Adiós a Sto. Domingo...

Hola peeps,

Tonight is my last night here in Sto. Domingo. I leave my familia tica tomorrow morning and am going to the beach at Puerto Viejo. I have nothing but gratitude to my host family. They have taken care of me like one of my own. They had a baby fiesta here because it´s Christmas Eve and here they normally celebrate for Christmas on the eve before, not the day of. The family had a few people over earlier this afternoon and they cheered me (many times) and insisted that I partake in the taquila festivities haha. I could not be a rude guest, of course I induldged a little, I mean come on, it´s my last night.

Later they put on some music in the living room and we all danced together. At some point I even showed them the video from the Break On 2 performance at the Ballet show at Bovard! They loved it and told me they dance really well... I was a little embarassed, but hey, I asked them if they wanted to see it, and ¨claro que si¨ was their response! :)

School was hard today because I had to say goodbye to some wonderful people, both students and professors. We´ll all keep in touch through facebook and email though, so I am not worried.

I don´t know that I´ll be able to write much in Puerto Viejo as I am not sure what the internet situation would be like so sorry if you don´t hear from me until at least Monday night...

Til then, muchos besos!

Con amor,

Meirav

Puerto Viejo

Hola all,

Sorry for not having written in a while...

Well, much has happened since my last post, the biggest thing being that I changed my flight back to LA from the 25th to the 29th! The reason being that I really wanted just one more weekend here to travel the country before I return. Also, Matthias, the new assistant at the school, was planning on going to Puerto Viejo for the long weekend and I will be joining him as well as his German friend from Mexico (whom he had met at the Spanish school in Mexico). Super exciting!

Puerto Viejo is a beach town on the Caribbean cost, which I have never been to. This is really exciting for me to see as I hear it´s very different over there :) I am indeed very excited for a little more time in the sun because when Kim and I went to Mál País it rained a lot and then it was cloudy so we didn´t get to sunbathe as much as we wanted to.

Adside from the excitement of going to the beach, I am very sad to leave the host family I was staying with. My mama tica fed me like you wouldn´t believe!!! I would also be sad to leave the school because I had made such great friends here both with the other students and the professors. I had to say goodbye to Alyssa today because she is flying out really early tomorrow morning back to snowy Denver, CO...

Tomorrow is our last official day of class because Friday is Christmas. We will be getting our certificates and everything. How official :)

Until next time, te amo mucho!

Meirav

Thunder, and lightning, and rain, oh my!

Hola again all!

I am writing to you from the lovely little beach town known as Mal País. It's located on the Nicoya peninsula in the north-west region of Costa Rica. My friend Kim and I set out on our expedition here at 5:30 yesterday and made it here by around noon after taking 2 buses and a fairy. Good times! When we got here we set out to find the hostel we're staying at: The Tranquilo Backpacker's Inn. And it is "tranquilo" indeed! It's set up kind of like a motel just without vehicle access to the rooms, but there are two floors and Kim and I are sharing a room on the top level. After settling in for a moment we went to lunch (which was amazing!!) and then came back to get ready to go to the beach. That, sadly, did not happened. A huge rainstorm started up at around 16:00 and didn't stop until about 22:00. Not to mention that at aroun 8pm or so the electricity went out for about two hours! It really wasn't bad though because everyone here is relaxed, living their surfer lives in pura vida.

Around 20:00 or 20:30 Jensine came back with her hostel roommate (who I cannot recall her name right now... she's from Holland) after a wild day of ATV riding around Montezuma. It was really cool to see her! We're gonna spend the day together and she's going to come back to San José with Kim and I because she leaves on Tuesday afternoon and wanted to at least see the city. I don't know why should want two whole days at San José by herself as it's not that great of a city, it's actually a little dangerous, but she said that there are a couple of things she found that she wants to do so she'll go ahead and do them before she leaves.

Today is looking hopefull for beachness! I mean, I have to prove somehow that I was at the beach. It's a little cloudy but I'm hoping it'll clear up and be sunny like yesterday early afternoon. At least it's not raining, that's good! I think it the amount that rained last night is probably 10 times the amount of rain it rains in LA each year of not more! Crazy...

Anyways, til (prob) tomorrow or Tuesday.

Besos y amor,

Meirav

Adiós Michelle... :(

Hi again everybody!

So, sorry I didn´t write last night. Nothing exciting, other than class, happened during the day when the computer here was available so I didn´t have anything to report. Now I do!! Ok, so:

Yesterday, after school was over, a group of us went to the new first ever Créperia in Sto. Domingo. The store belongs to Alyssa´s host sister and she promised her she would bring starving students to the store. Needless to say I had some Neutella and fresas which was absolutely delightful. We then all went our separate, merry, ways.

Later in the evening, 6 of us went out back to the mall in the town called the Paseo de los Flores as this is Michelle´s last week (after working for the school for 6 months as an assistant/intern) and she wanted to go to her favorite bar: Kbaña. It was an absolute blast! It´s really fun making friends from all over the world. The six who went were me, Michelle (Germany), Alyss (CO), Kim (Chicago), Insa (North Germany), and Matias (West Germany). Clearly we´re a diverse but not so diverse group of foreigners. The funny thing is, although all of us speak English, and usually transition into English after a while into a conversation, we all start speaking Spanish to each other. It´s really cool to see that happen because although I know Alyssa is from the States for example, and she knows I´m practically from there too, at least as far as my English is concerned, we start all conversations in Spanish. I think it´s just the default of being in CR for the reason of learning Spanish, it´s the one common language we can all find together. It´s pretty cool :)

Last night was the first night (except the night I arrived) that I was awake past 22:30!!! It´s amazing how school in Spanish (or any other foreign language for that matter) is exhausting. The fact that we all got to our respective houses last night at around medianoche is downwright impressive.

Then, another normal day of school. I officially know 3 past tenses now in addition to the present tense. Do I mix up the uses of these three past tenses?? Of course! But it´s ok, it´s the first week so hopefully I´ll have a lot of time to practice tomorrow and next week to fully grasp the differences.

After school a group of us went on a Costa Rican coffee plantation tour. It was a lot of fun. We walked through the fields, watched our guides become actors and perform or us, and tasted a wide variety of coffees. It was great fun :)

For tonight I´m taking it easy and maybe go to the apartment where Michelle and Matias are living to watch a movie or something but that´s still up in the air...

SATURDAY!!! Kim and I are goinf to Mál País together and I´ll be meeting up with Jensine! We leave Saturday early in the morning and come back Sunday. It should be a lot of fun as I have yet to visit the beaches here and I hear they´re absolutely incredible!

As always, amor to all!!

Meirav

Mal País

Hola mis amores,

Sorry I didn´t write yesterday, there wasn´t too much to write! The only thing I can report from yesterday is that it was the first day of my second week here at the school. Old students left and new students arrived. Also, Michelle´s replacement, Matias, arrived and is learning her job this week as she leaves this Saturday. He seems really nice. He studied for a year in Spain and now he´s coming from spending 3 months in México so he´s Spanish is super! I´m jealous... It´s ok though, my Spanish is coming along just fine!

There are 4 new students and one of them is in my level. Her name is Kim and she´s from Chicago. Her and I are in class together with another fellow John. He is the second person here that´s kind of getting on my nerves a little. He was in my class last week too which doesn´t make it any better. He makes it a point to try to correct me when I make mistakes which, I appreciate the gesture, but I´d appreciate it much more if he wasn´t wrong 75% of the time he corrects me... It´s cute though because Silvia, our teacher this week, keeps giving Kim and I the ¨I´m so sorry for this¨ look, which is precious. Also, he keeps on trying to explain to me the tenses in English terms like ¨present perfect¨ and ¨past perfect¨ or whatever which are terms I do not know as I never learned them properly between Israel and the States... It´s ok though, learning tenses in Spanish help me learn tenses in English! :)

Another thing to report (which I can´t remember if I mentioned or not) is that my friend from high school, Jensine, is also here in CR!! We are hoping to meet up this weekend. She will be in Mal País which is in the Nicoya peninsula. I´m hoping to take a bus and meet her there and stay at the hostel she´ll be at on Saturday night, and then return to Sto. Domingo on Sunday afternoon. It should be a lot of fun as I have yet to visit the beach here and I´ve seen pictures of Mal País and it should be gorgeous!

Anyways, that´s all for today!

Muchos besos y mucho amor!

Meirav

¡Ay mi culito!

Hola all!

So today was friggin´ awesome! I went with the two other students I mentioned previously Alyssa and Jakob (I made a mistake, he´s Swedish, not Swiss! Lo siento) to WHITE WATER RAFTING!!! It was absolutely amazing! The river we went to is called Pacuáre and it was absolutely gorgeous. We went through very many class 3+ rapids and even through four 4/4+ class rapids - OMG SUCH A THRILL! Our boat guide, Dani, was hilarious as well. Not only a boat guide, he was our tour bus guide as well and was definitely into making all these ridiculous tourist-friendly jokes that we all love.

Once we got to the base camp we ate a traditional breakfast: Gallo pinto, scrambled eggs, mini sauseges, watermellon juice, and coffee. We changed and locked up all our belongings in a locker and got back in the buss for another 20 minute ride up the mountain to the beginning spot of the river tour. We were literally floating in the middle of the jungle, parts of it belonging to the Parque Nacional de CR. After about 2.5-3 hours of rafting we stopped to eat lunch. Before we got to lunch Dani found plenty of spots to keep pushing us off the boats for solely for the ¨sake of teaching us how to rescue each other if we happen to fall¨. Yea, during the entire river ride none of us fell, we either jumped or were pushed/pulled off by Dani or other boat guides. There were some long parts without rapids that we could just float next to the boat along with the current. Alyssa and I kept on trying to push Dani off the boat and into the water but he´s sneaker than us and managed to always reverse the situation on us and push us off instead.

Our lovely river guides made our lunch, which was very nice of them, and then we continued to the last hour or so of the river tour, encountering the first rapid of the second part, aptly named ¨indigestion¨ :) No one suffered indigestion however, which was nice! Throughout the river, the rescue kayaks also had cameras with them so they were taking pictures of all of us as we went through the various rapids. Alyssa, Jakob, and I split the cost of the CD they all sold and we´re gonna try to see if we can make copies of it at the school tomorrow, and if not, I will take it back with me to the States and will make copies for them and send to them. All in all, WONDERFUL DAY (despite the waking up at 5am eeeek).

To explain the title of the blog for a quick moment, I can definitely say that my butt hurts a lot from sitting on the boat. The rubber the boats are made of is very tough and we´re all sore now, kind of like when going horse back riding! Also, so I applied sun screen, clearly, and although I am a little racoon-y despite the fact, I forgot to apply on my legs and all I have to prove for it is sun-burned knees. That´s right, KNEES! Weird...

Anyways, til next time!

Mucho amor para todos,

Meirav

¡Zourqui!

Hola everyboy!

Sorry I didn´t write yesterday, I was plagued with an unfortunate case of stomach gross-ness and was resting most of the day. I even had to leave the school early. I feel much better today, hopefully it will keep on this way and I´ll be good as new.

I was really happy that I felt well by the evening though because that´s when a group from the school all went together to San Jose to see our prof&friend José´s play! It was absolutely hilarious. The play´s titled ¨orgasmos¨and I bet you can imagine what the subject matter is haha! It was a 2 person play and they each played all the characters. I was so happy that I understood about 80% of anything that was said! That´s a great acheivement for someone who has never seen a show in Spanish before! Hilarious does not do the show justice :)

As I was waiting for the taxi last ngiht, friends of my host parents came over for some drinks and conversation. There were two guys and a girl, I think the guys were brothers but I´m not sure. Now, I know that I understand more that I can speak but when they speak really fast it´s so hard to understand. I´m pretty sure one of the brothers kind of ass-backwards asked me out haha! I can´t tell for sure but it´s kind of awkward sicne he´s definitely in his late 40s early 50s which, Ima and Aba, I know is not an ¨old¨ age, but it is for me to date haha! Anyways, no harm done, I think he was a little tipsy anyways, so hopefully he won´t remember!

TODAY! Was awesome. I went on a canopy tour on Mt. Zourqui which is actually really close to Sto. Domingo, where I´m staying. Luis, one of the managers for the company came to pick me up by one of the churches and took me to the mountain where I met my tour guides. When I got there I realized I was the only one because not many tourists or ticos (Costa Ricans) like to wake up early on the weekends and I was picked up at 8:30am. I didn´t know there were other options but it was actually really fun to be the only one there. There were two tour guides, Denis and Silso (I think was his name...) and through increasingly better Spanish I learned that they are both 23 as well which was cool. They were super nice and really helpful and were much more fun once they realized I actually have a sense of humur and can actually kind-of-sort-of-maybe joke around in Spanish too.

TOMORROW I am going rafting with two students from the school, Alyssa (American) and Jakob (Swiss). Taxi is picking me up at 6am eeeeek! It should be fine though... :)

On another note, turns out my friend Jensine from high school is also here in CR so we´re facebook-ordinating to see if maybe we can get together next weekend. That would be really fun especially since I haven´t seen her in ages, even back in the States.

Besos para todo and of course con amor

Meirav

¡Una chica especialmente!

Hi again,

So... what to tell today. Well, as the title of this post might tell you, I am so special, if you haven´t already known. After school yesterday, I walked back to my house. On the way there´s a supermarket called MásXMenos (más por menos). I went to buy some groceries since I don´t want to keep ordering take-out to the school as the meals included in my package are breakfast and dinner. I bought groceries, yay! So just as I walk in the house I realized I forgot to buy bread along with my other sandwich making components. Way to go, me. Anyways, it turned out to be fine because in the mall we went to yesterday to watch the movie there was another MásXMenos so I bought a loaf of bread.

Now that the above story was so intriguing, I will delightfully (and definitely shamefully) admit that the movie we saw yesterday was New Moon (or Nueva Luna... not Luna Nueva for some reason but that´s ok). The other two options were Tim Burton´s ¨9¨and ¨Planet 51¨but neither was showing in English, and all three of us who went are sad to admit we´re kind of snobs about movies that are supposed to be in English haha! Although, it could have been cool to see a children´s movie in Spanish as I would have been likely to understand it still. I will admit that Nueva Luna exceeded my expectations but that doesn´t say too much because my expectations were at 0.3% haha (and I never saw the first Twilight movie). Ima, Gidz, and Lark: I will say that the vampire and wolf-man looked a lot like the vampire and wolf-boy from the Conan O´Brian show we saw!

It was a fun experience to hang out with Michelle (the assistant at the school, from Germany) and Jaqueline (another student, from Switzerland). Michelle is very quickly becoming my closest friend here, it´s pretty awesome, especially since there are many students here who are in their 40s and 50s and it´s a little hard for me to relate to them, and she´s in her mid-late twenties. They are really nice, regardless, but still, it´s harder to relate...

Oooo! Another special moment, are you ready? So I read in the Costa Rica version of Lonely Planet (the guidebook) that it´s typical to expect there to not be much hot water in the shower if any, especially in the smaller cities and very rural areas. Santo Domingo is very much a small city. It reminds me a lot of a large version of an Israeli ¨Kibbutz¨. Anyways, so when I couldn´t get any hot, or warm for that matter, water in the shower, I just thought to myself ¨well, that´s fine, Lonely Planet warned me ahead of time so I´ll just adjust...¨

Yea...

I talked to Eva and Michelle today and they definitely mentioned a knob on the shower head that I had been missing that I could use for hot water... Once again, way to go me haha! I´ve been too embarassed to ask my host mom about it because I didn´t want it to be awkward if there actually wasn´t any hot water... Oops.

Well, after about 4-5 cold showers I think I´m going to try my luck again, this time with maybe a warmer shower? Wish me suerte!

Con amor,

Meirav (who is a little retarded sometimes.......)

People will be people...

¡Hola!

Another day, another short story. So you know how I mentioned that I was getting the material? Well, I am now but I had some difficulties understanding some stuff earlier today. My professor, José, said he´ll look for some exercises for me with direct and indirect objects to practice using lo, la, los, las, le, les, and se correctly. Other than that, it´s going really well.

We are officailly going to José´s play on Friday which is exciting and tonigh´s a bunch of us are going to the movies together in the mall of Heredia. We´re not sure what movie it´s gonna be yet, I think we´ll decide there.

So some piece of conflict... Yay!

So there´s this German girl, Katharina, in my school who is very much a beginner in Spanish. That´s not the problem though... When I met her on Monday she seemed pleasant enough so we dicided to maybe explore some excursion options for the weekend together. After her complete disorientation and confusion about life both yesterday and today, somehow she still got me to make plans with her. After she had to go to her afternoon class, I don´t have one, I only paid for morning classes, I was talking with Eva (the director of the school) and with Michelle (Eva´s assistant) and they totally feel my frustration with Katharina. To make my weekend more enjoyable, they found awesome things for me to do by myself as well as with other students.

Eva and Michelle did make a lot of sense though. Katharina wants to do an overnight excursion but I only have two weekends here so I´d rather do 2 different tours (one for each day) on the weekend as opposed to just one. Once she´s done with school she has 10 days of pure travel which I don´t have. Instead of going to the volcano Arenál, which I think is the one I´ve been to before, with Katherina, I am going to do a Canopy/Zip-Line tour on Saturday and then on Sunday I might go white water rafting with two other students here, Alyssa (from Denver) and Jakob (from Switzerland). It´s going to be awesome.

Well, til next time!

Con amor,

Meirav

¿Como se dice?

Hi all,

So it seems that I am able to update you all on a daily basis! Hopefully, this will continue. Weekends might be different as I might be travelling but we´ll see :)

As you may know, today was my second day of school and it´s incredible how fast I´m getting the material! I´m so happy. My professor, José, is absolutely fantastic and has officially added me as a friend on facebook today haha! He´s the one I mentioned is an actor. I think Michelle, an assistant at the school is organizing an outing for the students to go see José´s play. From what I understand it opens on Friday but there´s a preview on Thursday evening (that might be gratis!). He´s really excited for us all to come see it.

All the students in the school are so fascinated by the fact that I´m from Israel and speak Hebrew, although many of them are tri-lingual already and I´m only bilingual! They can´t phathom speaking Hebrew haha. The thought of it seems really hard for them.

As I mentioned, the walk to and from school is about 20 minutes or so and my legs are definitely feeling it a little as the walk back is slightly uphill. I´m embarassed to say that my calves are sore! Goes to show how little we walk in LA (and I do pilates and dance often!)

Anyways, that´s all I have to report for today. Tomorrow we´re going to the movies so I will tell you all about it. Also, I´ve written a lot already so I´ll write tomorrow about our trip to the city of Heredia and the market earlier this afternoon.

As always, con amor,

Meirav

¡Buenas días estudiantes!

Hola everybody!

Today was my first day at the language school. I woke up super early (6:30am!!) so I could eat some breakfast and walk to school. My mama tica (Costa Rican host mom), Zoila made me breakfast and walked with me to the school to show me where it is. It´s about a 20-25 minute walk from their house. Once I got there I had to take a placement exam so they know which level of Spanish to place me in. I don´t know which level I placed in but I´m proud of how I did as the other students in my level seem to speak pretty well so that means I do too!

Classes begin at 8:00am every day. My teacher´s name is Jose and he´s really nice, helpful, and understanding, as any language teacher should be! Turns out that teaching Spanish to non-speakers is just his day job and his real passion is acting! I can´t seem to escape them even when abroad haha! He said he has a play that opens next Thursday. I´ll ask him tomorrow if it´s possible to see it, I´ve never seen theatre in Spanish before!

Anyways, I´m off to the school again. There´s a tour of Heredia (the city where I´m staying) at 4:00pm and I don´t want to miss it.

Til next time, hasta luego!

Meirav

Buenas Noches!

Hola everyone,

This is my first official post from Costa Rica! I just got to the host family´s house about an hour ago and so far everyone I met is so nice. Even just with the taxi driver and the little time I had spent with the family already I got to practice my Spanish so much!

I am so excited to be here :)

Tomorrow is Sunday so there´s no school yet. The host parents are out tonigth but two of their children (12, Daniel, and 25, Luis) are here as well as Luis´ girlfriend (whose name escapes me right now.... eek) and her niece Jimena until they return tomorrow morning.

I hope everyone is doing well! I hope to post often as the family has internet in their home, just not in my room so I have to be considerate of Richard, another emersion student here as it is in his room.

I don´t want to eat too much internet time so I won´t check the game scores but can someone please tell me how it went??

Til next time, probably mañana...

Con amor,

Meirav

Pre-Boarding

Hi all,

As someone who never blogs, thus someone who has never blogged before, you should feel honored and privileged to be a part of this unique experience.

Although I am not about to spill my deepest and darkest here on a public forum, I feel it is most appropriate to keep you all posted, if you're interested, as to how I am doing in my Costa Rica adventure!

I have not left yet, clearly, but am due for departure on Saturday morning (Dec. 5) and will not return until 3 weeks from now, on Dec. 25. How appropriate for the Jew to return just in time for Christmas :)

Well, some pre-boarding fun facts: I bought a LonelyPlanet guide of Costa Rica today as well as a Latin American Spanish Pharsebook and a small booklet of Spanish Verbs. I have plenty to keep me busy on the plane! I am getting very excited for my departure as it approaches very quickly.

I hope to keep these posts short and sweet, and hopefully on a regular basis. We'll see how feasable that would be once I arrive in Costa Rica as I have no idea what my internet accessibility situation will by like once there.

Til then,

Con amor!

Meirav