More Training Days in Costa Rica!!

The morning of training day #3 was volunteer visa day.  Kristi took me to what was essentially a police station so I could get fingerprinted and put into the CR system.  Although they didn't initially let Kristi come in with me (there's a short interview that they do), I was SO glad she was around to escort me through town, as Kristi is practically fluent in Spanish :)  It obviously makes a huge difference to travel around an unknown city with a native speaker who knows where you are at any given moment in time.  Thank you Kristi for making the very large city of San Jose much less overwhelming/intimidating and actually very enjoyable!!!

Once I got my fingerprints taken care of, it was off to the US Embassy.  The US Embassy was gigantic and of course, had a security checkpoint.  The guards asked Kristi and I to remove all our electronic devices like cell phones, USB ports, cameras, etc. because they put those items in little locked bags, which you pick up once you leave the embassy.  No big deal; we did as they suggested and put our purses in the bin to go through the x-ray machine.  Needless to say, I was a little surprised when the security woman told me I couldn’t bring a knife in to the embassy.  I was like “what? A knife? Of course I don’t have a knife!”  However, when she pointed out the object in question on the x-ray, I realized that I did, in fact, have a knife.  Courtesy of Praggya and Jann at work, I had a Swiss Army Knife in my bag, since that was the going away gift they gave me, and my purse seemed like the appropriate place to keep it.  So, I hope you two will appreciate the fact that I, 1: am actually carrying your gift around with me and 2: got in trouble for trying to smuggle a weapon in to the US Embassy.  Fortunately I guess I don’t look like a huge threat and they let me enter without any issues.  The rest of our time in the Embassy was pretty straightforward after that.  I just paid some money, signed a document, and that was that.

The US Embassy happens to be near a gigantic park in San Jose, and it has basketball courts, sand volleyball courts, playgrounds, lots of trees, and is the home to the brand new fútbol stadium the Chinese just built for the Costa Ricans.  There also happens to be a very delicious empanada restaurant across the street, so Kristi and I stopped there for some yummy food and then walked around the stadium for a bit.  You can see the pic below.

After lunch, Kristi introduced me to the books I’ll be using to teach my English classes, and we started mapping out the lesson plan I was going to present to a few of the ladies in the office on Thursday morning.  We decided that the objective of my lesson would be to introduce new vocabulary: movie genres; along with a grammar structure: using “would you rather” in a sentence.  And yes, I kept getting “would you rather” scenarios popping up in my head while trying to think on content for my lesson.

When I left the Aliarse office, I went back to my hotel and finished writing up my lesson plans and putting together my materials for the next day.  Preparation for a 45 minute lesson, just on my own, not including time spent mapping out the lesson with Kristi, took just under two hours to complete.  Let me tell you, I have a whole newfound appreciation for the work teachers do.  It takes a LOT of time and creativity!!!

I finished all my planning just in time to get picked up by Kristi and her tico boyfriend Fede (sp?) for dinner at Trio.  Trio is a restaurant/bar Kristi and Fede go to frequently, and I can see why. The food was delicious.  We each ordered a few of their small plates, which were sort of funny because they had selections from all over the world.  I opted for chifrijo from Costa Rica and chicken tenders from the US.  Seriously, they were the best chicken tenders EVER!  I wish I could find some that good back home!  And chifrijo was amazing.  It’s a very popular bar meal, and it is just a bowl with beans and rice and like cubes of pan fried pork, and this one had some avocado and this yummy semi-sour sauce.  It might sound plain, but it has great flavor and is muy rico.  Of course, I also enjoyed the first Imperial of my trip…along with a bottle of Bavaria to boot.  Both are delicious Costa Rican cervesas!  Salud!

Here’s the picture of me standing in front of the new fútbol stadium:

Here’s a picture of Kristi and Fede at dinner: