Such a good weekend, so happy here!

Day 110, el Viernes 2 de Noviembre 2012 9:02

New friend in Orotina!

This is actually yesterday’s story, but I have free today so I can write now, in the morning.

First I took the bus to San José to pick up my antibiotics and then I took a bus back, within 3 hours I went to San José and back, but the bus ride was nice. Then I met up with Sarah, the new exchange student living in Orotina, but I already knew her from camp. So we walked around Orotina, and I met her family. Also we made a bank deposit for the Limon trip, soooooo excited about going on that trip. Limon is the Caribbean side of Costa Rica and it practically is a different country, the culture is different, the nature is and the language is. It’s like Friesland in the Netherlands. We are going to an amazing hotel in the middle of the jungle and close to the beach, Queen Size beds and a Jacuzzi in the room, say yeah!

Also I went to the barbershop to have my hair cut, it was incredibly long and now it is so short, but it cost €4 so that’s cool.

Today I don’t have to go to school, because my teacher is going on a trip, and that’s the only teacher I have today! J.

 Day 111, el sabado 3 de Noviembre 2012 10:29

lazyyyy

Again yesterday’s story today. Yesterday was a laaaaazy day, I was like a sloth. I think I went out of my bed 1 time until 2 in the afternoon, only to breakfast and shower. Later I went to the pet doctor with my host mom, our dog is going to have ini-mini-tiny baby dogs soon.

The best part of the day was in the afternoon, I played videogames with my 2 host brothers, and that just felt so good! It was finally doing something again like brothers, like used to play videogames with my brother at home. It made me happy. It isn’t just the beaches and rainforests that make me happy, it is also these little things.

Day 112, el Domingo 4 de Noviembre 2012 22:22

Christmas madness

Costa Ricans are craaaazy about christmas. We spent all Saturday unpacking Christmas stuff, which mostly included angels, santa’s and the birth of the baby Christ. We also put up a fake Christmas tree, and I got my own sock! `

Today we went to my uncle again, in Desmonte. First I skyped with my parents, and they will be coming in May! I’m going to make a tour for them; that will be awesome. Good practice for me if I will be studying tourism. Still didn’t figure what I want to study though. We ate loads of meat. And I made chocolate for the first time I came here! Honey truffles, they’re delicious! We went back home in the pick-up of one of my uncles, my hostbro, 2 nephews a uncle and me in the big, very cool. And for the first time I could see the beautiful star sky, there were a lot of stars, normally you can’t see them because of the clouds.

On Sundays I always appreciate my family here so much and it makes me so happy, and I know for sure I will miss everything so much!

Dia 113, el lunes 5 de noviembre 2012 22:14

Strangee day!

Yep, this was a strange day. School was normal, it was a Monday, so yeah… to be honest, Mondays here are not that bad. We always do animal stuff on Monday so today I did a presentation about insects with a classmate.  Doing a presentation is not that big of a deal like in the Netherlands, where I always stood in front of the class with a heartbeat of 200 at least.

After school I had to go to the bank to make a deposit but the bank closes at 4 and me school as well, so that isn’t good. When my host mom came home she said that she had good news with a bad part in it. She told me that she is going to buy a new house next year, but again said that there was a bad part in it. It made me very scared, because she made me think that I had to leave to house. That feeling was so weird, it was so weird because of course I felt sad, because I like this family a lot.

But it also gave me another feeling; it wasn’t happiness, or joy. It was a curious feeling, because if I would’ve had to leave this house that would’ve meant that I will have a new family in a new place. That feeling was very small, don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to leave this family and it would make me very sad if I would have to. But this feeling, it tells me something, it tells me something that I’ve figured out over the last months. Everybody seeks  change, always the same is boring. I went on an exchange for change, you go on a holiday to go away from the normal and change your life a bit. When the change is achieved, the old will be missed, but yet there’s a urge for more change. We do what we do to go through changes, to be better, or to make other things better.  I realized this by talking to some people, people in the Netherlands who want to be here, people here, who want to be in the Netherlands. Exchange students who want to live on the beach, people in the city who want the live in the mountains and vice versa. It’s all about change.

Day 114, el Martes 6 de noviembre 2012 21:54

Looking into the future.

I had a short school day of just 3 hours with 3 minutes of classes. I went back to Orotina in a car with one of my classmates; don’t think he has a driver’s license though. 

Back home I watched some stuff about the United States elections, still don’t get their voting system. In the afternoon I watched soccer, Ajax – Man City. The soccer was fun, but more fun was talking with my Dutch friends during the match, it was just like I was really there. Also I signed up for a Dutch university, the NHTV in Breda, international hotel management. I really hope I get into this university, the study looks great, business, tourism, economy, cooking and abroad studying! But only 150 people will be accepted.

In the night I hopped by my Taekwondo practice to talk with my teacher about my back. It was a nice talk, they are really nice to me and a made a few friends because of Taekwondo! Also I spoke with Fabio, my best friend here. He told me that he is changing schools to a private one; that made me sad, I will miss him in my school. But I will still see him during Taekwondo and he invited me to go watch a movie or something and that made me very happy.

And later I searched for houses with my host mom on the internet. This last week a felt a lot of bonding with my family, and I am really happy!!

Dia 116, el Miercoles 7 de noviembre 2012 22:19

Yum

School was pretty boring, what did almost nothing. But that gave me time to figure more out about the application for the university and I have some paperwork to do.

After school I went home and with my hostbrother to his girlfriend. There were also the girlfriends sister, another friend and a nephew of the girlfriend. We made brownies and pancakes and we chatted a lot, like Costa Rican teenagers! It was really nice, also because I did something with my hostbrother again. I now have more time with him since he finished his final exams.

Dia 118, el Viernes el 9 de noviembre 2012 7:27

University stuff

Gooooodmorning! I’m sitting in school now, totally forgot to write yesterday.

I spent all afternoon doing stuff to get into this university I wrote about. I wrote my motivation letter, and I signed up in Studielink. So I will soon sign up for the study for real.  Now I’m also searching for an internship somewhere, I hope I can work in the Hilton in Puntarenas for a few week so I get some more experience and enlarge my changes to get accepted in the program.

A funny fact, yesterday the ‘gossip law’ has been suspended. Apparently there was a law which forbids talking bad about people or things behind their backs. That’s an interesting law, but now it is no more.

I realized that I never took photos of my school so now I started taking some and I’ll upload those soon!

Day 118, el viernes 9 de noviembre 2012 7:17

‘La Finca’

My school keeps surprising me! Today I found out that my farm has cows! So I wanted to see them of course, like I never see cows in The Netherlands.. So I went in the afternoon during English class with the agriculture teacher on the tractor to the farm, which is a 5 minute walk away from the school. There was a whole part I have never seen before! There were like 15 cows, a cornfield and beautiful nature. We moved the cows to another field; it felt so good, walking through farmland, just like the vacations with my family in The Netherlands. After that 2 classmates came and another teacher, we walked to another field and there we planted like 50 banana plants, which were given to us by the Japanese ambassador!  Then it even got better, we decided to walk to the famous river, we everybody always is talking about but which I had never seen. This river is like paradise, the water was flowing a bit but in some spots it was still and it was a beautiful blue color. There were some teenagers in the river, I saw one of the boys diving from a rock into a light blue pool, I went crazy I wanted to go to the river so bad, to that beautiful paradise. So I asked my classmates if we could but they were like noooooh we cannot do that! I was a bit stunned, because Paradise River was so close, but they explained me that it is very dangerous. It can be raining in San Jose in then all that water will be coming down through this river with rocks and everything and I can happen every moment! But they said that in the summer holidays we will be going to this river a lot, one of my friends has a house really close to it. They told me that the summer holidays will be like this: River-Mangos-River-Eating-River-Party-Sleep-River-Mangos-River-Eating-River-Party-Sleep-Beach-River and we will do this for 7 weeks, can’t wait!

Day 121, el Lunes 12 de Noviembre 2012 14:53

Hapiness weekend!

This weekend was 100% pure happiness. Frida came to Orotina on Saturday morning, her host family had something in San José, so she came to chill hereJ. We went to Jaco after we had breakfast and after she had met my family. It is always good to be at Jaco, and with your best friend it is even better! We swam, we lay in the sun, and we talked. That’s a thing I really started to like while being here, just talk. Talk about serious things, funny things, creepy things, everything!! We had lunch at a soda, and it was my first time, I don’t know why because food at sodas is so cheap and so good! We were back at Oro around 6, I took a shower and got ready for the radio interview with The Netherlands. We had dinner after the interview and then we went to the supermarket and the park until 10. Later we tried to watch a movie but that didn’t work out since we fell asleep within 20 minutes.

On Sunday we woke up a bit later, which was a good thing. We went to Las Palmas with my host brother and a cousin, Las Palmas is great and I don’t know why I had never been there. It’s a hotel with a pool, a restaurant and a soccer field, the whole day for just €2,50!! This was very relaxed, just chilling by the pool all day; it felt soooo much like a holiday! We went back home at 4 and arrived just in time for the rain. And after that we went into Orotina again for a while. We were home alone when we came back, and that made me feel kind of special because it felt so much like home. We had a really good conversation, which is something I was sometimes. We heated up some spaghetti for dinner; I dropped the spaghetti twice, great great.  Then my host family came home and we just talked about a lot of stuff and that made me so happy as well, Frida was really a guest in my house and my family and they are so nice! In the evening we watched a movie, Frida, my host brother and me that also felt so natural! My host mom bought popcorn for us, and that also made me so happy, I am just so happy I can’t describe it!

Today Frida left early in the morning, it wasn’t really sad or something like that, we had a great weekend and we can happily look back to it. I don’t have school this week on Monday, Wednesday, or Friday so I could go back to sleep and for the first time I slept until 11 which was really good. Now I am just being really lazy and not doing anything, which also is good sometimes.