, salad and cheese on a plate so small that everything will be all over the place when you’re finished.

But I was extremely happy with the nachos besides for the fact that they were very tasty they also helped my kill the hunger I had all day. I woke up early in the morning with just a bit of bread for breakfast to go with my uncle to the school where he works. It is in the village of Guayllipi or something like that, it lies on top of a mountain and it a 12 kilometer gravel road takes you there. There is almost nothing: 1 church, 1 soccer field, 1 supermarket and the 60-student school. It was nice to visit such a small village like this, it made me think if the small village in France, it just suck that Costa Rica doesn’t have any nice architecture at all. While my uncle was in a meeting a laid outside in the sun and took a nice nap, just me and my thoughts. My nap got disturbed by rain which is weird because it didn’t rain for over a month and it isn’t supposed the rain at all. But Costa Rica is a country of surprises and I actually liked it, I miss the crazy rain. And the way back we went to a viewing point and I could see all over my region, I didn’t see Orotina itself but the sea was beautiful and the mountains far away filled with woods were beautiful.

22:13

Monkeys!

Today was an epic day at the river! While we were swimming from the rope as always we heard some loud noises which my dear friends indicated as howler monkeys. Me and 2 friends were up for a little adventure so we took off towards the sounds. We went bare feet jumping from stone to stone through the river until we found an entry in the forest. We continued; still on bare feet towards the still howling howler monkeys. After a few hundred meters we climbed a little hill and looked up: 4 meters above there were around 8 howler monkeys just chilling. Luckily the howler monkeys stopped howling so we could watch them in peace. After 2 minutes we decided to go because the not howling howler monkeys looked kinda mad and ready to throw shit at us. On the way back we got a bit lost and I was sure the monkeys were following us so after we started running we heard something we suddenly were back at the river; it was a cool small adventure.

Dia 210, el Sabado 9 de Febrero 2013 21:15

CARNIVAL!

Yesterday was nice, and today, today was EPIC. So let’s talk about yesterday first!

It was an easy day; I started with sweeping the floor which is my daily chore. I did some preparations for the holiday of my parents for when they come here; it’s going to be amazing! In the afternoon my hostmom came home with and aunt and a cousin. We talked during a lovely lunch with ‘chimi churri’ a mix of tomato, lemon, salt and union; delicious! I’m going to eat that so much in The Netherlands. The lunch changed into coffee time and we just kept on talking about the regular Costa Rican stuff. Later when the women wanted to gossip on their own I went to the center to pick up my new school uniform pants, brown pants specially made for me in some store. Because I am a last year’s student I get to wear a different uniform and I must say I feel damn good in it.

This morning my alarm clock went off and it took my time to figure out which day it was, when I realized it was Saturday I almost went back to sleep, but I am so so so sooo glad I didn’t! I swept the house, ate my breakfast ate a second breakfast, showered and for ready for carnival! I took a bus with 2 friends from school to Puntarenas, normally the ride takes 1 hour and 15 minutes, today it took 2 and a half hours. But the bus ride was funny, a few friends more entered the bus and we were joking all the time about everything and nothing. I must honestly say that I was surprised when I arrived in Puntarenas. Puntarenas wasn’t the dirty harbor city anymore, it changed completely. Okey, it was still dirty but the vibe was way better. There were a lot of fast food trailers on the boulevard alongside the beach and a lot a lot a lot of people and at the far end: a huge stage. I didn’t believe my eyes, it was like I was back in the Netherlands on Queens day but now with beach and palm trees! We walked the boulevard until the crowd started and searched for a spot between all the half-naked beer-drinking and marihuana smoking Costa Rican students. The concert was mostly live Reggae music but with a nice beat to dance to. The party was getting started and then I suddenly got a big hug, it were Ruth and Bea who saw me standing, which must not have been that hard since I was about 15 centimeters taller as everybody else with some blond hair on top. They came all the way from Nicoya to this festival and it was a very nice surprise that I saw them. We danced a bit together, me, my friends and them. Later we split up again and I moved with my friends the some shadow since the sun was burning like crazy and the temperature had raised to 34 degrees Celsius. After 6 hours of dancing and jumping I lost my friends in the crowd, I walked a bit out of the crowd to find get some reception and there I found Ruth and Bea again! after walking back with them I got found by my friends who probably saw me coming from the other side; being tall is awesome (except for bus rides).

After this concert there was going to be the real carnival with nice carts and dancers and everything but we were pretty tired and we didn’t have any money either so we took the bus back to Orotina. During the bus ride I called with the Dutch radio program ‘De wereld van Filemon’ which is used to do every day but quit due to the holidays, but now I’m back! So tune in on Saturday night between 1 and 3!

Today was an epic day in Costa Rica; I didn’t expect it all and almost didn’t go. I heard of this festival just 2 days ago and happened to meet some people yesterday in the center who were going, fate has been on my side I guess. It was awesome, now I’m tired and going for a nice sleep.

Yellow belt in TKD and more ''rice' parties

2013-02-07T06:34:00.002-08:00

Dia 207 el 5 de Febrero 2013 22:23

Yellow Belt!

Today I reached something, something I can never lose; my yellow belt in Taekwondo! The exam wasn’t that hard but I was pretty nervous though. So after waiting on some people who were to late we could start the exam. Everybody stood at the side watching us and my host dad and little brother came to see, that was very nice of them and I am very glad since I have been asking all week of they could make it, and with Ticos you are never sure if they can. The Taekwondo master held a very nice speech about that we have become at special moment in Taekwondo and how much we have grown. He always talks very good pep talks, morality talks, discipline, all sorts of talks, he does it. Taekwondo isn’t just a sport, it’s a martial art and that means that it comes with a philosophy, in which I grew a bit today. Then the exam really started; the master asked a few questions about kicks, strikes and stances in Korean, I knew most of them but to be honest not all. He gave commands in Korean and we had to do the exercises he described. After that part at was time for the forms, patterns of 20 steps in which you fight imaginable opponents; its cooler as it sounds. Then we made it! We did well enough to pass to the next belt; yellow! It is the first belt but after black to most important, it means the end of the beginning and a long but welcoming road ahead. The master gave a nice ending speech I got my belt, everybody applauded and it was done, from there on the training went on as normal.

I would recommend Taekwondo to everybody, especially exchange-students. It is a very nice sport, in which everybody can participate, it’s a way to make friends and it boosts your already changing mind. And don’t forget, everybody puts on some foreign kilos.

I felt like buying my host family ice cream to celebrate my belt but it was already too late, I’ll save that for later.

Day 209, el Jueves 7 de Febrero 2013 8:16

Tico’s fav food.

Last Tuesday I went to school to sign up for this, it’s funny that I can do this this late even though classes start next Monday. It was nice to be back in school, a few people thought I already left and it was nice to see them happily surprised. I met 3 classmates and we chatted a bit while filling in papers. It felt like Dutch summer that day, being in school with just a few peeps on a sunny day made me remind the old days. I also spoke with one of my best friends from my Dutch highschool and I kind of missed these times.

Las Minas

2013-02-04T09:07:00.003-08:00

Day 203, el Viernes 1 de Febrero 2013 17:43

This will never change about me.

Something what didn’t change about me yet, and something I think will never change about me is me being clumsy and me losing everything. 3 weeks ago I bought a new very cheap crappy phone. Last Saturday I already lost, which is not so bad because it was so crappy and already broken. But the thing is my SIM-chip was still in the phone so I lost all my numbers and nobody could reach me. So this gave me a few boring days, which I really hate.

That’s why going to school isn’t that bad all next week since I will be around people and doing more stuff. And there will be a lot of trips with school I hope. I did meet up with Lea in the park yesterday which was nice, just to old school complain and get some things of your chest. Even though I live in Costa Rica for 7 months now (!!) some things will always be annoying, annoying but bearable and it is always nice to just share it.

Another thing I didn’t write about yet is the ‘baja-mundo’ (Underworld); the black market of San José. I went there with my host family 2 weeks ago. It is in some creepy neighborhood in San José. The streets are full with people on blankets selling phones, chargers and cameras; it kind of looks like a creepy flee market we know on Queens’ day (soon Kings’ day) in The Netherlands. The headquarters of this ‘baja mundo’ was in some kind of mini-mall in a basement full of electronic shops with games, PlayStations, laptops, smartphones, iPad’s and more. Everything was stolen, and everything was very cheap. My family didn’t seem to have a problem with that but didn’t buy anything for today.

Another thing: in The Netherlands you can be as honest as you want about most things. Here in Costa Rica, not. I say, for example: ‘well this is expensive’ people are like: ‘nooooh’ you can’t say that. Or when I think I product is fake and I say it, (not to the salesman but to my host brother) they are like: ‘noooh you can’t say that’. Like these people in the store care, they are people as well just doing their jobs. Sometimes I feel like people don’t release that other people are just people as well.

Day 205, el Domingo 3 de Febrero 2013 22:03

Las Minas

You could almost say that it is unfair how many beauty one country has, and another not. But of course as unfair as the fact how much money some countries have and other not; just to stay real. But really Costa Rica has so much beauty!

This weekend I got to know ‘Las Minas’ or in English: The Mines. Time for a little history lesson: Costa Rica’s economy existed for a part of gold mining, because gold is pretty valuable Costa Rica got money money cash cash baby. There still is gold in some place but mostly underneath very old rainforest, so it’s protect, but illegally it still happens. Anyways, close to my village there was one of these mines, and on Saturday I went there with my friends: Chino, Hernan, Abram and a cousin of Chino, and his dad. We took a cool road over a mountain where you had an AMAZING view. I could so all the way to the Gulf of Nicoya and all the way to the mountain behind, which is around 70 kilometers away. There was also a nice view of Orotina and San Mateo lying next to each other.

So after this nice ride we arrived at a point where we could enter a river. We actually didn’t go to the mines itself, just to a river close to it. And this river, just: WOW! After climbing a bit by jumping rock to rock we arrived at a part where there were 5 waterfalls with each its own little pool with it. These pools where pretty deep and because it is summer the river isn’t that full so we could jump from the sides into the pools, which was epic epic epic! The highest jump was at the last pool and a small 7 meter drop into the river, delischous. Another cool thing was that there was a small waterfall going over a flat big rock which created an actual real-life-nature-made waterslide! Costa Rican nature strikes again.

After a few hours of jumping, swimming and climbing we got tired and chilled a bit at the main pool diving from a 4 meter rock into the main pool. There were some other people whom I overheard speaking Dutch! They turned out to be from Belgium and they live close to Orotina. I went for a little small talk and now I am invited to their house for dinner some time, that’ll be cool.

Today I went to the normal pools again with some friends just to chill out and relax. I really got to start working on that epic suntan I need when I go back to the Netherlands.

After dinner we ate the first mangos of the mango season and they were so damn good! Very sweet and just so much taste! There are always mangos in the stores but they are not from Orotina and sprayed with chemicals. These were the first mangos from Orotina and came from a farm from an uncle. I got the whole mango story which I love to share with you here on my blog. Orotina and San Mateo are famous for their fruits and especially the mangos. I can see mango trees as you can see bikes in The Netherlands are Starbucks in Manhattan. Really they are everywhere! Now there are mangos hanging from every tree ready to be eaten by me! There are about 50 different mangos in Costa Rica, with the biggest difference being male or female mangos. You can also eat the mangos ripe or not ‘green’; not ripe, I personally prefer the ripe ones; they are way sweeter. Some other mango species are: Mango Banana, Mango Piña, Mango Fillipano or Mango Papa. Gotta love mangos!

Nature made waterslide!

200 days in Paradise.

2013-01-29T12:41:00.004-08:00

Day 200, Tuesday, 29^th of January 2013 13:24

200 days in paradise.

200 Days, another milestone. 200 days really is a lot, I just read my blog of when I was here for 50 days, and I wrote that a lot of time had passed. Well now a lot of time had passed for real. I don’t even see it as a milestone, I didn’t really achieve anything. It is more a sad moment. Because now; now I really am in my last months. I can put it in an even worse perspective: within just 3 months my parents will be here, and after my trip with them there will be just 1 little month left.

But I don’t see it that negative, I think that this part of my exchange; returning the school, will be the best part. Over these holidays I made a lot of friends from school, I now feel part of them. This gets boosted by the fact that there are coming more exchange students to my school. I will be more Tico as European to them, and that, that makes me very happy.

In these 200 days I have a place which is as much as home as my house in The Netherlands, not more, not less. I can drink from the bottle and steal socks, or just enjoy a day at a river with family. In the beginning of my exchange I always felt different, not just because of my blond hair and blue eyes but because of who I used to be. But now I feel equal to my friends, I am not ‘that exchange guy’ in the group anymore; I am a full part of the group. The only difference is that I still have blond hair and blue eyes and I still am 1 meter 92. And inside, inside I am a fine mix of Costa Rican influences with my Dutch roots. After adjusting to the culture I became a part of it. I won’t say that I am a Tico, or that I adapted 100% to the culture. There will always be the Dutch things about me; some of them did get replaced by Costa Rican things. But who says you can’t have 2 cultures? I have 2 families as well, and not to forgot 3 languages.

I experienced a lot here in this paradise-like country. The earthquake is memorable of course, as well for my days in Guanacaste, or Panama, or Puerto Viejo. I have been to many places; I created memories all over the place. That is one part of my exchange; the holiday part; travelling, seeing stunning things and doing unforgettable things and sharing perfect moments with best friends for life. And then there is the mental part, the way of thinking, something which changed way more as thought it would. Over 200 days I changed drastically, so much that I for some moments thought I didn’t even know my own sister anymore. I am a very different person as I was 200 days ago. The way I act, think and live. Also a part of exchange is homesickness, I experienced it. It wasn’t that bad I dealt with it, I found a cure. Other things I learnt to deal with are saying goodbye, which goes me very well. And also jealously; always the need for something more, always the need for change.

One of the best moments of these 200 days, an my whole life.

I made it this far, now there are just a bit more than 100 days left, 100 days of normal, Costa Rican life. I will have joy from them, learn from them, keep on changing because of them and miss them when I’ll be back home.