Ready, Set, Costa Rica!

Saturday, January 29, 2011             

                I have come to realize that I get worse and worse at saying goodbye each time I have to do it.  I’m either a sniffling, teary mess, or an in an impatient can-we-please-just-get-this-over-with attitude.  Every time I say goodbye to someone, I tell myself that I’m going to do a better job than I have in the past, but that never seems to actually work out.  I have come to realize that maybe, just  maybe, I’m not supposed to be a person who is good at saying goodbye.  So, I have made a conscious decision to become really, really good at “see you later”.  Goodbye is just too final.  See you later is much more promising.

               

                I can’t believe today is actually here.  When I applied for this study abroad program nearly 10 months ago, January 29^th seemed like light-years away.  I honestly don’t think I ever expected it to come; it was just always some grand adventure that would be ahead of me for the rest of my life.  But sure enough, here I am, sitting in the SeaTac airport food court.  Let me tell you, if you’ve never sat in the food court at the SeaTac airport, you’re really missing out.  This is prime real-estate for people watching, which just happens to be one of my favorite pastimes.  I have never seen so many awkward men with mustaches in my life.  Also, I would like to take a moment to apologize to my parents if I ever threw a tantrum in any public location, especially an airport, and thank them for not just leaving me at the kiddie play place if I did.  There are a lot of lonely people sitting in the food court.  Maybe I’ll go join one of them.   

Sunday, January 30, 2011-01-30

               

                Okay, so a lot has happened since I was sitting in the food court in Seattle.  I did decide to go join one of the lone food court people, a guy who looked to be about my age.  I walked over to him, and asked, “Would it be really odd if I asked to join you?”  and he said, “Why of course not, it would be a pleasure,” in a thick British accent.  As it turns out, his name was Kirby, and he used to play professional soccer in the UK for a number of years.  Now he’s coaching a soccer team of 10 year olds in Issaquah, and he was on his way home to England to visit for about a month before returning to the US to continue coaching.  We looked at odd people sitting at tables around the food court, and tried to guess what they were talking about based on their actions and facial expressions.  Kirby and I must have talked for over an hour, which was a great way to help the time pass during my layover.

                I should have known that things were going all too well at this point, so something was bound to go wrong sooner or later.  When I got to my gate in Seattle to board my plane to Denver, the lady at the gate told me that I had to change my return date on my ticket because I was scheduled to be in Costa Rica for more than the 90 days that the country limits.  I told her, and showed her, that I had paperwork showing that I was going to be leaving the country to go to Nicaragua before the 90 days were up.  She was very unaccommodating, and told me that I couldn’t get on the plane unless my return date was changed to mid April.  Great.  So I let her change the date and decided I could try to figure it out during my 5 hour layover in Denver.

                When I arrived in Denver, the customer service desk was more than willing to waive the 90 day limit in Costa Rica after I explained my situation.  Nice people just make life so much easier, I need to remember that.  Thank you nice people at the customer service desk in Denver.

                I slept for a total of maybe an hour on the 5 hour flight from Denver to San Jose.  We took a red eye flight, so I was able to watch the sun rise as we flew over Central America.  It was like the sky exploded into the most vibrant shades of red, orange and gold.  Once we landed in San Jose, we went through customs.  My passport finally has a stamp in it!  Then we got our bags at baggage claim.  I definitely was one of the heavier packers for the trip..as usual.  The car ride to the center took about a half an hour.  Driving in Costa Rica is definitely an adventure.  We were told that a US driver’s license is valid here, but there is no way that I will ever set foot in the driver’s seat of a car while in Costa Rica.  People here swerve in and out of traffic, and the streets make absolutely no sense.  At one point, we were following a bus, and when it stopped, our driver swerved around the bus, passing it on the left and narrowly avoided running head on into an oncoming car. 

       The center, or Whitworth South as it is called here, is absolutely beautiful.  The school sits in about 27 acres of land that include a few lakes, and several hiking trails.  The main building used to be a popular Italian restaurant.  It took quite awhile to drive up the mountain to the restaurant, so regular customers suggested that the restaurant owner build a hotel next to the restaurant so they could come enjoy his delicious food and stay for the weekend.  He built the hotel next to the restaurant, and died shortly after the completion of the building.  The owner's wife decided to close the restaurant, and both buildings stood vacant for nearly 8 years.  Whitworth bought the property and converted the restaurant to an academic building and the hotel into dorm rooms.

 This is a picture of the campus when we were coming back from our hike.  To the right is the main campus building which houses the library, classrooms, dining hall and common rooms.  To the left are the dorm rooms.

 There are 20 students studying here this semester.  Most are from Whitworth, but one student is from Wheaton College and another is from a school in Iowa.  There are 15 girls and 5 boys.  Lindy Scott is a Spanish professor at Whitworth.  He and his wife Denora are living at Whitworth South at the moment, and will continue to live here for the next few years to get the campus more settled.  They joined us for breakfast, along with Jenny Holsinger, a sociology professor at Whitworth who is doing her sabbatical at Whitworth South this semester.  She actually brought her entire family with her.  Her husband Adam and two children Ravi (7) and Justin (3) are so great to have around campus.  The boys are so excited to be in Costa Rica, and are picking up Spanish very quickly.  I wish I had started learning when I was younger.

                Juan is the chef here at Whitworth South.  This morning he cooked us a breakfast of pancakes with pineapple.  He doesn’t speak any English, so I love talking to him because it forces me to use my Spanish.  It was wonderful to get something of actual substance in my system after 18 hours of travel.  At this point, I had slept a total of around 5 hours in the last 2 days, so I was mentally and physically exhausted.  But of course I decided to go for a hike with Lindy and the other students rather than take a nap.

                 When Lindy said that we were going to take a 2-3 hour hike, I thought that it wouldn’t be a big deal.  I definitely forgot to factor in the fact that the campus is in the mountains about 6,000 feet above sea level, and we were only going to continue climbing higher.  The air is much, much harder to breathe at altitude of about 7,000 feet, let me tell you.  Not to mention that he hiking trails here are some of the most treacherous paths I’ve ever been on in my entire life.  They were paved at one point, but now are broken up into huge chunks of concrete that is about 9 inches thick in some places.  Thick drop offs of concrete paired with orange to watermelon size rocks do not make for an easy 5 mile hike, take my word for it.  Also, it wasn’t the best idea I’ve ever had to take this opportunity to break in my new hiking boots.  Let’s just say that I have some lovely blisters on my feet and sunburn on the back of my neck where I forgot to put sunscreen. 

                

 A view of all the plants that we saw on our hike

 A view (vista) of San Jose from nearly the top of our hike

 We also saw several water falls like this one

 One of the many rotting bridges (puentes) we crossed

Definitely a nicer (and more flat) stretch of the path we walked on

Calla lilies grow all over the campus

                After the hike, I passed out in my room for about three hours.  It was the best sleep I’ve had in a loooonngggg time.  We will live on campus for the first week we are in Costa Rica while we are going through orientation and getting our bearings.  Then we will move in with host families and live with them for the duration of our stay in Costa Rica.  Now we are getting ready to eat dinner that Juan prepared for us, and then we have a night filled with orientation material.  ¡Hasta luego!