hello world.

Today is my two week anniversary in Costa Rica. Craziness. It feels like I have been here so much longer than two weeks. Our halfway point for classes was on Thursday, so we only have 8 more classes with Deany Weany and Jeff. Then we have our week-long midterm break in Montezuma, and then we'll start up with Ecology. Our program is way too short.

This morning we had breakfast at 6:15. We had all the staples--coffee, eggs, fruit, gallo-pinto (beans and rice), toast, and then Geovanny busted out the peanut butter and jelly to go with our toast. He's my hero. I stole the half-eaten jar of peanut butter because I'm b.a. Also because I'm a fatty.

Then our TOURISTA taxis came and picked us up at 6:45 for our 2 hour drive to our "rafting" trip. The first hour of the ride was standard ridiculous tico roads, and then the second hour was on paved roads. It was so weird. Dean put it best when he said, "My hemorrhoids have never felt so good!" Jeff was cracking jokes today too. Mostly about our tour guide from the Monteverde Cheese Factory. Her name was Sarah and she was this awful woman with a lisp who demanded us to ask questions after every sentence she spoke. "This is where the trucks deliver milk. Questions? Questions?" "This is cheese. Questions? Questions?" "This is a room. Questions? Questions?"

So anyways, because it's the rainy season, Lindsay was worried about sending us on an actual hardcore rafting trip because the rain makes it too hardcore, and so we were sent on a class I/II river. Fat snoozefest. I mean it was fun and I laughed a lot. I was in the boat with Dean, so I was entertained. But it was really more of a pleasant sightseeing float than anything else. We saw a lot of really cool animals--about a million jesus christo lizards (the ones that run on water) and iguanas, about 5 white-faced monkeys (our guide called them "Michael Jackson monkeys"), 3 howler monkeys, a bunch of different birds, and 4 crocodiles. Yes, crocodiles. The first one we saw was just like 3 feet and our guide Jose was like shh, sometimes they swim up to the rafts. I was like you must be joking, but stayed quiet with everyone else. Then Jose saw a jesus christo lizard and tried to get it to move for us, and so he splashed his paddle when we were like 2 feet away from the frickin crocodile. I was freaking out, but the crocodile stayed put. Then the next one we saw was a fatty--like 5 feet. Again nothing happened. By the third and fourth ones I really wanted one to come swim at us, and then not eat us. Some freaking excitement would have been nice. We stopped for a fruit and water break halfway through. We really needed it after all that intensity.. but whatever the pineapple and watermelon was delicious. After an hour and a half we got out of the river and drove back to where we started to eat lunch.

Lunch was delicious. Not in the non-beans-and-rice sort of way, just in the normal delicious food sort of way. They fed me strawberry ice cream so they have a special place in my heart.

The rain held up for us all morning. This morning on the drive over Kathy said "oh it's so nice out hopefully it will hold up for us," and Dean was like, "in your dreams." Ha. He tried to freak Ann out again today in the boat using his paddle. He tried to freak me out too, but he needs to understand that my own father has made me immune to such "What's that thing crawling up your arm?!" jokes. Thanks, dad.

So 2 hour ride back was pretty horrible. I was tired, but not tired enough to pass out so I couldn't fall asleep and now my neck is sore. Cayman, Abby, and I were really looking forward to a delicious snack when we got back, but instead there was a fat basket of wet flan. Not a delicious snack. Not even close.

Now it's 4 and I need to do something productive with my life.

peace love and frijoles chivas