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!