singing to baby jesus and an epic weekend!

Dia 195 el Viernes 25 de Enero 2013 22:29

Rice parties

Last Wednesday there was an ‘Arrozarium’ which can be translated as rice party. It was at my grandmother’s house from my hostdad’s side. There were about 40 people in a middle sized house so there were some people on the street in front of the house. The main activity was surprisingly not eating rice; it was singing. Everybody was singing religious songs on front of the ‘portal’, no to bad not a futuristic portal as we know in  the English language but a little house with surroundings where the birth of Jesus is displayed, yes it was still there on 23th of January, These things are pretty immense for such thingies, abut 1,5 meter by 1,5 meter! If you have this ‘portal’ then you HAVE to sing to it. We also have one so I’ll see when we are going to sing, which should be soon because Christmas decoration in February is just not down, especially when it arrived on the 1^st of November, which means we would have Christmas decorations for 25% of the year, for a just 2 single days of party, Ticos…..

So after the singing which took about 1 hour the rice came. On special occasions people eat rice with chicken which is extremely tasty, we ate it with some homemade drink which was watery milk with peanut taste, I didn’t like it. After this there was rice ‘n milk and later a little box with cookies and bread. The strange thing was that when the food was eaten people would leave instantly, what is according to Dutch ways of thinking not so nice.

Today I went to the pools at a hotel in Orotina. It was really nice, just chilling at the pool with 2 Costa Rican friends. Being at such a ‘holiday-style’ pool on a normal day makes me so happy! And I had a lot of fun with friends!

Dia 198, el Lunes 28 de Enero 2013 10:09

Such a nice weekend!

After chilling at the pool on Friday the weekend got even better on Saturday and Sunday! On Saturday I woke up early to go to San José to have a final breakfast with my sister. We searched for a nice spot and had a nice breakfast. We spoke about her adventures in Costa Rica and about mine. I dropped her off at her bus station and there is where we said goodbye. It was very different as the goodbye we had in The Netherlands, again we say goodbye for 5 months but this one was very different; it wasn’t sad at all. 5 Months feels so little that the goodbye wasn’t hard, fortunately.

Back in Orotina there was a family party of my host dad’s side. There were around 400 people at the recreation center they hired. I didn’t know that much people but I wasn’t the only one I guess. We swam in the pool, ate, watched the entertainer, (Costa Rican clowns aren’t that scary and pretty funny!) and best of all: played soccer. I love playing soccer for real, but I barely do it.  There was a player from the Costa Rican national team who appears to be a faraway host cousin from me! I didn’t really talk to him or anything but yeah, he’s family…

After this party I went to another party, at the house of my friend Chino. There was a concert of different Costa Rican artists. The music was very good and it was very nice just to watch and listen with some friends. There was one experimental group who were just amazing! I made some videos of the various artists, and photos, a lot of photos, I always make a lot of photos, just to remember everything. It is so epic that these people just organize all of this for everybody just to have a nice evening with good live music! Ticos are incredible!

At the pool :)

Epic band!

OmNomNomNom

With yu!

This crazy guy climbed a 6 meter Palmtree for some coconuts.

I like to fly.

Yesterday was even better! I went to the playa Jaco with 4 friends from my school. We hopped in a bus to Jaco which was loaded with people and some 11-year old boys who thought they were pretty gangster. First we went to the supermarket to buy some food; it’s always food, food, food! The beach was pretty loaded I’ve never seen it so full, but who managed to find a spot. We had a nice time swimming, eating and chilling.  The bus back always is horrible, a lot of people, wet, shorts, being tired, and having hunger. But even under these circumstances we managed to pull off some cool pictures in the bus.  

When I spent time with Costa Rican friends I feel that the culture difference is way smaller as with adults, everything feels more natural and just so normal! That’s probably I sign that I changed, because these Ticos aren’t getting any Dutcher.

This definitely was the best weekend I spent with Costa Rican friends!