Wow. This was the second to last week. It's crazy because time has both felt like its gone on forever, but also felt like its flown by. Classes wrapped up. No more school! We just recapped the semester, the things we've learned. My classes haven't been as big a part of my experience than I originally expected. They were more filler than anything. The real learning I've had has been outside the classroom, actually speaking/ seeing/ going. But yeah, over and done. I hope I get good grades, hahaha.
Thursday night was a good time though. USAC threw us a little party thing. I got to help my abuela the night before prep some potatoes for Picadillo. She made fun of how slow I chopped everything. (In a kind way). But honestly she had some super human speed chopping those soft potatoes. Most of mine ended up a little squished, but hers were nice little cubes. I got to use one of her sword/ dagger looking knives to do it. She keeps those things sharp as heck. But yeah. Her sisters came over Thursday morning to help prep the salads and everything. It was bewildering coming home to 4 abuelas in the kitchen cooking up food. When I walked in they all said hello. To set up this next story: my friends call me Pan (USAC didn't tell my abuela of my preferred name, so she calls me my birth name). One of her sisters is the host mom of my friend Meleah. So, while I was eating my lunch, trying to stay out of the abuelas' ways. Meleah's host mom all of a sudden goes "Hey. Why do your compañeros here call you Pan. That is a food?" I didn't want to get into the whole situation. So I tried to tell them its my "nickname". I don't know the word for nickname in Spanish. So I said "its my fun name". I got a chorus of "ohhhh sí sí" from all the abuelas. It was honestly so funny. So yeah, they think my friends call me "bread" for fun.
But the party was great. We played games under the pavilion because it was raining. My team whole the relay race that involved sack racing, egg balancing, and three-legged racing. It was treacherous though because everything was tile. So people were sliding all over the place during the sack race. Then we played some balloon popping game. And it was hilarious watching everyone dance around, keeping their balloons from being stomped. Caleb, Isaac, and I explored around the pavilion later and found a pile of old fruit. I don't know how it happened, but Isaac ended up throwing a rotten mango at Caleb, and the squelching noise it made when it hit his hand was awful.
Later, before dinner, the dance instructor came and taught up all sorts of dances. Salsa, Merengue, and Bachata. It was a great time, but I am a very stiff dancer. But listening to the fun music and laughing as my friends and I twirled around the floor was so so nice. After that, we ate delicious food, and just hung out. Caleb got the aux at some point and played music from his playlist "songs that make white girls dance on tables". It was all the classics "Toxic", "Mr. Brightside". All sorts.
This past weekend was the final weekend :( So my little group decided to go back to where it all began: Puntarenas (just for one night though). We stayed at this lovely little airbnb outside of the city. It was Beach front, so as soon as we got there we hit the beach. The sun felt amazing, not too hot, but good for cooling off in the ocean. I can't swim rn though, because I have a fresh tattoo. But I got to watch Isaac, Jenna, and Caleb get absolutely wrecked by the waves. There was a ton of driftwood and coconuts on the beach, so me and Caleb played a modified form of stickball with them. Caleb ended up going all caveman and working to break a coconut open (he succeeded).
After that we headed to a restaurant via one professor's recommendation. It was called Mae's Grill. The passionfruit cocktail was delicious, and the pollo tacos had the best corn tortillas I've ever tasted. It was a great time and a good family dinner. Jenna, Meleah, Isaac, Jeff, Caleb, Erin, and Conner were all there. I know, a lot of names, but I want to remember all of them. We talk about the most unhinged, hilarious things in public here, because 8 times out of 10 people around us don't really understand. We just laughed and ate and talked.
The next day everyone but Conner and Erin packed up and headed to Curu nature reserve. We had to take a ferry and a bus to get there. The ferry is nice though, even better with a good group of friends. The inside of the ferry is air conditioned too, so it was Devine. Curu was beautiful. The sky was overcast, but that just meant we didn't die as we walked to the cabins/ beach. We saw cows and horses in the fields leading up to the reserve. In the river beside the road, we even saw caymans and a basilisk run across the water. It was so so cool.
The beach was an adventure. Again, I could swim, so I walked all the way around the cove to the point of the beach. The waves were crashing so hard on the rocky shore, and the waves were a crazy stone color because of the overcast. It was beautiful. But a very long walk. The others soon joined me out there. We saw oysters, snails, crabs, and this weird animal called "the cockroach of the ocean". The kapok trees grew right up to the coast, so their trunks and branches hung over the shore.
Our cabin was cool. But the bugs were brutal. We had to keep the door closed. The afternoon was really lazy. Some napped inside, Caleb ripped apart a few more coconuts, and Jeff and I played a ton of card games. We ate dinner at the reserve's restaurant and it was so so good. I had sour guava juice that was unexpectedly delicious. After that, we just enjoyed each other's company and chatted back at the cabin. I think we're all trying to savor the last little moments together.
We had an early start the next morning. We got back to San Ramon in a bus, ferry, taxi, and another bus. Big big travel day. I was so tired when I got back I just watched tv. So yeah, we're wrapping up this thing really well.
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