A Weekend of Hebrew, Clouds and Waterfalls.

I am taking a deserved, but ill-advised break from my mountains of homework to write a quick update about the last week.  We finished our classes at the Costa Rican Language Academy on Friday, after a 3-hour exam on Wednesday and a 30 minute oral presentation earlier in the week.  On Friday, we went the University of Costa Rica and visited the bug museum.  My crazy profesora Mariela was eager to hold the tarantula that someone had caught in their kitchen and brought to the museum that morning.


After class ended on Friday (woohoo!), some friends and I went to Avenida Central, which is a long, pedestrian-only street with tons of stores and vendors.  As many of you know, I am not into shopping, but I am into not getting hit by cars and I am into cows, so I was excited to find this cow statue in the middle of the street.

As evening approached, I left my friends and headed off in search of the only reformed synagogue in Costa Rica.  I had been in touch with the Rabbi earlier in the week and had sent a bunch of information to prove I'm not a terrorist and they gave me permission to come to Friday night services.  After buying a map, walking for two hours and taking an 800 meter cab ride, I made it!  I pulled on some nice pants over my shorts in the middle of the sidewalk, then spoke with the security guard and got clearance.  Services were really nice; I recognized some of the tunes and was amazed at how much of the Hebrew I remembered.  I met some nice people, almost all Americans, and was given a ride home by one of the few Costa Ricans.  It was a really nice night, but it made me miss Shabbat at Tufts and the people I normally spent it with.

Saturday began at 4:30am and ended around 10:30pm.  Some friends and I went on an organized, educational trip to a waterfall/volcano/bright blue river about 5 hours north of San Jose.  It rained most of the day, so the river was brown instead of blue and it was too cloudy to see the volcano, but the waterfall was really powerful from the rain.  It was a fun day, but pretty exhausting.

On Sunday, I went to visit a volcano that's very close to San Jose, which is called Irazu.  It is active, but you can go all the way to the top and walk around the crater.  No one warned me that it would be absolutely freezing cold on top, so I was shocked to get out of the bus into the middle of an icy-cold cloud in my shorts and t-shirt.  Because it was so cloudy, we couldn't see into the crater, though I believe it was deep because all I could see was.... cloud.  We walked around for 15 minutes, then spent 2 hours sitting in lodge, warming up and chatting.

The coolest part of the volcano was the white-nosed coati that we saw standing next to the lodge when we walked up.  Cute little guy, considering it's a relative of the racoon.

Our group spent Valentine's Day taking the 6-hour bus ride back to the jungle (YAY) and learning about diarrhea and female circumcision.  Not the most romantic Valentine's Day I've ever had, but I did get to talk to Gabe while I did my pages and pages of reading later in the evening, which cheered me up.  This week brings tons and tons of class, and we're starting a month-long period of moving locations every week so I have a feeling the days are going to fly by.  Until next time, pura vida!