El Macho Gringo: February 2013

I'll start off with a disclaimer: this is going to be a long post with a ton of photos.

I finally arrived by plane from my hometown airport in Kansas City, Missouri, on January 30th in San José, Costa Rica, and I'd be lying if I said there has been a single dull moment since. As soon as we got off the flight and were cleared by immigration (I was with two other girls from the Grupo de Kansas study abroad program) we were surrounded by eager Costa Rican taxi pirates. But thankfully we made it in one piece, which was impressive in and of itself given the borderline homicidal, "they'll-brake-if-I-cut-right-in-front-of-them" attitude of most Costa Rican motorists (our taxi driver included).

Aside from the insane traffic, however, everything about my experience in the country thus far has fit completely with the national motto: "Pura vida." I'm staying with "una familia lindísima," as I would describe it en Español because saying "an awesome family" in English doesn't quite cut it. The Porras/Guillen clan is filled with grandparents, grandchildren, cousins, aunts, uncles and the list goes on. When I went to bed the first night after having met many of them my head was filled with technicolor dreams in Spanish. It was as if a switch went off in my brain saying, "Oh yeah, now it's really time for bilingual mode." I've been consistently dreaming in a combination of English and Spanish ever since, but nothing has come close to that first night. I would encourage any future study abroad students to pay attention to their dreams upon arrival in their foreign destination of choice, because they're bound to be mind boggling when your subconscious is trying to adapt to so much incredible change so quickly.

I could easily type 5,000 words describing the San Pedro area and all the experiences I've had in my first two and a half weeks in Costa Rica, but my favorite way to describe the physical setting for family and friends is that it's like the West Side of downtown Kansas City multiplied times 1,000. The architecture and organization of everything in the urban area of San José/the outlying urbanizaciones of San Pedro is much different from the perfectly manicured American style that you see on the KU campus, for example. To me, this is a welcome change, and makes for a lot more style, character, and exciting day-to-day life. The campus of the University of Costa Rica itself is highly varied in its architecture, with endless varieties of native flora and fauna allowed to grow as they please, and the surrounding walls of San Pedro and La Calle de la Amargura (a student bar street akin to Mass in Lawrence) are filled with incredible pieces of graffiti. I plan to make a future blog post dedicated to some pics of this awe inspiring street art.

Some of the most memorable moments for me thus far have been conversing with an elderly man named Alfonso Salas for almost a half hour in Spanish while we waited for the bus (and him complementing me on my accent!) playing soccer with native ticos on a concrete court and dunking the soccer ball for them on a basketball goal (9 ft. in height, unfortunately) learning Salsa and Merengue at a dance class in San Pedro, and visiting a coffee plantation/natural hot springs pool in Cartago, a gorgeous surfer's beach called Santa Theresa, and a volcano/waterfall resort last weekend. And now, on to some of the choicest photos that I've been able to snap of these experiences thus far. This coming weekend, I'll be going to a beach called Punta Leona for three days with the Grupo de Kansas, and fly fishing for trout in a remote valley on my own called San Gerardo de Dota the following weekend. Expect plenty more photos and writings to come from this macho gringo. Pura vida!