Monday, April 9, 2007
Pics are in...
Here's a bonus I can add to my blog, thankfully. Coincidently I ran into some friends in Montezuma, and the following pictures are courtesy of Cyrielle, a French lass. They should give an idea of how sweet the place was.
Friday, April 6, 2007
When marimba rhythms start to play...
Ow, my nipples. My poor, poor nipples.
No that´s not some kinky revelation I´m sharing with you all. It's just that surf wax, while very useful for staying on a surfboard, really aggravates your skin if you don´t wear a wetsuit.
The beach at Montezuma is great. Happy Easter to you all :)
That is all.
No that´s not some kinky revelation I´m sharing with you all. It's just that surf wax, while very useful for staying on a surfboard, really aggravates your skin if you don´t wear a wetsuit.
The beach at Montezuma is great. Happy Easter to you all :)
That is all.
Sunday, April 1, 2007
Service resumed. Apologies for any inconvenience
¡¿Holy shit, how many weeks have just flown by like that?!
Too many for my liking. I know, I know… I suck.
Apologies folks, I would have liked to have blogged for you all, but truthfully it’s been hard to find the time and energy in my daily routine to just sit down quietly and type something up. Also, I don’t have a lot of additional stuff to show you guys to make any blog entries seem interesting, besides my writing skillz. I know you have very short attention spans and need pretty pictures and movies to keep you focused, you see, and my digital camera is quite fucked at the moment, ever since I came here.
That means sadly that I don’t have pictures of me and sunny beaches to show right now (though I am hunting them down from people I’ve travelled with). However, I think I may be able to dig up a few cookies for you nonetheless. Here’s one for starters. This is what I’ve managed to achieve after a little more than a month following Spanish courses in San Jose. If you ever drop by Costa Rica and want to pick up some of the language, I can definitely recommend this language school.
Nice little certificate I can frame and put up on my wall. “Nivel Intermedio II” has me almost up to the level of an advanced Spanish-second-language speaker, which means I can do basic conversation now. My accent isn’t awful either, so to outward appearances I think I could pass for your average barrio kid. I fool most gringos, who think I’m one of the locals, but it doesn’t always work with Costa Ricans. They sometimes refer to me as “Chino”, which makes me sad. FORFUCKSAKES I’m not Chinese… ¡¿Entiendes?!
I think I’ll just break down and cry.
These are some of the very few pics taken with my phone during my first month taking Spanish lessons. I stayed with my host family in San Pedro just a short bus ride away from the capital city itself. I don’t live there anymore, but here’s the casa where I stayed, and my room too.
And this is where I took my Spanish class. Meet Marco, my teacher. Marco es divertido! Pero a veces, como un diablo – las clases intensivos estaban muy duro!
View of San Jose city from the Museo de los Niños, a former penitentiary turned children’s museum where I hung out one time with my amiga Johanna and her kid.
Scenes from San Jose during the late afternoon. Memorable street music by the band in the first pic: Spanish gospel hiphop with an old man lead singer. Very ‘WTF?!’ but it definitely sounded alright.
Here are pics from where I am at the moment. After finishing Spanish class I moved to another city called Heredia outside San Jose but still within Costa Rica’s Central Valley, and here I’m staying with the Corrales family (Hannia and Emelina). As of today, I’ve been here exactly one week. Hannia works as a secretary at Universidad Nacional, where I’m affiliated as an independent guest master student researcher. Emelina is Hannia’s daughter and is likewise writing up her thesis in the field of marine biology. The pictures below show my work place. I have a shared office at CINPE, an abbreviation which translates to the International Center of Political Economy for Sustainable Development.
They treat and feed me well here. Here’s a typical Tico (Costa Rican) breakfast that Hannia makes: Steaming ‘Gallo Pinto’ (rice and beans) and cheese and salsa and fresh coffee. Perfect start to a day!
That’s all the cookies for now. After a week settling in at CINPE, Easter week is coming up and I have a nice beach vacation planned at Playa Montezuma (playa=beach), where surf’s up. Hahaaaa… I’ll be sure to throw some pics at you.
Seriously, if any of y’all can make it, visit me here! I’m amazed at what this place has to offer. After that trip I talked about in my last blog to see a live active volcano with lava and shit, I went to this beach at Jacó and there were iguanas in the shade and red parrots flying from tree to tree. Totally surreal. Totally Pura Vida.
Too many for my liking. I know, I know… I suck.
Apologies folks, I would have liked to have blogged for you all, but truthfully it’s been hard to find the time and energy in my daily routine to just sit down quietly and type something up. Also, I don’t have a lot of additional stuff to show you guys to make any blog entries seem interesting, besides my writing skillz. I know you have very short attention spans and need pretty pictures and movies to keep you focused, you see, and my digital camera is quite fucked at the moment, ever since I came here.
That means sadly that I don’t have pictures of me and sunny beaches to show right now (though I am hunting them down from people I’ve travelled with). However, I think I may be able to dig up a few cookies for you nonetheless. Here’s one for starters. This is what I’ve managed to achieve after a little more than a month following Spanish courses in San Jose. If you ever drop by Costa Rica and want to pick up some of the language, I can definitely recommend this language school.
Nice little certificate I can frame and put up on my wall. “Nivel Intermedio II” has me almost up to the level of an advanced Spanish-second-language speaker, which means I can do basic conversation now. My accent isn’t awful either, so to outward appearances I think I could pass for your average barrio kid. I fool most gringos, who think I’m one of the locals, but it doesn’t always work with Costa Ricans. They sometimes refer to me as “Chino”, which makes me sad. FORFUCKSAKES I’m not Chinese… ¡¿Entiendes?!
I think I’ll just break down and cry.
These are some of the very few pics taken with my phone during my first month taking Spanish lessons. I stayed with my host family in San Pedro just a short bus ride away from the capital city itself. I don’t live there anymore, but here’s the casa where I stayed, and my room too.
And this is where I took my Spanish class. Meet Marco, my teacher. Marco es divertido! Pero a veces, como un diablo – las clases intensivos estaban muy duro!
View of San Jose city from the Museo de los Niños, a former penitentiary turned children’s museum where I hung out one time with my amiga Johanna and her kid.
Scenes from San Jose during the late afternoon. Memorable street music by the band in the first pic: Spanish gospel hiphop with an old man lead singer. Very ‘WTF?!’ but it definitely sounded alright.
Here are pics from where I am at the moment. After finishing Spanish class I moved to another city called Heredia outside San Jose but still within Costa Rica’s Central Valley, and here I’m staying with the Corrales family (Hannia and Emelina). As of today, I’ve been here exactly one week. Hannia works as a secretary at Universidad Nacional, where I’m affiliated as an independent guest master student researcher. Emelina is Hannia’s daughter and is likewise writing up her thesis in the field of marine biology. The pictures below show my work place. I have a shared office at CINPE, an abbreviation which translates to the International Center of Political Economy for Sustainable Development.
They treat and feed me well here. Here’s a typical Tico (Costa Rican) breakfast that Hannia makes: Steaming ‘Gallo Pinto’ (rice and beans) and cheese and salsa and fresh coffee. Perfect start to a day!
That’s all the cookies for now. After a week settling in at CINPE, Easter week is coming up and I have a nice beach vacation planned at Playa Montezuma (playa=beach), where surf’s up. Hahaaaa… I’ll be sure to throw some pics at you.
Seriously, if any of y’all can make it, visit me here! I’m amazed at what this place has to offer. After that trip I talked about in my last blog to see a live active volcano with lava and shit, I went to this beach at Jacó and there were iguanas in the shade and red parrots flying from tree to tree. Totally surreal. Totally Pura Vida.
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