hola.

I love Montezuma and all of its pothead hippies. It's a fat tourist fest, but I think this is just what we all needed. I have spent these past two days with my nose stuck in a book, sunning by the pool or at the beach, and not eating gallo pinto. Instead, we've all been eating our weight in Italian food. Incredible pizza the first night, a good pasta fix last night, and tonight we are thinking calzones. Oh baby. Last night's restaurant was weird, though. About 10 minutes after we sat down for our dinner, they switched off the lights and pulled down a big projector screen and started playing "National Treasure 2" with the director's commentary running across the screen in Spanish. So yeah that was weird. I hadn't seen the second National Treasure, though, and I really liked it once I got over how annoyed I was that I couldn't see my food and that I couldn't hear anything but the movie. For breakfast, we frequent this restaurant/ bar that has the most gorgeous view of the beach and is cheap as dirt. I have been on four different occasions already. Yikes. The waitress knows us well now.

I am all freckled out. Not so much on the burn front, though, so go me.

The pool at our hotel is beautiful. It's got a little jacuzzi that waterfalls into the pool that is always a perfect temperature. It's tiled with these pretty little blue tiles and has this gorgeous view of the ocean. And it's usually empty. Probably my most favorite part of the hotel.

Our hotel advertises yoga classes and retreats, but we were informed yesterday that those things don't start up til next month. Freaking off season.

Tia-ita has made lots of new friends. Ricardo works here at the hotel and told Tia that we should all go and hang out with him and his friends at Playa Grande on Saturday. He also mentioned to her that he will be at Chico (Montezuma's version of Bar Amigo) tonight... Oh Tia-ita just don't do anything too crazy. She also made friends with Diego, the starving artist slash bracelet-maker. He is grungy and has really long hair and wears rocker tees with the sleeves cut off. He wants to take her out as well. Then today Tia was just walking around on the beach when three guys on a four-wheeler pulled up and asked her if she wanted to go to the waterfall with them. She said yes, hopped on the four-wheeler, and turned down a helmet. Tia-ita! So then she hiked up the waterfall trails with these three randos and jumped off the highest waterfall. She managed to bust her bikini top and land awkwardly enough in the water to walk away with commendable war wounds. She is now sporting a fatty purple and red bruise that covers her entire right thigh. The girl is loca. Straight up. She makes me laugh, though. I guess we'll keep her around.

Annie-poo is the model of the group. She is always camera-ready. Always. The cameras are having a hard time trying to keep up with her, though. But Momma Cross, be proud--Ann has been bathing in sunscreen, hanging in the shade, and she even whipped out the umbrella today. She's about as hardcore as they come.

Today we took a public bus over to Cobano, probably the trashiest place ever. Abby and I went into a few shops in search of Bar Amigo wear, and came out empty-handed and in need of a shower. This one place was so sketchy. We took the stairs to get up to it, and found a barren room that had all of about 30 pieces of clothing hung on the walls. And a sandbox that served as a purse display. I sincerely had the feeling that everything in there had been stolen. It took me back to New York, after following the little Chinese people to the back rooms of abandoned apartments to barter over knock-off slash stolen goods. Good times. Love for NHSMUN.

After the Cobano versions of Dollar Tree, Good Will, and New York sketchiness, Abs and I threw in the towel and headed over to Cafe Azucar. She was craving a Diet Coke and I was craving an iced latte. So we got those, and a brownie a la mode. It was the special (not to be confused with a special brownie). We had to get it.

We stole Boggle from the Ecolodge like the good junkies we are. We have been indulging in all of our favorite addictions: Boggle, One Tree Hill, and peanut butter. Between the six of us, we have four and a half jars of peanut butter (the half jar is this "goober" business that is beyond me--peanut butter and jelly in the same jar? That just isn't right.). I got 16 words in a round of Boggle yesterday. I was feeling pretty great about my life.

Tomorrow morning Ann, Tia, Tess, and Abby are going to have surfing lessons at Playa Grande. After considering the amount of money I have already blown in two days in addition to the fact that I will be taking surfing lessons all week when the fam gets here, I decided to sit this one out. I am perfectly content just sunning and reading and listening to my iPod. Plus Cayman told me this horrible story about how a friend of hers got her front teeth knocked out on a surfboard when she first was trying to learn and her nerves were like dangling from her gums. And let's face it: if I get my teeth knocked out in Costa Rica, chances are I will be toothless til I get back to the states. And then how would I eat all this delicious food? Slash I would look like a goon. But more importantly the food factor.

On the ferry ride over to Montezuma we met this guy who doesn't wear shoes. Like it's his thing. He quit his job in Montana a few years back to move to Costa Rica, but still has a solar-powered house back in the states. He showed me his fatty calluses and said that he never much cared for shoes. The man lived in Illinois. As in the ground is frequently covered in snow and ice. And now in Costa Rica, where everything is hot all the time. Crazy hippie.

On the ferry, I ate a taquito (meaning little taco, Tess). It made me miss Dave.

I haven't stopped sweating since we got to Montezuma. It's a problem.

peace love and hippies

Well, people, this is it. The four week mark. I come to you a bit more poetic, a whole lot greener, much less fazed by rainfall, and with a stomach perpetually full of beans, rice, and salsa Lizano.

And for those who are keeping score, I finished off both Deany Weany's class and Jeff's class with an A.

Tomorrow morning we leave for the beach. I am so so ready. I probably will not have internet all week, though. I only hope my lack of posts doesn't ruin too many lives. Be strong.

Last night we had the smallest crew for dinner since we've been here. Even Deany Weany and Kathy went to the fiesta without us. Only Jeff was loyal to his LLC roots. Geovanny treated us to a feast, though. We had veggies, that Christmas plantain/ sweet potato business, cauliflower in white sauce, salad, tamales (ew), and refried beans with cheese. Then he brought us brownies with icing. And then round two of brownies with icing for Cayman, Tess, Ann, and I. But don't worry I burned off those second brownie calories with an impromptu salsa session with Geovanny. Love him forever.

After dinner we retreated to the low-lows (bungalows) for a One Tree Hill fix. We only watched 3 episodes so that Abby didn't fall too far behind--she went and played cards with Alonzo after dinner. Then I worked on my memorization until the power went out. Nice.

This morning we were all really pumped because we thought we smelled panqueques. False. Bean and cheese empanadas. They were okay but they were not panqueques. We also had coffee, frutas, and gallo pinto.

This afternoon after my 30 minute poetry final, we played soccer. By "we" I mean everyone else. I was the self-appointed photographer/ cheerleader. Unfortunately, the field is also home to a billion black flies. I have 40 new bug bites on my legs. Those great ones with the bright red speck in the middle of the pink rashy thing outlined in white. My legs have never looked better.

Tonight Jeff joined us for our One Tree Hill session. He's really great. He made everything so much funnier. We never realized how weird it was that we all sing along to the intro until Jeff was sitting there awkwardly. And then we tried to catch him up on the first 12 episodes of season 1, and realized just how ridiculous the story line may appear to outsiders. We are not outsiders. We are so unbelievably sucked in. Ann had a dream that she was Jake, and you know that we are all crying whenever it's even slightly appropriate. Poor Jeff.

Okay so don't go too crazy without me. Love you all.

peace love and panqueques

I have been deceived. Ecology "friends" were faking. We are not bffs. They are all at a partae right now that LLC was NOT invited to. Apparently they didn't want too many gringas hanging around. Racists! But yeah they were all talking about their fiesta in front of us and making their food for it in front of us and they frickin invited the entire staff. So it's pretty much the whole community minus LLC. Beeotches!

Whatever LLC had an awesome morning. After a breakfast of coffee, eggs, gallo pinto, frutas, and cinnamon bread, we went over to Santa Elena for the Friends Meeting. Deany, Kathy, Jeff, Abby, Tess, Cayman, Ann, and I piled into our TOURISTA taxi completely unknowing of the adventure that lay ahead. With all of the recent torrential downpours, the roads are pretty sketch. As in landslides may occur at any given time slash may have f-ed up the roads so that you really should not be driving on them. Not that this actually stops anyone from driving. So we are truckin along up the trocha when all of a sudden we get to a particularly muddy part of the road and we start getting slower slower slower until we are actually moving backwards. The driver then proceeds to tell us to all get out. I couldn't stop laughing. So we all pile out and Ann ends up completely immersing her foot in mud so she walks down the road to the nearest spring to rinse it off. Meanwhile, Diana and Michael have pulled up in their taxi on their way back to the ecolodge from the clinic (Michael does not have a tapeworm. I am so very disappointed.) and so they all get out to help. Our taxi driver has Jeff and Michael get into the back of our taxi for some sort of balancing act with the weight distribution of the taxi that is beyond me. Then, the driver backs the taxi up a ways down the road and comes barreling at the problematic mud area. Cayman, Abby, Tess, and I run screaming off to the side of the road, only to turn around and discover that the taxi did not make it and is backing up for a second try. Embarrassing. So the taxi backs up further and picks up more speed than the first time around and jets across the mud like nobody's business. We were all freaking out jumping up and down and screaming. It was the greatest thing ever. Abby got a video of it and the best part is that you can see Dean freaking out and jumping up and down cheering. Yay for Costa Rican Sunday morning adventures.

To celebrate our great feat, we went over to the cheese factory for ice cream at 10 am. Good thing they open at 7:30 am every day of the week. Strangely enough, there was this other guy there getting ice cream. He is involved with this thing that hooks you up with couches to sleep on across the world online. Pretty sweet. So he's sleeping on some tico's couch and was just walking around checking out Monteverde. Eating ice cream for breakfast. Whatever.

So then we hiked up to the Friends school for our meeting. We were still early. After all that. Are you kidding me? When we got there it was just us and about 6 other people singing songs. More and more people came in, and at 10:30 the meeting began. Meeting consists of one hour of pure unadulterated silence. Well you can adulterate it if you feel so inclined, but this morning no one did. So silence was cool. Except I never stop thinking. Ever. I can't just sit and be. It's a problem.

We told our loser over-charging taxi driver to meet us back at the school at 11:30. He came at 11:15 and left 10 minutes later. He sucks. So then we called the company and he came back. He didn't apologize or anything, he just kept sucking and being a loser.

We got back after lunch had already started, but Geovanny took good care of us. We had veggies and salad and beans and rice and questionable meat patties in red sauce. Um no gracias.

Since lunch I have been editing my portfolio for Jeff, and am finally done. Woo woo! Now I just have to memorize A Noiseless, Patient Spider before tomorrow morning. Ugh. Jeff came and gave Ann and I cookies because he's great. Then he threatened that if we were off by more than one word on our memorizations he would fail us. He thinks he's funny. He's not.

Tomorrow ecology leaves for Nicaragua. Good riddance, ecology. Good riddance.

We are going to have another fat OTH session tonight. I can't wait. I've got the shakes. It's been too long since my last fix.

peace love and taxi adventures

Last night was incredible. Easily the best Bar Amigo night yet. I don't think I spent more than 10 minutes not dancing in the 2 hours we were there. And those 10 minutes were all spent at the bar with Rudy, the bartender slash my new bff. Unfortunately, most of my dancing was done with Lucas, the 42-year-old campus gardener. Yikes. That proved to be rather awkward today, but Lucas is always awkward. What are you going to do? Other dancing partners included David (sleeveless shirt guy that called me "guapa" about 80 million times), Geovanny (mi amor), and random guy that definitely had shaved arms. Ew. Whatever it was so much fun. Added bonus: ecology group came with us. Apparently they have deemed us acceptable to be seen with now. We bonded. It was great. Except Michael danced with everyone except me and so I told him that we are in a fight. Me, him, and his tapeworm.

This morning at breakfast I was so pumped to tell Dean about dancing with Lucas because Dean finds Lucas endlessly entertaining with all of his weirdness and awkwardness and always being on campus doing absolutely nothing. Dean did not disappoint. He was cracking jokes all day. Jeff chimed in as well. Love those two.

Breakfast consisted of lots of coffee, gallo pinto, frutas, the delicious sweet pita bread that I had at my homestay, some weird brown jelly (possibly apple?), and wonderful scrambled eggs. I love eggs.

It was unbelievably gorgeous out today. After breakfast, everyone went on a hike up the trocha (crazy ridiculous hill of a road that goes on forever) to the pretty viewpoint. I took one for the team and hung back on campus. I had a research paper to write and my body was very angry with me. I got the research paper done (go me) and drank the disgusting electrolyte supplements momma sent me here with. What the heck is that crap anyways? Sick nasty. But this amazing thing happened. I was sitting in the biblioteca all by myself, and then the ecology group came and sat around me and we all talked. Like they actually acknowledged my existence as a group. Big deal. Very big deal. So I was pretty pumped about that. They they went on their little day trip. But yeah we're totally bff now so it's great.

Geovanny came in and visited with me in the biblioteca too. He really makes me laugh. We do this great thing where I speak to him in English and he speaks to me in Spanish and so we both get to be lazy and still understand each other. Most of the time. It's my favorite thing ever. It's up there with facebook chatting with him in Spanish. Seriously how ba is that?

Everyone came back from the trocha adventure sweaty and dehydrated and burnt. Lucas gave Abby an aloe leaf after dinner for all the singed gringas to use. It was slimy and smelled funny but Abby and Ann were all over it. Poor Jeff was the most crab-like of all, though. I didn't realize how red he was until we took a group picture after dinner and I saw Jeff in the picture. Ha.

For lunch we had rice, beans, veggies, salad with avocado (!!), and chicken. I couldn't stomach it. The only thing that did not nauseate me was the avocado and there was a very limited supply of that. So I ate a Special K meal bar and almost starved to death waiting for 6 o'clock to come around. I started reading Eat, Pray, Love today as a reward for finishing up Deany's class. I have so missed reading. I haven't touched any of the books I brought with me because I haven't had any time to read them. Sad times.

Then I tried to nap. And failed miserably.

Then I went up to the student union in search of a means by which to kill the hour that lay between me and dinner. Glorious dinner. I set out Boggle in the biblioteca, and people flocked to its amazingness. Obviously. It started with just Jeff, Abby, and I and I swear those first three rounds were the worst rounds in the history of Boggle. I'm talking 2 vowels on the board, one of which was a "y." But then things picked up, and Lauren joined us until we stressed her out too much and Michael got in on it too. Nora and Christina observed. It was just mad LLC/ Ecology interaction all over the place.

For dinner my sweet Geovanny brought me pasta. Not just any pasta. Pasta filled with cheese in red sauce. Oh happy day. We also had veggies and lentils and salad with beets and a fat bowl of chicken skin soup. I did not partake in the soup eating, but others did. We weren't give bowls so I'm not even sure if it was soup, and there was no rice to put it over either. All I know is that when I fished through it I came up with chicken skin on the spoon two times in a row. Ew. For dessert we had rice pudding.

After dinner, Cayman, Abby, Ann, Tess and I watched 5 episodes of One Tree Hill. It's like crack. That and Mars products. PS tonight we finished our 50 ounce bag of chocolate goodies that Ann's parents brought to us last weekend. 6 girls, 74 pieces of candy, 6 days. Yikes.

So just about done with this round of classes. Got a 95 on Dean's final, a 90 on my Spanish midterm, and now I have to memorize a poem for Jeffy for Monday. And finish my portfolio. Ugh. Jeff made a joke in class on Thursday about how he was going to fail us. I told him I would hunt him down and kill him.

Tomorrow morning we are going to the Friend's Meeting, aka Quaker-fest. I can't wait. I love Quakers and their awesome hippie-ness. I want to be one of them. So badly.

I wish I could get the smell of Bar Amigo out of my hair.

peace love and ecology friends

Quick run-down of meals since last post: SPAGHETTI with meat sauce, veggies, freaking delicious egg salad with beets, and rice for dinner Wednesday night, then DONUTS for dessert. Oh yes. Donuts. Yesterday morning for breakfast we had scrambled eggs, gallo pinto, frutas, and tortillas. For lunch, we had beans, rice, veggies, salad--normal lunch things. For dinner, we had mashed sweet potatoes and plantains seasoned with Christmas (slash nutmeg), barbeque chicken, broccoli and cauliflower, and salad.

Yesterday morning at breakfast I sat on the border of LLC/ Ecology. It was beyond ridiculous. Ecology is so cliquey and hateful of all non-ecology people. So even though I was at the table with them, because I was not part of the group the food did not get passed to me. I kid you not. The food would be coming all the way down the line but ecology girl next to me would pass it across the table to another ecology person instead of to me. Seriously. So I got their leftovers. Then ecology girl would position herself so that her back was turned to me, making it perfectly clear that I am not welcome in ecology conversation. It was almost funny. Almost.

Yesterday at 4 we had our last high tea at the palace. It was the 6 of us, Dean and Kathy, the K/Carlas, Jeff, and Cheesecake. We all got cracked out on weird tico snacks and cookies and played stupid girl games. It was awesome. We started with "As, Dos, Tres" which is this crazy tico card game that I love despite my severe lack of reflexes slash I lose every time I play, then we played a few very intense rounds of spoons, then we had a few short-lived games of mafia, signs, and this weird mind game that Dean wanted to play. And then we played the zoo game and things were just out of control. We were out of control. In the best way. I think Dean laced the Tropical juice with something. We walked over to dinner in the pouring rain and the ecology kids asked us to "take it down a notch" when we sat down at the dinner table. I kid you not. I wanted to throw something at them. I freaking should have. Beeotches. What a buzzkill. Actually it didn't slow me down at all. Dean was at the next table making zoo game signs at me and Geovanny was back serving and I was far enough away from the ecology fun sponges that I wasn't so affected by their lameness. We ate dinner ridiculously fast. We were finished in 20 minutes. Then Geovanny busted out chocolate cake with icing and sprinkles. Mi amor. After dinner Cayman, Abby, Ann, and I went to the biblioteca to play Boggle. Boggle is the best game ever. Next to the zoo game and the karate game that I haven't actually played yet.

Then I studied for my environmental sociology final until I passed out. Boo! I just got done taking it. I think it went well? I don't know my right hand is pretty much dead from writing so much. I feel like that's a good sign. Deany told me that I have the cutest smile when I am confused. Probably not a good sign.

Susan and Jennifer did not show up for English lessons yesterday. I was really pumped. Not that I don't love them both, I just was not feelin it yesterday. I am so ready for this midterm break. I love how much this program spoils me. 4 weeks of classes 4 days a week, then a week at the beach. Being insanely jealous is an appropriate reaction at this moment.

In Spanish class yesterday, Karla warned Tess to watch out for special brownies because apparently they sell them in all the bakeries in Montezuma, a.k.a. Montefuma (so named for the dense population of potheads). Nice.

Yesterday was day 5 of non-stop torrential downpour. Dean suggested we make an ark.

Today the rain stopped. It feels unnatural.

This morning before breakfast they set out lunch-making things for the high schoolers. So after the high schoolers made their lunches, we the vultures swarmed the table of goodies. I had a delicious crunchy peanut butter and banana half-sandwich. Deliciousness. Then we had second breakfast. Coffee, frutas with the best pina ever, gallo pinto, toast with mystery jam, and plantains. Good stuff. Michael from the ecology group thinks he has a tapeworm. At breakfast he was toying with names for it and talking about how he's going to start having arguments with it about what to eat. I told everyone that I think tapeworms are funny (Tommy Bledsoe) and I think I may have offended some people. Yikes.

Lunch is in 10 minutes and then after that is my Spanish midterm. Gahh. Then I have to write my research paper for Deany and put together my portfolio for Jeff before Monday. And memorize a poem to recite. Then beach and bikinis and Americanized food and One Tree Hill and iPod American Idol and a good book. I can't wait.

Lunch time. Wish me luck on espanol.

peace love and tapeworms