Tri-monthly Update

Well, I’ve given you guys about three months to catch up on my first two weeks in Costa Rica, so maybe its time I gave you a little more material. Honestly, I’ve started writing new blog posts probably 12 times over the last few months, but I’ve never really gotten around to finishing any of them. Hopefully that’s not a bad reflection on my commitment level. I’ll make sure not to let potential law schools in on all of my incomplete endeavors.

As much as I would love to catch you up on the entire last three months in this post, I neither have the will nor the endurance in my fingers to do it. So, I’ll try to hit the highlights as well as I can remember them. I’m sure as I write I’ll remember certain details or funny characters from previous stories so this will be completely unorganized and random. OK, cue James Joyce stream of consciousness…

I’ll start with probably my most exciting story of my time here. I got held up. Straight-up robbed at gunpoint.

Scary?
Yes.

Kinda badass now that I look back on it?
Debatable.

Anyway…
I was leaving Mallory’s house around 1 on a Friday night, about 4 or 5 weeks ago. The night had already been quite eventful, as one of my friends (her housemate) had broken her nose doing drunken gymnastics at a friend’s party. So, slightly buzzed and still laughing at Deidra’s hospital stories, I took a walk down the street to catch a cab back to my house. I hadn’t walked more than half a block when I passed two guys on a motorcycle parked at the street corner. As I kept walking, I saw the guy on the back of the bike hop off and start following me.

*Flashback to orientation week*

From the first day I got here, I’d heard stories about oblivious gringos getting robbed while walking alone late at night. Hell, during orientation two police officers told us then-oblivious gringos for 45 minutes straight not to walk alone late at night. So there I was, a relatively well-informed gringo walking alone late at night with Daddy Yankee’s little gangsta brother on my tail. So, acting on advice given to me by Mallory, via Oprah, I got my keys out of my pocket and wrapped them around my fist, ready for the first fight of my life. Unfortunately (fortunately?), I avoided any scuffle. The guy whips out his 9, points it at me and starts screaming God-knows-what at me in Spanish. I was able to pick out “Le mataré” among a few other phrases which all translate to “I’m gonna kill you.” Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a situation where there’s a gun pointed at your face, but its not terribly comfortable, especially when homeboy’s yelling things at you in hood-Spanish.

So, quickly deciding that I WOULD like to watch American Sportscenter and eat Pita Pit once again, I forked over all I had without testing the integrity of his assertions. Luckily, I was paranoid enough in the first place not to bring my ATM/debit card with me, so I only lost my digital camera (pictures too, unfortunately) and about $20 in cash. Left with only a few coins, I had no choice but to walk about 15 minutes through darker, sketchier streets in order to afford a taxi ride home. So, needless to say, I’ve been a little more selective about when I walk alone around these parts. I think the paranoia that set in for the first few weeks after the incident is dissipating, but I do my best to stay away from biker duo’s and late-night strolls through the city.

Despite my near-death-encounter, the trip has been pretty amazing so far. I’ve been away for almost 3 ½ months, and I can admit I’m fairly adjusted to life without cell-phones and short, efficient car rides. I take the bus pretty much everywhere, and although it’s a pain-in-the-ass when you have to wait 45 minutes at the bus stop, at least I’m reducing my contribution to Global Warming. My Spanish is slowly, but steadily improving with each day, even though sometimes it sure doesn’t feel like it. My classes at the University are still way over my head, and I’m close to, if not failing all of them. But hey, it’s kinda like when you’re little and your dad throws you in the pool when you’re totally not ready to swim without your floaties. You spend the first 3 seconds of what seems like the last 30 seconds of your life flailing around then you realize that you’re still alive and that there are like 73 other little non-Spanish-speaking kids around doing the same thing, barely keeping their heads above the water. I definitely can’t swim yet, but hell, at least I can breathe.
(I’m not sure exactly how appropriate that metaphor was, but bear with me. I haven’t written in English in quite some time.)

I have many other stories that I’d love for you to hear, but would rather not type at the moment. Ever since the crocodile attack, it’s been a struggle adjusting to typing without a left hand.
I miss you all and lets hope I make it back alive to see you all again.

Pura vida mis amigos,
Juanito

SHOUT OUTZ:
-Big ups to my homedawgs in the 405, especially you foolz that are coming to visit in about a week. Remember to bring a change of underwear, because Costa Rican food will tear you up.
-Let me holla at all the momma’s out there. My mom especially, happy mother’s day
-And finally, big shout out to M-Phizzle on the job searchizzle. What’s a wangsta way to say “I miss you”?

*#^$^@(!

Pardon my Spanish, but I'm a little pissed off at the moment. I just spent about an hour and a half filling everybody in on everything that has happened in the past week, and when I tried to post my masterpiece, I lost my connection and with it, my writing. I feel like doing something really destructive like smashing my computer, but I'll try my best to resist. So, instead of reading a hilarious and quite informative recap of my first time to the beach, you're reading my grumblings about faulty wireless internet. I'm sorry, if i had time I would love to redo it for you, but its late and I'm leaving early tomorrow morning for Carnival in Puntarenas. Yes Carnival! I am very excited, and now feel a little bit better than I did just a minute ago. I will be very safe and take precautions in order not to get shot, stabbed or mugged while celebrating. Afterwards, we'll be heading down to Playa Hermosa for two days in order to hopefully learn how to surf. I'll post back with details from both trips when I return. I apologize for the short, and rather uninteresting posts recently, but I do have a fairly good excuse. I promise I'll make it up to you.
¡Chau!
Juanito

Quick Update: Weekend in Puerto Viejo

¡Buenos dias amigos! I'm sorry its been a while since I've posted but this week has been pretty hectic. All exchange students spent pretty much all week going through the long, drawn out orientation process. Although boring at times, it was a lot of fun to meet other students from a bunch of different countries (Norway, Germany, Spain, Chile and others) and to make some friends my age! I won't post any pictures with this post, since I'm leaving for Puerto Viejo in an hour or so. It's a small surfing town in the far southeast corner of Costa Rica thats known for great waves and beautiful beaches. Everybody I've talked to says its one of the best places to visit in the country. Let's hope that not everybody had the same idea for this weekend! I've been warned to look out for mischievous monkeys that like to steal anything and everything from tourists. I'll make sure to keep an eye in the trees.
I'm going with the two other girls that I met from OU here, and some other girls from OSU and Germany are meeting us there tomorrow. I'll make sure to take tons of pictures so you guys can live vicariously through them! Unless the monkeys get my camera...
mucho amor,
juanito

P.S. Sorry this post feels kind of rushed. I promise more interesting and detailed posts in the future.

Vida en San José

These last few days have been pretty action packed, so I'll try and remember most of what I've done. After getting a short night's sleep in my hotel the first night, I spend pretty much all of Thursday walking aimlessly around the city. Despite being laid out on an grid of numbered calles (streets running N-S) and avenidas (running E-W), San José still confuses the hell out of me. I think the combination of hundreds of thousands of people, buildings that look almost exactly alike and the craziest drivers I have ever seen (Italians included) makes San José a place thats hard get a handle on. I think if crosswalks were ever introduced in here, they would be painted red with the blood of pedestrians in about an hour. It's absolutely nuts. On my trek around the city I nearly broke both of my ankles on the treacherous afueras (sidewalks), had about half a dozen people yell at me for being American*, and chatted in broken Spanish to some crackhead bums. It was undoubtedly one of the more eventful days of my life.
*white people = Americans
(sorry Canadians, Europeans and Aussies)

Boulevard del Museo Nacional

That night I went to my host family's house for dinner. I am living with Frank, a retired US Marine who was born in Costa Rica, and Lucy, who has lived in Costa Rica all of her life. Frank speaks English very well, because he spent 22 years in the United States on duty. Lucy, however, speaks very little English. I think the arrangement will work out well because I speak Spanish with Lucy, but don't feel overwhelmed because I can always speak English with Frank. They've been married for a few years and have no children together. Because they have two extra bedrooms, they like to host exchange students from all over the place. In March, another student named Orlando is moving in the room next door to me. From what I've gathered to this point, Orlando is Puerto Rican and is muy gordo (fat). He sounds like a quality neighbor. They live in Sabanilla, an area just outside of San José a few kilometers away from the university (I have to use the metric system now. Everything in this blog will be in kilometers, kilograms and liters). Lucy is an amazing cook, and after a delicious fresh shrimp dinner Frank and I hit up the neighborhood watering hole and met some of the locals, none of whom seemed terribly excited to meet me.

View of the mountains from inside the city

I wasn't feeling very well on Friday so I decided to take it easy and explore Sabanilla a little bit and work on my Spanish vocabulary. Sabanilla is a little more laid back than San José, which is nice because I don't know if I could stand six months of incessant honking and ¡jódete's! I piddled around town for a few hours, taking pictures here and there and doing my best to look as foreign as possible.

My host family's house

Down the street from the house

Today Lucy woke me up fairly early and told me she was going to her sister's house and that she wanted me to come to meet her family. Thankfully I was feeling much better and gladly obliged, since at that time I knew a total of about 6 people in this country. Some details were lost in translation, however, and I gathered that she wanted to walk there. When I looked at my map I realized that I must have misunderstood, since Heredia is about 40 kilometers away from Sabanilla. After some explaining and a few dozen hand gestures, I found out that another of her sisters would pick us up and take us there.



We ate lunch with two of Lucy's sisters and their three children. Lucy's sister Rocío has two kids, Esteban who is 11 and Gabriela who is 18. Her other sister, Sara, has a daughter named Andrea who is 25. Lunch mostly consisted of everybody talking really fast in Spanish while Gabriela and I worked on our vocabulary. Gabriela is mentally handicapped, and spends most of her time studying her Spanish vocabulary picture cards. She's really cool, and we make very good study partners! Afterwards, we met a few more of her relatives that came over and Esteban and I played a game of Uno that lasted for at least two hours. He refused to let me surrender after about an hour so we had to keep playing until he could cheat enough to finally win. We left and Rocío drove us all around Heredia and San José, telling me all about things I couldn't understand. Luckily, in these last few days, I've gotten really good at pretending I understand what people are saying, when I actually have no clue. I think it's a pretty useful skill, and I'm sure I'll have plenty of time to perfect it.
We came back to Lucy's house and I gave Rocío and the kids an English lesson while Lucy made dinner. Rocío wanted me to translate a joke she had heard earlier that was something to the extent of:
"No podemos ser terroristas, porque siempre llegamos tarde"
"We (Costa Ricans) can't be terrorists because we always arrive late"
I thought it was pretty crude and mildly humorous so I'll keep it in mind in case I stumble across an open mic night at the comedy club. It is, after all, the only joke I know in Spanish.

Esteban, Gabriela, Rocío, Andrea, Sara and Lucy

I really had a blast all day, and my Spanish is showing noticeable improvement. Hopefully by this time next month, I'll be speaking Spanish on a middle school level!
Also, I'm planning a trip out to Manzanillo (Caribbean coast) for next week after orientation (Tues-Thurs) so hopefully by Friday I'll be on the beach.
I'm posting most of my pictures here on my Flickr account, but lately I've been having problems with my internet connection so bear with me. I'm taking lots of them and I promise I'm trying to get them up for you to see. ¡Hasta pronto!

Finalmente... ¡estoy aqui!

I just got in about an hour ago and I couldn't be more excited to be here. I wish it wasn't so late, so I could go explore right now, but I have to get up early tomorrow and I barely slept last night.
From what I've seen, San José isn't very pretty, but it looks like there's tons to do! I'll probably spend tomorrow exploring and trying to figure out how to get around on the buses. My cab driver and I spoke in Spanish the entire 20 minutes from the airport to my hotel and I understood almost everything! He mostly told me about how all Costa Rican drivers are drunk, and showed me some of the hot spots in the city center. He was quite the character. I'll fill you guys in on more when I'm not so tired. ¡Buenas noches, y pura vida!
John

PS I have pictures on my Flickr account. http://flickr.com/photos/22205534@N02/

Costa Rica, Here I Come...

Finally, after all these months I'm packed and ready to head out. I can't really decide if I'm prepared mentally for what's to come in about 24 hours. It seems a bit surreal that I'll be out of the States until August, which seems like a really really long time from now. I waited 'til today to do pretty much all of my packing for the entire 6 months, and there's really no doubt that I've forgotten something significant. At least I'll be somewhere described to me "like Jersey, only hot, muggy and surrounded by rainforests". I'm not sure exactly what that means, but I figure Jersey probably has places to buy dental floss and AA batteries, so I think I'll be alright. Aside from a few parking tickets here and there and one monster library fine, I think I took care of just about everything important. As long as I never show my face inside the Edmond Public Library again, I should be in the clear.
My plane leaves for Dallas tomorrow at 1:20 and should arrive about an hour afterward. I'll have at least 4 hours to blow in DFW, then its off to San José. I should get in at around 10:30, which is a little later than I would like. I'm sure customs officials will be thrilled to be working the late shift on Wednesday evening, interrogating clueless Gringos. I, however, will be excited for my first opportunity to test my Spanish airport vocabulary. Here are a few phrases I'll be using:
- Disculpe señora, ¿donde está la aduana? - Excuse me ma'am, where is customs?
- No, no tengo drogas en el equipaje. Solamente tengo ropa, zapatos y articulos de aseo. - No, I don't have drugs in my baggage. I only have clothes, shoes and bathroom items.
- ¿Por que Ud. confisca la maleta? ¡Tengo una receta para esa! - Why are you confiscating my bag? I have a prescription for that!
Hopefully at that point, I'll be able to recollect my stuff and head into San José, which is actually about 20 miles from the airport. I'm staying at a hotel for the first two nights, before I can move in with my host family. I'm a little nervous about meeting my host family, as I recently found out that the husband is a retired US military officer. Once he finds out I'm a hippie, liberal Conscientious Objector, I may have to check my food for loogs. No matter what happens, I'm sure I'll have a bunch to fill everybody in on in the next post. Pictures will be included next time too, I promise.
¡Adios amigos y familia! Les amo,
juanito

Countdown: One Week

Hey guys! So I've got about a week left in Oklahoma before I leave for Costa Rica. I'd love to tell you that I'm about ready to go, but I've still got plenty of stuff to do. I thought about packing some stuff for the first time today, but thinking is about all I got done. Aside from the monumental task of packing for the next 6 months, however, I'm about ready to head out. Weekdays spent in Edmond have been extremely boring, especially lately since everybody has gone back to school. I usually wake up at around noon, then mess around online, eat, practice Spanish, watch TV, go to the gym and sleep (not necessarily in that order). Needless to say, beginning next Wednesday, things should begin to get a little more exciting .

I'll let you guys know a little bit about my trip plans. I will be studying at Universidad de Costa Rica, in San José. It is the oldest and largest university in Costa Rica and one of the largest in Central America with 39,000 undergrads (thanks Wikipedia). I'm living with a host family, who will put up with me for the entire 6 months I'm there. I can only hope they know what they've gotten themselves into. I'm assuming they're filthy rich, drug smugglers who live in an enormous mansion and need me to fill one of their lavish guest bedrooms. Realizing that probably won't be the case, I've curbed my expectations, ever so slightly...

I don't know anybody else going down there from school, although there are at least two other OU students in the same program. In order to force myself to be outgoing, I decided to avoid meeting them beforehand. Let's hope my Spanish can hold up as I legally consume alcohol for the first time. In moderation. Of course. I'll make sure to take lots of pictures so everybody can enjoy the super sights of San José, Costa Rica.
Stay tuned for more...