cookies

After taking both my written and oral Spanish final exams yesterday, I had nothing to come into school for today. But someone mentioned baking cookies and suddenly that was my mission. I made a special trip to the store for chocolate chips last night, got my favorite recipe from my mom at home, and made another trip for butter. Got up and came to school today for the sole purpose of baking chocolate chip cookies. 

Borrowed eggs, new kitchen, strange new oven. Two different pans, resulting in very different cooking speeds. One pan that became a large overcooked merged mass. They were far from perfect cookies. 

But they were perfect. I hadn't been in the kitchen to do more than throw some lentils in the slow cooker for months. None of us had had homemade cookies for four months. Baking has long been my safe space, where I feel in control and calm. And to spend time, just talking with the other students, to get to give people cookies, know I'd brought a little bit of happiness to a building that has recently been filled with stress, anger, and discord. All that was a like a little magic. It was just what I needed today. 

weekend

This was the weekend that I decided I needed to get myself out of the house.

On Friday, no school, I slept in. It was heaven. 7:30 is too early! I felt like an adult when I willingly went to a museum, all by myself. I was bored after half an hour, but stayed an hour to see it all and so the guards wouldn't judge me. It was interesting, a good museum, but museums are not for me. I think it's good I didn't study abroad in Europe, as there seems to be quite a lot of old stuff, with history, and museums, there. I wouldn't've done so well with that.

I then thankfully made myself ask for directions so I didn't go walking off in the wrong direction to el mercado central. Souvenir shopping time! I was quite successful, although the only Costa Rica bro tank I could find was unfortunately a men's small with a skull on it. I'll do some doctoring when I get home and it'll work out.

I had fro-yo for the first time in months. It was delicious, eating that while watching tiny humans chasing pigeons around the square.

Saturday I knew I wanted to go do something, but was a little stumped because I'd used up all of my great two ideas on Friday. Luckily, found another student from my program who was sort of in the same boat and we decided to go to a concert together. I hadn't realized that this concert was going to be by children, but I still thoroughly enjoyed myself. It really made me miss being in band, but mostly made me smile, sitting in a theater in Costa Rica that was modeled after one in Paris, with a friend, on a Saturday afternoon, listening to a mix of classical and Star Wars music.

Sunday I went to see The Avengers. I must've gotten a burst of bravery this weekend or something, because I went even my my friend bailed because she was sick. And then I went to a new mall by myself, only panicked a little bit when it was so big I couldn't find the theater, and saw my first ever movie by myself. Costa Rica assigns you seats in the theater, which was a new experience. Very different from US theaters, because it means everyone comes and takes their seat about three minutes before the movie starts.

I enjoyed myself, although it was a little sad not having anyone with me to recap the movie and I had to come home and ask Wikipedia my questions about some of the details that I missed. But I finished off the day with some raspberry gelato, so all was well.

La Fortuna

Upon leaving San Ramón, I began to realize that I had a rather limited number of weekends left with which I could do things. Added to the fact that I had yet to take a trip without either my program or my parents, I decided that I was going to do something. The thing of it didn't matter terribly, I just knew I wanted to have planned and gone on a trip by myself and get myself out of San José and the sitting around on the weekends that I usually end up doing. Following recommendations from the Red Cross people, I decided on La Fortuna.

La Fortuna is the town at the base of Volcán Arenal, a famous volcano because it was erupting until 2010, but is one of the few volcanoes that nevertheless still has a conical shape. With another student from the program and some advice from other students, off I went.

We got to feel nice and knowledgeable at the bus station, where we kept running into lost tourists who were so glad to find someone else who spoke English and so impressed that we'd been here for three months. The first night we went to the hot springs. There are about a million and one places to choose from, but we went with the recommendation. Which was lovely. About a bajillion pools, constructed to feel like you weren't in a resort but still in the forest. And some crazy big slides, one of which was fun, the other terrifying.

Day two we went on a tour hike of the National Park, where we saw pretty flowers, birds, animals, and then a lovely view of the volcano on one side and the lake on the other, while standing on a lava flow. In the afternoon we went to a waterfall. Now, I was thinking a little swimming hole type place with a small waterfall. But instead, we hiked down about 600 steps (going back up was fun) into a deep valley, where a very tall waterfall plummeted off the cliff into a small pool, and then the river continued. It was cold, so I didn't spend much time in the pool with the waterfall, but it was cool just to feel the sheer power of all that water. I enjoyed the river and people watching much more.

We kept getting asked by taxi drivers what our plans for the nights were, but we were perfectly content with our dinner and gelato and early bedtimes.

Day three was my favorite. Although no one we'd talked to had been super gung-ho about kayaking, we decided to go for it. And I am so so glad we did. I think everyone was used to big adventure things like ziplining or nice resort things, but kayaking was perfect. Just my pace and style. Down Rio Peñas Blancas, me, my friend, the guide. So peaceful and quiet, floating down a river in the middle of a forest. And it turns out I am much more interested in looking at birds when I'm not on a hike! Got to see two species of monkeys, iguanas, basilisks.

Topped off by a last meal and gelato and finally, clear weather allowing us to see the top of the volcano. Coming back to San José, to classes and routine, was a little rough. If I could spend every day kayaking down a river, I'd be content (although my shoulder muscles might disagree).