Ketchup Post

Hello again!

Unless this is your first time reading. In that case, ignore the “again”.

Well it’s been a solid week or so since I was in Puerto Viejo, but I think I can remember the most of it. T’was a great time, you see. But maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. Before I talk about that, I should mention something that happened in the middle of the week. I think this is the first time I’ve done this.

So January 30^th happens to be Rosalba’s birthday. Being the great gringo-sons that we are, Aaron and I went out and bought her a little somethin-somethin. We were advised that at that age, people like to receive practical gifts. So we bought her a makeup mirror and some placemats. Don’t laugh. There will be a day in your life when you get excited about placemats, trust me.

So anyhow, she had a big ol party planned for that Wednesday night, with some of the local ladies and friends of hers to show up. I kinda figured in advance that I would be the only one there not fluent in Spanish, and again my powers of deduction were infallible. Whoopee.

It ended up being a really good time tho! It was pretty late getting started; everyone was just sorta milling around, having some wine, and chatting. I was walking around with Aaron so that if anyone asked me questions that I didn’t understand, he was there to translate. But then he went off with one of the family members to make a liquor run. So I grabbed a seat with some people we had been chatting with, and proceeded to work my way through a conversation. The one dude knew some English, so he helped whenever there was a snag. But surprisingly, I talked with them for like half an hour, doing most of the talking, and they understood what I was sayin! It was awesome!

The dinner was a buffet style that didn’t really get served till like 10, so we were starving. But the food was great, they had some delicious cake afterward, and then everyone gathered in the living room. One of the guys brought out a guitar, and he and his brother started playing and singing some amazing Spanish-style music. It was a really cool experience, I was glad to be down here for it.

Enough about the week. The weekend is where it’s at, no?

I had kinda planned on taking a weekend off, and staying in San Jose. We’d all been going nonstop every weekend since we got here, and a couple days to relax and do whatever seemed like a great idea.

But on Thursday afternoon, I was walking back home from the school and I walked by the park. I was flagged down by my buddy Scizames (Scott-James, cuz they messed up his name on his student ID here). He told me they were hittin the Caribbean side that weekend, and that they were about to go buy their bus tickets. He told me that the bus costs 8 bucks, and the hostel they were going to stay in cost 10 bucks a night for a bed, or 5 bucks a night for a hammock. Said I should come. So I gave them 8 bucks for my ticket and that was that!

We left at 3 on Friday, and got down to Puerto Viejo at 8:30 or so. We didn’t know how many spots would be open at Rockin J’s (the hostel), and there were a ton of us.

*Just to explain something here. There are 3 separate groups of gringos that attend Veritas. ISA (which I am a part of, 52 of us), CEA, and Independent (or Indy’s, as I call them).*

This trip just happened to encompass some from all 3 groups. Which was cool, since so far that hadn’t really happened. All told, there was something like 30 of us wandering down the street trying to find Rockin J’s. It was a rush to get there, but when we arrived we saw that the rush wasn’t necessary. This place was huge.

Rockin J’s is easily and by far the coolest hostel I have ever seen. There were 2 huge rooms full of hammocks, I’m guessing something like 100 or so. Maybe more. Then there was a giant elevated platform with 50 tents on it, some doubles, some singles. Every surface of every wall and floor was covered, in either paint, or with that broken-tile mosaic thing. It was awesome! I rented a tent for 6 bucks a night, which came with a comfy mattress and a locker for my stuff.

That night there was live music at the restaurant/bar in the front of the hostel, and a bonfire on the beach on the other side. I just kinda spent my time drifting between the two, chattin with whoever came across my path, drinkin, watching the stars and the ocean, etc. You get the picture, it was really chill.

The next day I made a point of sleeping in, and for the first time in Costa Rica, I succeeded in sleeping past 9. So I got up at 9:30 and wandered downstairs. The place was empty, all the ambitious souls who got up at 7ish had left to go snorkeling or left for the beach or gone to do whatever it is ambitious souls do. Me, I wandered into town in search of some breakfast. Stumbled across a place called The Beach Hut. Tiny little place, probably couldn’t fit more than 12 people in there. But they served me up the best eggs benny I have ever eaten (sorry Dad. But these were unreal). I think a plug is obligatory here, so if you or anyone you know happens to go to Puerto Viejo, make sure to pay a visit to The Beach Hut. Except on Sundays, cuz they are closed.

I spent the rest of the day reading, listening to music, and getting some sun. Then some people showed up and we played Frisbee on the beach and swam a bit and such. Saturday night was similar to Friday, another bonfire on the beach and chattin between the three groups.

Sunday was an earlier morning, we grabbed some breakfast and hit the beach a little ways up the coast. Good waves, played on the beach, that sorta thing. A lot of people decided to go home that night on the 4 o’clock bus, but a bunch of the Indy’s were staying so I decided to stay with them and go back on Monday. That left us free to wander to Sunset Sports Bar to catch the superbowl! Great game, as any of you who watched it can likely attest to. Funny thing tho, we started chatting with some gringos at the bar sitting near us, turns out they were 4 guys from Calgary! They were a couple years older, so we didn’t end up finding any people that we knew in common, but they were from Mckenzie Town and Douglasdale, which is kinda nutty. Small world, eh?

Well Monday morning rolled around, spent some more time reading and takin ‘er easy, which was great since that was what I was originally planning for that weekend. Made it home no problem, but with the intention of going back, because at that point I had decided that Puerto Viejo was easily my favorite place in Costa Rica thus far.

The Caribbean side was incredible. The foliage was more along the lines of what I expected to see when I first came to Costa Rica. One morning in front of the hostel, I spent a few minutes watching a howler monkey swinging around in the trees overhead. We saw a sloth chillin in one of the trees, setting the pace for everyone else in that town. Pretty much a tropical paradise, simply put.

Well I won’t really formally close this, since I’m double-posting in order to catch up from being a week behind in my ROEs. But just in case you don’t have time to read the next one…

Thanks for reading!

Montezuma's Revenge

Hello faithful readers!
Please excuse my absence over the past week and a half, I normally write these entries on monday afternoons since I don't have class then. Pero last week I got back real late from Montezuma and was completely bagged on monday, and this week on monday I was on a bus back from the carribean side. More on the carribean later.
Anywho, I suppose I oughta elaborate a bit on Montezuma. It had been the end of 4 weeks in Costa Rica, without even a slight glimpse of a beach. So a bunch of us decided that we should head out to one, and picked Montezuma as it is reputedly one of the nicest beaches in Costa Rica. It is located on the southern tip of the Nicoya Peninsula, for those who have an interest in the coastlines here.
Well it sure lives up to it's reputation! It's a bit of a hike to get out there, 3 hours on a bus followed by an hour on a ferry and another hour to close it off. But it was well worth it. We rolled into town at 9:30 or so Friday night, checked into our hotel, and wandered down to get some pizza. We went in a group of 13 of us, so whenever we went into a restaurant or anything we half-took over the place. Seems to be a recurring theme down here...
Well the next morning we headed to the beach. We had planned on sleeping in, but since our internal clocks all seem to be permanently programmed to get up early now, we were up and on the beach by 8:30 or so. Ridiculous, no? The beach was incredible tho, we wandered down a ways in order to get past some of the rocks and such (plenty of space to get around them, they by no means took over the beach). We found a nice spot that was kinda secluded, set up the towels and all, and spent most of the day laying on the beach and playin in the waves. It felt great, especially when one of us said "can you believe it's January?"
That afternoon, we walked up the highway a little ways and into the hills about 15 minutes to where we'd been told there was a waterfall (or catarata, en espanol). It was a beautiful spot, we did a little cliff jumping but nothing really higher than 15 feet or so. Still looking for a place where we can jump from higher (Mom, pretend you didn't read that).
In the evening, we spent some time collecting firewood while it was still light out and then had a bonfire on the beach. This was probably my favorite part of the Montezuma trip, because we just layed there staring at the stars (which are incredible here), drinkin, chattin, singing, and basically just chillin. No agenda, no worries in the world. It was a great feeling, I would recommend it to anyone who happens to be reading this :)
Sunday was a bit of a wreck. Not so bad, since I don't mind adventures and adapting... but it could've gone smoother, to be sure. So we were told by a friend that the last direct bus to San Jose leaves at 2:30. We decided to be smart and double-check, which ended up hurtin us in the end. We talked to 2 different people who showed us schedules and assured us that the direct bus leaves Montezuma at 4, not 2:30. So we went down to the bus stop at 3ish. And there, staring us in the face, was a revised schedule showing the 2:30 bus. So we called the info line and asked around, and it turned out there was one last bus leaving for the ferry at 4. So we waited, and hopped on when it came.
You know those stories about crowded buses full of people shoulder to shoulder, in the brutal heat, no a/c, with live chickens and such everywhere? This isn't one of those stories. There weren't any chickens.
The rest of it is true, I sweated from places that I didn't even know you could sweat from. We sat there for close to 20 minutes, arm to arm, in a bus that kept getting hotter and hotter, and no idea when it was going to leave. When it finally pulled out, people were cheering and whistling (those who hadn't passed out from the heat, that is).
We got on the 7pm ferry, which was all well and good, until we started asking around and realized that the last bus leaves downtown Puntarenas (the other ferry terminal) at 9. That's about what time the ferry was scheduled to arrive on the west side of town. Why the bus wouldn't wait for ferry traffic is not a question that I was destined to know the answer to. Oh well.
So we got off at 9, with very limited options. We all had class the next morning at 8, so one option was to try to find a hostel for the 13 of us and stay the night, and get on the first bus in the morning (the good 'ol 4am transit, don't ya know). Nobody was too thrilled about option number 1. Option number 2, the one we ended up choosing, was to get 3 cabs to drive the 13 of us the 2 hours back to town. Well after a little (very little) haggling, we got 3 cabs to agree to drive us back for 100 bucks per cab. Overall, this wasn't such a bad deal. 25 bucks per person for a 2 hour cab ain't bad, especially when it gets you home in time to get a decent night's sleep before class the next day. Just sucks since had we got on the direct bus at 2:30, it would've cost around 8 bucks per person. So that was a done deal, I sat up front in my cab and practiced up my spanish a bit, which was good. It was actually kinda funny, cuz I was speaking in broken spanish and he was talking in broken english. It appeared we both were in need of some practice!

Sorry to have to post like this, but I'm getting to have a bit of a busy schedule in this place now and it's getting harder to find the time to write for hours. I'll try to put up my trip to Puerto Viejo soon. But now, I gotta run. There are a couple futbol games on, and I'm meeting some people to watch them. True to my form, I'm runnin a little late. Nice to know some things don't change, eh?

Thanks for reading!

The Slide of Pain and Sorrow... and fun!

Well I’m sitting here typing away with a bump on my head, a sore neck, and a nice skid-burn on my back. Would you believe it’s all thanks to a waterslide?
Spent this weekend on a trip to a beautiful place called Arenal. It’s an active volcano that’s about a 5 hour bus ride from San Jose. The bus left the ISA office at 6 in the morning on Saturday, so we had the pleasure of waking up at 5am. We were kinda smart the night before, deciding not to give’er hell. However, we did still go out to a place called “Jazz Café.” Care to guess what they do there? Anyhow, we got there at about 9, paid our 2500colones (5 bucks) cover charge, and grabbed a table. There were about 15 of us. The bar was really cool; it was very dark on the inside with only dim lights on the walls, and candles on every table. Then the stage was lit with a kind of bluish light. The band came on at 10, and started the night off with a couple jazz songs in English! They played for over an hour, and sounded great. It was a neat change of pace, a really mellow night with some chillin music. Good sendoff before Arenal.
So 5 in the morning came real fast. Rosalba (my Tica madre) was up earlier than that to make us some breakfast. The woman must never sleep! (Actually, that night she didn’t get much sleep thanks to some drunk person misdialing our house at 3:15 that morning. Apparently she didn’t really get back to sleep after that). We got to the bus on time, got our seats, and promptly passed out. The bus stopped at a restaurant at 8 for breakfast (yeah I ate a second one. What of it?), and hit the road again till 11:30. We found ourselves at a huge waterfall, looked like about a 200 foot drop into a large pool. Most of us went for a dip, some people thought it was too cold but the water was actually really nice once you got in. We tried to swim to where the water was falling, but the current made by the falling water was incredibly hard to swim against. As soon as you got within 15 feet of the fall, you couldn’t really see where you were going and you were pretty much swimming on the spot. When you stopped, it just pushed you right back to the shore. It was fun to try tho, and one of the guys had a waterproof camera so he got some good pics.
From there, we went to a small town near the base of the volcano called La Fortuna. We got some lunch, had some fantastic fish n chips, and went up the road to our hotel. This place was nutty! We were staying at the base of an active volcano! Mind you, the lava flows down the other side of the mountain, so it was safe and all. But the thunderous sounds the volcano put out at regular intervals were a constant reminder of the power of that mountain.
One nice thing about staying at the base of a volcano is the natural hot springs that occur there. We spent the rest of the afternoon and part of the night at a place called Baldi Termae, a group of 25ish hot pools heated by the volcano. It was great to be able to relax in the hot water… until we found the waterslides. Anyone who knows me should know that I freakin love waterslides, so I led the charge up the stairs to the top of the highest one. None of us had any idea what we were in for.
The first 10 feet or so had to be wet by hand, so there was a guy there with a bucket of soapy water. I heaved off, and tightened my body into the luge/rocket position. Went around the first corner gaining speed, and then went down the drop and into the second corner.
I’m pretty sure whoever designed this slide designed it to hurt people. And he was a good designer. You drop into the second corner with the sideways momentum from the first, and it sends you up the wall. Then the slide sorta just drops away. So after being unexpectedly flung airborne, you come down hard moving sideways (this is the point where most of us nailed our heads, weren’t really expecting the whiplash y’know?). Then you are dumped into the water before you really have time to understand what just happened.
Well it was a hell of a ride, and of course we didn’t really admit how much it hurt once we got to the bottom. We just cheered and told everyone else how much fun it was and how they all just HAD to try it. So there ended up being about 30 of us who all went down, halfway through that group we started congregating at the bottom and cheering the people who got the most air, laughing at the people who came down hard, and booing the people who didn’t have enough speed to go airborne and consequently avoided any pain. That’s weak. I rode 4 times. Hahaha
That night we had a great buffet dinner, then headed back to the hotel and randomly gathered on the balconies of our rooms to sit and stare at the volcano. It was pretty unreal, the clouds were kinda thick up there but most of the time you could see the orange glow at the top of the mountain. And like I said, every little while there was a loud rumble that reminded you that the mountain must’ve eaten some Mexican food recently. Or drank too much tequila, depending on which end you think a volcano represents.
It wasn’t a late night for most of us, since Sunday was now our day to do whatever activities we wanted to get done before noon. Me and 5 others shelled out a little more dough than the rest of the crew in order to participate in a rousing morning of “canyoning.” I’d never heard of it before, but it basically consists of rappelling down waterfalls. Seriously.
We strapped on our harnesses, made sure everything was out of the way (any guy who has worn one knows what I’m talking about…), and headed to the first platform. They gave a quick talk about how to rappel, since you get to control your own speed and jumps and such. They do, however, have a safety at the top and the bottom to stop you if it looks like you’re straight up falling. That was reassuring. But the first drop was 160 feet, and safety lines or not, that’s a little daunting to look at. No time to think about it tho, they just tell ya to swing around and get ‘er done! So that’s exactly what we did. The first one was beside the waterfall, and it was a total thrill. Once you get moving, the fear disappears and you’re left with the rush of descending the face. The second one was smaller, 85 feet, and it was down the center of the waterfall. So you got soaked, but it was a blast. The third was a 100 foot drop down a dry face that I did in 3 jumps. That video is
the one I posted on facebook, it was my best descent of the day for sure. The last 2 were down the falls as well.

So, understandably, the weekdays are spent in anticipation of the coming adventures of the weekend. This weekend we are going to head to Montezuma, supposedly one of the nicest beaches in Costa Rica. I’m really looking forward to it, because it is the first trip that we organized without the school, so anything goes. I can’t wait to finally sleep in… I haven’t slept past 8am since I got to this country 2 and a half weeks ago. That’s the other thing. I can’t believe it’s only been 2 weeks. When I walk around the neighborhood, it feels like I have been here for months! January 5th is a distant memory; so much has happened since. Everything keeps moving forward, there’s always something to look forward to and constantly things to stop and appreciate. My grasp on the language is coming along; I’m able to talk about simple things with my Tica madre and can understand what she’s getting at most of the time. It’s pretty cool.

What else…
Perhaps some random thoughts and shout-outs:
- Read a Mark Twain book called Pudd’nhead Wilson. Pretty good book, short, but definitely worth a read.
- Shout out to Michelle, Byung, and Allyson: we gotta hit up a sake night soon. I’m very interested, especially if there is tempura involved.
- I miss snowboarding.
- Shout out to the dude that sells the burgers and burritos in the courtyard at school. I know you probably aren’t reading this, amigo, but you kick ass.
- I miss my car. And driving my car. And listening to loud music in my car.
- Shout out to Rhawn for his comment on my last entry. That was hilarious.
- I don’t miss McDonald’s. Not because I no longer like it, but because a few of us went there last Thursday and I had a big mac. Countries I have eaten a big mac in: 4.
- Shout out to Nicole Sewall for her b-day. Happy Birthday cuz!
- Lindsay so stupid.
- Shout out to Aaron for helping me get this on the internet on a Spanish computer.
- And last, but not least, yes, I miss my family. Mom, I know you were probably reading this thinking “what the hell, he misses his car and shouts out to random people, but no mention of me” or something along those lines. So rest assured I miss ya, and you too fazha, and perhaps rinzy as well. Not Sydney. Unless she’s not whining about going up the stairs, then maybe Sydney too.


If you have any comments or suggestions, please feel free to write me. Your feedback is welcome and appreciated.


Thanks for reading!

Week 1 is done!

Hola mis amigos!
Well it's Monday, the start of my second week in Costa Rica. The first was incredible, there is a lot to tell, so I'll try to break it down.
Well the flights down weren't so bad, as I was taking off from Calgary I started talking to the girl beside me. Her name was Carmen... I think. But she was from Red Deer, heading to Florida for a cruise. Nice girl, 29 and a real estate appraiser for commercial properties in Red Deer. Apparently they are having a boom in that section, so if you're looking to invest in commercial real estate... :)
Bottom line of this story is that I had a friend to sit with in Seattle for 3 hours. We went and got a beer and some hearty stew in one of the lounges there, and then did a little shopping. There are a ton of stores in the airport there, it's like a little mall. Kinda weird.
The next leg of the tour was uneventful, except that I sat beside two sketchy looking characters who were speaking what I thought was an arabic language, which made me kinda nervous... But after listening for awhile and not hearing... well... ask Rhawn for the words, I don't want to post this and catch unwanted international attention. In fact, I realized after a few minutes that they were speaking spanish! This was a little disconcerting, seeing as how I thought I would be able to understand it better than that. I later found out that people from the Dominican Republic (I covertly checked their passports) have really strange spanish accents, and it's not such a bad thing that I couldn't understand what they were saying. Sweet.
Got to SJO Saturday at 12:30, made it through customs without any problems, picked up my bags and wandered out to meet my group. There was a small mob outside the airport, I guess someone told the paparazzi that I was comin in... haha or maybe it was just a bunch of cab drivers trying to get my money. One person happened to have an ISA sign, so I went to her. She walked me over to where some of my new friends were sitting, and we waited for the rest of the crew to arrive so we could catch our shuttle to town. It was the beginning of a long line of Americans that I was to meet over the next several days.
The bus ride from the airport to Veritas University took about 25 minutes, and all the families were waiting there to meet us. I got introduced to my Tica (Costa Rica) madre, got/gave the kiss on the cheek cuz that's what they do when they meet people here. After we determined that I speak very little spanish, we hopped in their car and headed down to the house. It's about a 6 or 7 minute walk downhill from the University, which is really handy since classes start every day at 8am. And here I thought I might actually have a chance to sleep in. Shoulda known better.
I'm living in a nice house, with my Tica madre Rosalba, her daughter Camilla, and her grandson Kevin. Also, their family friend Alvaro lives there, and he's a good guy. Speaks english when he can tell that I have no idea what's being said. Other than that, it's all spanish all the time, because it helps the students learn the language better.
My second translator is my roommate Aaron. He speaks the language really well, because he lived in Bolivia for 12 years. So it's kinda interesting around the house, the spanish flies all around me and I pick up what I can. Every day I'm understanding a little better, and am more able to communicate with mi familia. But it's still pretty tough.
Our first day here we had an orientation with ISA, and they showed us some of the activities available to us throughout the semester. They look great, everything from hiking, ATVing, horseback riding in the mountains or on the beach, bungee jumping, surfing, canopy tours in the forests... the list goes on and on, and they all look great! It's going to be a lot cheaper than I thought, the activities range between 15 and 60 dollars, give or take. I'm planning on heading out of San Jose every weekend, and seeing what the country has to offer.
Don't get me wrong tho, San Jose has it's fun too. We've made it out to a few of the bars and had a good time. There are 52 students in the ISA Costa Rica program, and on any given night 20 or so are up for whatever. Our second night here we wandered up to a bar that had a bunch of heineken signs all over it, they were playin some spanish and some top 40 kinda music so it was a good mix. Even better - they had foosball! So a bunch of us played for a while, then me and this guy Greg got challenged by a couple Ticos. We beat them the first game, and then they whooped us the second game. The beer needed refreshing at that point so we let them have the table.
Beer down here is great, everyone drinks "Imperial" or "Pilsen". The exchange rate here is kinda wonky, it rests at about 500 colones to 1 dollar. So a beer here ranges from 700-1000 colones... and last time I checked, 2 bucks a beer is freakin phenominal.
We have also managed to find our new neighborhood pub, it ain't Dixons, but it gets the job done. It's called Pescadita (little fish). Beer there is 800 colones, but the best part about it is the owner, Jose Alberto. Apparently he's been in America a few times, and has always been treated really well, so he likes to return the favor whenever he can. I've been there 3 times, with a group of 12-15 people each time, and he's bought a round of shots every time. Unreal guy. The other night we pulled the tables to the outsides and made a little dance floor, and he threw on some salsa music and a bunch of us gringos danced in the middle of the bar. Mind you, this bar could probably only hold 40 people, and every time we go there, we pretty much run the place. It's great.
What else...
You gotta understand, i should be updating this more often than I have been and as such, I'm bound to forget a lot. But this is an unreal experience.
Fast forward to the end of the week, I've met most of the 52 people and haven't found one that I don't like yet. Everyone seems to be here for the same reason - to have a good time, make friends, share experiences; and if we can learn spanish at the same time, all the better.
We all met on Friday to head to Monteverde, a cloud forest in the mountains. The bus ride took about 6 hours, but some of the views were awesome. The best part of that night was actually just settling into our hotel rooms, havin a couple beer and playing some pool, and hittin the hay since we knew we had to be up at 6:30.
We were up the next mornin and headin out at 7:30, up the mountain towards the adventure tours base. Started the day with a 3 hour ATV trip, down some back roads and across some small rivers, but they also hit some straights and let us open 'em up and kick 'em sideways a bit, so it was a great morning. After that, I went on a canopy tour through the treetops. This was unbelievable, I've never done anything like it in my life. You stand on these platforms in the treetops, and clip onto cables stretched through the forest. Then you take off! Next thing you know, you're sliding through the forest 50 feet off the ground. And those are the tame ones. Halfway through, you do a tarzan swing, where they walk you up a 30-foot platform and clip you to a rope. Then they basically shove you off, and you go swinging way out over everything. There's a video of me doing it on facebook, you can't really see the initial jump but you can see the swing out. It was wild.
But the last line was the craziest by far. The stats they gave us was that the line is 1000 feet long, and 300 feet in the air. That is no exaggeration. It was the weirdest, craziest, coolest thing I've ever seen. You look out over this huge valley, and you are suspended on a single cable that seems to stretch away forever. You're moving so fast that the heights don't even really get to you, you can look down and see your tiny shadow just rocketing along on the ground way below you. I would recommend this to anybody who ever gets a remote chance to do it. And if you don't have a remote chance, you're not being positive enough. Find a way.
Like I said, the people here are awesome. Gotta shout out to my MAPS (it's the spanish equivalent that we made up for BFF). Don't tell me it's lame, you weren't there. Hahaha. In fact, a bunch of us are headin out to the pub for a couple tonight, so I should get outta here and start some homework. We have it every day so that we don't get it on the weekends, which is handy cuz by the looks of it we're never gonna have time for it on the weekends anyhow!
One last thing I should mention - the food. It's some of the best stuff I've ever eaten. I have fresh pineapple, banana, papaya, or some random fruit every morning for breakfast with my gallo pinto (a traditional dish of rice and beans, very tasty). For lunch it's some sort of meat (chicken, often, with some sort of sauce) with a double starch which is the custom here. Rice with potatoes is pretty common. Dinner is fish, beef, chicken, lasagna, spaghetti, or some other unbelievably flavorful concoction that our madre makes. There is always fried peppers or onions in everything, but I haven't encountered anything overly spicy yet! It's great! The only problem I have is that they don't seem to understand that I have a small appetite, so I have to throw out some every night. Maybe they'll catch on soon. Oh and the coffee is great too.

Well my fingers are tired, I know I've forgotten a lot but I did my best to convey that this is an amazing trip and I'm going to have a really hard time going home. Just have to continue to live it up eh!

Thanks for reading.

Welcome to my ROE

If you are reading this, you probably have nothing better to do right now.

Props to Brett Jones (who? Brett Jones) for suggesting that I make one of these, por que it will be much easier to type this stuff out once instead of having to send the mass e-mails or multiple facebook messages. Also, this is more convenient since only the people who really want to know what's goin on down here will bother to check this out!


Being my first time making a blog (and I don't even like calling it a blog, sounds way too techno-weenie), I'm not too sure how it's supposed to go. Therefore, I'm going to refer to it simply as an R.O.E. - Record Of Events. That way, I know that all I have to do is record my events, and I will be fulfilling it's purpose. Facile, no?

Anyhow, I gotta run, I will make the first actual post about the events of the past few days soon. Just wanted to get this ROE off the ground.

Thanks for reading!