CR is home to an extensive amount of wildlife, plant life, and has 12 out of the 14 climate zones. For being such a small country, this is really impressive. Yesterday I traveled to Poas Volcano and La Paz Waterfalls. While walking the trails around these natural phenomena I was able to witness some of the lush vegetation as well as the diverse animals that call CR home (although, thankfully, the majority of these were in cages). The volcano looks more like a giant steaming crater although its 9000 feet above sea level.

The Paz Waterfalls are one of 112 in the country. Part of the trail led so close to the rushing water it was almost like I was underneath it. Watching the ambush of water cascade over the edge was by far the coolest part of the excursion.

Along with a plethora of flowers there was also an animal reserve for rescued animals. If I could pick one word to describe CR after this trip it would be vibrant.

Estoy en Costa Rica!

After six months of community college Spanish and demeaning work at a restaurant, my efforts have finally paid off. I arrived in Costa Rica on Thursday and will remain here for one month. Here are a few first impressions:

1. It is a LOT rainier and colder than I expected. It was an extremely novice mistake to bring only one pair of pants.

2. Despite the warnings that black beans and rice would constitute the majority of my meals in CR, my first meal with my family was take-out Chinese food. Imagine that.

3. My Tica (Costa Rican) mother and sisters are the best. I can't imagine living with a more affectionate, helpful, and companionable family (except my own of course).

4. CR is tiny. I'll put it in perspective: The total population of CR is 4.5 million. London alone has 9 million inhabitants. Que pequeño.

5. It is surprisingly difficult to get used to throwing toilet paper in the trash can as opposed to the toilet.

6. San Jose, the capital city in which I reside, is mainly comprised of mestizos: people of both European and indigenous descent. This is why its not uncommon to see blue or green eyed people or people with very pale skin or lighter hair.

7. My Spanish is deplorable, but I'm now convinced that living in a Spanish speaking country is by far the most efficient, and interesting, way to learn.

All my bags are packed....

and credit companies called, and passport/airplane ticket ready and accessible, and prescriptions filled, and last minute visits with family and friends completed, and vaccinations injected, and Costa Rican housing information settled (after changing twice in a matter of seven days).... and I'm ready to go!

I'm very excited for this new adventure. It's an entirely new part of the world that I don't know much about (except what my new Culture Shock Survival Guide has been telling me) and I can't wait to become acquainted. Adios muchachos!

A good travel tip

My monthly subscription to the National Geographic Traveler Magazine is one of the things I look forward to the most in life. This month's issue offered an interesting perspective:

"Making travel goals is good. Bucket lists help us dream - but they can limit us, too, forcing us to rely on biased ideas about ourselves and the world. The best travel carries us beyond our own notions and lands us somewhere new."                -Andrew Evans

Guaranteed

A friend sent me this song and told me it reminded her of me. I immediately fell in love with it. 

On bended knee is no way to be free
Lifting up an empty cup, I ask silently
All my destinations will accept the one that's me
So I can breathe...

Circles they grow and they swallow people whole
Half their lives they say goodnight to wives they'll never know
A mind full of questions, and a teacher in my soul
And so it goes...

Don't come closer or I'll have to go
Holding me like gravity are places that pull
If ever there was someone to keep me at home
It would be you...

Everyone I come across, in cages they bought
They think of me and my wandering, but I'm never what they thought
I've got my indignation, but I'm pure in all my thoughts
I'm alive...

Wind in my hair, I feel part of everywhere
Underneath my being is a road that disappeared
Late at night I hear the trees, they're singing with the dead
Overhead...

Leave it to me as I find a way to be
Consider me a satellite, forever orbiting
I knew all the rules, but the rules did not know me
Guaranteed

A Pink House

In "The Secret Life of Bees," three sisters live together in one big house painted an obnoxious "Caribbean Pink." Halfway through the book, the oldest sister, August, who hates pink, explains to Lily that May, the youngest sister, picked out the color.

"May said it made her feel like dancing a Spanish flamenco. I thought, 'Well, this is the tackiest color I've ever seen, and we'll have half the town talking about us, but if it can lift May's heart like that, I guess she ought to live inside it.'"

Being so close to my sisters, I really enjoyed this book and the relationship the three sisters shared. This particular passage stood out to me; it made me ask myself if I could sacrifice my pride and the way people look at me in order to please my sister.

August goes on to say "You know, some things don't matter that much. Like the color of a house. How big is that in the overall scheme of life? But lifting a person's heart - now that matters."

"Dover Beach" - Matthew Arnold

The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the A gaean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

I've never been much into poetry, but I have studied this anthologized poem a few times over my years as an English major and it's one of the more memorable ones. It's soothing in a way, and promises that even though the world is full of strife, peace can still exist.

White cliffs of Dover