The Day I Tried to Pretend I Wasn't a Tourist. . .

Which failed miserably the moment I stepped into the Tourism Office!
Today Becky, Amanda and I went into San Jose - which here in Costa Rica refers to the downtown area. I wasn't sure what all we were planning to do, so I didn't bring my camera. In retrospect, not the best decision ever! We took the bus into San Jose from San Pedro, which is where we live. Becky took us through the neighborhood to the Mas-x-Menos, which she recommended to us as the best place to do grocery shopping. Unfortunately, its a bit of a hike, and would probably require a taxi to get home. . . so I might stick with the grocery stores 2 and 4 blocks away, unless I have a big shopping trip I need to go on. We saw the Iglesia San Pedro, which is the church our neighborhood is named for, and which I plan visiting - its supposed to be beautiful. (I spent so much time on vacations visiting churches with my family that I even do it now without my parents!) We then took a bus into the city. They're really easy to catch, and really cheap - I think it cost $0.50 to take the bus into San Jose. Of course, you don't get a transfer or anything like that, which makes it slightly less cheap if you have a ways to go, but since I usually only need one bus, it works out well.
We arrived in San Jose with no problems. I was surprised at how much of the downtown I remembered, but I did spend a lot of time there when we visited 4 years ago. Amanda and I took a tour of the Teatro Nacional, which was built in 1897 and is a really stunning building. Very baroque in style. We want to go back and see a show of some sort there. We then walked over to the Cathedral, and slipped inside for a bit. There was a mass going on, so we didn't see much, but what we did see was quite lovely.
For lunch, we went to a restaurant called Nuestra Tierra. This was the very first restaurant our family ate at when we visited Costa Rica. It was much brighter inside than I remembered, but it seemed very much the same. We then meandered across the street and through the Mercado Artesanal - the Artesans Market. Amanda and I have made plans to return and buy earrings there, as well as touristy gifties for our families.
The three of us then meandered back to the pedestrian mall, and walked up to the mercado to get some of Becky's favorite ice cream - vanilla-cinnamon flavor. Amanda and I were very suspicious of the ice cream - it is very yellow and not super solid, but it was fantastic. The flavor reminded me of the dough for the pan de muertos I made for Easter.
It was after this that our real adventure began. Becky wanted to show Amanda and me the Plaza del Sol, which is a market-y sort of area. Its back in San Pedro, so we got back on the bus. We were trundling along in the bus, and Becky told me "When we take a left up ahead, push the button so the driver knows we need to get off." Well, the bus never took a left - we were on the wrong bus. Instead, it turned right, and dropped us off in Curridibat, which is another neighborhood in the city. The rain that had threatened all day had started, and the three of us were lost and wet, even with our umbrellas and rain coats. We started walking in the generally right direction, but really had no idea where we were in relation to anything. Becky was horrified, and kept apologizing to us. Eventually, we ran into some Mormon missionaries, and got directions from them, and made our way to a main thoroughfare, where we caught a taxi and took it back home. Now Amanda and I know to be very, very sure that the bus we are on is the right one! But all's well that ends well, and I am now home and dry.

Birthdays and Really Awesome Presents

So I was headed back from grocery shopping with the new volunteer (more on her later), when Alvaro asked me if I'd ever had a birthday away from home. I realized that I actually haven't been home for a birthday since I turned 19. My last three birthdays have all been away from my family: DuNord YMCA camp in Ely, in Melbourne last year, and now in Costa Rica. I guess I'm getting used to it, but it does make me a little homesick - I want family on my birthday!There must be some part of me that actually likes fuss being made about my birthday, though I can never seem to find it while the fuss happens. I guess I like the idea of fuss, but not the actual fuss? Anyway, I told the folks at UBL that it was my birthday today (I mean, I told them the 16th was my birthday. I didn't casually mention it this morning) so this morning at cafecito they had two of their liturgical musicians play a tican happy birthday - though the song is apparently Mexican? It was very sweet of them. Then Becky took Ruth (an American professor at UBL), Amanda, and me out to lunch at a sort of fast food place called "Spoon." This evening Amanda and I went out for pizza, and had a great time, though the pizza itself was edible and not much else.Becky took the pictures during the "concert", and also took a video of the last minute plus of the birthday song, which I now have on my computer. If I could figure out how to edit it, I'd post it, but since I can't, I think you all get a pass.
Amanda is the newest volunteer. She's a rising college senior majoring in theater, and is from Alabama. She seems really nice - and certainly was game for lunch immediately following her arrival. She was supposed to live with me in the apartment, but her parents had some safety concerns, so she's up in the student dormitories. She has an open invitation to come down whenever - its really nice to have someone my age here, because as much as I enjoy chatting with Luz, in the end, she's still only 9. I think Amanda and I might travel some together. I'm excited to get to know her better, and she made for a pretty sweet birthday present.

Pura Vida!

I am in San Jose! Or, more correctly, I am in Cedros, San Pedro. My address is all sorts of fun – it includes 400 m E as part of it. I had quite the adventure getting here. After a mechanical delay in Minneapolis, I spent three hours in Denver (as noted in yesterday's post), before hopping on a plane to San Jose. Upon arriving and picking up my bag, I discovered that one of my soap bottles – a bottle of Dr. Bronner's Original, to be exact – had opened during the flight. The plastic bag I had set it in had sprung a leak, and about half of what I had in the bottle spilled everywhere. The suitcase smells very peppermint-y, and the soap soaked all the way through to my top layer of clothes. Then I headed out to the “Parada de Taxis” to wait for the driver the seminary was sending. After waiting about an hour, I decided he probably wasn't coming (I found out later they thought my flight was at 5:20pm, not 5:20 am). However, I didn't have an address for UBL, nor did I have a phone number. So, I called dad. $50 later, I had an address and several phone numbers. I got in a taxi, and we drove to the seminary, where I was met by the guy who will be my boss – Alvaro – for the next few months. He drove me to my apartment thing, which I will apparently be sharing with a young woman who will arrive Wednesday. And to top it all off, I'm losing my voice. But! I'm here, and that's what really matters.

The Universidad Biblica Latinoamericana (UBILA) library is basically undergoing a catalog overhaul. My job is to pull books from a section, find their cards in the card catalogs (Author, title, and subject), and then look up the full information from the Library of Congress, or the Barcelona National Library. It is slow going – it takes a while to pull all three cards, and looking up the books is a tedious process, because sometimes they don't exist in the Library of Congress catalog, or the Barcelona National Library catalog, but there's a lot of data entry before I can be completely certain. I have a funny little office that would make my dad flip out – there is pretty much space for a desktop computer plus maybe a foot on either side, and bookshelves lining the walls. Its very long and narrow, but behind the computer is a window, which overlooks a little garden with some beautiful flowers.

My apartment is 100 m (1 city block) west of UBILA, on a side street. Like most houses in San Jose and the surrounding areas, there is a gate and a fence that I have to unlock to get inside. There are 7 apartments in the building block, and I live in the furthest one back. I have a small, mostly furnished kitchen, a bathroom, and my own room. There is also another bedroom, and a small dining/living area. This might be the same place my parents stayed several years ago when we traveled to Costa Rica. There are two grocery stores near by. One is the Perimercado de Cedros, which is a big store about 300 m from my apartment. There is also a smaller supermercado inbetween my apartment and the Perimercado. Everyone has told me that the supermercado is not as good, and if I am going to get groceries, I might as well walk the extra block.

My Spanish is less rusty than I expected, but is definitely not one hundred percent there. I have some pretty large vocabulary gaps at the moment, but Alvaro speaks English fluently, so we get along alright. I met a nine year old in the library today. Her name is Luz (I think. She speaks very quickly), and she is learning some English in school. She is very sweet, but says that I spend too much time thinking about the translation in my head and should just get a dictionary already. I don't think using a dictionary will really help with my speed!

So in sum: I'm here, entonces todo está pura vida!

Travelling. . .

Airports are really strange places. Airplanes are too. Time does strange things in them; for much of the actual airtime it ceases to exist, but then it suddenly reasserts itself in a desperate rush of hurry. Avowed introvert that I am, I interact with strangers regularly in airports and on airplanes. The man I sat next to while waiting for our delayed flight to start boarding was on his way to San Francisco via Denver to watch his daughter graduate from high school. The woman who sat next to me on the plane was worried about making her connection, and that she didn't have a dog sitter for the night if she couldn't make it back to San Diego. They could tell you that I'm on my way to Costa Rica to volunteer in a library for a summer, and she could tell you that I have at least one cat who sleeps on my bed regularly. I chat with the people at the fast food places where I get my dinner, or at the bookstore. A woman and I chuckled in the bathroom at the difficulties of getting the automatic water faucets to turn on. And airports are strange, because they are places that exist solely to provide transportation to other places. No one goes to an airport for the airport. Maybe the people who work in airports feel differently, but really. Even a train station can be a meeting place, a destination in itself. Airports? Not so much. Maybe some of that has to do with the security - all of the interesting stuff at airports happens past the security booths.
This plane, though, was a strange place not only because of the strange things time does in transit, but because we had a flight attendant with the biggest personality on the plane. He made irreverent asides during the "In the case of _______ emergency, do this. . . " speech, causing much of the front half of the plane to crack up. The best was his "We are arriving in Denver" speech, during which it became apparent that he either spends far too much time planning this sort of thing or far too much time without sleep. Aside from forgetting to account for the time change when he gave the local time, he also made several other gaffes. The best one was the one that seemed the least planned: "As you exit the plane, there will be an uninformed Frontier representative who can help you find your next gate." Read that carefully.
Also, I have a three-ish hour layover in Denver, so I am people watching as my gate slowly fills. There are two very excited little girls who are playing on the electric sidewalks, running up and down them. The man across from me looks like a business traveler - he is reading a newspaper and checking his blackberry compulsively. I am also judging the people who walk by on the moving sidewalk. Really? You want to fly in a mini-skirt and 3 inch heels?! Or, slow down! Your kid can't keep up with you - look behind you. In other news, I'm really not that great a person. . .
Anyway. I am very excited for my time in Costa Rica. I do wish that my flight weren't at such a late time - I arrive in San Jose at 5:19am, which is much earlier than I would really like. That's what I get for having a cheap flight, I guess. I'm getting super rambly, so I'm going to close this off. Next post will be from Costa Rica!

Undergrad what?

So I have officially finished classes. One paper and two exams from now, and a week from monday I will be graduated!
The post college journey begins with a stay in San Jose Costa Rica! I'll be at the UBL (the Seminary) from June 9 to Aug 21.

Skipping for snow

I have to confess to taking an unholy pleasure in winter. I hate being cold as much as the next crazy person who decided that living somewhere we have 6 months of snow and more months of cold, but there's something about winter. Don't get me wrong; I love fall and I love spring and I love summer, even with the mosquitoes, but something about winter. Maybe its the fact that in the first eleven years of my life, I saw snow fall once - I was ten and it was right before Christmas and it snowed in San Francisco. I was at the grocery store with my mom, in a red dress after church, and we came out of the grocery store and there was snow. I don't think I even had a jacket. I skipped all the way to the car.

Pseudo-groomed nordic trail at Clearwater Forest Camp, in Garrison, Minnesota.

Anyway. I love snow because growing up in San Francisco, we had two weather types: sunny and windy, or cold and foggy. There were no seasons, but I spent summers in New Mexico and so had an appreciation for what summer meant. Winter, though; I didn't understand it. I associated snow with mountain-tops; I didn't go sledding until I was eleven. Clearly, a deprived childhood. Despite that inauspicious beginning, I love winter. Something about the sharpness of the air, and the softness of the landscape, the way in the city it never gets truly dark because the snow in the air captures the streetlights. This winter has had some of the most spectacular snowfalls I've had the pleasure of seeing. Our blizzard in early December in Iowa, which caused a two day cancellation of school - and a day long closure of the freeways.

My bike on the porch the day after the storm. That snow is just drift;
you can't actually see the foot plus on the stairs and the yard.

And the Christmas Eve storm in Minneapolis, where we got eight - ten inches of the heaviest snow I have ever had the pleasure of shoveling. Snow and ice transform the city into something ethereal and magical. And not just the parks and lakes, but the whole city - downtown, apartment complexes, even the plethora of freeways. Plus, everyone is so friendly - its hard not to be, since we're all slipping and sliding and shoveling and shivering together.

The boathouse and lake from the deck of Leaning Tree, at Clearwater Forest Camp.

Plus, I love being outside in the winter. I love nordic skiing, even though I'm not so great at it. I like being able to walk on lakes, though I have a trapped-under-ice phobia. (Several friends and I were discussing irrational fears, and when I mentioned that particular phobia, it was helpfully pointed out to me that being afraid of being trapped under ice in Minnesota is not, in fact, an irrational fear. Thanks.) I like the way everyone slows down, driving or walking. I have the skills of a five-year old kid on ice skates, (that's not entirely true; I went skating with a friend, and his five-year-old sister skated circles around me) but I like skating. If I ever learn how to downhill down anything steeper than the bunny hills, I'm sure I'd love that too. Or snow-boarding. Heck, I even like walking from my apartment to class when its ten below and I'm wearing so many layers I feel like the kid from "A Christmas Story."

Me, skiing at Kathio State Park, outside Garrison, MN.

So, yes. I take an unholy pleasure in winter. And I read the saddest story in the newspaper the other day: from here on out, its supposed to be a warmer winter than usual.

The drive to Grinnell is a startling pretty one - I am always surprised by how much I enjoy it. Driving south down I-35 is a straight shot through farm country; but along the way I pass prarie resotrations, wetland restorations, and funny stands of trees left over from when they tried to forest the prarie. (Remember in that Laura Ingalls Wilder book? Pa plants a tree for each daughter.)

And right next to the corn fields and the soy fields are wind farms that stretch as far as I can see. This is southern Minnesota and north-central Iowa. And pooh on all those who say this is a boring drive - they're clearly just not looking hard enough.