Baby doggies! And m current thoughts about the exchange!

Day 125, el Viernes 16 de Noviembre 2012 21:31

Movienight.

Again I was all day free again, but I did some useful things, but mostly just being ‘tranquillo’ or just plain lazy / bored.

In that perspective you could say yesterday was a better day. I went to a friend’s house with my host brother and there we ate popcorn and watched movies till late. It was pretty nice, just felt like a normal teenager again. Also it was pretty funny the sneak in through the window with my host brother at night, just like normal teenagers.

As I said, I practically did nothing today. I put up the hammock and chilled in it with a banana smoothie I made. In the night I went to Taekwondo, there were night so many people but that was really nice. The other guys of my age there have become my friends and we trained together while laughing and joking and stuff. I think sport is one of the best ways to make friends; it’s about being a team, helping each other and having some same interests. 

I make friends a bit easier here, probably just because I am interesting here and people want to know about me and my culture, the thing is that I have to stay friends when I’m not that interesting anymore.

Day 127, el Domingo 18 de Noviembre 2012 10:17

Baby dogs!!

Woohoo, yesterday our dog delivered 5 ini-mini baby dogs! I’m not the biggest dog fan in the world, but it still is cool! We went to the pet doctor in the morning because Luna, the dog needed an operation to get the babies out. So we spent all morning in the pet shop / pet clinic. And finally after 2 hours the babies were here! One wasn’t really breathing so he needed a lot of attention. Anyways, we spent almost the whole morning taking care of these cute baby doggies. I spent the whole afternoon helping my little brother with his English homework, I got kind of bored after 2 hours because he was being very lazy but this is the best way to help out.

In the night I went to same kind a dance show which one of my friend’s mom organized, but I arrived when it ended. Luckily I met Sarah there and we went with 2 other people to Las Palmas to eat something and chill.

19:46

Today was another beautiful day. I went to the pool of Las Palmas, that was just ultimate relaxing again. I also made a friend, just to old school way like I made friends on campings during holidays; asking to play soccer. So I played soccer with this Daniel guy and my hostbro, cool to do stuff like this. My host brother left a bit earlier as me and Melissa, a niece or cousin I don’t know which of the 2 it is in English, everybody thinks I speak full English and I did improver her but sometimes I do lack some words. At 5 me and Melissa walked home from the pool, she lives a few houses next to mine. I asked her some questions about what she does; she works at her dad’s mango farm but spends most time running and tanning ( no daddy, she won’t be my girlfriend and no she is not a Costa Rican beauty sorry for ruining your fantasies <3), she also is the person who uses the most Costa Rican words I have ever met, to me she is one of the most Pura Vida people here.

Later I chilled in the hammock, just listening to music and ready exchange student blogs, from other people in Costa Rica and from people on an exchange in The Netherlands. Sometimes it is so important to take a little moment for yourself, just me and my thoughts. The blogs from the people in The Netherlands were really nice, reading about people struggling with my culture made me see how stupid some struggles are. Well actually no struggles are stupid; they are just struggles which have to be overcome. I found a really nice quote: ‘We are like big ships, it takes a lot of time to make us in the docks, but when we are ready we should be sailing on the sea on not be waiting in the docks.’ That is how I feel now, it took 17 years to make me like this, now I am sailing on the sea going through storms and sunshine and I will come back loaded with silver and stuff, like back in the ol’ days! I know I’m cant of deep now but I just love quote’s about exchange students!

I think I now reached a point that I am letting my old Dutch thoughts and costumes go, and that I am attaching to the Costa Rican way. This includes being very very ‘tranquillo’ and also not having this urge anymore to be in contact with the Netherlands every day. I do still love to skype with my parents and Whatsapp with friends though. But I try to do less with the other exchange students and more with the Costa Rican people, because I think there is some more work to do at that part of my exchange.

Beautiful beaches, nice people and rainforest made me very happy during my first 4 months here but the real happiness comes from the small things. A few weeks a my host dad gave me a small thingy for my keys, so that I won’t lose them (it now is general knowledge here that I lose everything) first I didn’t attach so much value to this gift, but lately my host mom asked how I got, and she was pretty surprised when I told her my host dad gave it to me, since he never does gifts. And today, my aunt brought me a small sloth made of clay by Indians, also for my keys. These were two little moments of happiness, moments of realization that these people care about me and if makes me feel a part of the family.

Today I also saw in myself how I changed, we arranged to meet at my house at noon, and my niece showed up at 12:40 and I didn’t even think about it, I was like yes this is normal I don’t care I didn’t bother about the waiting. Another moment was when we were playing soccer, we decided to play 1 against 1, so 1 person had to go out first, and I volunteered. I let others have fun, and enjoying doing that, something I couldn’t have done 5 months ago.

Another moment of realization today, (so many moments today!) this moments was about my family. I feel really good in my family today, first I was like: ‘yeah I’ll wash all plates’ but that isn’t fitting in, fitting in is telling your host brother that he has to do the other half. I don’t want to do all these chores so forced, I don’t want them to think I do it as I way to thank them, I do it because I am part of the family.

The thing about thanking your family is really hard, just saying thank you is not sufficient of course. But it is very difficult to show your host family how thankful you are. Especially my host family, they never asked for me they took me in during an emergency case and it should have been for just 2 weeks, but it turned out to be forever.

Right now everything is very good, close to perfect, not perfect but very close. The things which don’t make it perfect are just small but they will always be here. The thing just is that I don’t know when the next obstacle will come, but I know that it will come.

Day 130, el Miercoles 21 de Noviembre 2012 16:33

I like coffee talks.

I love taekwondo, I look forward to the practice all day, and give everything during them. The thing what motivates me is that I really see progress, and the teacher tells me that as well. But the philosophy behind it also is very interesting and nice. The only bad part is that I have to learn a lot of Korean words, and learning from Spanish to Korean is something I have never thought of, but I can do it.

Yesterday I sat with my host dad in front of the house enjoying a good cup of coffee and conversating. This is pretty Costa Rican, coffee talks in the afternoon. And I like them; it is so much better as watching television or something like that. We talked about interesting stuff and it gives me a better view in the Costa Rican life and I give my family a different view in the Dutch life.

Also there was something pretty funny and crazy yesterday night: my host brother was at his girlfriend 300 meters down the road, and then he called me to pick him up. He was afraid to walk alone after 10 P.M. the funny thing is that he actually is like 1 month older as me. But I like the fact that he calls me for it, and it kind of made me feel like a good big brother even though he is older. My host parents thought it was pretty funny as well, but then my host mom did something of what I think is way funnier; she started putting on Christmas decorations at 10:30 P.M. while we normally go to sleep at 9:30. Crazy Costa Ricans!

Today was a really nice day as well, I went to school for just hours. First there was a tourism exam and after that it appeared that we had to hand in our insect case today. Nobody had thought about so we didn’t have anything. So Chino, Hernan and I went to Chino’s house to make it. Chino has a beautiful house a bit out of Orotina. If you go out of Orotina you pretty quickly get into to pure nature. His house was really nice, it is not nice like a big villa but it fits perfectly into the nature. There is a garden with palm trees, an outside kitched and art, everywhere art. His dad is an artist; he makes beautiful sculptures and modern art. The house and garden is loaded with it.  We made this insect case out of some old wood and painted it and stuff. We also made delicious lunch and just chilled. I think the Costa Rican parents and kids are way closer to each, they trust each other more and the parents are closer to their kid’s friends. I very nice from the Ticos is that when you visit them that they will always invite you to come again, or to do something, if you are nice to them ofcourse!