Day 66 - Learning to surf: Easier said... No, just hard.

Costa Rican Word of the week: Not a word this week, just something unique.

Something very common here is the use of vos, another form of  tú, but more informal than usted.  For the non-Spanish speakers out there, there are generally two forms of "you", depending on your relationship with the person.  Tú is much more informal than usted generally, and vos here functions as tú.  If I haven't lost you yet, it's very interesting to hear because I never really learned it in school before now, but the conjugations are all completely different for verbs and everything.  Definitely something that I have had to get used to, but also something very unique to where I am studying!

Percent complete: 35%

I apologize in advanced, but I have very few pictures from this weekend because I decided not to take my nice camera because there have been some problems with theft in the area of the country that we went to.  So, I will keep it short for those of you who want to read about my weekend travels and add a few at the end.

Quick note: the semester started today!  Finally.  I am still working out some kinks with my schedule, but it will be very similar to what I have previously posted.  I think.  The enrollment here is more of a crap shoot than anything I've ever seen at a university...  I've probably sent close to 10 emails to advisors the past two weeks during the process.  I'll be sure to let you all know how classes went this week in the next post.

This weekend we went to the Caribbean side of the country for the first time to a place called Puerto Viejo, super close to Panama.  The atmosphere was really awesome, just like Santa Teresa.  There was just as much emphasis on surfing in the town as there was in Santa Teresa, but the Caribbean vibe was really fun.  One thing that Santa Teresa had that I really missed though was a sunset (and one of the best I've ever seen, at that. We tried to wake up for the sunrise one morning so we could see what was unique to the Caribbean coast, but it ended up being to cloudy). The food may have been some of the best I've had yet too... the Tico and Caribbean mix was great.  It was much more rainy on the Caribbean coast as well, but I didn't mind it at all.  Also, the rain forest was much more green and lush for that reason.  The beaches we went to had rain forest leading right up to the sand, and then 20-ish yards of sand before meeting the water, which produced some incredible surfing swells.  It was really fun to watch all of the locals surfing, too.  The water wasn't as warm as I would have thought, but was still much warmer than most places in the US.

Thursday was a pretty relaxing day of doing nothing.  We stayed at a really fun hostel (which always makes the trip better), where most of the people sleep in hammocks or tents.  We got a room since we had more people, but the atmosphere there was great too.  Lots of partying and socializing and meeting new people.  Josh and I introduced flip cup to a group of people who had never played before (some from Sweden, Germany and Uruguay, among others) along with some other Americans, which turned out to be a huge hit.  One of the most fun nights of my time here.  We took surf lessons on Friday which was awesome.  I got up a couple of times while paddling too, so I counted it was a victory.  That afternoon we rented boards, but they were much shorter (which is harder to do), and the beach we went to had bigger waves, so it wasn't as successful.  Still really fun though!  Surfing is super hard to do without the help of an instructor, so hopefully I will have some time this semester to put into it because I want to really learn how.  Saturday we ended up renting bikes and rode them to a small little beach town about 10 miles down the road on this little road right through the rain forest.  It was incredible, mostly because of how lush and green everything was, and the fact that we were biking between beaches in Costa Rica.  Another one of the "step back and realize what I'm actually doing" moments that seem to happen all of the time.  Sunday we didn't do much, just went back to San Jose to get ready for classes to start today.

We met a Canadian family while we were taking surf lessons who took some pictures of us since we didn't have a camera on hand, so hopefully we will get those soon via email and I can post them.  But for now, for your weekly dose of eye candy, here are a few pictures of where we were (mostly from Google, but it looked the same, I promise):

The town of Puerto Viejo

 Playa Negra, where we learned to surf.  Super soft, fine black sand.

One of the main beaches in the area.  Shows you how close the rain forest was to the water... maybe it was just me, but I thought it was incredible.

Playa Cocles, where we went to attempt surfing without an instructor.  The scenery was great, at least!

Another one of the main beaches by the town.  Not sure the name, but you can see the waves here breaking pretty far from shore.

From the bike ride to Manzanillo.  Really enjoyable 45 minute trek!

That's about it for this week, wanted to keep it short and sweet.  Again, sorry for the lack of pictures but I hope this gave you a good idea.  It was definitely one of the most fun weekends yet, and good timing with class starting.  I get the whole week of school off March 24 for Holy Week and my family is coming to visit then.  I can't express how excited I am to see them!

I added some links to my social media in the right column at the top to avoid linking them in every post (Facebook, Flickr, Instagram and YouTube), so feel free to check those out for updates as well!

This weekend I think we are staying in town since the last month and a half has been packed with traveling and spending money.  We are going to try to watch the Big XII tournament at the American bar, as well as Selection Sunday, so I'm looking forward to that.  Wish we didn't have to share it, but I'm still excited for our ninth straight title!  Let's get the tournament title so it's not a question.

¡Pura vida!