La Pura Vida

Salad Days

rainforest
San Jose
Mary attempting to entice Jael into eating in the morning
with friends yesterday in San Jose - Jess, Erika, Shari - in a bookstore waiting after paging our other lost friends

*****

ok safely inside the internet cafe! As you can see from all the umbrellas in the bookstore pic - definitely the rainy season here. It´s raining harder now than it has thus far...got my wettest on this most recent trek to the cafe, pants soaked. ICADS just closed down for the day but I´m happy I was able to post some pictures! So many to choose from but this medley does show a lot. The plantation pictures are from Limon, in the same area where I´ll be working starting the 24th!

Ahh, the weekend. Tomorrow morning at 6:30 the next adventure begins - back to the province of Limon to visit ANDAR, an organic sustainable farm. Itinerary includes work on the farm (weeking, fertilizing, terracing, planting), lunch with our new families there (short homestays), soccer game with community (ha should be interesting!), dinner... Sunday 6-11 am more work on farm, then we ¨collect elements of the lunch, begin preparation of food¨(how cool!). We´ll get back Sunday around dinner time. I love these trips - beautiful scenery out of the bus windows, bus rides with groups like this are always fun, and I laugh so much with friends here. :)

Wednesday night finished Old Man and the Sea, talked to Mom briefly, watched Smallville with Mary. Went to bed early so I could get up and RUN Thursday morning a little before 6! Mary showed me a local soccer field I can run around... that felt great, especially in the not-always-a-guarantee bright morning sun.

Thursday after classes took off with 5 others for San Jose! We ate lunch at a Lonely Planet recommended place called Nuestra Pueblo (yummy, took rice and beans to a new level). Then wandered the streets for several hours - going in local markets, bookstores, and for a long time (maybe 3 hours) asking for directions and going on a wild goose chase for the elusive Mora Books that we randomly decided we wanted to go to (again courtesy of Lonely Planet - sounded like a cool used bookstore). Towards the end it was the principle of the matter and not the store...none of us were really even committed on going there. Fun of the chase! Lots of people gave us completely opposite directions, and also the streets aren´t clearly labeled here- directions are given in the form of go 100 meters that way and then 700 meters to the left...ha. Finally found it hidden on the 2nd floor of a building-accomplishment! I bought a Theresa of Avila book-want to stock up on reading for the campo.

We´d decided to go to dinner at a place called Cafe Mundo that my professor recommended. Called Christian and he took a taxi to meet us there. We started out walking towards it but when the streets changed dynamics, we asked a policeman if the neighborhood was safe for walking. ¨At night? No.¨We asked if they were ever safe to walk in. Received another emphatic no. Ha umm ok... flagged a taxi and luckily he agreed to squeeze the 6 of us in. Good thing, the restaurant was kind of far and secluded! We laughed at ourselves. Loved the ambience (as Rolando promised we would) - it´s in a restored old mansion, dimmed lights, sort of fancy. Could tell a noticeable difference in the comfort level of our group with eachother- not any more superficial niceties! (can lead to funny confrontations) Cool to see a Duke face also! After dinner went to meet Christian´s fellow Embassy workers/roommates at Henry´s Sports Bar. Different crowd than the ones I´m hanging out with, nice though crazier. Took a taxi back by myself for the first time, prayed and yes luckily did get back smoothly.

Today-class, lunch once again at beloved Architect College w/Erica, Jess, Kim, Shari, incredibly exciting excursion to Pop´s, a nearby ice cream place I´ve been hearing about-- don´t eat ice cream that much but when I do I like to go all out! Pasión Queque (cake) in a chocolate dipped cone with peanuts. General rule for me is to add as much texture/variety to my food as I can! Ha, mixing cereal, add nuts to things... more fun that way. A consultant came in and gave a talk on fair trade, and now here I am.

Going to send some e-mails and then head back for dinner. ¨Secure ¨has come to my mind several times today...without even reading too much into that, that´s my word for current feelings. :)

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend! I look forward to checking back in when I return...

--Like this, word of the day, could refer to this time as ¨salad days¨

\salad days\, noun:A time of youthful inexperience, innocence, or indiscretion

posted by Colleen @ 4:53 PM