Hola once again! I thought I would switch up what I have been doing for my blogs and instead of writing about what I have been doing I would write about some of the things I have experienced. As of right now, I have basically taken every form of transportation I possibly can. From taxis to Uber to public and private buses, I think I have tried it all, and it has definitely been an experience unlike any other...
The first mode of transportation I took here, besides flying, was the bus in San José. In Costa Rica, the buses are technically not owned by the state and are instead owned by private companies. This makes it a little difficult to use this form of transportation because most of the buses cost different amounts, and there are some areas of the city that have more buses than others. For example, after the fútbol game that we went to last week, we were waiting at the bus stop for our buses to come so we could go home. A bus that a couple of the girls could take showed up basically right away, and for the next 25 minutes that the rest of us waited for one of our buses to show up, probably 15 of the same type of bus showed up at the stop. I do not know if this has anything to do with the buses being owned by private companies or not, but there is also not an exact schedule for the buses, so when you get to a stop, you have no idea how long it will be before another bus will come. There is also not a map for knowing where the buses will go, so we just had to learn from our families which bus we could take and where it would go. The other strange thing about the buses is that although they do have certain stops they can make, they do not make them every time. The buses will only stop if you flag them down because you want to get on them or if you tell them to stop so you can get off. This can be nice if you are in a hurry to get somewhere and your bus does not stop at every stop, but it can also be annoying because if it is dark and difficult to see where you are, it can be hard to know when to signal the bus driver to stop the bus, at least if you are still new to the system.
Another form of transportation that I have taken is a private bus to various locations. For our first weekend trip to Jacó, we took a bus just for our group from our school to Jacó and then took the bus back from Jacó to our school at the end of the weekend. This is probably one of my favorite forms of transportation because we get the whole bus to ourselves and we do not make stops every 20 minutes (Refer to the third paragraph for more information). We also can ask to stop for bathroom breaks and this is a lot faster than taking a public bus to wherever we need to go. We can also schedule this bus for when we want to leave so we can leave at a time that is convenient for us. This can be a bit pricier, but for the comfort it provides, it is almost always worth it.
The type of transportation that we took to La Fortuna this past weekend was a public bus. Besides having buses that can take you places in the city, there are also buses that can take you to other towns. Apparently there are some public buses that are direct buses, but there are also buses that are not. The direct buses will take you directly where you need to go without making stops to pick up others on the way. But the bus we took this past weekend was not one of those. Instead, we made multiple stops in just about every town we drove through to pick up other people and drop off people in other stops. I have taken buses to other cities before, but I have never experienced anything quite like this before. The weirdest thing about the whole experience was that the bus did not just fill up the seats, but also had tickets that people could buy to stand on the bus to their destination. I fell asleep very briefly on the bus, and when I woke up, I was super confused to see people standing in the aisles. We were going to take this type of bus back to San José on Sunday, but there were no tickets left when we went to buy them, but if we wanted we probably could have bought standing tickets. However, that would have meant standing on a bus for around 5 or 6 hours, and none of us wanted to do that, so we took a private bus instead. I cannot say I would ever recommend a public bus unless you are on a direct one because that was the longest 5 or 6 hours of my life and I never wanted to do that again.
Besides buses, I have also taken both Uber and taxis to get around the city. I personally prefer Uber because you know ahead of time how much you will be paying to get somewhere, and taxis frequently do not take the most direct route so they can charge you more. But yesterday when I went to the mall with my roommate, we could not get wifi so we had to take a taxi home instead. It was probably only about 2 dollars more than a taxi, but it was still more than we wanted to pay. Uber is also a bit safer than taking a taxi because you know who your driver will be and the company takes the safety of the passengers pretty seriously. The best thing about taking either of these is that they are a lot faster than taking a bus.
The last form of transportation that I have taken here is the train. Last week, a few of us went to Cartago, a city about 40 minutes away by train, to visit a basilica. We were able to buy a train ticket for about a dollar for a one-way trip, and although it was not the most comfortable train I have ever been on, I prefer it to a bus. We made about 6 stops before getting to Cartago, but it was still way faster than a bus would have been because the train did not have to stop for traffic. The train also runs on a schedule and sticks to it pretty well, which I appreciated greatly.
Besides just the forms of transportation that I have taken, I have also witnessed how traffic works here, and let me just say, it terrifies me a little bit. Obviously, I am used to Kearney traffic that is not really that bad and normally people do not drive that crazy, and I do not have enough experience in big cities to really have an opinion about them. Here though, it just amazes both how good the drivers seem to be, but also how many risks I feel like they take. For example, if a bus or car is stopped in the road, drivers will just go around them most of the time, even if that means driving on the opposite side of the street, even if that street is a main street with actual traffic. And do not get me started on the motorcycles. Although it is illegal, most of the motorcycles will just weave in and out of traffic all of the time. I have heard there are a lot of accidents involving motorcycles every year here, but I cannot believe there are not more with how they drive. We do not have a lot of places where traffic merges in Kearney, but there are a lot of places here where that happens. I always just cringe watching our bus merging with the other traffic at various places because the bus driver just decides he is going to merge and he does it. The trains also run through town, so we occasionally have to cross tracks. But so far, I have not seen gates that prevent people from crossing the tracks when a train is coming. All you hear is the train loudly blowing its whistle, and you had better not be on the tracks when it comes. Probably the most important thing I have noticed here is that the bus waits for no one. Sometime cars will stop and let people cross the street if you are not at a crosswalk. But I can almost guarantee you that a bus will not stop, so you better not cross in front of them.
We took a boat to get from La Fortuna to Monte Verde this past weekend, but that is not a common form of transportation by any means, so there is not really much to talk about with that. Although I have enjoyed Costa Rica, I cannot wait to get back to "small city" traffic and not having to deal with some of the traffic things I have dealt with here. I think I could have appreciated the transportation here better, but I was spoiled in Europe with their public transportation, so I had high expectations coming here. Overall, it has gotten me where I need to go, which is all you can really ask for, but I seriously wish it had a little bit more structure to it. But I only have two more weeks here, so I will keep enjoying everything else while I still can.
Monday, June 19, 2017
Tuesday, June 13, 2017
Jacó, Tirolesa, y Fútbol
¡Pura Vida! This past weekend, we went to Jacó for two and a half days and then we went zip-lining on the San Luis Canopy Tour on Sunday. We left for Jacó on Thursday after classes. We were supposed to leave by 3, but our bus did not show up until 4. So by the time we got there, it was already dark since it is winter here and gets dark by 6 or 6:30 or so. Thankfully though, we could still eat supper when we got there. We stayed at Best Western and it was an all-inclusive resort which means all of the food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner was included. After dinner that night, a few of us tried going to the beach, but all we could see were terrifying waves and the mountains on either side of us. We hung out at the bar at the hotel for a while because they have a discoteca, a dance party, every night but there were not very many people there and no one was actually dancing so we left.
The next day, we ate breakfast fairly early and then some people went surfing and the rest of us went to the beach. We were not supposed to swim near our hotel because the currents are very strong there, so we mostly just laid out and talked. At about noon, we ate lunch and it also started raining about that time. We eventually went into town at around 3:30 to walk around and check out the shops. There was one shop that was owned by someone from Germany who was married to one of the surf instructors that part of our group had met that morning. She designs her own swimsuits and everything in her store was made in Costa Rica, so it was super interesting to look around there. There was a surfing competition that some people went to that afternoon even though it was still raining, but the rest of us walked around town more and then returned to the hotel. Allison and I walked around the beach a little bit before it got dark, but then it was time for supper. After supper, a bunch of us took naps and then met at the discoteca at 9ish to do some dancing. Most of the music they played we did not know, but a few people tried to salsa and they did play the Cupid Shuffle, the Cha Cha Slide, and a few other American songs that we all knew. We went to bed by around midnight so we could get up a do a few things our last day.
On Saturday, we got up early again and ate breakfast and then Allison and I went exploring again on the beach. We were looking for seashells and we had not seen the whole beach near our hotel yet. So we walked for a while in one direction, and then we went back the direction we had going the other day. In that direction, there was water that separated the two sides of the beach, and we had been too scared to cross it the other day. But we saw our friends on the other side and they said it was only about knee-deep. However, when we went to cross it, it was about to our mid-thigh. We explored that side of the beach for a while, and then we had to cross again to go back to the hotel. At this point though, the water had risen again, and it was up to our hips. But we made it across and just had to change clothes when we got back to our room because there was no way our clothes would dry in time to go home. We left Jacó at around 1:30 and by the time we got back to San José, most people just went home and ate dinner and went to bed.
On Sunday, we had to meet at the school by 7 AM to go on our zip-lining tour. It took about 1 and a half hours to get there, and when we were getting close, it was so foggy I was scared for us to be driving. But overall it was a very nice day and it did not rain so that was good. We did 12 zip-lines and a giant swing called a Tarzan Swing. It was a lot of fun, and the guides were constantly making jokes about how it was their first time being a guide. We ate lunch there also, and then we made it back to San José by 2:30ish. A few of us went to a souvenir market and bought soccer jerseys for Costa Rica because we went to a soccer game tonight. And then we just went home and hung out for the rest of the night. It was a super fun weekend and I cannot wait to go on other weekend trips.
Since I just got back from the soccer game, I figured I could write about that also. We took a bus from our school, CRLA, to near the stadium at around 5:30, and even though the game did not start until 8, the traffic was still pretty bad. We wandered around for a while and then just stood outside a bar called Goool!, We did not leave to go inside the game until 7:40, and it only took 5 minutes to walk to the stadium, but it took about 15 minutes to get inside, and Costa Rica scored right away and so we missed the first point. But they scored again at the end of the first half, so we at least got to see that goal. I did not really know exactly what was happening during the game, but it was still really fun to watch. I am also not a fan of large crowds of people, but it was not that bad inside the stadium. The stadium was full, but it did not seem nearly as crowded inside as it was on the streets. We left the game about five minutes early to beat traffic, and then we barely made it in time to catch a bus home instead of taking an Uber or a taxi. But the most exciting part about the game was that Costa Rica beat Trinidad 2 to 1!! We got to hear quite a few cheers and just being able to experience something like that was amazing. I cannot say I will ever go to another soccer game, so I am glad I was able to try it once. And that is the end of my adventures over these past few days, but do not worry, I know I will be going on many more.
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| Our group in front of the school before leaving | The buffet at our hotel. |
The next day, we ate breakfast fairly early and then some people went surfing and the rest of us went to the beach. We were not supposed to swim near our hotel because the currents are very strong there, so we mostly just laid out and talked. At about noon, we ate lunch and it also started raining about that time. We eventually went into town at around 3:30 to walk around and check out the shops. There was one shop that was owned by someone from Germany who was married to one of the surf instructors that part of our group had met that morning. She designs her own swimsuits and everything in her store was made in Costa Rica, so it was super interesting to look around there. There was a surfing competition that some people went to that afternoon even though it was still raining, but the rest of us walked around town more and then returned to the hotel. Allison and I walked around the beach a little bit before it got dark, but then it was time for supper. After supper, a bunch of us took naps and then met at the discoteca at 9ish to do some dancing. Most of the music they played we did not know, but a few people tried to salsa and they did play the Cupid Shuffle, the Cha Cha Slide, and a few other American songs that we all knew. We went to bed by around midnight so we could get up a do a few things our last day.
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| A park in Jacó | A beautiful sunset on the beach |
On Saturday, we got up early again and ate breakfast and then Allison and I went exploring again on the beach. We were looking for seashells and we had not seen the whole beach near our hotel yet. So we walked for a while in one direction, and then we went back the direction we had going the other day. In that direction, there was water that separated the two sides of the beach, and we had been too scared to cross it the other day. But we saw our friends on the other side and they said it was only about knee-deep. However, when we went to cross it, it was about to our mid-thigh. We explored that side of the beach for a while, and then we had to cross again to go back to the hotel. At this point though, the water had risen again, and it was up to our hips. But we made it across and just had to change clothes when we got back to our room because there was no way our clothes would dry in time to go home. We left Jacó at around 1:30 and by the time we got back to San José, most people just went home and ate dinner and went to bed.
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| The "river" we had to cross to get to the other side of the beach |
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| Can you spot the crab? |
Allison and I at the beach
On Sunday, we had to meet at the school by 7 AM to go on our zip-lining tour. It took about 1 and a half hours to get there, and when we were getting close, it was so foggy I was scared for us to be driving. But overall it was a very nice day and it did not rain so that was good. We did 12 zip-lines and a giant swing called a Tarzan Swing. It was a lot of fun, and the guides were constantly making jokes about how it was their first time being a guide. We ate lunch there also, and then we made it back to San José by 2:30ish. A few of us went to a souvenir market and bought soccer jerseys for Costa Rica because we went to a soccer game tonight. And then we just went home and hung out for the rest of the night. It was a super fun weekend and I cannot wait to go on other weekend trips.
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| This zip-line was the last one and it was called the Superman |
Since I just got back from the soccer game, I figured I could write about that also. We took a bus from our school, CRLA, to near the stadium at around 5:30, and even though the game did not start until 8, the traffic was still pretty bad. We wandered around for a while and then just stood outside a bar called Goool!, We did not leave to go inside the game until 7:40, and it only took 5 minutes to walk to the stadium, but it took about 15 minutes to get inside, and Costa Rica scored right away and so we missed the first point. But they scored again at the end of the first half, so we at least got to see that goal. I did not really know exactly what was happening during the game, but it was still really fun to watch. I am also not a fan of large crowds of people, but it was not that bad inside the stadium. The stadium was full, but it did not seem nearly as crowded inside as it was on the streets. We left the game about five minutes early to beat traffic, and then we barely made it in time to catch a bus home instead of taking an Uber or a taxi. But the most exciting part about the game was that Costa Rica beat Trinidad 2 to 1!! We got to hear quite a few cheers and just being able to experience something like that was amazing. I cannot say I will ever go to another soccer game, so I am glad I was able to try it once. And that is the end of my adventures over these past few days, but do not worry, I know I will be going on many more.
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| This was right after Costa Rica scored their second goal |
Thursday, June 8, 2017
Al principio
¡Hola! Cómo van? Pura Vida I hope. That is a typical response here when people are asked about their day, but I will probably do another blog just about that phrase. Although I never posted anything about it, I arrived here in San José on Saturday, June 3rd, and I have been learning new things ever since.
San José, the city where we are living, is the capital of Costa Rica and was named in honor of Joseph of Nazareth, Jesus's earthly father. The city, including the metropolitan area, has a population of over one million people. I have not explored a lot of city, unless it was by accident because of getting lost, but I hope to see more of it as time goes on.
So far, since arriving, I have had the chance to hang out and talk with my host family about places to go, things to do or not do, and just about life in general. They are really nice people, and even though I do not always understand everything they say, they try to make sure that I can understand most of it. They also speak a decent amount of English, which is nice if I am ever totally confused.
I have also had classes this past Monday through today. Every week, we have classes from 9 AM to 2 PM on Mondays through Thursdays, but we have a fifteen minute break in the morning and an hour for lunch at noon. On our first day, we had to come in at 8 to take an oral placement test, and then we could know what classes to take. For our classes, there are normally anywhere between 2 to 6 students in a class with one teacher, and the things that can be covered in the class vary greatly. I am in one of the intermediate classes, and we have talked about past tense verbs, Latin American legends, religion, and so many more things. Our teacher is a lot of fun, and we always laugh during class.
Besides class, we have also had to learn how to use the public transportation here. I was pretty confident in myself in this aspect because I have used public transportation in just about every country I have gone to. But here it is a little different. The main mode of public transportation is buses, but the buses are actually privately owned and not owned by the government. And although they have certain spots they can stop at, you have to let them know to stop because they will not do it if no one signals for it. They also will not pick you up at the bus stop if you do not wave them down first. That has taken a little bit of time to get used to because you have to know how to signal enough for them to come, but you also have to know how and when to signal for them to stop. If you are wanting a bus to pick you up, you just have to stick your hand out and it should stop. And for getting it to stop at the next bus stop, the bus either has a string to pull or buttons to press that alert the drivers. And do not even get me started on how people drive here; to say the least, it is absolutely terrifying! I might have to do a separate blog about that as well.
Finally, the last thing we have had to learn is how to get around the city when not on a bus. It is hard here to figure out where you want to go because many of the streets do not have street names and there are not really addresses to search in Google maps. The second day of class, my roommate and I had to go to the school by ourselves, because our Mama Tica (our host mom) showed us how to get there the first day. We got to the bus alright, we got on the bus, and we got to our correct stop. But when we tried finding the school, we turned too soon and missed the correct street by about 40 feet. And then we proceeded to wander around the area for about 40 minutes until some nice guy we asked for directions let us use his phone to Google maps our school so we could know how to get there. Neither of us had wifi, and we did not know where on a map the school was. But we asked so many people that morning if they knew where the school was and most just said they were not from San José, or they had not heard of our school. We were late to class, but it was at least we were together and it was a funny story to tell. Then after class that day, we went with one of the girls from UNK and her roommate to her house so if we wanted to do something with her, we could walk or take a taxi over so she would not have to walk alone. And after we went to her house, we went to the market to get some food so we did not have to eat out for lunch every day (We have breakfast and supper provided by our host family). But on our way back home from the market, we again turned down a wrong street and had to ask more people for help. Thankfully, people had a decent idea how to get to our neighborhood, so that made things a little bit easier. But it gets dark here by 6 PM at the latest, so that makes it difficult to walk around at night. We have not gotten lost since (knock on wood) so hopefully we will do better now.
It has been a fun and interesting almost full week here so far, and I have enjoyed trying new things and learning how to live in a big city. We are going to Jaco, which is a town near the beach, today and will stay there until Saturday. And then on Sunday, we are going to go ziplining in the rainforest somewhere. It will be amazing and I will probably blog about this weekend once we get back from everything. ¡Hasta luego!
San José, the city where we are living, is the capital of Costa Rica and was named in honor of Joseph of Nazareth, Jesus's earthly father. The city, including the metropolitan area, has a population of over one million people. I have not explored a lot of city, unless it was by accident because of getting lost, but I hope to see more of it as time goes on.
So far, since arriving, I have had the chance to hang out and talk with my host family about places to go, things to do or not do, and just about life in general. They are really nice people, and even though I do not always understand everything they say, they try to make sure that I can understand most of it. They also speak a decent amount of English, which is nice if I am ever totally confused.
I have also had classes this past Monday through today. Every week, we have classes from 9 AM to 2 PM on Mondays through Thursdays, but we have a fifteen minute break in the morning and an hour for lunch at noon. On our first day, we had to come in at 8 to take an oral placement test, and then we could know what classes to take. For our classes, there are normally anywhere between 2 to 6 students in a class with one teacher, and the things that can be covered in the class vary greatly. I am in one of the intermediate classes, and we have talked about past tense verbs, Latin American legends, religion, and so many more things. Our teacher is a lot of fun, and we always laugh during class.
Besides class, we have also had to learn how to use the public transportation here. I was pretty confident in myself in this aspect because I have used public transportation in just about every country I have gone to. But here it is a little different. The main mode of public transportation is buses, but the buses are actually privately owned and not owned by the government. And although they have certain spots they can stop at, you have to let them know to stop because they will not do it if no one signals for it. They also will not pick you up at the bus stop if you do not wave them down first. That has taken a little bit of time to get used to because you have to know how to signal enough for them to come, but you also have to know how and when to signal for them to stop. If you are wanting a bus to pick you up, you just have to stick your hand out and it should stop. And for getting it to stop at the next bus stop, the bus either has a string to pull or buttons to press that alert the drivers. And do not even get me started on how people drive here; to say the least, it is absolutely terrifying! I might have to do a separate blog about that as well.
Finally, the last thing we have had to learn is how to get around the city when not on a bus. It is hard here to figure out where you want to go because many of the streets do not have street names and there are not really addresses to search in Google maps. The second day of class, my roommate and I had to go to the school by ourselves, because our Mama Tica (our host mom) showed us how to get there the first day. We got to the bus alright, we got on the bus, and we got to our correct stop. But when we tried finding the school, we turned too soon and missed the correct street by about 40 feet. And then we proceeded to wander around the area for about 40 minutes until some nice guy we asked for directions let us use his phone to Google maps our school so we could know how to get there. Neither of us had wifi, and we did not know where on a map the school was. But we asked so many people that morning if they knew where the school was and most just said they were not from San José, or they had not heard of our school. We were late to class, but it was at least we were together and it was a funny story to tell. Then after class that day, we went with one of the girls from UNK and her roommate to her house so if we wanted to do something with her, we could walk or take a taxi over so she would not have to walk alone. And after we went to her house, we went to the market to get some food so we did not have to eat out for lunch every day (We have breakfast and supper provided by our host family). But on our way back home from the market, we again turned down a wrong street and had to ask more people for help. Thankfully, people had a decent idea how to get to our neighborhood, so that made things a little bit easier. But it gets dark here by 6 PM at the latest, so that makes it difficult to walk around at night. We have not gotten lost since (knock on wood) so hopefully we will do better now.
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| This is what we are supposed to give taxi drivers so they know how to get to our house. It is basically just set of directions based on landmarks. |
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| A forest area near our house. |
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| On the main road near our house. |
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| A picture from walking around on Sunday |
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| Inside the lobby of our school, CRLA |
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| The main patio area of our school |
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| A typical meal here, but we have not eaten it every day. |
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| Fried plantains. |
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| Pupusas that we ate at the mall. They are basically a stuffed quesadilla. |
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| A museum in the city |
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| Other parts of the city |
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| Other parts of the city |
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