Got milk?

Yes, yes, the rumors are true: I did indeed drink an entire liter of milk for lunch today. Leave me alone, it was my first time having milk since I've been here, and you know how I love my milk...It came in a convenient liter "box", something akin to the milk boxes we got at lunch in school, but in a much more sensible size. It looks like I photo-shopped the milk box into my hand because of my pincer-like grip on the box, but I assure you its forreals.

Today was another sweet day- studied the subjunctive tense for most of class, which left me with a sizable headache by the time nooner came and I got to go home. Group from New York comes tonight, which excites me because I will be able to meet some other young folk who desire to venture off into the unknown jungles and beaches of Costa Rica.

On my walk home from school (in which I once again did not fail to break out into a vicious/waterfall-like sweat), I stopped at the AM/PM to snag some lunch. After browsing around a while, I finally decided on: seasoned banana chips, chicken burrito, and a liter of deliciously creamy, nectar-of-the-gods Dis Pinos milk. I ate the chips on walk home, which turned out to be a bad idea because the walk is mostly uphill (and in hot & humid weather, mind you), hence I nearly vomited up the chile y limon flavored dried banana fragments...They were good though- I convinced myself they were good for me, even though they tasted exactly like Doritos.

This past weekend was not extremely eventful- I fell asleep around 10 Friday night while I was waiting for my host brother Andres to go out for the evening. Apparently he came and knocked on my door to come and get me to leave, but I was already in a mild coma. I think he's lying because I never fall asleep early before the fun starts, but that's just me. Gotta keep an eye on that Andres. Woke up twelve hours later and went out to the city center of San Jose to explore- very interesting things to be seen there. The Costa Rican soccer league championships was last Saturday night, and San José's team "Saprissa" was in the title match (and heavily favored to win). Thus the streets were pretty crazy, with street vendors heckling passers-by to buy obnoxious purple fan gear, which was anything from pirated jerseys to giant plastic purple blowing horns. I saw some cool old buildings from San Jose's earlier days, such as the Teatro Nacional (National Theatre), some exotic city parks, various open and closed air street markets, and some interesting "art" throughout the city (one in particular was statue of an extremely obese woman in an awkward position).



Saturday night I watched the championship soccer game, in which Saprissa destroyed San Carlos 3-0. I tried to get tickets to the game, but they had been sold out since Tuesday. Looking at the crowd that was at the game, it probably was a good thing I probably should have been there- jumping up and down, screaming in Spanish and waving a purple jersey is kinda my style :D



Yesterday (Sunday), I went to church at a local Methodist church which was about a 25 minute walk from my house. The morning started out beautifully bright and sunny, thus I elected not to take my umbrella with me (this is what literary scholars like to call "foreshadowing"). After an excellent service filled with contemporary praise music translated into Spanish, which was pretty awesome, I talked with a few of the members of the small congregation and set off for my journey back home. It was amazing to hear people's testimonies in a different language- sometimes I forget that God doesn't just speak English! weird, I know. On my walk home, about 5 minutes before arriving at my destination, the sky started to leak. This wasn't any ordinary sprinkle like I'm used to in Escondido- it was an absolute downpour. It literally felt like someone had a fire hose and was purposely (is that a word?) trying to make me as wet as possible. After breaking into a light jog, I finally made it safely to my house, dripping rainwater everywhere (at least it wasn't sweat this time! :D :D)
That afternoon I went with my ticamadre Flori to her sister's house, which was somewhat like a Dutch family get-together, except everyone was short and firing off crazy stories to each other in Spanish. After eating a traditional Costa Rican afternoon snack of KFC and iced tea, I headed off to the movies with Flori's three college-aged nephews, whom I had known for approx. two hours. After traveling all the way across town and trying to follow their crazy stories filled with slang and heaps of laughter, we finally arrived in Escazú, the Beverly Hills of Costa Rica where most of the rich coffee barons and U.S. retirees reside. Despite being a luxury movie theater, a ticket to go see Robin Hood in Spanish was still only 3.000 colónes (about $6). I thought the movie was highly entertaining, although I felt a little bit guilty after the movie for taking such enjoyment out of seeing conniving Frenchmen being slaughtered by the mighty hand of Robin Longstride. Oops.
I had a lot of fun hanging out with these three amigos and they loved practicing their English on me. Basically everything I said was about 100x funnier to them, for reasons beyond me; I'm pretty sure I was their hero last night. Our last stop before going home was a pizza parlor named Oteros, where you can order decent pizza while watching hit new movies (we had Avatar!) The waiters at the joint had Salmo 23:1 on the back of their shirts, which I thought was pretty cool ("Jehová es mi pastor; nada me faltará"). Traded contact info with the guys and they seemed pretty adamant about taking me out this coming weekend, so we'll see what happens...

Haven't taken many pictures outside of my house yet, as most of my explorations have been solo missions, in which case it is rather dangerous for me to bring my rather large Nikon d3000 () with me.

Welp, its about time for a siesta, cafecito, and then a walk through the park!
¡Pura Vida!