Rincon de La Vieja

Rincon de la Vieja is a national park located about 25 km from Liberia, but it takes 45 minutes to an hour to get there since the road is almost all gravel.  There are technically two entry areas: the Las Pailas sector and the Santa Maria area.  For my day trip, I went up to the Las Pailas area to do some hiking.  I was in a van on the way up there with three other travelers from Germany (Sandy, Henry and Viktor), and ended up spending the day hiking around with them.  It was really nice to have other people to hike with, and I had a lot of fun getting to know my fellow hikers :)

The name:  So, when I was originally looking up info about Rincon de La Vieja, I found this little blurb about how it got it's name, and want to share it with you:

The name Rincon de la Vieja is translated as 'Old Woman's Nook' and refers to the legend of a young girl whose lover was thrown into the volcano by her father, after which she became a recluse with healing powers.

Golfo de Papagayo and the Discotheque!

Last Thursday, Elba informed me that we were going to the beach on Saturday morning.  Since I greatly enjoy going to the beach, I was very excited and asked Nieves which beach we were headed to.  I assumed we were going to Playa Hermosa since Don Hernan was driving us and that's his favorite, but Nieves wouldn't tell me anything except that it was una sorpresa (a surprise).  Yay!

On Saturday morning, the plan was to leave at 9, 10 or 11, and we did, impressively, get out the door around 10:30.  Since we were going for more or less the whole day, Nieves and Elba had spent the morning preparing lunch (they know better than to let me in the kitchen to helpl! ha!) which is why we left a little later in the morning.  After driving for about 45 minutes we arrived at a driveway with a somewhat random series of sculptures out front, that I was told were "juevos de gente" (eggs of people).  

Solo Travel Is Fun!

I just took my first completely solo weekend trip since arriving in Costa Rica!  My family is coming down here for Christmas, and we decided to spend xmas week in Tamarindo/Playa Langosta, so I was given the task of heading down there to scope out the location in advance of the big trip.  And let me tell you, solo travel in a tourist-friendly country is super fun!

To Tamarindo!

I informed my host family earlier last week that I was planning a little two night/three day trip to Tamarindo for the weekend, and after getting their approval, went ahead with booking my hotel, etc.  I think my family was a little concerned about me going solo because they kept telling me that there are lots of "drugs, robbers and bad people" in Tamarindo.  While that may be true, and it did make me a little nervous, I knew that Tamarindo is one of the touristy-est destinations in Costa Rica, so I figured it couldn't be that bad.  Of course, when I was looking at hotel reviews, there were a few people that referred to Tamarindo as a "cesspool" so I wasn't quite sure what to expect.  Regardless, I decided to head out on Friday afternoon.

Random Thoughts

...not by Jack Handy...and surely not so clever.  Instead of doing a blog post on a specific trip or event, I just want a place to write random observations and thoughts.  I don't know if I'll have multiple random thoughts posts or just keep updating this one.  That's tbd :)

Teaching Makes Me High
When I decided to come to CR to teach English, I was pretty sure I was going to like teaching English, but I don't think I realized how much I was going to like it.  Now that I have a few weeks under my belt, I'm definitely getting a lot better at lesson planning and at teaching.  I'm no longer nervous, I know my students way better, and feel a lot more confident in the classroom.  I definitely feel like I'm actually teaching my students stuff, and I just generally like it a lot.  I for sure rate teaching with high scores in job satisfaction :)

My Second Trip to Nicaragua!

My host mom, Nieves, goes to Nicaragua once a month to visit her mom and her brothers/sisters who live in the area.  In part because it's her responsibility to take care of me (hehe) and in part because she wants to make sure I have lots of experiences while I'm here, she has offered to take me with her each month.  I'm not 100% sure I'll go every time, but I thought it would be fun to go another time, and visit her family again.

I'm a Teacher!!!

Yay!!!  I am officially a teacher!!!  I finally had my first class last Tuesday night, and I immediately loved it!!!!  My students are so sweet and fun and teaching is crazy fun and crazy hard, all at the same time!!!  Now that I'm more settled in my schedule and have the time, let me tell you about my first week(s).

My First Day
Okay, so my first class was actually supposed to be on Tuesday morning (July 26th) at 10am.  However, the only students who signed up for that class were teachers from one of the schools where I was supposed to be teaching.  However, I was never given contact information for any of them, so I had no way of letting them know that the location of the classes had been changed.  But wait, let me back up for a minute...

Trials and Tribulations with My Bike. And Spanish

I think the problem with blogging, if there is one, is that it's easy to only write about the good times with the fun pictures and amazing events.  With that in mind, I thought I'd share a couple of my less fortunate moments while in CR.  Not that any of these are "bad" things...just less...exciting...(Actually the real reason I'm doing this post is because I told some of these stories to my mom and she thought they were so funny that I needed to blog about them. And by "funny," I mean my mom was able to laugh at me and my dorky moments.  I don't know if they will translate in writing, but here you go, nonetheless)

Also, for those of you who don't know me well, I should tell you that I am a total klutz.  If there is a table to run in to or a crack to trip over, I will end up with a bruised knee or a stubbed toe.  I'm just not one of those people who are graceful under pressure (or graceful in general), and this combined with potholes, gravel, crazy drivers, uneven sidewalks, etc. etc. etc. means that pretty much every day finds me stumbling over something.  So, this blog post is not about those day-to-day trials and tribulations that are only amplified by this new environment.  Instead, this post is about a few distinct moments where I was just literally an idiot.  (Yes, sometimes I also lack common sense...)