Saturday, June 13

Well, this weekend certainly didn't go as planned!! You know what they say about the best-laid plans... I was supposed to go on a tour on Saturday, hopefully to see the somewhat illusive Quetzal bird. Unfortunately, it rained quite a bit Friday and there was a landslide in the area, so it was impossible to go. Bummer!! Instead, I called Jessica and we met with the other female student here, Sara, to go to San Jose. We went to the Agrigultural Fair which is basicallly a farmers market, but it was HUGE! We saw lots of fruits and vegetables that we didn't know.

This fruit is called guanabana, is sweet and is used to make juice.

This one is "manzana de agua" - water apple. It is sweet and a little like a pear.

This fruit is called "guayaba" and is a little tart, maybe a little like an orange,

but you eat the skin too.

After that we went to the Central Market. It's a huge enclosed market with all kinds of little stores that sell souvenirs, fruits and vegetables, chicken (and all the parts...), fresh fish, beef, flowers, herbs, coffee, and has places to sit down and eat. Basically, you can buy anything you want there!

Then we went to the movies at the mall in San Pedro (a suburb of San Jose, the same city in which the school resides). We saw Night in the Museum II in Spanish. It was rather hard to understand, but fortunately, there was a lot of action that didn't need all the words... Then we went to the house where Jessica is staying to watch a movie on her computer: Mall Cop. Funny! Afterwards I had all kinds of trouble trying to figure out how to get home. Couldn't reach the taxi company because the line was constantly busy. Couldn't reach my "mama tica". Couldn't reach anyone from the school. And Jessica's "mama tica" was out. Finally, after about 2 hours, I was able to reach my mama tica and she woke up to come get me. It was about 11 or a little after. I felt bad, but here it's just downright dangerous to be walking around on the streets at that hour of the night. Anyway, all's well that ends well, right?

And I think I'll leave Sunday's news for tomorrow.