My next adventure of the summer was a research trip to the Dominican Republic! I was pretty excited to go and to get to use my Spanish. The trip itself was great, but I don't think I'll be going back anytime soon!
We stayed with host families in Santiago, and this time my host family was fantastic! The only issue was that the house didn't have water for about a week. Normally, this would be ok but this also meant no real shower for about a week. Add that to the fact that the Dominican Republic is the hottest place I've ever been and the fact I had to wear absurd amounts of bug spray to keep all the mosquitoes at bay, and you have one very unhappy me! Oh and did I mention that air conditioning is pretty much unheard of there? Yeah, not so fun! Luckily, the water did come back on before I left! Apparently a water main or something broke and they had a lot of trouble fixing it. We'd been warned electricity could be intermittent but not that the water could be as well! Funny thing is there was never a problem with the electricity while I was there! The other bad fact was that I was without internet for 2 weeks (or I would have posted quite a few blogs with all my free time!)
While we were there, we visited a lot of very poor places in order to conduct our research. I didn't exactly find what I was looking for in regards to my research, but I learned that I should be very grateful for what I had at my home stay because the people we visited did not even have that much. Every time I travel, I appreciate the fact that I'm from the U.S. even more! It is a really eye-opening experience to travel to third world countries and see how they live. We all take for granted things like air conditioning, hot running water, being able to flush toilet paper, and being able to drink the water out of the tap (even if people think Evansville's water tastes bad at least it won't make you sick!)
It was a really great experience to see those places though, because they are places that people don't normally go, not even the Dominicans. We went to a place called Batey Libertad and even though the people were poor, they were so happy and eager to help. They even sang and danced for us and were more than willing to do interviews. We all enjoyed our time there a lot. We visited another Batey, called Cerro Gordo and what we found there was very sad. There was a clear division between the Dominicans and the Haitians and the Haitians lived in huts near the back of the village and worked in the sugar cane fields. They were all reluctant to talk to us and most only spoke Creole so we didn't get many interviews but still gained valuable information. The people there told us that they didn't sing or make any music because the owner of the plantation didn't like them making a lot of noise. While these people weren't slaves, it was the closest thing I've ever seen to slavery and it makes me sad just to think about it.
Onto a lighter note, the "tourist" places we went to in the DR were great, I highly recommend 27 Charcos de Damajagua (27 waterfalls). It was one of the prettiest places I've ever been to in my life, plus I got to jump off/slide down 27 waterfalls! I didn't get any pictures as my camera isn't waterproof but it was definitely a great experience! We also got to see some pretty beaches as well, but the waterfalls were definitely my favorite!
Ok-well this is all for now! I leave for Belgium in 6 days and we're going to Paris as well! I will try to blog while I'm actually there this time and not weeks afterwards!
Thursday, July 7, 2011
A hostage situation in Greece
So in keeping with the spirit of my last post and the changing of this blog to "Adventures Abroad" instead of "Adventures in Costa Rica" I've realized that I've been slacking a bit and have since traveled to several countries without blogging about it. Since I'm supposed to be writing a 10 page paper right now, I figured there's no better way to procrastinate some more than to update my blogsite that no one reads anyway! Yay for procrastination!
Anyway- the first country I made it to this summer and didn't blog about was Greece! I've always wanted to go there so when a summer class option came up to get 6 credits and go to Greece I jumped on it! I was there from May 17th-May 30th and it was an amazing adventure! We went to the Acropolis and saw the Parthenon and a lot of other amazing ruins, but the real story everyone wants to hear about is how our group was held hostage on a ferry!
Nobody freak out or anything, it really sounds a lot cooler than it actually was! We were taking a boat from the port of Heraklion in Crete back to Athens after we'd spent several amazing days in Crete. The ferry was an overnight ferry and it was supposed to leave at 9pm but we could board at 6pm. Since we'd had to check out of our hotel at the regular checkout time, we ended up boarding right at 6pm. Luckily we did, or we may have been stuck in the port for a long time. Around 9pm, some anarchists that had been protesting all over Greece decided to take over the port and not let any ships leave. We were a little confused how they could stop the ferry from leaving because it's a huge ship and they were on shore. I figured the only way they could seriously threaten the ship was with bombs, which they more than likely had, but I guess I'll never know if they did for sure! Anyway, like I said, the ferry was huge and we had rooms on board so we were pretty comfortable while we waited. It took us until about 10:30pm to even realize we hadn't left the port yet. Then our professor came around and told us what was going on. She'd talked to the staff on the ship and they'd told her this had happened for the last three days and the night before they hadn't left until 3am.
The night before we'd been out eating dinner when we saw a protest going on. We asked our waiter about it and he told us that people were protesting the management of the local soccer team. Like stupid tourists, we fell for it. (Apparently Crete doesn't really have any soccer teams that are good enough for people to protest about the management) Though we had no problems dining not too far away from the protest and we'd even walked right through it earlier in the day. Turns out it was really about the austerity measures the government was attempting to impose and the horrible Greek economy that the EU was not bailing out like they did for Ireland and other countries.
Around midnight, we finally decided to go to bed because our rooms were the only place on the ship that didn't smell strongly of gas. We were a little worried that it smelled that strongly but the ship had been running and not going anywhere for too long and that is why it smelled so bad. I woke up when we finally left the port at 2:30am. This resulted in us missing our bus to Delphi as we got back to Athens much later than expected, but we also didn't have to get up at 5am to get off the ship. We got another bus to Delphi and no harm was done, though now I can say I've been held hostage!
So that's the whole story (sorry it wasn't more exciting!) Overall, Greece was AMAZING and I will go back someday because I really want to see more of the Greek Islands. We only made it to Crete and to Santorini. We weren't originally supposed to go to Santorini but we had a free day while we were in Crete so we hopped a boat to Santorini for the day. It was one of the best decisions I've ever made! Check facebook for pictures!
Anyway- the first country I made it to this summer and didn't blog about was Greece! I've always wanted to go there so when a summer class option came up to get 6 credits and go to Greece I jumped on it! I was there from May 17th-May 30th and it was an amazing adventure! We went to the Acropolis and saw the Parthenon and a lot of other amazing ruins, but the real story everyone wants to hear about is how our group was held hostage on a ferry!
Nobody freak out or anything, it really sounds a lot cooler than it actually was! We were taking a boat from the port of Heraklion in Crete back to Athens after we'd spent several amazing days in Crete. The ferry was an overnight ferry and it was supposed to leave at 9pm but we could board at 6pm. Since we'd had to check out of our hotel at the regular checkout time, we ended up boarding right at 6pm. Luckily we did, or we may have been stuck in the port for a long time. Around 9pm, some anarchists that had been protesting all over Greece decided to take over the port and not let any ships leave. We were a little confused how they could stop the ferry from leaving because it's a huge ship and they were on shore. I figured the only way they could seriously threaten the ship was with bombs, which they more than likely had, but I guess I'll never know if they did for sure! Anyway, like I said, the ferry was huge and we had rooms on board so we were pretty comfortable while we waited. It took us until about 10:30pm to even realize we hadn't left the port yet. Then our professor came around and told us what was going on. She'd talked to the staff on the ship and they'd told her this had happened for the last three days and the night before they hadn't left until 3am.
The night before we'd been out eating dinner when we saw a protest going on. We asked our waiter about it and he told us that people were protesting the management of the local soccer team. Like stupid tourists, we fell for it. (Apparently Crete doesn't really have any soccer teams that are good enough for people to protest about the management) Though we had no problems dining not too far away from the protest and we'd even walked right through it earlier in the day. Turns out it was really about the austerity measures the government was attempting to impose and the horrible Greek economy that the EU was not bailing out like they did for Ireland and other countries.
Around midnight, we finally decided to go to bed because our rooms were the only place on the ship that didn't smell strongly of gas. We were a little worried that it smelled that strongly but the ship had been running and not going anywhere for too long and that is why it smelled so bad. I woke up when we finally left the port at 2:30am. This resulted in us missing our bus to Delphi as we got back to Athens much later than expected, but we also didn't have to get up at 5am to get off the ship. We got another bus to Delphi and no harm was done, though now I can say I've been held hostage!
So that's the whole story (sorry it wasn't more exciting!) Overall, Greece was AMAZING and I will go back someday because I really want to see more of the Greek Islands. We only made it to Crete and to Santorini. We weren't originally supposed to go to Santorini but we had a free day while we were in Crete so we hopped a boat to Santorini for the day. It was one of the best decisions I've ever made! Check facebook for pictures!
Monday, August 2, 2010
The end of the journey!
Well folks, I'm back! Which means the end of this blog, at least for now!
I quit blogging there at the end, for some reason this website became very hard to access through my crappy internet connection so I didn't have the time or the patience to figure it out!
Quick recap of the last month or so...
I had a great trip to Panama where we saw beautiful islands, enjoyed the authentic hostel experience, and saw the Panama Canal, then I discovered my love of whitewater rafting and ancient ruins in Turrialba, CR with Deanna and had a very adventure filled trip to the Osa Peninsula in CR, also with Deanna (this involved waterfall rappelling with a guide named Scrappy, hitch hiking, delicious chocolate, and the craziest roads you'll ever see.)
If you want the full stories, just ask :)
I decided to change the name of the blog from "adventures in Costa Rica" to "Adventures Abroad" after traveling to Nicaragua and Panama, and decided I might as well keep this blog for when I begin my next adventure. I'm not sure when that will be, but I plan on traveling the world before I die so sometime in the future, expect more crazy adventure stories from around the world.
As for now, I'm perfectly content to live it up in the US for awhile :)
Hasta luego,
Chelsey
I quit blogging there at the end, for some reason this website became very hard to access through my crappy internet connection so I didn't have the time or the patience to figure it out!
Quick recap of the last month or so...
I had a great trip to Panama where we saw beautiful islands, enjoyed the authentic hostel experience, and saw the Panama Canal, then I discovered my love of whitewater rafting and ancient ruins in Turrialba, CR with Deanna and had a very adventure filled trip to the Osa Peninsula in CR, also with Deanna (this involved waterfall rappelling with a guide named Scrappy, hitch hiking, delicious chocolate, and the craziest roads you'll ever see.)
If you want the full stories, just ask :)
I decided to change the name of the blog from "adventures in Costa Rica" to "Adventures Abroad" after traveling to Nicaragua and Panama, and decided I might as well keep this blog for when I begin my next adventure. I'm not sure when that will be, but I plan on traveling the world before I die so sometime in the future, expect more crazy adventure stories from around the world.
As for now, I'm perfectly content to live it up in the US for awhile :)
Hasta luego,
Chelsey
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Dinner and a Ballet
Hola amigos!
This weekend has been pretty interesting. I stayed in San Jose for the third weekend in a row, but this weekend everyone else did too! On Friday night they had a ballet at the National Theater for $10! It was "La Sirenita" which translates to The Little Mermaid. I forgot that ballets don't have words but I guess that was a good thing because I didn't have to try to translate in my head. We did however have to read the program that was in Spanish to get some idea of what was going on even though we know the story. The ballet used a screen with images projected on it to tell most of the story but the way they used it was kind of hard to follow. We kept waiting for the prince to show up, but he only did on the screen. There wasn't a single male ballerina in the whole thing! After only about a half hour it was intermission and we were all surprised because not much had happened yet. Then we realized it was time for the switch to land to take place and figured that was why and the second half would be longer, only it wasn't! It was maybe an hour total and if I wouldn't have read the program I would have been lost! I did like it though, and we had fun getting dressed up and going!
Saturday, Kathleen and I finally decided to make dinner for our family. They've been wanting us to for awhile we just don't have time during the week and we're never both here on the weekends. We made Chicago style deep dish pizza, those pickle rolls with ham and cream cheese (which we've found out we're the only two Americans in our group that know what the heck those are!) and chocolate chip cookies! Everyone loved it and wanted to know how to make our ham and pickle things, they couldn't believe they were that easy! We ended up taking Deanna some of the pizza, a cookie, and some pickle rolls (because when we told her about the pickle rolls she thought they sounded disgusting) and she loved the pizza too! It did turn out really good, we made the dough ourselves and Kathleen even made the sauce too! And we measured everything for the dough by eye because they don't have measuring cups. Also they didn't have a pizza pan so we used glass pans. One of the glass pans already had a chip in it, and we ended up cracking it in half, oops! Our host family wasn't mad though. The pizza was supposed to go in at 500 degrees, but the oven only went to 300 so we cooked one in there and one in the toaster over which did go to 500 because both pans wouldn't fit in the tiny oven anyway. Only once we were putting the pizza on the table did we realize the numbers on the oven are in Celsius! But it all turned out ok because the pizza tasted great! I don't know how Mari manages to cook anything in that kitchen. The sink and stove and oven are all tiny and there's really no workspace, it's nuts! We also had to use a wine bottle for a rolling pin because they didn't have one. The only crazy part was we spent $60 on the ingredients, but it was for 8 people. Some of the people are supposed to chip in and pay us back for some of it, I really hope they do! We got a bag of mozzarella cheese for 9000 some colones....wait for it...that's about $16! Cheese is crazy expensive here, I miss it sooooo much! Dill pickles also weren't cheap, we've also missed them!
Anyway, our cooking adventure was successful!
Hasta luego,
Chelsey
This weekend has been pretty interesting. I stayed in San Jose for the third weekend in a row, but this weekend everyone else did too! On Friday night they had a ballet at the National Theater for $10! It was "La Sirenita" which translates to The Little Mermaid. I forgot that ballets don't have words but I guess that was a good thing because I didn't have to try to translate in my head. We did however have to read the program that was in Spanish to get some idea of what was going on even though we know the story. The ballet used a screen with images projected on it to tell most of the story but the way they used it was kind of hard to follow. We kept waiting for the prince to show up, but he only did on the screen. There wasn't a single male ballerina in the whole thing! After only about a half hour it was intermission and we were all surprised because not much had happened yet. Then we realized it was time for the switch to land to take place and figured that was why and the second half would be longer, only it wasn't! It was maybe an hour total and if I wouldn't have read the program I would have been lost! I did like it though, and we had fun getting dressed up and going!
Saturday, Kathleen and I finally decided to make dinner for our family. They've been wanting us to for awhile we just don't have time during the week and we're never both here on the weekends. We made Chicago style deep dish pizza, those pickle rolls with ham and cream cheese (which we've found out we're the only two Americans in our group that know what the heck those are!) and chocolate chip cookies! Everyone loved it and wanted to know how to make our ham and pickle things, they couldn't believe they were that easy! We ended up taking Deanna some of the pizza, a cookie, and some pickle rolls (because when we told her about the pickle rolls she thought they sounded disgusting) and she loved the pizza too! It did turn out really good, we made the dough ourselves and Kathleen even made the sauce too! And we measured everything for the dough by eye because they don't have measuring cups. Also they didn't have a pizza pan so we used glass pans. One of the glass pans already had a chip in it, and we ended up cracking it in half, oops! Our host family wasn't mad though. The pizza was supposed to go in at 500 degrees, but the oven only went to 300 so we cooked one in there and one in the toaster over which did go to 500 because both pans wouldn't fit in the tiny oven anyway. Only once we were putting the pizza on the table did we realize the numbers on the oven are in Celsius! But it all turned out ok because the pizza tasted great! I don't know how Mari manages to cook anything in that kitchen. The sink and stove and oven are all tiny and there's really no workspace, it's nuts! We also had to use a wine bottle for a rolling pin because they didn't have one. The only crazy part was we spent $60 on the ingredients, but it was for 8 people. Some of the people are supposed to chip in and pay us back for some of it, I really hope they do! We got a bag of mozzarella cheese for 9000 some colones....wait for it...that's about $16! Cheese is crazy expensive here, I miss it sooooo much! Dill pickles also weren't cheap, we've also missed them!
Anyway, our cooking adventure was successful!
Hasta luego,
Chelsey
Friday, May 21, 2010
Earthquake
Ok, so as some of you have probably already heard from the form of my facebook status or mom's (which apparently caused a bit of a panic back in Robinson) there was an earthquake here yesterday! I was laying on my bed on my computer and my bed started moving, at first it felt like there was someone underneath my bed trying to scare me then I realized my clothes were swinging back and forth in the closet!
It wasn't near as bad as the one that woke me up in the middle of the night in Illinois a couple of years back, and it didn't scare me at all! My host family freaked out though, Kathleen didn't even feel it! Everyone made a huge deal out of it but I thought they were being kinda silly!
Turns out it hit off the pacific cost of Costa Rica and was actually a 6.3 quake! We only felt slight shaking though and as far as I've heard it didn't cause any damage or anything, so no need to worry, I'm just fine!
Tonight we're going to watch a contemporary ballet of The Little Mermaid at Teatro Nacional! I'm really excited and I'll tell you guys all about it soon!
Love,
me
It wasn't near as bad as the one that woke me up in the middle of the night in Illinois a couple of years back, and it didn't scare me at all! My host family freaked out though, Kathleen didn't even feel it! Everyone made a huge deal out of it but I thought they were being kinda silly!
Turns out it hit off the pacific cost of Costa Rica and was actually a 6.3 quake! We only felt slight shaking though and as far as I've heard it didn't cause any damage or anything, so no need to worry, I'm just fine!
Tonight we're going to watch a contemporary ballet of The Little Mermaid at Teatro Nacional! I'm really excited and I'll tell you guys all about it soon!
Love,
me
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Inauguration, Taco Bell, and a movie!
Hola!
Today was the inauguration of the first woman president of Costa Rica! Since we happened to be here for this moment of history we decided we had to go see it in person! So on the first day we've had to sleep in for months, we got up early and went to the huge park downtown where they were holding the inauguration ceremony. We had to take the bus to downtown San Jose then catch another to the park. We figured the one to the park would be crazy busy but we got on the first one that came and it wasn't even packed. We got to the park and the people who were directing us where to go kept telling us different directions, finally we found a really nice girl who asked us where our tickets were. We didn't have any, they were free I think they were just on a first come-first served basis of what color section you got to sit it. She could tell we were confused so she just told us to wait there and brought us back three tickets in the red section! Turns out we lucked out with that cause the red section was pretty close and we actually got seats! There were also free hats/visors on our seats! They were handing out free umbrellas too but I didn't manage to get one, too bad because we were forced to sit and back in the sun for hours and none of us even thought to put on sunscreen. Suffice it to say, I have the worst sunburn I've even had in my life. My whole front side is a nice shade of tomato red, and even the tops of my hands are burnt, and my face as well. During the inauguration there were all sorts of tipical Costa Rican performers, dancers and an ox-cart with real oxen on stage and the huge "gigantes" which are like big puppets with people inside and it was really cool! I have pics up on facebook! The sung the national anthem and everyone chanted for the out going president and there were people there from all over the world, presidents, princes, and princesses and they all got introduced! I thought it was amazing, but my host family didn't seem to like it too much (they watched on tv.) I guess they thought all the performers and stuff was in bad taste and it stayed too far from tradition, but they're old so maybe that's why I liked it and they didn't!
After the inauguration, we figured again that the buses would be crazy and it'd take forever to get out so we left a little before it actually ended (but everyone else did too!) and were surprised to find the bus we needed just pulling up so we got on! We were starving so when we got to San Jose we decided to try McDonald's here for the first time just to compare but it was packed so we went to Taco Bell instead. I ordered a chalupa, and they asked if I wanted a combo and I said yes but since the sign said combos came with fries I asked for nachos instead. Apparently chips and cheese nachos you normally would expect from taco bell don't exist but they do have french fries. Also, I forgot a Taco Bell combo includes a taco so I ended up with my chicken chalupa, nachos supremes (with beef) and a beef hard taco (we also think they don't have soft tacos for some reason...) The really funny thing is they gave me the nacho supreme for the same price as a regular combo! I picked the beef off and it was all good, way more food than I wanted but it turned out ok cause it looks like I'm not getting dinner for some reason, but I'm not really hungry anyway!
After the Taco Bell experience, we came home and rested for awhile and applied aloe to our sunburns then decided to go see Bounty Hunter at the nearby mall. They have movies in English, subtitled in Spanish so it was great and cost less than $4! We took a taxi there because it was dark and needed to take a taxi back. I wasn't worried about this because there are always a ton of taxis near the mall. When we got out a lot of the taxi drivers were out of their cars and talking and there was a group of younger ones that was joking around and told us it'd be 2000 colones to take us where we wanted to go. Since we've taken taxis from the mall a couple times before we knew it was actually around 900 and they're supposed to have meters so they don't normally tell you how much it will be ahead of time unless you ask. They were also calling us all sorts of names and whistling and stuff so we were a lot freaked out, told them no and walked back into the mall. We also didn't see any ticos taking these taxis so we weren't exactly sure what to do, we had to take one of them! So we waited for awhile and headed back out, and on the other side of the mall there were taxis and none of the drivers were yelling or anything so we got one of those with an old driver and he took us home and charged us the correct amount! I was really scared for awhile cause we almost had no other choice than to take the sketchy driver and over pay. Lesson learned, taxis at night are not the same as taxis during the day especially if you're taking one from that mall! But, I was also reminded that there are a crap ton of taxis are if you look you're likely to find one that you like, there were literally probably 20 or more taxis around the mall!
Now I'm exhausted and sunburnt like no other so I'm going to attempt to find a comfortable sleeping position, we'll see how that goes!
Hasta luego,
Chelsey
Today was the inauguration of the first woman president of Costa Rica! Since we happened to be here for this moment of history we decided we had to go see it in person! So on the first day we've had to sleep in for months, we got up early and went to the huge park downtown where they were holding the inauguration ceremony. We had to take the bus to downtown San Jose then catch another to the park. We figured the one to the park would be crazy busy but we got on the first one that came and it wasn't even packed. We got to the park and the people who were directing us where to go kept telling us different directions, finally we found a really nice girl who asked us where our tickets were. We didn't have any, they were free I think they were just on a first come-first served basis of what color section you got to sit it. She could tell we were confused so she just told us to wait there and brought us back three tickets in the red section! Turns out we lucked out with that cause the red section was pretty close and we actually got seats! There were also free hats/visors on our seats! They were handing out free umbrellas too but I didn't manage to get one, too bad because we were forced to sit and back in the sun for hours and none of us even thought to put on sunscreen. Suffice it to say, I have the worst sunburn I've even had in my life. My whole front side is a nice shade of tomato red, and even the tops of my hands are burnt, and my face as well. During the inauguration there were all sorts of tipical Costa Rican performers, dancers and an ox-cart with real oxen on stage and the huge "gigantes" which are like big puppets with people inside and it was really cool! I have pics up on facebook! The sung the national anthem and everyone chanted for the out going president and there were people there from all over the world, presidents, princes, and princesses and they all got introduced! I thought it was amazing, but my host family didn't seem to like it too much (they watched on tv.) I guess they thought all the performers and stuff was in bad taste and it stayed too far from tradition, but they're old so maybe that's why I liked it and they didn't!
After the inauguration, we figured again that the buses would be crazy and it'd take forever to get out so we left a little before it actually ended (but everyone else did too!) and were surprised to find the bus we needed just pulling up so we got on! We were starving so when we got to San Jose we decided to try McDonald's here for the first time just to compare but it was packed so we went to Taco Bell instead. I ordered a chalupa, and they asked if I wanted a combo and I said yes but since the sign said combos came with fries I asked for nachos instead. Apparently chips and cheese nachos you normally would expect from taco bell don't exist but they do have french fries. Also, I forgot a Taco Bell combo includes a taco so I ended up with my chicken chalupa, nachos supremes (with beef) and a beef hard taco (we also think they don't have soft tacos for some reason...) The really funny thing is they gave me the nacho supreme for the same price as a regular combo! I picked the beef off and it was all good, way more food than I wanted but it turned out ok cause it looks like I'm not getting dinner for some reason, but I'm not really hungry anyway!
After the Taco Bell experience, we came home and rested for awhile and applied aloe to our sunburns then decided to go see Bounty Hunter at the nearby mall. They have movies in English, subtitled in Spanish so it was great and cost less than $4! We took a taxi there because it was dark and needed to take a taxi back. I wasn't worried about this because there are always a ton of taxis near the mall. When we got out a lot of the taxi drivers were out of their cars and talking and there was a group of younger ones that was joking around and told us it'd be 2000 colones to take us where we wanted to go. Since we've taken taxis from the mall a couple times before we knew it was actually around 900 and they're supposed to have meters so they don't normally tell you how much it will be ahead of time unless you ask. They were also calling us all sorts of names and whistling and stuff so we were a lot freaked out, told them no and walked back into the mall. We also didn't see any ticos taking these taxis so we weren't exactly sure what to do, we had to take one of them! So we waited for awhile and headed back out, and on the other side of the mall there were taxis and none of the drivers were yelling or anything so we got one of those with an old driver and he took us home and charged us the correct amount! I was really scared for awhile cause we almost had no other choice than to take the sketchy driver and over pay. Lesson learned, taxis at night are not the same as taxis during the day especially if you're taking one from that mall! But, I was also reminded that there are a crap ton of taxis are if you look you're likely to find one that you like, there were literally probably 20 or more taxis around the mall!
Now I'm exhausted and sunburnt like no other so I'm going to attempt to find a comfortable sleeping position, we'll see how that goes!
Hasta luego,
Chelsey
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Update!
Ok everyone, I know you're not gonna like this, but instead of returning to the States June 26th as originally planned, I will now be returning July 24!
This is because mom, Hayley, and Shelby won't be getting here until July 17th and staying through the 24th. Since I really, really want to go to Panama and visit the canal before I leave Central America and it takes more than a weekend to get to the canal and back I needed to stay past my original plane ticket for June 26th and since it costs quite a bit to change it I'm just going to stay here until I leave with them!
So I'll be going to Panama for about a week after school gets out on June 25th and I'll be there for my birthday! Then depending on who I can find to do things with I'll either travel around CR, or find a place to volunteer at for two weeks here in San Jose!
My host family said I can stay with them longer, so at least I've got housing figured out!
It cost a lot more than I wanted to change my ticket so now my budget is squeezed really tight, but I guess I'll figure it out.
Hasta luego,
Me
This is because mom, Hayley, and Shelby won't be getting here until July 17th and staying through the 24th. Since I really, really want to go to Panama and visit the canal before I leave Central America and it takes more than a weekend to get to the canal and back I needed to stay past my original plane ticket for June 26th and since it costs quite a bit to change it I'm just going to stay here until I leave with them!
So I'll be going to Panama for about a week after school gets out on June 25th and I'll be there for my birthday! Then depending on who I can find to do things with I'll either travel around CR, or find a place to volunteer at for two weeks here in San Jose!
My host family said I can stay with them longer, so at least I've got housing figured out!
It cost a lot more than I wanted to change my ticket so now my budget is squeezed really tight, but I guess I'll figure it out.
Hasta luego,
Me
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