First few days teaching

Monday was the first day of classes at the university, everything felt so rushed!

I am in a brand new building this year, and it seems to be the pride and joy of the university. So much so that it's treated like a baby cub with an angry mama bear. There was a huge process just to get the keys to my office and classrooms that included a machine with all sorts of buttons and codes, but I finally got them! Before we even had keys and weren't able to lock the classrooms, we got pleasant e-mails about leaving without locking the doors. I'll let you know when I find the queen's jewels during one of my lessons in there.

Seriously, though, the technology is awesome in these classrooms. They all come with Apple TVs so that you can teach right from your iPad. Oh yeah, they give every instructor an iPad. Using the Apple TV, you can also show content from Netflix and Hulu as well as other content-specific TV subscriptions like NatGeo and Discovery. If you can't find a video on one of those programs, you have the option of using the BluRay and DVD player, what a relief. The classrooms also have a SmartPad which is kind of like a SmartBoard, but it's a computer. The teacher can write right on the computer screen using a stylus and it shows up on the projector. I use it to write notes in the margins of my PowerPoints so far. I don't know what I would do with my presentations without the special light switch. Button #3 sets up the classroom with dim lights near the projector screen and more lights towards the students so they can still see the board and take notes. I know you're all curious, so button #1 sets the lights to go out in 15 minutes if no motion is detected, button #2 is 'test mode' where the lights will not go out for 2 hours even without motion, which works well in a test setting as long as your test subjects aren't monkeys, and button #4 is supposedly the optimum classroom lighting situation when showing a film. I guess it takes the lights down to the dimmest they can get without turning off so that students can still take notes while seeing the movie.

In case you feel underwhelmed with the light switches, you can take the projector screen and window shade switches for a spin. The projector screen unfortunately only has an up, down, and stop option. I use it when I stick my gum on the ceiling at the beginning of class and then at the end of class when I retrieve it. Look out, Violet, I'm about to set a new chewing gum record. The light switch options can be so limiting at times, so I turn to the window shade switches to help get the students in the mood to learn! They can be lowered at 5 different heights along the window and have a sheer option and a blackout option. The blackout option is great for surprise parties. If only my pesky students didn't line up outside the door before class until I unlock it.

Speaking of my students, I have now been welcomed as an authority figure here. That's right, just call me "ma'am". In Cleveland, older ladies are called "ma'am" or a younger lady if you just want to say the expression "yes ma'am". Here, it seems that the person with the most seniority or authority at any given moment is "ma'am" or "sir" for you gentlemen types. Even the cleaning lady called me "ma'am" after I thanked her for getting my trash. When I ask a student a question, it's "yes ma'am" or "no ma'am". I even heard one of my students ask another how to say "ma'am" in Spanish. I discussed this with another professor from Wisconsin and we just decided that we northerners are just not as polite. So from now on, you can call me "ma'am" or keep to yourself.

My office is also beautiful. One wall is made of windows that look into the atrium and get some natural light from the sky light. It has an ergonomic chair, keyboard tray, and computer screen holders that are all supposed to help maintain a normal posture so we don't get carpal tunnel or back problems. I cannot figure out my telephone though, it keeps telling me I have a voicemail but I fail every time I try to check it. Just e-mail if you need anything.

Today I heard some colleagues talking about how nice the weather felt, like a cool fall day. That made me kind of excited to walk home without sweating (I live just across the street from the university). To my surprise, it did feel cooler than usual, but I wasn't cold. The temperature dropped to a breezy 81 degrees and apparently I'm getting used to the warmer climate. I have been spending the days after class at the pool or at the faculty rec center taking workout classes. Today I took "guns and buns" with a nice group of ladies. The yoga class is taught when I am teaching, so I will just have to do that at home with Opie and Onyx!

Opie and Onyx are my two new cats. Opie is a blue point Siamese and Onyx is obviously a black cat. I found them on Craigslist for free from someone who is moving and cannot take the cats. Originally, I just wanted one, but when we visited them they kept playing and cuddling and licking each other. I couldn't just separate them. Opie was originally named MoMo and Onyx was named Trent, but I would never use those names as cat names. They both like to be held and nap all over the place. In the morning they tell me all about the long night they had doing their nocturnal things. I just listen and make sure their food and litter box is ready for the day.

That's all I have for now, we're trying to figure out why Onyx keeps farting.

Welcome to Arkansas, The Natural State, and Tennessee, too

*Disclaimer* This is a very long post as it covers the last 12 days of my life, feel free to stop reading when you get bored **

I moved to Arkansas! After 25 years of mostly living in the same house, minus going away to college and studying abroad, I now have my own grown-up apartment to go along with my 4th year of my grown-up job, teaching Spanish. I will be teaching at Arkansas State University. I am so excited because out of all of my teaching experiences, teaching college is so far my favorite! Adult students are much easier to deal with than non-adult students... and I'll just leave it at that.

My bestfriend of 10 years/ boyfriend of 7, Kevin, has decided to embark on this journey with me. He is looking for more exciting work but will be substitute teaching (making sure students don't kill each other while doing seat work) in local public schools.
Our apartment is starting to feel like home...

Here is what we have been up to for the past week-or-so of adjusting...

Our apartment complex has a pool. I start working tomorrow. 3 days of our past week consisted of mandatory school-starts-soon-panic-mode-time at the pool. This is to make sure Kevin and I store adequate amounts of vitamin D in our systems as well as to keep us from looking like Casper and his girlfriend, lady Casper.
There are quite a few families that live in the townhome section of our complex, but they're hardly at the pool. I think this is a tragedy for those children, but I also appreciate having the pool generally to ourselves. We spend our time reading while we're there and my book and my hair don't appreciate splashing. I am reading a book I've wanted to read for a while, 1984 by George Orwell, and Kevin is reading The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch.
I think the longest I have spent at the pool is about 2 hours, which is a very short time for me, but it is very hot here. The pool water is even warm even though the pool is not heated. That's how hot it is. It's 88 right now, feels like 94, with humidity at 59% and a UV index at 9.
I love the pool because it's free fun in the sun.

Besides spending time at the pool, I really enjoy our local Craighead County Library because they also have free fun, just in air conditioning. They have so many nice events that are not just for kids and retired people, like I am used to at my old library. So far, I have gone to their Piyo workout class, Yoga class, and a painting class.

Piyo is an awesome cardio workout that combines a choreography from Pilates and Yoga. It's hard to get the hang of at first, but it's a great workout. The yoga instructor integrates strength training into her class and does not speak in a calming voice at all. With her loud southern accent, it's more like a drill sergeant, but still a good work out. I love group fitness classes, but usually not the price, so the library is perfect for getting a free group workout. Most of the people are nice and normal people like me, but since these are free public classes, they also include, free-of-charge, that one weirdo that finds an organization and attends everything they have to offer even if they don't quite fit the bill. I met this person on accident when taking a spot next to her because, well, I didn't know better as the new person. Her first words to me were "I can do this but I can't do the splits" as she performed a stretch. I replied that I couldn't do the splits either and then just kept to myself. I was glad that instead of exchanging names, we exchanged information on our physical abilities so that if I ever need to get away from her quickly, I can just do really big lunges and she could never catch me because my legs are very long and she can't do the splits with her shorter legs. Anyhow, this particular subject seems to love the idea of group workout, but not the idea of following instructions. She's the one that everyone knows the instructor is talking to when making "a general suggestion to the group" but the one weirdo doesn't realize she's being spoken to while everyone else just listens politely and tries not to give the "she's talking to you" glance to the person. She also dare not silence her ringer on her flip phone in case someone calls about an emergency with her dog (what??) and then, as the instructor is giving choreography directions, tries to tell the class, who cares so much, why she is packing up to leave early. This is live entertainment, folks.

The painting class was great! It was set up just like one of those Painting with a Twist classes, except no groupon, or any payment, is required. Kevin and I both painted hibiscus flowers. Kevin was doing much better than I was on his flower with the shading of different colors while mine was pretty monochromatic. He had a mostly red flower but had mixed in different shades to give it more detail. Then I went to the bathroom. While adding just a wee bit of black that should have just been in the center of the flower, he proceeded to blend it with the petals and all of the sudden half of his flower was black. As other classmates circled the room to look at everyone's finished design, I got a few "that turned out nice" comments while Kevin got no comments. We kept laughing as people passed his flower without saying anything. So now in our dining room we have a picture of a mostly yellow flower that kind of looks like a cloud from far away and a red and black splatter mess with some hints of white to try to cover the black. I can't wait until the next class in October, we need all of the practice we can get.

Our town also has a cute downtown/ Main Street area with cute buildings, shops and restaurants. It also has a state park, complete with a merry-go-round, and a nature center with free events. We've already learned about how our town came to be and made humming bird feeders.

At home, we spend a lot of our time cooking. We have not eaten out since August 5th! That's an accomplishment if you know my family at all. It will be a while until both of us receive our first paychecks, so we are saving where we can. We even packed our lunch for our day trip to Memphis.
We came upon some canned chicken that someone had given us from their pantry, and I made the mistake of telling Kevin that this is what is normally used in buffalo chicken dip. I say mistake because Kevin and I are both big fans of buffalo chicken, buffalo chicken pizza, buffalo chicken dip, and all things buffalo chicken. We have made 2 party-sized servings so far and we've only lived here for 12 days.
This dip, and buying the ingredients it requires, has helped us meet our new favorite grocery store, though. My preferred shopping is done at farmer's markets and health food stores. We only have one farmer's market and one health-food store, though, so some things have to be bought at a large chain. The Kroger Marketplace is our new preferred non-local choice. If you are familiar with Giant Eagle Market District, this is the same thing, but Kroger brand. They have a whole organic section that takes up a pretty good chunk of the store and they offer a lot of Kroger branded options that are cheaper. For example, I prefer Blue Diamond almond milk which goes for about 3.49. The Kroger brand of almond milk sells for 2.79. Also, my peanutbutterlover, Kevin, gets to grind and fill his own peanut butter container at their grinding station. He was so excited about it.

Anyhow, so far we've made some really good meals. Nothing has been gross yet. Kevin is learning how to cook pretty quickly and even had dinner ready for me one day after I came home from Piyo. He made steaks and pesto gnocchi and even garnished the plate with a basil leaf from the plant we got at the farmer's market. He's also in charge of cutting up any melons we get. I make him eat fruit everyday because I don't believe in taking multivitamins since you can get the same vitamins from eating real foods and produce.

Arkansas State Farmer's Market

The most exciting day of our week was our day trip to Memphis. We went there for my car's last check-up before the service warranty expires and decided to explore a bit there. It is only an hour away from our new home and it's the nearest big city. My sister, Jessica, who is great at finding free things to do, sent me a whole list of things to check out in Memphis. We visited the Crystal Shrine Grotto, Graceland, Mud River Island Park, A. Schwab's on Beale Street, and the Peabody ducks.
The Crystal Shrine Grotto is at a cemetery and is a grave site. I really didn't expect much from it, but it was beautiful. The grave site includes a fountain in a pond, a few bridges and benches, a mausoleum, and a mock cave that you can walk in with thousands of crystals as well as scenes from the life of Jesus. It was amazing and I highly recommend visiting it if you go to Memphis.

Next, we went to Graceland, which was so crowded because this past week was Elvis Week both in Arkansas and Tennessee, and who knows where else. I refused to pay for parking or the price of a tour, especially with such long lines, so we parked on a side street and got to see plenty without buying tickets. Just parking at Graceland will cost you $10, but right across the street in front of Elvis' house there are plenty of street parking spots that were empty. I recommend parking there if you ever go because it is right across the street from Graceland as well. We were able to see his house from there, but we will remember next time to bring a permanent marker to sign the wall surrounding his property, which seemed to be the thing to do. I would have written "for Grandma Rose for introducing me to Elvis". We also got a good look at his private jet and got to watch an Elvis impersonator perform near the shops. We took some pictures with the artifacts around the property as well. The only things we did not get to see, for not paying, were the inside of his airplane and the inside of his house, so we didn't do too bad.

When we got to downtown Memphis, we parked at a meter and went to Mud River Island Park which tells the history of the Mississippi. It is also located right on the river so we could get some beautiful pictures. It includes a mini model of the river from start to finish. The model is about a foot wide but is still very long and includes the different landmarks it passes. You are allowed to walk in the mini river and at the end, there is a pool with a fountain to symbolize the Gulf of Mexico and you can pay to rent a peddle boat shaped like a swan to float around the gulf. There is also a museum indoors for a price, but we decided to just eat our packed lunch in the park with the model river.

After lunch, we headed to Beale Street where the Blues was invented. On the way, we walked down main street. It was very cute because no cars are allowed on the street which still has street car tracks and wires on it. It was pretty empty on Main Street until we got to Beale Street which also happened to be blocked from traffic. Many of the restaurants have live bands playing at all times and serve BBQ. We stopped in an old store called A. Schwab's that has been in business since the 1860's. It is America's oldest general store and has a lot of unique items, an old-fashioned soda fountain, and a mini museum of things it used to sell. I want to take my parents there because I'm pretty sure they'd remember a few things that their parents had used. They have old candy brands and soda flavors. I really liked the hats and dresses they had, but settled on buying a box of matches because I have been wanting to light the tea cup candle we have on our dining room table while we eat dinner. Our stove is electric, so we have nothing in this apartment that could light a candle. Yay for responsible souvenirs!




After Beale Street, we went to the Peabody Hotel a little early to get a seat to watch the Peabody ducks. I'm glad we did, because that place fills up fast with people trying to get a seat to see the ducks. The story goes that as a practical joke, 2 men who were drunk captured some ducks and left them overnight in the hotel lobby's fountain. When they came down the next morning, the other guests were fascinated by the ducks. The men apologized to the management for making such a fuss, but the management was pleased with the attention the ducks brought to the hotel. For the last 80-or-so years, ducks have lived in that fountain. Barnum and Bailey learned about these ducks and claimed that they could train the ducks to proceed to and from their fountain as a type of show for the guests, and they did just that. Every morning at 11 A.M., with the assistance of a duck master, the ducks leave their penthouse, take the elevator down to the lobby and walk out onto a red carpet into their fountain where they spend their day. At 5 P.M. the red carpet is rolled back out and the ducks then proceed back to the elevators and back to their penthouse. It was the highlight of our day to watch the event. Next time I go, I want to get there even earlier to get a seat closer to the fountain and order some food or drink from the waitresses that walk around.


Today we went to Verge Church for the 2nd time since we have been here. We really like the pastor and his preaching and there is a huge population of young adults in the congregation that we have met. Small groups are starting up in a few weeks so we will join one of them soon. We just learned this Sunday that the pastor plants churches and will be moving on since the church is 3 years old and has grown. We were pretty surprised and disappointed since we like his preaching, but we are also excited to get to know the new pastor. Tonight we are going to his house for dinner and fellowship. He has already been a big part of the leadership of the church, so I'm sure it will be a smooth transition between pastors.

Tomorrow I will be going to the new faculty orientation at the university. I'm excited to get started and get a routine going and also to get through the first day of classes a week after tomorrow. I always get nervous for the first day, but I'll be fine. I'll try to keep this updated until then.

Birthday and Last Days of Class

I've had a very busy but fun week due to my birthday and the completion of the last week of classes at the University of Costa Rica.

On Monday, we decided to go downtown to the Parque Nacional and found that it was a cute little park with a bridge over a little stream and a small island in the middle that had picnic tables on it. It was a really cute place. While there, a group of high schoolers video-interviewed us on our view of Costa Rica and the politics here. We didn't know much about the political situation, but we got to share our opinion. In return, they allowed me to video tape them for a linguistics project I'll be doing this fall at Cleveland State.

I stayed up late that night doing all of my homework that I would have to do the next 2 days because Tuesday was my 24th birthday!
My friend Robin, who turned 24 a week before me, and I were planning on being as childish as possible on our birthdays so we planned on going to the roller skating rink to have our birthday parties. However, the rink was closed until 7 that night since kids are in school (it's 'winter' here). Instead, we decided to go play at the playground at my house on the swings, see-saw, monkey bars and we tried to find a 4-leaf-clover, but didn't have any success. Later on, we went out to celebrate at a restaurant, but it wasn't as fun as acting like a kid.

Some photos of my house and house family at dinner.

On Wednesday, I had tests in both of my classes but they were relatively easy. I got A's on both for final grades of A's in both Literature and Linguistics.
Today, I had to give presentations in each class which went pretty well. We were let out early to get ready for the ceremony, and we decided to go eat at a Peruvian restaurant. Before we left our school building, there was an earthquake. I was on the 4th floor sitting in the hallway and it felt like someone was shaking the building. I looked out the window, and it looked like the building was swaying in reference to everything else. The ground was vibrating underneath of us. Some of the professors came out of their classrooms, and seeing that we were foreigners, asked us if we were okay and if this was our first earthquake. I said that it was my first, and he congratulated me, which was funny, but it was still scary to have the whole building shake. As a result, the traffic lights went out on the main roads that we had to cross to get to the restaurant. But, there is no "treat intersections as a 4-way-stop" rule here for when the lights go out, it's just a free-for-all with cars honking and dodging each other. It was an adventure to cross the 6-lane main road to go eat! But here I am still alive to tell the tale.

The restaurant was really cute and had great food. I had tomato soup, lomo saltado, which is a dish Kevin's mom always makes me, chicha, pudding and ceviche. Luckily, by the time we were going back home, the lights started working again and we could be safer.

I got dressed in a new dress I bought here and then went back to the university for the award ceremony. They called our names and gave us certificates. Afterwards, we had a dinner with the whole group where some funny things happened.
First, my friend Robin was dared to toast the whole room of people, and there must have been 100 of us in the program. She tapped her class with her knife and lifted it and just said "a toast" while everyone stared at her and then she added "congratulations". It was hilarious, I was dying at how awkward it was.
Then, we were the last table to get dessert and I saw that it was 3 leches cake and I really wanted more than 1 piece. I decided that I would hide my dish under the table so that I would be served twice, but I started eating the cake while it was on my lap. The cake lady was on her way back to the table to bring more cake and my friend Judy yelled at me to stop chewing so that I wouldn't give away my cake situation. I stopped chewing and held my breath real quick, but I found the situation so hilarious that I busted out laughing and spit cake all over Judy and my friend Ashley's faces. It was gross, but so funny I almost peed. It was all worth it in the end, though, because I did get my second piece of cake.

In class and with my certificate

Afterwards, we went out to sing karaoke at a place near campus to celebrate the end of classes with our professors. All of the singers were really good, but I figured that there would be some silly people, like me, who sing just to be funny. I chose a song by Calle 13 called "No hay nadie como tu" as a song to rap to in Spanish and my friends said they would dance in the background. I did the song and sounded horrible not only because I'm tone deaf, but because I was trying to dance at the same time too but was running out of breath to sing. Needless to say, I ended up being the only horribly silly one that night while everyone else was really good at singing. My friends video taped me though and said that I was their favorite. Sorry for making your ears bleed, San José.

Weekend in La Fortuna

We had this past weekend free to travel wherever we wanted to go, so we decided to take a trip to San Carlos in a pueblo called La Fortuna that is next to the Volcano Arenal where there are a lot of volcanic hot springs to swim in.

We bought bus tickets downtown for only $6 a piece the day before we left and I reserved the hostel, which I made sure had a pool. I was excited, because I reserved 7 beds in a room with 4 bunk-beds for 8 people. It was going to be just like camp.

The problem with other countries is that they are not that concerned with street names, but more so with landmarks. I asked one of the directors of the program where the bus station was, and she told me that it was 600 meters north of a certain church. So we set out downtown, but were hungry. We saw a pagoda type archway leading into a neighborhood, which was chinatown and we wanted to eat there, but there were mostly nail salons and shops with all kinds of junk. We asked in a beauty salon for the best chinese food, and a guy pointed us in the direction of the only chinese restaurant we could see. We asked him if it was the best chinese food and he said "well, it's chinese food" and walked away. It was pretty normal, nothing to write home about.

From there, we went to walk to the bus station and asked for directions about 6 times to make sure we were going the right way. However, like I said about landmarks, we got a different set of directions each time until we finally got a concrete answer from a police man who pointed down the street and said look for the big red building. We finally were able to buy our tickets.

Reserving the hostel was another challenge because my house dad decided that day that the telephone bill was too expensive, so he turned it off. I had to borrow my house brother's iphone but the hotel people said to reserve the room via e-mail and on their website. They said I would reserve a confirmation e-mail, but by the next day it never came. In the States, we are very used to always receiving automatic confirmation and it helps us feel secure in that we will have a room ready when we arrive somewhere. I didn't want to bother my brother again, so when I went to school the next day, I went to the office to call the hostel and they said of course they had my reservation, as if I was being crazy or paranoid.

The next day, we took a 5 hour bus ride to La Fortuna and got some homework done along the way. When we arrived, I had directions to the hotel from the website I made reservations on, but of course the directions didn't mention street names, just landmarks. So we thought we were following them well, but we ended up in a place with no sidewalks, so we stopped in to ask someone and they gave us a map to find the place. We followed the map, but it didn't have all of the streets on it that the city has, so we ended up walking very far again. We asked some girls if we were going the right way, and they said yes, but then we asked another guy and he said no. Long story short, we hailed a taxi and finally arrived at the hostel all hot, sticky, and starving. We went to an italian restaurant that makes wood oven pizzas and got one called "the volcano" that had meat and jalepeños on it. Of course, I got tiramisu, which was pretty good. We ended up swimming in the pool that night, which has a tight rope stretched over the middle to keep the guest preoccupied since they don't have TVs.

In the morning, we had breakfast at the hostel and then paid $36 for admissions to the hot springs at Baldi Resort which included a dinner buffet.
The resort converted the hot spring waters into paved pools, 28 total, complete with 4 water slides. The water slides were crazy! They have a life guard at the top and the bottom just like in the States, but there are no rules as to how you have to go down them. You can make a train of people and go down with others if you want to, you can go head first on your stomach, you can go backwards, laying down, sitting up, take a running start into the tube, it doesn't matter. They had one of those toilet-bowl-slides like at Kalahari, but without the directions as to how to ride the thing, I got banged up pretty bad with a cut on my left elbow, a huge bruise on my right elbow, and my back and back of my head feel bruised, but I can't see them to tell. No wonder all of the signs around the slides said "AT YOUR OWN RISK".

The hot springs were beautiful though! It was like swimming in a hot tub, then there were caves that were like saunas, and some pools had scolding hot water which I really enjoyed since I usually take very hot showers, I know it's not good for my dermis, but I love them! There were also swim up bars where we ate some nachos with guacamole and a pool that had disco lights and played music to dance to. We had all sorts of muscle aches and I had pulled the muscle in the arch of my foot, but the hot waters took away all of the aches and helped clear our faces up that had broken out due to all of the heat and humidity. It was like paradise!

The buffet was also awesome with pastas, meats, salads, soups, teas, coffee, fruit juices, a fruit bar, side dishes, different breads, and desserts complete with a chocolate fountain. I went up about 4 times. After soaking one more time in the hottest tub, we returned to the hostel and went out dancing. We found out that the hostel also had a tight rope between 2 trees as well as a jungle gym, so we decided to also entertain ourselves on those that night.

We went to sleep and got up in the morning to take the bus back to San José. We got to visit the beautiful central park of La Fortuna and visit a few shops before boarding the bus. Thank goodness there was not a lot of traffic on Sunday and we got back into town in only 3 hours. It was a beautiful and fun-filled weekend!

Weekend trip to the Caribbean coast!

I had a fantastic weekend on the Atlantic/Caribbean coast in the province of Limon!

We had a 3-day weekend, so we were able to leave for Limon on Friday morning. On the way there, we kept seeing signs for fruit that said "mamón", so we asked our professor what it was and he had the bus pull over so that we could try it. It looks like a red sea urchin, but once you peel that off, its a piece of fruit with a pit in the middle, very delicious! We have to be careful with the word mamón, though cause if you call someone a mamón, you're calling them a "sucker".

We also stopped at a restaurant along the way that sold a lot of fruit, sweets, and treats like empanadas, yuca pancakes, etc.

We stopped in Puerto Limon, the port city here that my dad ships stuff to, to look at the port and to shop at the central market. It was kind of creepy though with people that looked homeless, but I did end up buying a shirt for my sister.

We finally got to our hotel, and it was so nice! It was more like a bread and breakfast and had very modern rooms with balconies, a beautiful courtyard garden, a pool, and a breakfast nook. A cute italian family owned it.

We decided to go out for dinner, and we went to this pizza place the italians recommended. I really wanted sea food though since we were staying on the sea, so I got the mussles, or mejillones, follwed by tiramisu. It was delicious!

At night, we decided we wanted to go for a night swim. In the pool was a bouncy ball that kids are supposed to sit on and hold onto the handles and bounce on. We decided to use it as our volleyball and played boys vs. girls made-up pool volleyball with some different rules. After that, we tried to make a whirlpool like when we were kids, but it didn't work. We had so much fun trying though!

The next day, we wanted to go to the nature reserve to find monkeys. We had cereal, rolls, egg, a big bowl of fruit, coffee and OJ for breakfast and went to the reserve. It was really cool to see the beach and then the rainforest only about 20 feet off the coast. There, we saw lizards, bugs, a snake, butterflies, sloths and monkeys! They were howler monkeys. They were so cool to see close up and swinging on the branches over us. I was scared they would try to mess with us, but they were just doing their monkey things.

Afterwards, it was getting warm, so we decided to find the black sand beach to go swimming. I had never seen a black sand beach before so I was so excited to see it. We walked on the beach and jumped some waves in the water.

We visited another beach town in Puerto Viejo where we ate and swam some more. They had really huge waves that knocked us over almost every time, but we had a lot of fun trying to stay standing.
For lunch, I had caribbean steak, tostones, caribbean rice that has coconut milk in it, beans and salad. The restaurant was really cute!

When we got back to the hotel, we knew we wanted to go to another beach front sea food restaurant that catches fresh fish to serve called "Sobre las olas." We visited earlier and they said they had fresh swordfish ceviche, so we wanted to go that night. To work off some of the food we had earlier, we played pool volleyball and then got ready to go out. The restaurant had beach front tables and they lit the candles for us, very cute! They also had a hammock that went over the ocean, so of course I had to try it out. Thank goodness I didn't fall off onto the beach.

Afterwards, we went out dancing and got to practice salsa and meringue. We were the only ones really dancing though, but still had a good time.
The next day on the way back home, we listened to the world cup game on the radio and stopped to try some guanabana fresh from the farm. It looks like an oversized bumpy avocado, but cuts like a pineapple with a more juicy texture and a less sour taste. It was delicious!