Outdoor Market

Yesterday I went to the Feria with my host parents. This week is Semana Santa, Holy Week, and we went to buy fruits and veggies since most stores will be closed. The Feria is a huge outdoor market with vendors selling all of their fruits and vegetables. The line of vendors is so long and there are so many people there. Here is a picture of it. You can see how far behind me there are vendors. It was a lot of fun. There were things there that even my host mom didn't know.

Mama Tica and I at breakfast before Feria

Coffee and Saints

So let’s overlook the fact that I am way behind on this blog. The last few days/weeks have been incredibly busy and I haven’t really found time to blog. But this week is Semana Santa (Holy Week) and I don’t have classes all week long as we celebrate the week before Easter. I am definitely looking forward to this relaxing week. However, after this week we only have two more weeks of classes then the last week for finals. 

The countdown is at 25 days. 

Crazy.

So more about what I have done. A couple weeks ago a couple of us girls went to a coffee farm in San Francisco del San Isidro. We were given a tour of some of the farm and shown all of the processing that takes place for coffee. Since I work in a coffee shop back home with our own coffee farm I knew most of the information, but it was cool to see this particular farm and see everything they do. Something that is really interesting about Costa Rican coffee is that when they separate the different grades of beans, they take the highest quality and reserve that for exportation, so whatever is sold in the country is the lower quality beans. Needless to say, anything that you buy in the States with the name of Costa Rican coffee will probably be better quality than anything I can bring back from here.

Also last weekend I went to a town called Cartago with my host mom and her parents. Cartago is about an hour away from San Jose and is home to the Basilica to the patron saint of Costa Rica, Our Lady of Los Angeles. Here is a link to a short description about it: http://www.costaricapages.com/

It was really interesting to see the basilica, it was beautiful. 

So those are a couple of things I have done in the last few weeks. I hope that it won't be too long before the next update. 

There's No Place Like Home

Okay everyone. I love Costa Rica. Absolutely have been having the time of my life. But I am gonna admit that I am really excited to go home and I will show you why.


http://www.konaweb.com/


This is literally ten minutes from my house. I miss it a lot. 


I also just found out about this: 

Oh home.

Whistle While you Work

So I have the cutest Lit teacher here (she is also my language track teacher and even though she sometimes intimidates me, she is still super cute), and while we were studying a certain author she starts singing this song having to do with one of the poems we are reading. Anyway long story short, she brought in the music for us to listen to and we all sometimes just start singing this song. This will definitely be something that I remember Costa Rica by.

Celia Cruz-Guantamanera

Arenal

La Fortuna

So finally I can blog about last weekend. It was such a fun trip. The last USAC trip of the semester, we went to Volcan Arenal. It was about 4 hours away from Heredia and was gorgeous. We arrived at our hotel and it was great. We could see the volcano from our room and the pool area.

Hotel Room

After we changed into our bathing suits, we went to the Baldi Resort to visit the hot springs. I am not sure how many different pools there were, but there were a lot and they all ranged in different temperatures. It was so fun to hang around the hot springs for a few hours. Later, we met with everyone and ate a buffet dinner at the resort. It was SO delicious. They definitely feed us well on these trips!

Scary Bridge

That night when we got back to the hotel, we all hung out at the pool together. For this trip the Heredia program was split in two groups on different days, and our group happened to travel with the USAC San Ramon group. San Ramon is about an hour and a half from Heredia and their program specializes in science classes. So we were able to hang out with them and get to know them which was fun.

The next day we went to these hanging bridges. There was this path that had six different bridges at different heights. I was pretty freaked out, since I don’t like heights. I never let go of the bridge while walking across, but it was definitely a lot of fun. We were hiking through the rain forest and there were a bunch of different birds and animals. Such a good trip.

View from hotel room

Nothing too exciting, but it was definitely a fun experience. The area was so gorgeous and definitely a better trip than the ones where we stay in hostels.