...And We Walked For Days

The first full week has come and past..VERY QUICKLY!  Last Monday we started classes, but only Spanish.  The class is awesome - I think I've learned more in a week than in 2 years of college Spanish.  On Tuesday, after Spanish class we went to Heredia, which is a nearby city, to tour.  We walked.  A lot.  And did I mention that we walk to school everyday?  35 minutes.  Doesn't seem as long as it really is though.  Honestly, I don't have much to say about Heredia.  Lots of small tiendas (stores) and we went to a mercado (market) which was pretty interesting.  Difficult to explain, however.  Many of the stores line the streets, but the mercado is almost like a fair building.  You enter it, and there are just rows and rows of fruit stands, people selling meat and fish, small stores for makeup and other accessories, and even smaller sized bars and restaurants.  I spent the time looking at the displays of butchered meat and asking what things were.  At one point a man caught my attention and singled with his finger "One moment..." reached down, and grabbed the head of a pig and held it up to show me.  I wish I had gotten a picture...

Thursday, after Spanish, we went to San Jose (the capital) for a tour.  Basically, it was the same as Heredia just... WAY BIGGER.  And people EVERYWHERE.  We definitely got stared at quite a bit and at one point a group of guys yelled at me and the other two girls I was with at the time "SEX AND THE CITY!!"  All through the center of the calles (streets) are people selling things: movies, cds, shoe strings, phone cards....you name it.  Kim, a girl in the group, bought Avatar from one of them.  It wasn't until we got back from San Jose that we realized the duration on the back of the case said "101 minutes"......

Just one street in San Jose.

Plaza in San Jose.  There were hundreds of pigeons.  It was gross.

Friday night, everyone went out to a new local bar called Los Protreros.  Ana, Maria (the program coordinators), Courtney (other coordinator), Dionicio (Spanish prof), were there and all of our families were invited, but mostly just younger siblings came.  It was a blast.  We were most definitely the center of attention: a huge group of gringos taking up a table the size of the bar.  Karaoke was the main entertainment, and several times locals in the bar came to our table to sing songs to us.  After drinking and mingling, we started dancing.  It was a really great time and I got to spend a lot of time with some of the local kids here my age who I met last weekend which I loved.

The morning group Spanish class with Dionicio (our Prof) [and Omar in the back for reasons unknown haha] at Los Portreros.

On Sunday, Cody, Alex, Elizabeth, and I went to a park in San Jose, also with my newest friend Omar who lives here in San Josecito but is originally from Nicaragua.  And we walked forever.  FOREVER.  The "park" we went to is probably 3 times the size of Kendall.  I would guess we walked for 3 hours.  Finally, we made it back to the central streets of San Jose and went to Pizza Hut for lunch.  First taste of "American" food since I've been here.  Tastes the same.

Omar and I in the park on Sunday.  I'm drinking "pipa" which is basically coconut juice.  It's goooood.

Just a few of the spaces for soccer fields at the enormous park.  There were at least 2 or 3 more this size, and also 2 baseball fields, as well as other places for other sports or for just laying around.