Christmas in Costa Rica, and then Back to the US of A!

**Oops!  I wrote my final blog post months ago, but I guess I never posted it.  But I can't not "finish" my blog, so here you go!!**

After my adventure to Puerto Viejo, it was nice to be back in Liberia, if also a little anti-climactic!  Before I left for Puerto Viejo, I had almost completely packed up my entire room, so my drawers and closets were empty and my bags were sitting in a corner.  I pretty much spent my last few days with my host family sulking/fighting off depression and finishing any Christmas shopping I needed to get done.  Since my host family was heading up to Nicaragua for Christmas, Nieves was busy cooking TONS of tamales and arroz con pollo and other deliciousness!  I was lucky enough to have a few tamales reserved for me and they were the BEST DAMN TAMALES I've EVER eaten.  Nieves explained that they were Nicaraguan tamales, which means they have amazing/seasoned/uncooked meat (it cooks when it gets steamed so it's sooo juicy!), sauce, potatoes, onions, tomato, rice, peppers and deliciousness cooked into them.  But it was really quite a production!  The poor woman was slaving away in the kitchen for two and a half solid days to get everything ready for their trip and was exhausted by the time she left!

Puerto Viejo de Limon

While I've done a lot of traveling on the Pacific side of Costa Rica, I had yet to visit the Caribbean side, which everyone says is quite different from the life/culture on the Pacific side.  Since my last class was slated to be on December 15th, but my family wasn't coming for Christmas until December 24th, I had a little over a week to travel!  A few months before classes ended, I began planning a trip that would take me from Liberia up to Tortuguero (in the northeast corner of CR) for a few days, and then down through Limon to Puerto Viejo (in the southeast corner of CR, just a few hours from the Panama border).  While I knew I'd miss seeing the sea turtles in Tortuguero (the big attraction for that area) because they've already laid their eggs, I've heard it's still incredibly beautiful.  And of course Puerto Viejo's Caribbean, laid back, total beach/surf town culture totally precedes it.  Needless to say, I was super excited for my trip.

December...the month of Goodbyes

Hasta Luego Nicaragua

The first weekend in December I made my final trip up to Nicaragua with my host mom to say goodbye to my Nicaraguan family.  I brought a few small gifts with me, for Ana and her family for hosting me on my trips to Nicaragua, and one for my little bestie adoptive cousin Nasa.  Since Nasa is seven and a big fan of Disney Princess stuff, I bought her her very own set of Disney Princess playing cards, and a Disney Princess picture frame with a picture of me and her inside so she wouldn't forget me :)  And she LOVED the gifts (yay!).  She walked around showing everyone the frame, and we, no surprise, got a LOT of use out of the playing cards.  I might be Go Fish-ed out for the rest of my life! hahaha  We also taught Nasa's uncle to play, and I jokingly mentioned that he could take my spot as the Go Fish go-to after I left.  I'm not sure he was so much excited about that...muahahaha  But it was a lot of fun to visit the family in December.  They had their Christmas tree up and some lights so it felt festive.  We also ended up taking a little ride in the horse-drawn carriage again to visit all the other members of the family, which was nice.  I felt like I got to see everyone one last time and say my goodbyes.

Thanksgiving...Costa Rica Style

I had my first visitor when Miss Jane Munro came to visit me over "Thanksgiving Break."  She came in on Sunday, November 20th and left me again on Sunday, November 27.  In just one short week, we managed to cram in a WHOLE LOTTA FUN!  We took a crap ton of pictures, many of which you get to see here (but lots more are on facebook), and made a lot of great memories!  It was also interesting having Janie come visit me, because I think I actually went through a little bit of reverse culture shock!  When Jane came, it was like my two worlds (Cali and Costa Rica) collided and it made me hyper aware of how much I've assimilated to Costa Rican culture.  Not that Costa Rica is drastically different from life in the US, but I realized that there were all these subtle little things that were just different.  In the end, it ended up being great that I sort of went through that.  Until Jane came to visit, I'm pretty sure I was in denial about having to go home.  But having her here made me realize that there are things that I'm looking forward to doing when I get back to the States.  I started getting excited about seeing my family and friends and just jumping back into life in California.  But moving home and culture shock are all a topic for a different blog.  This post is all about our week of partying and adventures over Thanksgiving week in Costa Rica.  Let the pictures and the stories begin!

Living Like a Local

Wow, HOW is it the end of November already?!?!?!  The closer I get to having to leave Costa Rica, the faster time seems to fly by!  (Which is definitely not a good thing!  I'm already starting to go through withdrawal and I haven't even left yet!).  Anyway, even though I haven't been blogging a lot lately, it's not because I haven't been doing anything.  In fact, I've been crazy busy the last few weeks, mostly hanging out and partying with my students/friends (because at this point, they're all my friends in addition to being my students.  I love them!)  In this post, I'm just going to give you a sampling of all the stuff I've been up to lately.  Brace yourself ;)

Halloween in Costa Rica!

First things first.  Today is November 2nd, which means I will be flying back to California in exactly 2 months.  That makes me exceedingly sad.  Don't get me wrong, on the one hand it will be nice to see my family and friends and get back to "life as usual" but I've had such a WONDERFUL experience here that my heart hurts when I think about leaving.  Okay, I just had to get that out.  Also, on the plus side, I have lots of adventures planned for the next two months, so it's pretty much guaranteed that there will be lots more pics and more posts to come.  When January 2nd does come around, I already know I will have gotten the most out of my time here, which makes me very happy.

So, now, Halloween in Costa Rica!  For those of you who know me, you know I'm a pretty big fan of Halloween.  I don't really know why per se, but I guess I just like that Halloween ushers in Fall and I like all the stuff that comes with it.  I like the crispness of fall air, especially before the nonstop rain comes, and leaves changing colors/dead leaves on sidewalks (is that weird?).  I also like candy corn, Halloween decorations (I can't get enough of fake spider webs and skeleton cut-outs), costumes, trick-or-treaters, carving pumpkins, scary movies, haunted houses, and, possibly most important, I like to watch Hocus Pocus every year when it's on the Disney Channel because it's pretty much one of the best 90s movies of all time.  (I also might own it, but that's only so I can watch it if I happen to miss it on the Disney Channel...Also, it was $5 at Target and I'm a sucker for those deals.)  I also like throwing and/or attending Halloween parties, group costumes with my friends, and seeing all the ridiculous costumes on other bar-goers.  It's just a pretty much guaranteed good time.

Playing Go Fish in Nicaragua And Other Stuff Too

So at the beginning of October I went with my host mom to Nicaragua to visit the family, per the usual.  And, since we left the same day Rebecca was heading up to Nicaragua for her three month volunteer stint up there, she came with us.  That was a lot of fun because it gave Rebecca and I another chance to hang out and chat!  Yay!  It was also sad because it was our last time to hang out.  (Well, hopefully not last last....hopefully it will work out so we'll get to hang out in Nicaragua or Costa Rica in the next few months...but last 'for sure' hangout!)  Anyway, we hopped on the bus around 3 to head up north.