I am having a fantastic time, but for your entertainment (if anyone reads this) I am going to point out some of the less "romantic" and funny moments.
For the past two days we stayed with a family in Tres Equis. Abigail and I stayed in a house with four girls our age and older. They were so interested in getting to know us...
Any conversation made was a question we came up with from our less than elementary vocabulary. Our conversations usually went like, "¿Que es tu favorite calor?". They would respond "No se". At one point I even attempted to ask if they understood anything we were saying in Spanish. They said they couldn't, really. They had the "polite laugh and smile" down.
Abigail and I adopted the philosophy that if you can laugh at yourself everything would be okay. By the looks on their faces, we probably weren't saying what we thought we were, and we certainly were clueless as to what they were saying, so we laughed the whole time. This morning our host mom Ivyana gave us empanadas. Before I tasted them, I thought they looked like hash browns. So I told them that we call these hash browns in the United States; however, Abigail promptly informed me that what I actually said was : " In the United States they call me hash brown." They were so polite they didn't even laugh at me; however Abigail and I were dying laughing. Last night in our room we both laughed so hard our stomachs and ribs were in serious pain. We just couldn't stop. Our family probably thought we were insane.
The room we stayed in was an experience on its on. The walls were filled with paintings by some of the girls. In America these paintings would be interpreted as coming from a very depressed, Wicken girl with a very unfortunate childhood, but in Costa Rica this was just some painting that they like and copied off the internet. One of the paintings was of a little boy curled up in a ball crying. He was holding a broken heart in his hand that was held together by a band-aid. They had the Lord's Prayer painted in alternating green black and red letters. It looked like it could have been written in blood. One of the paintings over Abigail's bed was a depiction of Satan. It looked like a possessed skull. This was by far the scariest one. My bed was watched over by a painting of a panda with stitches. The last painting worth mentioning was a smiley face contorted into a crying sad face...I don't even know.
Before arriving at Tres Equis we were informed by our guides that to avoid getting electrocuted while in the shower, you must adjust the temperature before turning it on. So yeah...that's terrifying. Fortunately, in our house we did not have to worry about adjusting the temperature because there was only one knob that let the ARTIC, FREEEEEEEZING water flow. I have a great appreciation for water heaters now. I will say that I was very effecient in my time, taking only about three minutes in the shower keeping the water as far from my back as possible.
In the morning, the family got up at five to go to work, but we could sleep until 7. Unfortunately, our day started at 5 anyway. I felt someone grabbing my feet and shaking them. In the sleepy state I was in, I thought that for some unknown reason one of the girls had grabbed my feet. I shot up out of my bed and saw nothing. I layed back down, and it happened again. I knew the Satanic painting had come to life and was sucking the life out of me like a dementor!...
It was a kitten.
I am very thankful for this cultural experience. Abigail and I had a lot of fun, and we are better people because of it. I will say I have only written the less fortunate incidents even though there are many more good moments...they just weren't as funny.
Now, I am on our Mercedes-Benz bus listening to the Zac Brown Band riding to "the caves", and I just ordered a club sandwhich and fries for tomorrow's lunch. Life is good!
Pura Vida,
Isabelle
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