Onward

On day four (five? Again, my folder with all of the relevant information is very far away) of our trip, we left San Jose and all of its comfort for a small town called Sierpe. It was here where I took my last naked shower and had my last mattress for a week. It was also here where I learned about of the most insanely fun (read: insane) games I have ever played, spectacularly called Ninja. While I had to hone my skills over the next few weeks, it was clear that one of my classfriends (Yup, just coined that word) named Laura Dushkin is either a martial arts grandmaster or was, in fact, a ninja in one of her past lives. 

Anyways, the game forces you to make ridiculous poses while you try to slap everyone else's hands. When both of your hands are whacked, you're out. Of course we weren't playing this game inside of our rooms, we were playing in the middle of the street outside of our hotel, in the middle of the night. I have no doubt in my mind that the Ticos who passed by our game added 'crazy' to the other words that they associate with Americans.

The next day, after a quick breakfast, we were jammed on boats for a two hour ride out to our next destination, Corcovado National park. The waters were choppy as hell and our driver was insane, so once our moist, (ha!) tired bodies reached the beach, we were ecstatic. It also helps that the beach looked like this.

Photo credit: Erin Newman

Of course, whenever you get to a new destination, you have to go explore everything, right? After setting up our tents, we ran off, going right for the tide pools. Within five minutes, we discovered a goddamn two foot long croco-fucking-dile. Like the intelligent people that we were, we looked at it from a safe distance, and we  never had any chance of being harmed.

No, wait, we didn't do that, we made a tight circle around it and started poking it, going so far as to tug the guy a few times.While this particular specimen tolerated our abuses for a few minutes, it eventually made a beeline right for the ocean, obviously right between one of my friend's legs. The crocodiles sudden movement not only made everyone jump backwards ten feet, but it also allowed me to discover that my tent mate, Jake O'Connor, isn't all that masculine after all, considering the high pitched yelp that exited his mouth.

Today's Special: Dumb college students' fingers
Also, photo credit: Heather Reichert

I think this crocodile told his mom about those terrible humans that bullied him, because for the next few days, we saw a 10 foot crocodile chilling around 200 meters off shore.

I'm no expert in reading crocodile facial expressions, but I'm pretty sure that look means, "I dare you to touch my kid again." Photo credit: Hannat Minify

And with that, its time for me to get off and try to memorize fifty species of plants. Yay.

San Jose

San Jose is where we spent our first three days in Costa Rica. Stationed at what would probably be considered a four star hotel in the States, we were essentially living in a bubble, with our air conditioning, high powered toilets and internet access. After being introduced to the Costa Rican staple of rice and beans for our first meal, we were met with an offer that one could only dream of doing at schools back at home.

Our professors offered to take us out for drinks at the nearby restaurant. Clearly, our teachers know what they are doing, because once everyone had a few beers down any awkwardness associated with meeting 25 new people simultaneously evaporated. Not only have my classmates turned out to be a fantastic bunch, but our TAs (how many more synonyms of "professors" can I think of, especially since TA already isn't one) have some great personalities. From Alan "I used to be a hippie' Masters, Moncho "perpetually shirtless", Joyel "I studied in the States", Marizella "constantly ecstatic" to Bronco"surprisingly fast man", I think we're in for a real treat of a semester. I apologize for not including the last names of our TAs, but the folder which contains their bios is kind of far away and I really want to hit that big orange 'PUBLISH' button now.

I am currently being hailed to play some cards so here's a photo from around a week ahead of the chronology of this post. I am happy as hell in this picture because the beach I am standing in in this photo has unfortunately (fortunately?) set an EXTREMELY high bar for any future beach that I go to (sorry Long Island Sound, you just don't cut it anymore).

Peace!

Here we go!

As I've pushed off writing this for so long, my recollection of the first two weeks of Costa Rica will most likely be out of order and spotty. Instead of journaling like most sane people, my written recollection is a simple note on my iPhone. My list consists of gems such as 'fruit presentation' and 'boating on ocean', so its understandable that the first thing I wrote on that note was, "Aki, stop being a lazy ass and write this down for real."

So, here I am, with only my mind and my terrible annotations to go off of. Here we go.

The first thing I did when I arrived in Costa Rica was lose five dollars. I came out of my terminal happy and excited, and one of the first things I saw was a currency conversion station. I walked up and converted around $100 at the rate of 450 Colones per dollar. No less than five minutes later when I exited the airport and met Kathy, who is essentially our 'mom', I found out that the exchange rate was in fact 500 Colones to a dollar. Apparently I could have exchanged money literally anywhere else in Costa Rica and gotten a better rate, the guys at the front desk of our hotel in San Jose would have given me ~475 Colones to a dollar.

 My second financial mistake came around 40 minutes later when I was checking in. I was told that I could get internet access for $6 a day, an offer which I jumped on as I am largely connected while at home. Again, no less than five minutes later, I was told that there was free Wifi both in the lobby and on the sixth floor. With roughly $17 dollars ( I paid for access for two days) down the drain in my first two hours of being in Costa Rica, I finally learned that you should try and not be an idiot with your money, especially when you're already a poor college student. However, I did buy a hacky sack two days later so that I could get a Costa Rican native to fill out a survey (something my partners did by doing the normal thing and simply asking them to do so), so think what you want about my financial savvyness (is that a word?)

Anyways, as promised, here's a photo. I think its a monument commemorating a global conference that occurred in San Jose some years ago. I don't recall what conference it was for because I was too busy running inside of it. Oops.

Costa Rica

Blogging is not something I've ever considered doing until I arrived in Costa Rica for a semester abroad. While being surrounded by the blogs of my classmates was certainly a factor in the creation this blog, Chusquea tonduzii, I realized that being able to get my thoughts and experiences in written form serves a much greater role than simply saying,"Look at all the cool things I'm doing guys!" Photos are great for preserving screenshots from any event, but they unfortunately fail to include the context of the moment that was worth immortalizing on your memory card. This blog is going to be an attempt at that: a method for me to attempt to save all of my most favorite moments from this once in a lifetime opportunity.

Also, my last legitimate writing class was in my freshman year at Vassar, so this will hopefully slow the rate at which my writing skills are rapidly deteriorating. I've been told by Jesus Rivera, my best bud/editor, that I have no idea on how to use colons and semi-colons. Tell me if I used it correctly in the above paragraph because quite frankly, I have no idea and I don't know how to check.

If you've made it this far, thanks for dealing with this poorly written block of words, I promise you I'll put some pictures up so that you can at least quickly scroll through my page and get something out of your time.

Thanks!
Aki Nishimura-Gasparian