And we're off.... New Years on the Caribbean

Ok. So I will attempt to start a blog.... but I'm not really sure how to go about this. The thing with Costa Rica is that it feels so comfortable, and my urge to blog is less than when I feel somewhere more dramatically foreign. That aside, I will attempt a brief overview of how the last couple of weeks have gone.... I flew out of SFO with two friends, Tina and Kristine (pictured on the plane shot...) who are both on my program and both from Nor Cal. We flew out on Dec 30th and landed early in the morning on the 31st.... we then dropped our bags with a friend at her new apartment, and then ran back to San Jose to catch a bus to Puerto Viejo for New Years. In total by the time we hit the hostel, we had been traveling for about 24 hours. The hostel, Rocking J's (www.rockingjs.com), is a fantastic hostel if you're goal is a cheap place to stay with fantastic food and friendly folk from around the world, and if you are not interested in spending much time sleeping as it is a pretty raucous crowd (particularly on New Years...) We spent 3 days on the beach and then moved to a dive shop at a beach slightly further south, Punta Uva, to get PADI certified. Diving is completely fantastic and I cannot wait to do it for 'real'. Though Punta Uva is incredibly beautiful (see the photo at the top of this blog) it was really windy and the fine sand while lovely to lounge on, made visibility about the same as if I were diving in my front yard house during the summer.... (read about 6 feet ahead of you...) But breathing underwater is clearly what I was 'born' to do.... so on that front! :).










At Punta Uva we were staying in the dive shop for free and it was a complete 180 shift from Rocking J's. At night the only people around were us and a the dive guides/instructors Juan y Andres, and Juan's girlfriend, Katy, They were all fantastic and we spent the first evening chatting and generally discussing life. The next night was of slightly higher drama, one of my friends got a kidney infection and there was a rush to a local clinic.... but she is fine now, so just to make sure things weren't boring. ... We left Punta Uva Tuesday morning. Our way home took a bit longer than the way there for a variety of reasons including the fact that we had our first run in with a natural resource issue in Costa Rica. We were stuck behind a blockade for about 40 minutes because a town was without water for 2 + days and the city was refusing to provide it, so the town closed down a main highway.... apparently we were very lucky as we came at the tail end of the protest... they had been set up since early that morning! As I still had been unable to get in touch with my landlady I spent that first night at a friend's apartment. Wed-Fri we had orientation - I found out that this degree will apparently be bequeathed upon me by the United Nations .... so there is that. Friday night a couple of girls on my program went out with some new UPEACE colleagues.... 1) was a lawyer on the high court of India when he was 22 2) is a Kurdistani TV news personality/celeb 3+4) are students at a university in the Netherlands and interning here with an organization called Earth Charter.... They're from Ukraine and Azerbaijan respectively. And that was week one.... There has been a good week and a half since, but that will have to be saved for the next one. Besos