7-15-11
It was a very short night for me, I went to bed after the Harry Potter premiere at 3, and had to be up at 7 for my Spanish test. It wasn’t as bad waking up as I thought it would be. When I first got to class I asked the Kim and Joe how they had liked the movie (many people at school had been talking about how the movie was going to be released early here at 3, 6 and 9 on Thursday). I thought this was a bit fishy, since they were going to the same theater as Randdie and I and we hadn’t seen any early times when we bought our tickets. What had happened was that in Costa Rica movies are sometimes re-released to theaters, and many people had bought tickets to part 1 of the 7th Harry Potter thinking that it was part 2. I like the idea of being able to see movies again in theaters, and I wish they did this everywhere! For example, while we were waiting to get into Harry Potter we saw a sign for the Lion King coming back to theaters! Movies are so cheap here that it is completely worth seeing them again!
Back to business… So I think my Spanish test went well but I won’t know the results for several more days. We were allowed to leave as soon as we were done with our exam, which worked out really well for me since I had to go back to my house and get my things before leaving with Jessica, Travis and Katie to meet the other API students for our weekend excursion to Monte Verde at 12:30. The four of us met up at Veritas at 12 to take a taxi in to San Jose to meet up with Esteban and then take a bus to San Joaquin to meet up with the other half of our group and leave for Monte Verde. We got to San Jose a bit early which worked out great for me since I hadn’t eaten lunch and I was starving. I got a chicken empanada while we waited for Esteban. We had to walk a little bit to get to the Coca-Cola station where all the buses leave from. I was starting to be very happy that I had packed light. One of the girls had brought a backpack and a duffle bag and didn’t look to happy about the walk (I on the other had only had my backpack and little day bag!). We just missed the first bus to San Joaquin and sat on the grounds of a colonial church to wait for the next one. It is about a 30 min bus ride to San Joaquin where we met up with Whitney, Katie and Caitlin (I know. Of the 6 girls four of us were in the Katherine name family…). We all piled into the mini-bus, and left on the 4 hour drive to Monte Verde in the central Pacific region. I took my Dramamine and napped nicely for most of the ride (partially unnecessary since I was already about to fall asleep from my late night the day before). This turned out to be the best strategy since we got stuck in traffic for 1 ½ hours due to the design of bridges in Costa Rica at large. Here bridges are only one lane wide, which means that each side must take their turn when crossing. I have no idea who thought this was a good idea, but if I ever meet them I’m going to give him a big smack in the head. I don’t believe that that the money saved from making a one lane bridge could be significant enough to justify the inconvenience. Luckily I was asleep for most of the ride and only woke up for the snack breaks.
We got into Monte Verde at 7:30 and decided to go out to dinner at a restaurant called the Tree House. The restaurant was really cool; it was on the second floor of the building and had a huge tree growing through the middle of it. However, this is the second time that I have been to a ‘nice’ restaurant aimed at tourists where the food was mediocre and seemed to be mostly imported. I got my favorite, arroz con pollo, but it was not what I had expected. It had a strange pineapple flavor to it that I’ve not had anywhere else in CR. We decided to just head back to the hotel after dinner since there wasn’t much of nightlife in the small town. We all just piled into one of the hotel rooms, watched movies and turned in early.
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