Teaching Placement and Monteverde!

Hola!

This week my English teacher broke her arm and the cancelled English classes for the second half of the week. It was soo crappy because I didn't get to finish my placement at Escuela de Guadalupe, and I never got to take any pictures of the school or the kids. I'm going to try to go back again to visit and take pictures, because it's a place that I never want to forget! And I DEFINITELY don't want to forget the kids there - I learned as much from them as they did from me. For the second half of the week I worked at a different school doing some labour they needed done. I worked with a couple of the guys and we built a big fence around a garden, then built the actual garden itself. It was rewarding to see something that I actually accomplished at the end of the week, but at the same time it was hard work and it was SO hot!

This past weekend 18 of us headed south to Monteverde (a huge rainforest!). It was absolutely amazing! We took two 2-hour bus rides to the village on Friday afternoon. Choosing a hostel was ridiculous! It was so hilarious!! Since we were such a big group, owners of hostels were arguing over where we stayed! The rates started at $8/night and after standing in the street for 1/2 hour listening to the owners of 2 hostels argue over where we stayed, we ended up with our own private house! It had 5 rooms, 3 bathrooms, a kitchen, living room, an office with 2 computors and free wifi! All for the low, low price of ZERO dollars WITH breakfast included! It was right in "downtown" and about a 2 minute walk from the supermarket, bakery, shops, restaurants and bars! The only catch was that we had to let our hostel book the tours for us so that they could profit. This was perfect for us since we were still able to book with the same company that we wanted, paid the same price offered at the office and didn't have to plan anything! We just had to pay the hostel and they arranged everything for us, even the shuttle to the tour! SUCH an awesome deal!

Friday night we just chilled at the hostel and made dinner to keep it cheap! Nanna, Pauline and I ate a huge meal and split alcohol to keep it cheaper! After drinking by the bonfire for a while, some people headed to the bars and we all met up at the end of the night by the fire once again!

At 10:30am on Saturday, our shuttle picked us up to take us to the tour! It cost US$35.00 for a 3-hour zipline circuit through the rainforest. The circuit included about 15 ziplines (I think), 1 tarzan swing (so scary because you had to jump off the platform and free fall for a few seconds), and a huge zipline called Superman. Superman was 1km long and you hung from your back and your heels! You were soaring over the rainforest with your arms free the whole time. SO so so soooo much fun! I took a video!! :)

The rainforest itself was SO beautiful! It reminded me of Avatar, just without the blue people, haha. So green with lots of colourful flowers everywhere! The trees were massive and hung down to the ground! It was such a cool place to see! The tour was perfect as sometimes you had to hike between ziplines, so we got to see some pretty great views from the hills! I must have taken about 100 pictures.

Some people did the night tour, but I opted out to keep it cheap and because I definitely was not interested in seeing snakes and spiders in the rainforest in the dark. Nope.

A few of us came home early this morning so we could get stuff done in Liberia (blog). To be honest, I was ready to come home. I missed my host mom! And her cooking! ahah! She's teaching me how to cook typical Costa Rican meals! Also, on Friday, she said she was so impressed with how quickly my Spanish is improving! We have full conversations about everything now, and rarely have confusions or problems with language barriers. I guess taking Spanish as my minor is really paying off, which I'm sooo excited about! I usually sit with her while she cooks lunch and dinner and we just talk about everything! She always wants to know if I have a volunteer boyfriend or a Tico boyfriend, haha. But the conversation has really helped me become more comfortable around her and in the house! Also, my new housemate came last week! Her name is Amy, she's 19 and from the UK. She seems really cool so far, and we've been getting along really well so far! It's nice having someone else around the house and to have someone to share cabs with too!

Tomorrow I start my Care placement! I'm really excited about it since my last week of teaching kind of sucked. I'm not sure where I'll be yet, but I'm looking forward to it!

I'm not sure where we're heading next weekend yet, but I know it's going to be fun! It's Nanna and Pauline's last weekend, which REALLY sucks! :(

I've also started planning my week of travels with a girl named Shelley from the UK. So I'm really excited about that too!! Once those plans are finalized I'll let you know all about it!

The rainy season has started which is crap because my hair has gone crazy blonde and I have the best tan of my life right now! Haha, goodbye tan...(hopefully not though).

I'm still loving life here as you can tell! And I'm in the middle of uploading some of my pictures so far!!

Love and miss you all! As much as I love it here, I'm excited to see everyone in a few weeks!

Love,

Kate! xo