Home again and home again...America for me!
August 8, 2008
The Final Journal Entry
Well, the journey has now ended. By the time this is posted, I will be home. It takes me forever to download the pics, so I probably won’t get to post this before I leave. But as I type this, I look around in my room in the wonderful Sabanilla neighborhood near San Pedro and wish that I had more time. Who knew three weeks ago when I was crying over missing my family and friends that I would be sad about leaving? This experience has been a lot of fun, and, ironically enough, my last week has been one of the best. So I just wanted to fill you all in on a teeny bit of the school experience (because I haven’t really talked about that) and take the time to recognize all of the new friends I’ve made in Costa Rica and say “Thank you” to them for making my trip an enjoyable learning experience.
WEEK 1
The first week in Costa Rica was difficult and confusing and frustrating. I had a headache most of the time from trying to figure out what was being said to me and trying to remember which flippin’ verb tenses to use all of the time. My first teacher at the Costa Rica Language Academy (CRLA) was Sylvia. She was very sweet and smart and helped me survive my first week. My other two classmates were Constance (from Germany) and Maggie (from Wisconsin), who were both awesome, sweet people. I also met Shauna (a California girl), who was to become my hang-out buddy for the two weeks she was in Costa Rica, and Tobias, from Austria, who I just spoke to a couple of times until he became my hangout buddy the last weekend he was at the school.
(l-r) Maggie, Sylvia, and Constance
Shauna
Tobias
WEEK 2
The second week was also a bit strange because I switched teachers. My second teacher was José Miguel. He was a new teacher, I think, and fairly young. But he was very good and I stayed with him for three weeks. Constance and Maggie left at the end of the week. We also had two new classmates…Johannes and Jenny, both from Germany. They irritated me at first because they would talk a lot while José was trying to teach. I was pretty ticked off, actually. I did ask them nicely once if they could stop talking. Sigh… I guess you never stop being a teacher, huh? I also met a man named Dana who was pretty cool. He was a very nice guy from Michigan, I think. Or was it some other state…I dunno…I think I’m mixing people up. Whatever…he was good people, wherever he was from.
(l-r) Maggie, Jenny, Johannes, José, Constance
Dana
WEEK 3
Week three was tough because Shauna left at the end of week two. I was feeling all lonely again. I did meet another very sweet girl…Alexandra, or Alex, as she liked to be called. She was from Cali and I think she was 16 or 17 years old. I met her while waiting in line for lunch. She was standing behind me and we started talking. I think it was a day or two later when she sat with me at lunch. I stayed with José as my teacher and, along with Johannes, got two other classmates. Diana was from Minnesota, I think and Emma was from England. Diana liked to talk…a lot…but not while José was talking. The class was interesting, but something felt a bit off about that week…at least in school. I ventured out to a fairly big mall called Terra Mall and went to see a movie by myself. I saw Batman: The Dark Knight, which was amazing. It was in English with Spanish subtitles, which, of course, I ignored. It was suggested that I go see a dubbed movie so that I can practice my Spanish, but I really didn’t want to do that. I had been looking forward to seeing the movie too much to risk missing something important because I couldn’t translate properly. The main reason is that I wanted to see and hear Heath Ledger’s final performance, not some unfamiliar voice-over. I did, however, watch dubbed TV shows. Nothing is funnier than watching CSI: Miami with a dubbed voice saying Caruso’s lines in Spanish. I have to admit, whoever is voicing Horatio has a voice very similar to David C. But it isn’t quite the same. Funnier…but not the same. I also continued to have friendly chats with Tobias and Dana.
Alex
Terra Mall
WEEK 4
This was the week when things started to turn around for me. I started relaxing enough to have fun. I was getting better with my Spanish, so I wasn’t so tense and scared about going out and interacting with others. We lost Johannes and Diana to other classes, so it was just Emma and me in the class with José. I found out Wednesday that I was going to be getting a new teacher for the last week of school. I’m not ashamed to say that I had a minor pout about it…well…okay, I had a major pout about it. I was used to José and I didn’t want to have to get used to someone new in my last week. I also found out that I would be in the same class as Johannes again, which cheered me up slightly. I had started feeling a bit fond of Johannes in week 3, so I was sorta glad he was going to be there. But still!! Not happy about making changes!! I did meet another person - Kara. I actually forgot where Kara is from. Kara, Alex, Dana, another girl named Stephanie, and I went to the opera together to see Faust, which I wrote about in a previous journal. I also did the bungee-watching thing with Tobi in week 4 and got to know Profesor Sergio…he of the beautiful hair. I tried to get José to go with us, but he couldn’t make it. But all in all, I did have fun in week 4. But I thought my last week was going to be sad again because Dana, Kara, Alex, and Tobi all left at the end of week 4. Dana and Kara were going home, I think, and Alex and Tobi were off to work as volunteers in other parts of the country. Sigh…
Kara (on the left) with her teacher
Sergio
Jose and Emma
WEEK 5
Of course, week 5 was my best week. Isn’t it funny how that works? I was not looking forward to the last week, except for Saturday’s return home. By Thursday, I was crying in class (and makin’ the boys squirm) cuz I didn’t want to go yet. Weird, huh? I was in a class taught by Halina, a 12-year teaching veteran. She was (and still is!) an amazing teacher. I had nothing but good things to say about her on the evaluation. I also had Johannes in the class and a guy I hadn’t met before - a Texan named Cannon. I absolutely adore Cannon. I wanted to choke him half the time, but he, along with Johannes, made me laugh more in that one week than I had the whole time I was down there. They were such goofballs…yet we learned SO much in that week. Halina was actually pretty strict in terms of not letting us speak ANY English. If there was a Spanish word that we didn’t know, she would define it for us in Spanish until we knew what it was. She really cracked the whip, but she also let us laugh and have fun. I was older than everyone in the class (although I only had Halina by a couple of years) but it was the first time that I didn’t feel like it. See, during the course of the time I was there, I was very much aware that the vast majority of the students there were in their very early 20’s. But in the class that last week, I didn’t really notice that Cannon was 25 and Johannes was 19 (actually, he’s very mature for his age and I never would have placed him at 19). I just had fun and laughed. In fact, the last day, I was stricken with an ataque de risa, which basically meant that I was laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe. Of course, something like that sets everyone off, so we were all laughing like a pack of hyenas in that room. Halina had tears in her eyes. I don’t even remember what set me off…I think Johannes made a face or something silly. It wasn’t even that funny, but at that point, it was either laugh or cry with me, so I chose the former. The Tejano is a complete bobo, which is Spanish for goofball, basically. He joked around a lot and his Spanish with the Texas accent was incredibly cute to me. I just adored “my boys” and we had a blast the last week. Halina told me that we had good chemistry in the class and she was going to miss me next week. Sigh… I miss them already! All of these pictures are from our last silly day.
Hard at work...until the laughter starts!
(l-r) Profesora Halina, Cannon, and Johannes
Boys will be boys!
Yay...there's me!! With Halina...
...and with Cannon...
...and Johannes!
Well, this journal and the previous ones pretty much sum up my Costa Rican adventure. I already plan on returning next year, although I am going to desperately attempt to get someone to go with me. I can’t end this without once again saying how incredible fantastic my host family has been. Ana Victoria, her husband Mario, and their daughter Natalia have all taken such good care of me and made me feel like a part of the family. I have been so blessed to stay with this wonderful familia and live with them for a while in their beautiful home. I never felt unwelcome, even when I was a bit confused and frustrated when I first arrived. I even forgive Alex (Natalia's boyfriend) for taking me on the long walk to the cow pasture. Down the steep, rock filled dirt path. In sandals. In the rain. If I do return to Costa Rica, I am totally going to ask to stay with the same family.
Ana and Mario
Natalia and Alex
I hope you all enjoyed reading about my experience. If you haven’t written a response to me, please do and let me know what you thought! And if you want to see more pictures, especially from the last few entries, let me know. I was having trouble with the pictures, so I didn’t show all of them…or even most of them. I have a lot of pretty pictures from the journal right before this one, so if you want to see them, tell me and I can email them to ya!
Thanks a lot for reading and I’m looking forward to seeing you all back in the States. ¡Dios los bendice!