Our internet has been out for the past few days. Forgive me for the excessively long post.
Thursday run-down: In Ecology we talked about this desert-dwelling rodent that drinks almost no water whatsoever. Thus, its poo is basically gravel. This cannot be pleasant. Ann and I went into extensive discussion about this very small point from lecture, and my question is do they develop calluses to weaken the blow? We also talked about these frogs that feed their babies some of their unfertilized eggs. I found this endlessly disturbing, but I was the only one. That would be like me eating one of my mother's unfertilized eggs for nutritients-- as in an egg that could have been fertilized and could have been my sibling. Would you like your would-be sister fried or scrambled? That is freaking sick. Why am I the only one who is bothered by this?
In Espanol we did our presentations. I talked about my fam. Ha. Easiest thing I could think of. I think it went well. Then we played this game that Carla had brought in. She had a bunch of cards with fairy tale words on each of them and she put all of them face-down on the table. So we took turns picking one of the cards up and making a sentence out of it, and eventually formed a full-on fairy tale. Of course I was the princess and the story revolved around me. Would you expect any less?
Thursday night we had cheesecake for dessert. It was warm, but the crust was so incredibly unbelievable. Delicioso. They also set out the fattiest batch of hot chocolate ever. It was insane. In past batches, you can just taste the fat if you are dumb and greedy and take the last sip, but you never really see it. Thursday's batch, however, there were visible floating white chunks. Fatty chunks. I found the best one when I opened up the pitcher and a half-inch chunk plopped back into the hot chocolate from the pourer. I sat with my mug for about 15 minutes spooning out chunks, and then people were surprised when I didn't drink it? Ew. No gracias.
Friday morning breakfast was so very very delicious. I ate my weight in eggs, gallo pinto, and frutas. Yum. There was also a basket of tortillas, but I wasn't feelin them. I was, however, feelin the coffee. I feel like I have been overly-feelin coffee lately.. Oh well. I'll deal with breaking that addiction later. Much.
Friday was our first lab day with Scott. I am so incredibly glad that we only have two days of lab. It was so bad it was humorous.
We began our day of fun at 8:30 in the indoor classroom with Fabricio and two fat trash bags full of plants. They spit us up into two groups and told us to sort all of our plants into species using "common sense." The funny thing about my common sense is that it does not even remotely pertain to plants. None of us had a clue what the heck we were doing. So it probably wouldn't have been that bad, but we had Fabricio, Scott, Allen, Lindsey, and Rachel all breathing down our necks, walking around looking at what we were doing and asking why we were doing it. It was ridiculous. I hate plants.
After that first hour of torture, we took a seat amongst our embarrassingly sorted plants and listened to Fabricio's extremely detailed lecture on plant characteristics. I don't think I could dream up a worse way to spend two hours of my life. Homeboy got his masters in botany, so he loves the stuff. I could not care less. F taxonomy. Sorry, Fabricio, but plants just do not sex me up. I continue to be fascinated with the man's English, though. He went to a public university in Costa Rica, and did not take any of his botany courses in English. He took all of his classes in Spanish, and yet can give a two hour lecture on plant characteristics and scientific names for things and whatever the heck else he was talking about. Incredible.
Highlights of Morning Lab:
-The wind has been OUT OF CONTROL this week. So we were sitting in the indoor classroom and Fabricio was going on and on and on about all of the different families in the plantae kingdom when all of a sudden, this ginormous gust of wind comes rushing through the open door. The huge projector screen on its little tripod took the hit and fell in slow motion right onto the podium slash Fabricio's open laptop, which proceeded to fall right on its face. It was such a loud and horrible crashing noise, but Fabricio did not even lose his cool. I would have FREAKED if that had been my baby. He walked over to survey the damage, and there was none. WHAT?? Yeah. That happened. He has a Dell. My eyes can no longer see beyond the beauty that is Mac, but I was impressed nonetheless.
-Cayman and I spent about 10 minutes smelling this one plant. It was a really familiar smell, but we could not figure out for the life of us what the heck it was. I had one of its seeds all squished up on my fingers and I would take a sniff then put my finger under her nose for her to smell it and then I would smell it again. We went back and forth like that at least 15 times before we realized how ridiculous we must have looked, and then we started dying laughing. Delirium played a key role as well, I suppose. It was nice to laugh, what with being in hell and all. Cayman figured out that the plant smelled like sprouts, and then we decided it would probably be best for us to separate.
-We got a 10 minute break. Cayman and I found cookies in the comedor. And they have restocked my precious peppermint tea. Definitely a highlight of the morning.
For lunch I had rice and beans with Lizano and veggies. Quel surprise. There was also salad and this fat bowl of soggy, meat-flavored bread balls. Ew. They were floating in their own juices and fat and they made me want to barf. I can't say I wasn't curious, though. So I tried it. Don't judge me! They were as disgusting as they sound. Worse, even. Katie and Athena think they were ground chicken or turkey, but I definitely tasted corn meal or something. It was watery tamale-texture. And I hate tamales.
After lunch our day of fun continued. Thankfully, we were done with plants at that point. So that left us with insects. Insects were better than plants, but taxonomy is taxonomy and taxonomy blows. So we went into the indoor lab and Scott gave us the run-down on all the different insect fams. We looked at a bunch that were already pinned and labeled and all that in the lab, and then he told us to grab a net cause we were goin insect huntin. Yee haw! I grabbed a fatty net and Ann and I were back in crocodile hunter mode. We stepped outside and I ran after the first bug I saw like a 5-year-old chasing a butterfly. I caught it and was all proud of myself when Scott stuck it in our killing jar so we could look at it later. Then Scott showed us how we are actually supposed to use a net to catch insects. Not anything like what I had just done. Oh well. So then I did it the proper way--all spastic slashing through my new enemy, plants, for about a minute. It felt nice to take a little revenge on the suckers after my horrible morning, but the only reward I got aside from the joy of revenge was a fat collection of nasty little black flies. The black flies were LOVING me. I was wearing long pants, my fleece, and my rubber boots, but my hands were still exposed and they took full advantage. My hands were bleeding and swelling all over the place, and I am now the proud owner of about 20 new bites. On my hands! Ugh stupid nasty creatures.
So once we'd sufficiently filled our killing jar (glass jar with lined with alcohol), we headed back to the lab and Scott showed us how to pin insects properly. Ann and I pinned her butterfly and my precious beetle. The butterfly was a pain, and we did quite the number on the poor beetle trying to get its wing to stick out, but Scott seemed satisfied and set us free for the afternoon. Finally! Sweet freedom. I celebrated in the comedor with cake and tea. Then I headed back to the low-lows and took a nap before dinner.
For dinner we had black bean sopa, ensalada con avocados, bbq chicken, this wonderful green goop, and hard boiled eggs. So random but so delicious! The sopa was just like watered-down pureed refried beans, but it worked. I liked it. The green goop was kind of sweet, but I definitely got a veggie vibe. It made me really crave a sweet potato. I didn't eat the chicken.
Dessert was this amazing banana cake. Oh my goodness was it good. It had condensed milk icing I think. Mmm.
For second dessert (it was Halloween, okay, cut me some slack) I had a Milky Way. Sweet Geovanny went and restocked the store's candy supplies tenfold. Que bueno.
LLC was weak on the costume front, but we had a rockin Halloween nonetheless. As it turns out, we are bff with Ecology. Too bad we just figured this out our last weekend together. Whatever we had SO much fun with them at Cascada. The plan was for all of us to go to Bar Amigo, but taxi driver convinced Me, Abby, Cayman, and Tia-ita that Cascada was the place to be on this Friday night. So after a series of confusing events, we herded all 14 in our group over to Cascada. Cascada was pretty much a fat frat party. It was this big empty house-looking thing with a bar in one room and a stage with a live band in another and taco stand in the corner. The place was FULL of gringos. Oh my gosh I felt like I was back in the states. And everyone was in costume just about, including Ecology. Christina was this cute mouse, Kimmy was a red-eyed tree frog, Lauren was a bumble bee, Cheryl was a mummy, Nora was a hippie, and Michael was something scary. All of their costumes were conceived that day, and they all looked so cute. Well not Michael so much.. he had this big trash bag cloak and these creepy ass gloves with twigs for scary fingers. Sadly, it did not last. He ended up with just a full face of make-up and his hunting pants. Sad times for Michael.
Both our bat guide and our butterfly garden guide were at Cascada. As was the new receptionist at the Ecolodge, Allen, Rachel (resident naturalist), Sofia and her bf, and the vice principal from the Quaker school. And I saw our taxi driver camped out at the bar. And then there was Lucas (42-year-old gardener). Lucas was creepin--he first caught our eye when he was crazily waving at us from behind the glass behind the bar. Then he came and gave us each a hug. He was just the beginning of a night of creepin, though. When we were standing at the bar getting our first round of drinks, this weirdo whipped out a camera and started taking creeper pictures of us. Like he was holding the camera at his chest so as not to draw attention to himself. Too bad there was a freaking flash and he didn't stop taking pictures even after I turned around and gave him a look. FREAK! There was also some rando tico who walked up to me and told me to give him his Halloween kiss. People are shameless.
None of that stopped us from having an incredible time, though. The band was so fun. They played all of these great songs that I only know the words to because of Rock Band. There was lots of jumping and moshing and the like. It was madness. Gringo madness, that is. The ticos were being lame wallflowers. Whatever. I enjoyed the gringo mosh pit thoroughly. Probably about as much as I enjoyed my taco that I got with Tia-ita at some point. Oh my goshhhh. Incredible. I haven't stopped talking about the dang thing since I ate it. It's just that I haven't had a taco in so long. I miss Mexican food. Very, very much. I can't wait to hit up Agua Linda with Smelanie back in Athens.
I left Cascada a sweaty mess. A very happy sweaty mess, but a sweaty mess nonetheless. Cayman, Abby, Ann, and I tracked down a guy to take us back to the Ecolodge a little after 12:30 cause Ann and Abby had Geography lab today. We got back home, though, and popped in One Tree Hill. We have a problem.
This morning we had coffee, frutas, gallo pinto, cheese, Ms Nash bread (again?) and jelly. Pretty weak, but whatever a weak breakfast is still a good breakfast. Coffee was extra good this morning. I couldn't get enough.
After breakfast I took a much-needed shower. My hair and rain jacket still reek 12 hours later, but what are you going to do? After showering, Cayman, Cheesecake, and I headed over to the biblioteca for a couple of hours of quality volunteer work. I didn't hate it.
We headed back for lunch--a feast of this tomato/cucumber/potato mayonnaise-y ensalada, chicken empanadas, rice, beans, and delicious veggies. It was way good. Except the rice and beans tasted weird to me so I didn't eat them. Hopefully I haven't developed an intolerance. I would definitely starve if that happened. No doubt. Sylvia had already laid out pan for us by the time lunch was over--banana cake from last night! Ah! So good. Cayman, Abby, and I took it back to our rooms and enhanced it with peanut butter. So much better.
At 1, Freddy came and picked me, Cayms, and Tia-ita up to go shopping at Rio Shanti. I have forgotten how much I love shopping. I got a long-sleeve tee shirt and skirt, and Cayman got the long-sleeve tee shirt, a shawl, and a purse. Then we kept trying things on and each of us bought another dress. Ha. Tia-ita got a cute dress and some essential oils to give massages with. Rio Shanti is pretty much the coolest place ever. Dressing room situation was kind of sketch, though-- she stuck me in a massage room that was completely open for the world to see. All windows, no curtains. The only person who could have seen, though, was Freddy and he was passed the heck out in the taxi.
Freddy made it quite clear that he was tired. He barely woke up when we opened up the doors to the taxi after our shopping spree, and then kept telling us how tired he was and how he needed to sleep. We asked him to stop at the trocha vista so we could take a few pictures of the gorgeous view, and he fell asleep on the steering wheel within 2 minutes! It was frightening.
When we stopped at the trocha vista, there was this woman there with her daughter. So we were doing the thing where we rotate so that two of us get in a picture at a time, when we realized oh we can just ask the nice tica lady to take a picture of the three of us. So we asked in our broken espanol, and the woman said si, and proceeded to cozy up right next to Cayman and cheesed it up for the camera. She had misunderstood and thought we were asking to take a picture with her! It was so incredibly awkward and hilarious all at once. Cayman and I froze up with stifled laughter as Tia tried to correct the misunderstanding, making it all the more awkward. When Tia rephrased the question, the woman said no, she could not take our picture. What? So Cayman politely asked if the little girl went to the Friends school to clear up some tension in the air. We hurried back to our taxi shortly thereafter, woke Freddy up, and made our getaway. We didn't stop laughing the whole way back. I've decided that I am going to start doing that: when a stranger asks me to take their picture, I am going to stand right smack in the middle of their crew and smile wide. Bahaha. Good stuff.
When we got back to campus, I was good and ready for naptime. I passed out for about an hour and a half. It was glorious. It was probably too long because I'm still pretty groggy, but whatever I only needed enough energy to get up and eat pizza and get back here.
That's right, tonight was Valerie's homemade pizza dinner. Easily the best pizza I have eaten here-- and that is quite the superlative after Montefuma and whatnot. It was incredible. She had us sign up and write down topping suggestions, and then today she cooked up probably 20 different pizzas for all of us. She's really great. The pizzas were smothered in cheeses, peppers, olives, eggplant, artichoke hearts, onions, pepperonis, avocado, and the like. I want to start making my own pizzas when I get back to Athens. I need to figure out how she did the crust, though. It was so perfect. What a great going away dinner.
Yes I am going away in the morning. We are going on a week-long road trip across Costa Rica. I won't be able to blog because I won't have internet access (or hot water access or enough time to sleep, but I'm not complaining). Apparently the places we are staying have refused to serve us breakfast as early as Scott wanted. I thought this was good news, until Katie brought to my attention that this will not stop us from 6 am bird watching--it will only postpone feeding time. Ugh. So early mornings, long days, and late nights. All of which are bound to be filled with taxonomy and other equally miserable topics of discussion. On the bright side, this will force exercise upon me. And no Spanish classes all week. And hot springs with a swim-up bar. I guess this won't be so bad..
Okay so I should probably start packing for this week-long excursion. Til next Sunday,
peace love and mosh pits
