Cirque de Soleil, Host Gradpaps Birthday, Orientation, & Jaco

1 Week Until I'm Back in the US

Really rough update....

Unbelievable. In one week, I'll be getting on a plane to go back to the US. It's crazy how fast this trip has gone. I've learnt so much and experienced many things that I will treasure for the rest of my life.

The weekend before the last, my family and I went to San Jose. We went primarily to go see Cirque de Soleil which was in Alajuela, around a 45 minute drive from my aunt's house in San Jose. We left on the Saturday at 5 in the morning and got there at around 8. My sister had a psychologist appointment and so that was our first stop. After, we made our way to my host aunt's house. It's huge. They live in one of the nicest neighborhoods in San Jose (with a gate, a view of San Jose, and a private park). It's easily the nicest house I've been to in Costa Rica, and the biggest too.

I had the whole day until the circus so I met up with my host cousin's (Sofia) best friend who is my age. We went down to the University where Sofia was and hung around San Jose with her and her friends. We went to this place called Casa de Manga, the heaven for nerds. I mean no offense when I say that... it's actually a pretty sick place. There were tons of comics and famous things from Japan and while eating, I got to watch my first ever Superman cartoon in Spanish. Epic.

After, we went shopping (which consisted mainly of visiting stores with lord of the rings, Star Wars things in them- not my forte) in one of the many big malls in San Jose. To go hardcore shopping in Costa Rica, San Jose is really the only place you're able to do it. In Liberia there are stores but not nearly as many as in San Jose. Also, in the whole province of Guanacaste, there's only one cinema and its in Liberia. Weird, right? In the US, there's one in every town and going to the movies is such an easy thing to do. Here, you plan weeks in advance to go as it's a big trip. 

Anyway, we made our way back to my host aunt's house eventually to get ready to go to the circus. Cirque de Soliel is a well known circus and it has toured all over the world. It was an incredible show: nerve-wracking, funny, and surprising. I'll tell you about one of the acts I saw.
Here's a video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=PxM2uZmDs0E
It's kind of long, so I'd skip to the middle.
This act is called Silks and it doesn't look all that challenging at first. All you're doing is climbing up two thick pieces of cloth, and doing some twirly moves at the top, right? Well, no. For one thing, those long strips of silk are elastic, making them extremely difficult to climb and work with. Second, in true Cirque style, it's not enough to do pretty things very high up in the air. They've also gotta engage in long plummeting moves that leave their noses inches away from the floor.
So bloody exciting. There were a lot of other acts that were even more dangerous than Silks but they're terribly hard to explain. So I'm just gonna say, go see Cirque du Soleil! It's fantastic!
That night, we slept in my host aunt's house and then on Sunday, we went to another mall in San Jose. I got to learn how everything is so much more expensive over here! It's horrible. I kept finding things then putting them back because I knew I could buy it for much cheaper in the US. 

The next weekend was my host grandpa's birthday. My family held a huge party for him with a band, dancing, drinking, and tons of food. I got to practice my dancing skills with my host cousins and got to experience my first ever Tico family party. It was fantastic... Extremely loud, but still brilliant. We danced around with bandoes and even though I really don't understand why we did, it made the party more fun. 

The next weekend, I went to San Jose for an orientation. The great fact is, that this orientation was planned to be fun for us and not a weekend full of pointless lectures. It was the "End of your stay orientation" and so all the 5 month students came. 

So, I had to go to San Jose a day early as I live very far away and everybody who went early with me was German, Austrian, and Swiss (all speak a form of German). This is absolutely no problem, they're genuinally great people, but I really had no one to talk to. My German skills consist of saying "hi my name is Cliona" and nothing much else. It was great listening to them speak though; I tested myself in their language to see if I could understand anything. German is very similar to English, it's just the grammatical things that are so much more difficult in German (as well as different words and a harsher accent;).

 I also found that laughter is, in fact, contagious... I had no idea what the hell these girls were saying, but when they burst out into laughter, I found myself smiling or laughing along like a complete and utter idiot. I have no doubt they think I was laughing at them when in fact I was trying to laugh with them; I couldn't help it.
The next day, all the people with English as their first language came so I could relax my brain a little. AFS (my exchange program) presented us with situations that we might come back to in the US with our friends and family... I basically found out that it might be a little frustrating coming back with all these new stories under my belt, wanting to share them, unaware that not everyone wants to hear them. Hahaha... 

The next day, Saturday, we drove down to Punta Leona, a beach in Puntarenas. We stayed in the resort there for the weekend, without a curfew (??!!!!! :O). But that was pretty much all the freedom we got. It was a lot of fun seeing everyone though, hearing about their experiences. What I found the most interesting was the fact that a lot more Americans or Austrailians don't mind returning back home next Monday while most of the Germans or Australians don't want to leave. I believe the differences in our home countries is incredibly significant in whether or not you want to stay. I think I'm ready to return home, no matter how much I'd love to be with my host family a little longer. I miss my family, friends, and life.

 I spoke to a German girl and she said she has to go back to a life a lot different than the one in Costa Rica. It's a ton more strict in Germany, which I get, but I'm ready to get back into doing things instead of living the chillaxed Tico life. The Costa Rican culture is a lot different to the one in the US but I think it's even more different in comparison to Germany's culture. I don't really know the specific details as I have never been to Germany. 

 On Sunday, we drove back to San Jose where we each made our ways to our different cities.

This week, I decided to take another trip to Jaco with Anna C (the same girl as always). My  host mum had work there on Wednesday so she drove us down. On Thursday, we went and got surfing lessons which resulted in me having tons of bruises all over my body and one huge one on the side of my head. Both Anna and I had bad experiences with the surf boards; She practically got flipped over by a wave whilst on the board, and I got smacked on the side of my head with mine. Jaco is known for it's rough waves and a lot of deaths have occured over the years due to the rip tides. (Don't worry mum, I'm alive)...
I returned to Liberia on Friday and then yesterday, I went to San Jose for my host sister's psychologist appointment. I got to see Cartago (very green and cold, but beautiful), then we returned to Liberia today.
I'm not sure what I'll be doing for my last week here, but I promise to update soon! Maybe when I'm back in the US. :o

Thanks for reading!

Insta, Nicaragua, Cave Woman, Anna C, Excitment

Craziness ONE MONTH LEFT 

Just got an instagram-- clionaaudsley

 I honestly don't really know how to use it, I just post pictures.

I'm trying to post photos everyday so follow me...or don't... 

Back to the blog 

I swear there is no speed limit in Costa Rica. My host mum drives so bloody fast I'm always thrown into the door at least once when in the car. Now I know that that probably just set my mum off on an email to my host mum to slow down, but there isn't really another way of driving here. Everyone drives like they own the road. Also, Costa Rica's roads normally have two lanes (cars coming different directions in each) and my host mum is always passing up people, driving really fast in order to not get hit by the car coming in the oposite direction. There are times when she peaks out the car to see in front of a big truck if she can pass and sees a car coming really fast so she justs swerves back into her lane. I tend to freak out a bit. She just laughs. \m/

I'm going to talk about the weather now, so if you have absolutely no interest in that kind of thing, I suggest you move down to the next paragraph. I actually think you should read this though because if you run into an awkward situation, you have the backup of bringing Costa Rican weather into the convo. Such a life saver. Moving on... the weather has gone through a dramatic change. If you've looked at my pictures from the beginning of my trip, you would see the (pretty much) dead nature in Costa Rica because of the tremendous amount of heat. That was during dry season. Costa Rica has two seasons, unlike the US, called dry season and rainy season. As you can guess, dry is when the land's dry and rainy is when there is a downpour at least once every day. To be honest, I'm loving the rain. The country is so green now, it's much more beautiful. 

The past three weeks have been pretty crazy,  and I apologize (if you care) that I didn't update sooner. I am actually quite angry with myself, because I wanted to keep having 2 posts in each month. Now that's pretty much ruined due to my procrastination and busy schedule. (I have one post in May then all the other months have at least an even amount of posts... it just looks prettier)

I'm going to start with Nicaragua first. I went with my family on the weekend of May 18th. We left on Saturday, early in the morning and arrived at the border in around 1 hour (Liberia is very close to Nicaragua). We went through customs and I was expecting problems (I don't know why, I'm just a super sketchy person ya know?) but none at all came my way. My host mum said this was because I'm from the US. Everyone's just so trustworthy the US right?.......
When we first got into Nicaragua, I automatically noticed the difference between the two countries I'd seen in Central America. In Nicaragua, there is a lot more poverty and it is a lot less developed than Costa Rica. My mum told me that there are the really rich people and the really poor people. There isn't a distinct middle class in Nicaragua.   

The first place we visited was a volcano. Still active, it smelt horrible (like sulfur--eggs and farts) and all you could really see was smoke. We went to a couple of other tourist destinations then made our way to the hotel in Granada. Honestly, nothing really exciting happened and so I won't bore you with the details of the afternoon. At night, we went out to the main part of the city to eat. While eating, my family liked to point out transvestites that walked into the club opposite of where we were sitting. Just tells you a little bit about how my family is pretty weird...Also while we ate, we got our own little show of Nicaraguan men playing their native music. Pretty sweet. 

The next day, we went island shopping. No joke. We actually took a boat and toured through the water neighborhood, houses still determined by number but separated by the sea instead of by walls or fences. I saw what it would be like to be a billionaire. Some houses were crazy big and just holiday homes. There were some which were a little on the scruffy side but they still held that great selling point of privacy. No matter how the house or land looked, the islands cost millions of dollars. Crazy how wealthy and how poor people are, the contrast in Nicaragua is very noticeable.

We returned to Liberia that day and that week was pretty boring for the most part... I spent it either at school, or at a cute cafe I found that I absolutely love going to, for writing. 

The weekend came and my host mum and I decided to go up to Nicoya (another city in my province, Guanacaste, around 1 1/2 hours away) to go look around some caves. We went 20 meters down into Earth and the first thing the guide said to me was to not touch my face because there's bat poo everywhere. Fantastic. But for the most part, it was pretty cool, and there were all kinds of different shapes made from the stone: a lizard, tortoise, trumpet and a family of people. There were probably many others but I thought those were the most distinct. The family of people was kinda creepy though... They actually seemed to have eyes. 

We returned back to the house and Sunday, I spent working on my online school. The next weekend, my friend Anna (same girl who I went to Jaco with), came to visit me in Liberia. She arrived on Friday and we went to the mall in Liberia for the night and ate tons of crepes. On Saturday, we got up early and took a 27 kilometer bike ride down to the beach. At one point, there was an incredibly steep hill and so being the lazy people we are, we got off the bikes and walked. Bringing me to the fact that I still haven't checked how much I weigh... I really don't want to. I like to think I've maintained my muscle by running and doing workouts but the beans and rice here are known to make every exchange student a little bit fatter. Anyhow, we went down to the beach and ate the best nachos I've ever tasted. Once we had spent around two hours at the beach, my host mum came to pick us up (no WAY were we repeating that bike ride) and we made our way to my house. That night, we went to the mall again to go see Fast & Furious 6 (thankfully in English with Spanish subtitles). What Anna and I both found extremely annoying was that everybody laughed at the stupidest stuff in the movie. Another thing I've noticed is that people here have the most obnoxious laughs ever. A joke is never THAT funny... And even if it is, it's rare. People here laugh so loudly at the stuff that should be rewarded a little chuckle or smile. The movie was evident of this. The jokes in it were okay but not laugh out loud worthy, nevertheless, everyone around me and Anna laughed laughed and laughed. Everyone. I eventually broke down into laughter also, but after everyone stopped because I was cracking up at the hilarity of how they found the lines funny. Which was perfect. And awkward. I also nearly fell on a couple while trying to get out of the aisle. I guarantee people thought I nuts. Not my brightest moments.
The next day was Sunday and Anna and I went to the center of Liberia to go shopping for some souvenirs. We purposfully missed her bus so that she could stay another night, and the next day (Monday), she left to return to Puntarenas.
On Wednesday me, my mum, and my sister drove to Monteverde in Puntarenas for some work that my mum had to do there. Monteverde is pretty much a tourist town resided mostly by Germans (a lot of Germans live in Costa Rica). Everybody in Monteverde speaks English. I saw tons of white tourists and hardly any central American looking people. The city is also really high up in the mountains and so it was completely green and beautiful. As I spoke about earlier, it's rainy season, and so it was pouring down. We went souvenir shopping and I got to practice my slowly fading English with the shop teller. ;)

That was last Wednesday and so the weekend that just passed (July 8th), I went to San Jose to see Cirque de Soleil (a famous circus). I'll talk about it in my next post! Teaser: It was amazing.

Still getting my salsa on in my dance classes!!

Thanks so much for reading!!!
Promise to update sometime in the next two weeks!

xoxoxox

Jaco Loving, Community Service, Lost Bets

Amar la Vida 

(Quite Rough)
I've been procrastinating a lot this week. I've been planning to send in a poem of mine to a competition and still haven't, I've needed to write this blog update and also I've wanted to send some letters back home. I really need to be keeping up with a post at least every two weeks...
Anyways, the weekend before the last, I went down to Jaco Beach in Puntarenas (a different province from the one I live in, Guanacaste) with my AFS Californian friend, Anna. I took the bus on Friday from Liberia to where she lives in Puntarenas, a town called El Roble. The bus ride was around 3 hours and was really a complete and utter fail. I got off three stops too early because I'm an idiot and I think the bus driver knew I got off early and so he was beeping his horn at me but I was too oblivious to realize that he was trying to help. In the end, I ignored the yelling and beeping and went on to call my friend just to find out I was in the wrong place. My stubborness totally paid off in the end clearly (not) as I could have just made sure by asking someone but my brain was telling me "we don't need help, this will all play out fine, we know where we're going"; while knowing that my sense of direction is horrific. Admitting defeat, I got a taxi (more money spent-definitely travel with me if you want your bank account empty and your trips taking a longer time) to El Roble and met Anna where we went back to her host family's house. I met her host mum who was super sweet and it seemed Anna was really happy with her family which is great!
Eventually, we made our way down to the city of Puntarenas to catch our bus to Jaco Beach. Using our improved Spanish skills (embarrassingly, not noticing signs that clearly gave directions to where we wanted to go), we managed to find the hidden bus station for Jaco and made our way to the well-known surfing beach. Once we arrived, we went to our hotel which was right by the sea. It was probably one of the nicest hotels I've ever stayed in. Our room was huge and we had a kitchen and appliances to make food as the hotel didn't serve meals. That first night, we pretty much just hung out at the beach and walked around the main street of Jaco seeing what we could do the next day. We found that EVERYBODY spoke English. A nice break to the constant Spanish.
On Saturday, we got up early and made plans to go quad-biking  One of the most exciting things I've done out here... Our guide was great. He was from Texas and had moved out here about a year ago with hardly any money, basically moving on a whim. He'd never been here before. He loves it here though and said that the living is just so easy and stress-free. Although he doesn't get paid much (the minimum wage here is incredibly low-$2 or so), he has no extreme want to return back to the US. I must admit, I will definitely miss the stress-free environment but on the other hand, I sometimes feel it's too much. Back to quad-biking... It was fantastic. The views were amazing and it was such a thrill to drive the machines up hills and over boulders etc etc. I would recommend it to anybody who comes out here, however it was a bit pricey... Something my mum definitely questioned when seeing the bill hahaha. After that, we walked around Jaco for a while again and went to the beach. No sunburn for me this time!! On Sunday, we went shopping and tried surfing which resulted in tons of laughter. We then we returned to Puntarenas where I had to stay at Anna's house for the night as I had missed my bus for Liberia. The next day, I got up early and made the 3 hour trip back to my host city.

Yesterday, I went and helped out at a childeren's play school (kind of like kindergarten) in the poor part of Liberia. The houses there are made out of metal boards and cheap materials. They're not so much "huts" but are poor quality homes that get incredibly hot during the day. So I helped out and played games with the little kids who lived in the nearby houses. There was one girl who looked very North American with her blond hair and blue eyes (Here, people girls with blonde hair are often called "machas"). It's surprising because you wouldn't normally see a girl with these looks in that kind of environment (not being racist, it's just the truth around here). When my mum picked me up, I asked her about it and she went on to say that the girl is probably a prostitute's child (harsh truth). It all made sense in my head. A man probably visited from overseas and had come to "party" at the beaches in Costa Rica and ended up hiring a prostitute who, in the end, got pregnant. My mum said that this is a common occurrence here as groups of men come to the Costa Rica looking for a weekend of "fun". With prostitution in Costa Rica, many girls get trafficked into the system at very young ages. It works like any other country, and girls are picked up off the street to be hired by men. Girls are in vulnerable positions anywhere they go. Men look for girls and in some clubs here, they provide "catalogues" of girls for men to look at. It's sick and disgusting. There's also a lot of drug trafficking here from the Columbian and Mexican cartels. 

On a lighter note, today I raced one of my host mum's workers, Jerry. He's 20 years old, is originally from Nicaragua, and has worked for my mum and grandmother for around 3 years (I believe). We raced 200 meters and I wasn't able to finish the race because of a searing pain in my foot. The other day, I dropped a glass which resulted in a cut on my foot and my room looking a murder scene... the cut decided to reopen today and so Jerry and I have planned to set a rematch next month. People had betted on me and I let them down! I've gotta win. Apparently, my host uncle bet 200 that I would win ahaha. This is a pretty serious race.. I have a training schedule and everything ready. I start it Monday. I'll keep you guys updated. 

;) 

I go to Nicaragua tomorrow for the weekend! New country! New people! Supposedly I'm going out dancing with my older cousin and her friends... Time to test out my dance skills again. #Fail. 

<3 Thanks for reading! 

Really quick update so quite rough :s  

Birthday Week

16 and Loving It

Second update for April because I like staying even... I have to have at least two posts in each month. It just looks nicer, ya know?

Anyways, this past week was fun. My birthday was on Thursday! What did I do? Partied it up, of course, with my lovely host family. I went to school in the morning where I was (thankfully) not greeted by eggs smashed onto my head; Apparently, it's some sort of tradition here for birthdays. Don't ask why, I don't know. Ticos are just weird like that. Anyways, while at school people said happy birthday (feliz cumpleanos for those people that want to know a bit of spanish) and a group of boys actually sang happy birthday to me which was sweet. Unexpected and a bit embarrassing  but sweet. So, school was normal with a little bit of fiesta mixed into the work. That night, my host family had a BBQ and we ate all together, telling stories and laughing it up. My host grandma made a joke about me being fat which was probably the highlight of my night... Loving the humor over here, it does great things to your self-esteem ;) Obviously, my grandma was kidding as she went on to say that I had to have a bigger piece of the chocolate cake because I'm so "delgado" (skinny, small). I would love to see what she would say about some of the skin and bone girls in Arizona. Food is a big thing here and it's known to be weird or rude if you don't eat a satisfactory amount, or you leave food on your plate. I've been working out here so I think I've kept the pounds off. I'm too scared to check though...
Back to the party... I danced and ate and had fun with my cousins and family. It was great fun demonstrating my amazing salsa skills. JK.. So embarrassing but still fun.
The weekend came next where I spent the whole time seeing different beaches. On one, there were two weddings going on. So beautiful. If I get married someday, I now know I would like it in Costa Rica on the beach. Therefore, I'll have all my Costa Rican family and friends there and all my friends around the world because who wouldn't love to take a trip to this beautiful country. I've now seen around 15 beaches in Guanacaste and this weekend I'm going to Jaco in the province of Puntarenas with my friend from California who is with AFS also.
Just a short update!

Thanks for reading! 

^Water ...... ^.^

Semana Santa,, Beaches, Dance, and Birthdays!

So Late...

Wow... Sorry for this really late update.

I'll start by talking about my Semana Santa which was around three weeks ago. The whole week consisted mostly of going to the beach and just relaxing. My family and I spent a lot of time with my host aunt and her family who live in San Jose (the capital of Costa Rica). It was great to get to know more of the family... still many more cousins to meet but I've met all my aunts and uncles. I got to meet the famous Sofia (a cousin). She is mentioned quite a lot by my host mum and sister. Sofia is 19 years old and is studying computer science at the University of Costa Rica in San Jose. I think she's fluent in five languages (Spanish, French, Italian, English, and a bit of Japanese) so I made the assumption that she's pretty smart... She also won a competition in Costa Rica for her songwriting. I think she won a trip to somewhere... I can't remember if the song was used in any way or not. But since I love writing poems and songs, I thought is was pretty sweet that I got to meet her. Anyways, both of our families went up to the family beach house in Cuajiniquil which I think is owned by the uncle's step brother's son's wife or something silly like that. It was so nice and was such a simple house. The perfect beach house; no extravagance or unnecessary luxury things. It was good to just lay on the beach and get some serious sunburn on my back... Never again will I lazily apply sun block to my back... It was terrible and honestly, very embarrassing. Stereotypical white girl. Safe to say I spent the next few days in pain, laying in my bed, protecting my back from making contact with anything. Overall, my Semana Santa was a little bit of sweet and sour. Mostly sweet. 

My first week back from the vacation was full of school, and fun stuff like that. That weekend I went down to Playa Hermosa for a few days and stayed at a hotel. The beaches in Guanacaste really are unbelievable... Every picture that I take is gorgeous. It's impossible to take a bad picture because the beaches are close to perfect in Guanacaste. The water is incredibly clean and the sand is soft without rocky stones. Compared to the beaches in California and other beaches in the US, these beaches are like paradise. While staying in Playa Hermosa, I went on a snorkeling tour on a boat in Playa Coco. It was beautiful and the food was amazing but I didn't get to see many fish... Only one that the guide held in the water and showed us. I think it was a type of blow fish, I'm not entirely sure..

    [See pictures of my boat trip! https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10200169921307433.189015.1133426356&type=3 ]

The next week was pretty uneventful as I got sick and couldn't attend school for most of the week. BUT, I did have my first salsa/meringue/swing class!! It's so much fun... and honestly, I'm a natural. JK. Some types of dances are easy but when I learnt swing, it's pretty hard. Timing with the music is essencial and so if you're paired with someone who has no sense of rhythm, it's extremely difficult. Luckily, I've danced only with rhythmic men haha. Anyways, I'm going to try and take some photos or videos of me in my next class. I have two classes every week, an hour and a half each. In the next two months and a half, I expect to become an expert ;) I'm also planning to charge people back home for lessons cause I'll know the true Tican ways to dance hahaha. Including my mum and brothers. My host mum gave me that idea.. She's brillant.

I spent that weekend mostly at the farm, helping my host mum. I learnt that they make cheese at the Arena Finca (the first of the two farms, the one without the pool) and sell it at one of the schools near my house, Instituto de Guanacaste. I will be milking a cow next month and making the cheese. I don't know if I should be excited or not...

So this past week has been school, school, school, dance, dance, dance... But Friday was my host sister's birthday! She turned 15. Normally, when a girl turns 15 here, they have their Quinceanera which is similar to a Sweet 16 in the US. Turning 15 here is when a girl becomes a woman. Girls have huge parties, inviting at least 40 people. Alina didn't want a huge fiesta and so she had a couple of friends over instead. It was cute and very chill. 

This past weekend was supposed to be a trip with me, Alina and Xinia (for Alina's birthday, as well as mine) but at the last minute, Alina said no to going.. So it was just me and Xinia Saturday morning and we made out way down to La Fortuna in the province of Alajuela. I have been there before, when I went to the snake zoo. La Fortuna has completely different weather to Liberia. It's so green everywhere and when we arrived it was pouring rain; a change from Liberia's dry land and extreme heat. But it was great to be in a cool-aired place for a bit. Anyways, we took the hour and a half trip and hung out with my host uncle and his family who live there. We went to see more of the Costa Rican wildlife (pictures on my facebook) such as sloths. I'm pretty obsessed with them now. As well as monkeys...
On Sunday, we all went to another Costa Rican zoo and I got to see more of the amazing animals that inhabit this small country. After, we went zip-lining  So much fun... It was a tour and so we got to go on different zip-lines in the jungle. It was beautiful and so exciting. I had done it before, but it was in England (really boring) and on a tiny line. On this tour, the zip-lines varied in speed and length.
Zip-lining is done, bungee jumping's next.:)

Wrote this one very fast... So it probably is very rough. I just needed to put something up!
Promise to update more frequently from now on.

Going to San Jose this weekend for my birthday!

Thanks for reading!