hey everybody!
i´m in costa rica! and its amazing!
i love my host family. i have a 21 year old sister who doesnt talk to me a bunch and is kind of a gossip. she´s a student living at home. my mom stays at home except on some weekends and week days when she volunteers for a local orphanage. and my dad and brothers (the brothers are 22 and 25) are hardly ever home because they work a lot. Don Francisco, my dad, is kind of a prankster who loves to tell stories and takes the time to make sure i understand his jokes. even if he has to explain them to me three times. my spanish is good enough that i can speak with them, but my vocabulary limitted enough that i often miss important things. should make my internship at a local health clinic interesting. i have my first interview and scheduling meeting with them today, so i have to wear a tie.
we´ve gone out nearly every night. found the only microbrewery in the country, conveniently located 5 blocks from my house. Soni and Melissa and David (from CMC) also live really close to me so we´ve gone over there twice now. the waitress recognized us. i mean, we are pretty americanlooking :)
on wednesday its half price movie night, which roughly figures to about $1.60 per person. we went to see the davinci code. there were moans in the audience at the fake ending... it was subtitled so when they spoke french and latin we had to read them and translate really fast. thank god i had seen it already so i kinda knew what was going on.
last night we had a cultural night at the institute where all of our classes and spanish classes are. a guy came and taught us some merengue, salsa, and reggaeton. it was so much fun. melissa was such a good sport about my two left feet. we tried out our dancing moves at the bar two cuz they had a live band.
we´re leaving for Manuel Antonio this weekend, a kinda touristy rainforrest preserve thats also coincidentally right on the beach. i can´t wait. i totally need to unwind a bit. i find that even my english doesnt come to me very well any more because my brain is in the habit of having to think about exactly what i want to say and how to say it before itll let the words come out. my spanish is getting sooo much better just in this week, but i have a long way to go too. i can speak with people and generally relay information, but i want to be able to commicate, to get innuendo and meanings behind words, and ultimately use them. the three hours of spanish class every day should at least help.
i miss you all already and hope that you´re having adventures of your own.
que le vaya bien.
smiles
Ben
ps don´t recognize the email address? yeah its new, the yahoo account got too inundated with spam, so this is for people that i actually know ;-) if you want, send me an email address that you actually will check too, cuz for most of you i just have your school accounts, which can be dangerous
pss hey candice and lindi, i forgot to write down dotie´s and carmen´s email addresses before i left, could you forward this to them for me, as well as have them send me a quick note so i can have it for the future? thank you please