Day 24 - A weekend at home, sort of

Word of the week: to win -- ganar
Percent complete: 13%

This week was slightly less eventful than the last two, and this post will probably have less pictures, but still your weekly update.

This is our last week of the Early Start class.  We had our last oral presentation today and have a research paper due on Thursday, with Friday being the last day of the four week class.  The non-Early Starters will get here sometime on Wednesday, so there will be a few more people to get acquainted with.  I'm sure that they are all awesome, as is the group that is here right now!  I believe this coming weekend we have a cookout with all of the host families and students, so that will be fun.  We are planning to go to a local restaurant/bar to watch the Super Bowl too.

This past week was just more of the same: studying, playing basketball or messing around in the neighborhood and exploration around San Pedro and San Jose.  We went out for a couple of birthdays for the first time in San Pedro on Friday night, which happened to be the Central American Cup semifinal too (Costa Rica won), and we all had a blast.  Saturday, a group of us went to downtown San Jose and looked around the area.  We ended up finding a really nice art gallery in their national culture center, so that was pretty cool.  Both the jade and gold museums were closed by the time we found them, so those will have to wait for another time.  There are also a lot of big (and little) parks scattered everywhere, so we spent some time people watching and relaxing.  There is an incredible bakery in the China District that we have gone to a few times which never disappoints.  Finding gems like these (and especially with coffee shops) has been the most fun part of exploration.  We also found a row of small shops that only sells handmade Costa Rican woodworks, paintings, jewelry, hammocks, etc., so that was really neat as well.  TONS of stuff that they offer and it's all really nice and authentic.  And cheap.  Right next to that was a flower shop with some of the most vibrant and best smelling flowers I've ever seen.  Must be the tropics... Sunday, I went to the local Catholic church for the first time, since the first weekend I was here I went with my host mom to a non-denominational church, and the last two weekends we were out of town.  The church was older, but very traditional and very pretty.  I followed the mass for the most part, but need to work on memorizing the prayers and responses.  It was fun to do though.  That afternoon, we decided to go to the Central American Cup final... Costa Rica was playing Honduras.  We were waiting for a solid hour for tickets even after a friend of ours that we met from Auburn had been sitting in line for an hour before we even got there (War Eagle to him for doing that).  But we finally got them and got to the gate to enter.  I had my nice camera with me but apparently you cannot take those into the stadium, which I did not know beforehand nor did my host family, so one of the guys in the group and I ended up going to a Burger King to watch the game on one of their TVs.  HUGE buzz-kill, but I guess it makes for a kind-of funny story?  But not really because it was the Central American Cup Final, which I probably won't ever get a chance to go to again, and more importantly, I didn't get to take any pictures at it.  Learning experience I guess, and I'm sure I will go to a Saprissa game there (or multiple) before I leave.  It was really fun to be around the stadium before the game in the "Tico Pride" atmosphere so I guess I got that out of the situation at least.  By the way, Costa Rica won, 1-0.

That's about all that happened from this week.  Kind of low-key compared to the last two weekends, but it was nice to actually get some rest and not be traveling.  I looked at our schedule for the month of February with the Grupo de Kansas, and we essentially have something every weekend.  Some of them will be weekend trips too, and I am beyond excited for where we are heading.  Details will have to wait on those, but February should be a great blogging month.  

I'll post a few pictures for you from this week:

The UCR sunflower.  This is on one of the main buildings, but they incorporate the sunflower into a lot of things, including their seal.  I'm not sure the reasoning behind it...

There is a lot of awesome graffiti everywhere you look around the San Jose area.  We think they hired a bunch of artists to cover up whatever was on it before, but some of them are incredible.  This is just an example but there are others that are much better...  I didn't have my camera on me for the San Jose exploration so hopefully next time I'll remember it.

This is the church in Curridabat.  I think I will really enjoy going here... Really neat, old-style architecture and painted ceilings.  I'll make sure to get my camera over there sometime.











Here is some more from the National Theatre.  We stopped before the soccer game to have a coffee in the front lobby so I snagged a few pictures of the entryway decor.  We are hoping to go to at least one show/concert/etc there.

In front of the National Stadium which was paid for in full by the Chinese government.  Sounds kind of familiar...  This was before I found out that I couldn't go into the actual game so that's why I look happy.  That's also (obviously) their National Team jerseys.

I think that's about it for now.  I'll try to have a more excited life next week, but thanks to those of you who tuned in!  I found a website to watch the Hawks on, so I'll be able to watch Big Monday tonight at WVU (their new blue jerseys are going to look awesome).  Until next week, 

¡Pura vida!