So I really should be writing things down more, but I am extremely lazy.  I know a lot has been happening and I want to remember it so here is a brief over view of life lately.  When we got back from the guanacaste trip we still had the weekend of Semana Santa so I had the opportunity to see the processions in cartago.  We went to watch the processions at noon on holy Friday.  We could here the processions all the way a few blocks away at the house because they had drums.  By the time we arrived the street was already full of onlookers.  Everyone was dressed nicely in summer dresses, or shorts.  I felt very hot and out of place in my jeans.  This is like the first time that I had seen such a high percent of people wearing shorts out of the house, it's normally almost exclusively jeans despite how hot it may be in the afternoon.  There was also a vender selling crushed ice with fruit syrup, condensed milk and milk powder.  It's kind of like a Costa Rican slushy, but sickeningly sweet it almost tastes like overly sweet medicine (not my favorite).  The drumming got louder as the procession advanced.  It was lead by rows of "Jews" as the people here called them.  People dressed up in what looked like roman costumes to me.  The had drums and were marching forward with extremely serious faces.  They were organized by age with the oldest ( some white haired gentleman) towards the front and going to the youngest ( ending with some kids who probably were about 7 or so).  In between there were some guys in my high school who looked mildly embarrassed as they marched, they were less in character than some of the older men, who were marching exaggeratedly in front.  Further back in the procession you could see the imitation of Jesus bobbing up and down as they walked.  I took a video of the whole thing.  The soldiers were followed by some women and eventually Jesus. They all finally arrived at a cross parrelel to the church and reanacted the crucifixion.  Shortly after we walked to my host grandmas house where a lot of the family was gathered for lunch.  Lunch was based heavily on mariscos or seafood as they don't eat meat on holy Friday.  As a matter of fact I don't think they are actually supposed to eat meat for the entire week which is why they eat a lot of seafood then.  This however isn't very strictly adhered to, as they love meat here.  That night I went to processions again with some of my cousins.  Now they reanacted the burial of Christ.  They took the life sized Christ doll from the cross and a extremely emotional woman cried and sobbed over him.  I have a feeling she wasn't able to talk the next morning because she was practically screaming her lines.  Lets just say she got very into her role.  The soldiers then walked all the way around the block with the body and brought it to the tomb.  This entire thing lasted for like two hours.  It was very interesting to see.  My cousins told me that it is always the same every year.  Then that Sunday I went to San Jose to the children's museum with my family which was very nice.  Afterwards we went to Walmart which is pretty much the same as in the USA although I really haven't  been to Walmart enough to remember what it's like.  Monday school began again.  Friday i slept over at my exchange student friends house. We went out to eat to celebrate her moms birthday, then went back to her house and made brownies with ice cream and strawberries and watched a movie.  The next morning we had brownies and ice cream for breakfast before we left to go to the birthday party of her 1 year old host cousin.  For the occasion the family had rented a ranch, with a nice view overlooking Agua Caliente.  Everything was decorated and they even rented a bouncy house kind of thing for the kids to play on.  They had a variety of dishes brought out slowly throughout the afternoon.  They also had a piñata in the afternoon.  It was almost all adults who were there.  The party was supposed to start at 10 but we got there at 11 and hardly anyone showed up till after 12.  Then on Sunday we had a picnic with afs in cartago.  All of the exchange students had to bring a dish from their county.  I made baked Mac and cheese, with cheddar cheese which is very pricey here.  There are a lot of German students, one Swiss, Icelandic, Italian, Hungarian and me.  Tomorrow I am leaving for San Jose, and Thursday for guanacaste for a trip with afs.  Luckily since school even in Costa Rica is getting very boring.

Vacation part 2

The afternoon after we went ziplining ingas host aunt and grandma took us to a repression in the river to go swimming.  The water was very tranquil and cold which was refreshing after the heat of the day ( although monteverde where we went ziplining had been chilly).  To get there we walked through a path in the woods.  It seemed like it was in the middle of nowhere but when we got there there was already a family swimming.  They were very white and blond and were speaking English this was a little surprising giving the remoteness of where we were.  We just got in the water and started swimming as well, and I had to ask if they were from the US as well.  Funnily enough they were originally from Minnesota but had lived in Costa Rica for the past 6 years with their three small children.  The littlest looked about three and was talking a mixture of English and Spanish.  The zipline place as well had been over run by foreigners.  Largely Germans as well as a school group from the US.  Before our swim we had also helped the aunt to make empanadas filled with some syrupy sticky and very fiberous fruit, which was a dark brown, unfortunately I don't remember the name.  That night after dinner we drove 45 minutes through curvy gravel roads to pools.  They were naturally warm fed by volcanic water or something like that.  It was lovely.  We didn't get there till 8:30 or 9 and it was totally dark.  We were the only ones there plus the workers.  There were candles on the sides of the pools and a huge full moon above.  There were four different pools ranging from degrees of hotness. I think 33-45 degrees celcius.  The air was also extremely hot.  We just relaxed in the pools which were fairly small and a worker brought us drinks.  I had a fresco natural de mango, which is pretty much like blended mango and juice ( the fruit juices are heavenly here).  There was also a sauna if you cared to get any hotter, and a shower which was "cold" in comparison.  The next morning after another extremely hearty breakfast of gallo pinto and tortillas we set off for guanacaste.    There is nothing that keeps you full like gallo pinto its like a brick in your stomach especially when paired with homemade tortillas.  We drove for what seemed like forever and crossed a bridge over a muddy dries up inlet of ocean.  Guanacaste looked like death, the grass is all dry and the trees look dry too.  Some of the hills are blackened from forest fires.  We drove through Santa Cruz a small yet sprawling looking town.  Eventually we came to Potrero which doesn't look like a town just a few streets in the woods.  We dropped our stuff off at the house we stayed at there and got on our swim suits.  From there we drove to playa brasilito.  Here we ate lunch at one of the sodas clustered on the edge of the beach. The road closed by is also lined wih tents selling beach trinkets like bracelets.  The soda was full of foriegners.  The lady that served us was obviously from the states.  I have gotten very good at recognizing the thick American accent that I too have when talking in Spanish.  The lady we learned was from Chicago originally and had moved to Costa Rica to open the resturaunt with her husband and small son.  The entire family of her husband had also come along for the ride and were all living near by in Costa Rica.  She explained that they were from Indiana and there is nothing in Indiana so why not.  Apart from the resturaunt they had also opened up a fishing or boat tours.  Her Spanish was still not perfect and it was nice to hear someone make the same mistakes I do every day in Spanish.  People from the states have very obvious accents in Spanish, they just let there words flow together and we like to separate them and make everything sound more harsh, I can hear my own accent but in the time I have left I doubt I'll ever be able to get rid of it.   As we were sitting eating lunch ingas host mom spotted some of our other exchange student friends who just happened to be at the same beach going to the same soda.  We talked for them then headed to the beach brasilito which was beautiful with warm water.  The surf was perfect for body surfing gentle but potent enough to carry you a little ways.  After a while we drove to conchal beach.  Which is white and made completely out of shells.  It's gorgeous wih clear turquoise water.  Here we spent the afternoon with the other students.  The next day inga and i took a walk in the morning.  we saw a gormeous bird with a long vivid blue tail, we also heard what i think was a monkey.  it sounded like a dying dog, but it was coming from the trees, at any rate ehatever it was didnt sound too friendly.  after breakfast at the same soda as the day before we went to use the swimming pool at a hotel on flamingo beach.  A friend of the husband of ingas host mom had gotten us in for the day.  It was the most luxurious hotel I have evr been to, and was full of foriegners.  In the center was a huge pool with a bar so that you could order drinks and food and eat them on stools in the pool.  There were a also photographers that were just hanging around taking pictures of everyone to try and sell at the end of the day.  One came up to us and started a photoshoot session directing us to do all these different poses.  He was Italian and his Spanish wasn't perfect because he just had two months in Costa Rica.  Ingas host mom bought a cd of a few of the pictures.  We sun bathed slathered in sun block 50%, and got drinks in the pool.  We later went to the beach to meet another exchange student a friend of ingas who is also from Iceland.  We went back to the hotel and bought lunch the.  Returned to the beach.  I wasn't quite as enthusiastic about the ocean after it was on the news the day before that sharks were spotted on a nearby beach the day before.  The surf was also very powerful.  The waves were way bigger and the ocean a little colder.  Although we were in fairly shallow water when the waves came you were swept completely off your feet aand it suddenly got very deep.  If you ended up in the wrong spot the whole thing crashed over you shoving you down which kind of hurt.  We eventually just went I walk on the beach.  It's one of the more touristy beaches on the far side there are mansions which belong to foriegners.  As we were walking some guy came up behind me and gave me a hairtie.  I was like I didn't drop this and he was like no its a gift it was really wierd..  Then we walked
for about a mile trying to find an ice cream shop mislead by long directions and a typical guanacaste under estimation of distances.  That night our Icelandic exchange student friend also stayed the night.  They talked a lot in Icelandic, which is a very interesting language to listen to.  In the morning we went to breakfast at the house of a friend of ingas mom.  The house was lovel.  I got to listen to them talk politics and my friends talk Icelandic so all in all not the most exciting morning.  Then it was a long trip back to cartago in car.  We stopped for lunch in puntarenas at a sea food resturaunt which was practically overflowing with people.  Everyone was heading for the beach as we were coming back.  Here in puntarenas it was more ticos rather than foreign tourists as these beaches are closer to the more densely populated central regions.  I tried shrimp on my spaghetti for the first time, it was interesting.  It was a great couple of days and I feel like I know more of Costa Rica now.  School starts again tomorrow...

Vacation part one.. Monteverde

This week I have had my much anticipated vacation.   Semana Santa has finally arrived and it has been great to get a break from school and well my life in general.  My host parents went to cancun Mexico for vacation so I spent most of the week with my friend Sigurlaug from Iceland.  I left for her house on Saturday because my host parents were leaving that day.  I took with me a huge backpack stuffed with all the clothes I would need and then I took the public bus.  I have never felt more like a gringa I looked as touristy as it gets with a huge orange backpack that they lent me.  I could hardly fit through the isle and the bus was pretty full, getting off I pretty much lunged off the bus.   Later one of my school friends told me he saw me with my bag on the bus... Great just shows you I was pretty easy to spot.  I walked to her house and stayed the night there, we walked around in cartago, then went back to her house and watched American movies in English, and ate watermelon it was awesome.  The next day after another movie and a lazy morning, we left to go pick up a cake from her grandmas house and brother from San Jose before the adventure began.  Her brother is thirteen and loves videa games, he was at an anime convention in a suburb in the far side of San Jose.  It felt like it took years to get there because the traffic was so backed up.  We headed off again after getting McDonald's for lunch.  I have actually found one non disgusting thing on the menu so I always get green salad.  A long day in the car awaited us, but I enjoyed the view of endless rolling mountains, with the windows down and some melodramatic ballad in the back ground.  The main roads in Costa Rica are pretty good, although a little slow due to curves and up and down, until you get to guanacaste there is no such thing as flat.   Eventually we reached our destination a town which looked more like several houses and a pulperia peeping out if jungle.  Her it was hot and sticky.  As we were driving by we saw the family we planned to stay with were at a baby shower so we joined them.  We were offered ice cold coke which was refreshing, and were offered sea food rice, and rice pooding.  Inga and I walked around and saw a big black monkey in a tree, as well as a mango tree.  We got to the house and dropped off our stuff before heading to the river.  The aunt and grandma showed us though way across a somewhat sketchy hanging cable bridge.  The whole thing swung gentle from side to side as you walked and the wood looked questionably old I held tight to the cable.  The river wasn't too deep as we are at the peak of the dry season, although we were told it is very dangerous in the rainy season able to take down trees, and splashing the bridge which now stood a good 15ft above it.  At this time of year though it hardly hit my waste, but the cold water felt nice.  The current was still strong enough though to make walking up river a struggle paired with the slimy rocks it was a challenge.  We walked up to some rapids and slid down them letting the current carry us over the rocks.  It was a lot of fun and worth the shorts I probably ruined with green stains.  That night we went out to a resturaunt and got to experience an annoying guanacaste and puntarenas "tradition".  There were men at the resturaunt drinking and they would just do this weird scream/whoop thing ever few minutes.  It's honestly the most annoying noise I have ever heard.  What shocked me was that nobody kicked them out of the resturaunt although it was extremely rude.  Apparently it's a tradition for men here to whoop when the are happy but was very annoying for everyone else at the resturaunt.  The next day the grandma made tortillas and gallo pinto for breakfast.  The tortillas were homemade a thick mix of cornmeal and water hand patted into a circle and fried on the skillet.  We left for monteverde, along winding steep gravel roads with an incredible view.  Puntarenas was much drier than cartago, with yellow hills from dry grass.  Monte verde however was much lusher.  We went to do canopy.  Canopy was 2 hours of various ziplines including What is supposedly the "longest zipline in Latin America".   This was superman style on your stomache about 200 ft up crossing a valley.  It was about 1500 meters and very fast.  The view was gorgeous although I struggled to enjoy it.n  I could only focus on hoping I would make it to the other side.  I enjoyed the canopy style ziplines better where you could sit up and hold on the the rope and the cable behind me.  Although it was probably just as dangerous it was comforting to be able to hang on to something.  The forest there was just like it had been in the numerous nature movies of my childhood and wish I had had time to enjoy it more.  Although it was awesome being able to see it from above monte verde is defiantly somewhere I would love to go back to.

Mercado municipal..

Today I went to the main market in Costa Rica with my host dad and sister.  I love going to the market, there is such an abundance of color and smells (not all of them good).   First we went to buy fruit.  When they buy fruit here they go all out.  Two HUGE bags practically overflowing, and so heavy I could hardly lift them.  There are all these tropical fruits, some that I have never heard or seen before I will never learn all the names.  Then we went to the market indoors.  In the US this market would be illegal.  It's a health hazard.  The meat is sitting out unpackaged on ice and to give it to you the venders use their fingers without gloves.  The stands of meat smell disgusting.  It has a low ceiling and is very crowded there are people walking around selling what I think are raffle tickets.  In the meat shops the sell long strands of sausages all linked together that must be like three feet long and when someone wants sausages they chop off a piece.  The same stands sell cheese and eggs.  The eggs are just sitting out and are in flats they aren't sold in cartons, if you buy 1kl the give it to you in a little plastic bag, or if you buy more they'll give you the whole flat.  The cheese is also in huge blocks and they will take a knife cut off a hunk of the type you want stick it in a plastic bag and give it to you.  There are also little bakeries and sodas ( or little resturaunts).  We went to a soda and had delicious sanfwiches for lunch.  Cheese with egg torte and lettuce and tomato with is grilled its delicious.  Also some sort of juice which is brownish in color and tastes like some unknown fruit.  This is great for me, before coming here i was a total germaphobe and now I am learning to just eat whatever.  I also tried a spoonful of som scary looking fish soup. It was cold and they poured ketchup and mayonese on top.  I thought it would be something i woulnt like but it wasn't even that bad, it tasted more like lime than anything.

My last post turned into a bit of a rant.  This is just an example of how United Statesish I am.  to generalize we don't like double standards and tend to question authority, and are not afraid to criticize everything.  I would like to say that despite the faults in my school here, I enjoy it much more than in the US.  It's more relaxed more breaks, everything is more chill.  And some of the classes are interesting and all are great for learning Spanish.  As I was talking saying People from the US criticize everything that isn't the case so much here.  People say everything is lindo, or almost everyone is buena gente ( unless they are gossiping which hey also do a lot).   Coming from the US as much as we all love our country we aren't afraid to bash it every so often and will be the first ones to admit all its flaws.  Costa Ricans tend to describe their country more positively ( they are very proud to be from this beautiful country :D ) so I have to be careful when I am talking about the USA when I am negative about it they'll think it's a bad place or that I don't like it when the opposite is true.  Today I was very sad to see on the news the fort hood shooting.  It's scary to see this kind of news about your country when you are abroad.  When you are in another country everything that happens in your own country feels so much more personal.  It's wierd to see things from the outside.  According to my host parents there are never shootings in Costa Rica, or terrorism either.  And from their perspective I can see how the USA could appear dangerous, or that we seem like violent people with everything broadcasted in the news.  It makes you wonder what causes this violence.  It also makes you imagine all the things that could happen to your family when you are gone.  Going abroad everyone worries about what could happen to you going some where unknown, but sometimes you worry about what could happen to your family at home, no matter how unlikely it may be.
On a different note I would like to apologize for the guzilion typos in every post and say that you can blame my iPod.  I wrote these posts from my tiny iPod screen and am constantly hitting the wrong buttons.  It would definitely be unintelligible if it went for spellcheck.

School...

I have learned to appreciate my education in the US.  before coming here i thought our education  i i system was terrible. But I have learned that we have it pretty good.  Last week I had exams.. I am pretty sure I failed practically everything.  I have go back some of my grades a 56% in physics and a 100% in English (obviously), a 46 in Spanish and 37 in biology that's the worst I have done in my life..  I did get a 74 in social studies though which is a passing grade,  I have never been more proud.  As bad as my grades sound the shocking thing is that I did better than my friends..  I got a higher score in every subject than several of my friends.  It's really surprising I would say almost 1/2 to 3/4 of my class failed everything.  When I got a 74 in sociales my friends were all like super impressed. like here you have done good if you passed.  in fact one of my friends got a 40% in socials.   It's very strange I didn't study and I have minimual Spanish but I still managed to get about twice as many points.  I guess that's just a testament to the difference in education.  The socials test was wierd, it started out with the most basic questions identifying the continents.  Which some people didn't get right :(.  Then there were a bunch of really obscure random questions, which I can't help but wondering why thy are important.  For example what is the highest lake in America?  ( it's Titicaca if you were wondering). My grades thankfully don't count in my highschool in Wisconsin but of I don't pass my classes I won't get any credit for them.  Coming here I assumed it would be easy to pass my classes but it may be a struggle.  In the USA everyone wants you to pass.  There is like no one in my school that has failed enough classes to need to repeat a year.  It's practically impossible as long as you pay minimual attention in class and do your homework once and a while you should squeak by.  And if you are doing bad you are forced to go to a special class and everyone interrogates you about why you aren't succeeding and try's to help you.  Here it's different it just seems like nobody cares how you do.  The parents obviously do.  But the teachers don't seem to be too concerned.  If you do bad it's your fault you should have studied.  Which is the opposite in the USA if everyone does bad you blame be teacher.  Here And when half the class fails, I guess that just sucks for them..     The teschers here don't teach all they do is dictate from some sort of text book.  And then we copy.  It's not like we are learning anything to difficult they just don't teach.  The whole point is to pass the exams who cares if you remember anything of it in 3 months.  And although these grades don't matter and I am only here for 5 months the education system here makes me upset.  I am sure it's better in the private schools, but in public schools it is just a massive waste of time for the students.  For me it isn't because I am learning Spanish and learning a lot but I feel bad for my class mates.  If the next exam is like this one most of them wil be repeating next year.  Homework here counts for almost nothing, there are two exams a semester which counts for 70% of the grade 35% each, if you don't do well I guess your just out of luck. Some of the teachers are also habitually late to class, this is also due to the fact that many of them have other responsibilities in the school, like working in the lunch room. Another thing is that the female teachers dress what in the USA would be considered a little innappropriate for anyone but especially for teachers.  They wear 6 inch heals, tight jeans, or leather leggings and see-through, tight or low cut tops, revealing love handles and everything. It's really different because the students have a very strict dress code, but the teachers apparently not.  to me it seems like a big double standard.  the dress code is very strict.  In some classes we all have to stand up and the teacher looks to make sure the pants aren't too tight and we aren't wearing makeup, also guys hair has to be short.  If the teacher is in doubt he actually takes the material of the pants and moves it around to make sure it's loose enough.  Also some teachers make girls take off their nail polish they will hand you a bottle of remover and cotton swabs.  It's very ironic though because many of them wear heavy makeup which we aren't allowed, and have colored hair which is also against the rules.  These are all thing s that my class mates think are normal, but I find strange.  How can a teacher tell you to take off your makeup when she has it caked on?  It's just cultural differences.  I have to remind myself as AFS says its not better or worse just differnt.  I guess that in Costa Rica the students need to take more responsibility  for themselves which can be a good thing..