Sámara, March 25

Hey, everybody, greetings from Costa Rica! This is the first time I’ve had a chance to sit down for a few minutes and type something. Lest you all think that’s because I’m on vacation mode, let me correct that: I get up at five every morning—everyone here does—because the damned roosters start to crow in earnest then. (They crow all the time, but five a.m. seems to be their favorite hour.) If I lived here, I’d eat them. I can tell that I will have developed a pathological hatred of roosters by the time I get back. I like all the otros animales, though: horses, stray dogs, cows, cats, monkeys, iguanas, hummingbirds, etc. They all roam freely all over. Whoa, and the insects are huge—one just flew through my room. I came back from the scorching hot beach to hang out in my not-as-scorching-hot room. With all windows and the door open and the fan on, it’s only about 92 degrees. Air-conditioning doesn’t really exist here…

Then I have four straight hours of Spanish classes every day. I placed into the highest-level intermediate class, which means that I should be able to complete all the levels by the time I leave. Muy wunderbar. This also means, however, that it is definitely a challenge. It’s me, four Swiss-Germans, and a Norweigan who looks like he’s from Columbia. ??? On the first day, I didn’t have my Spanish-English dictionary, so I used the Swiss guy’s Deutsch-Spanisch one. Today the Norweigan guy used mine. It’s nice to swap.

Tonight I’m going to hit the paradise-beachside tropical bar again with Luoc, my French-Canadian buddy. Shaker Joe’s has big couches to lie on and hammocks under the palm trees. It’s amazing how many stars you can see when you’re not in the city. And they have a pretty darned decent local beer in the form of Imperial. Tastes like a German wheat.

The beach is insanely gorgeous, although a serious surfer would probably be disappointed—the breezes are pretty much on-shore, which means that the waves are smushed down and little. Great for a beginner like me, though! I’ll probably hit the waves this weekend.

I’m staying in a modest little home (one room with a few curtains subdividing it into one main room and two bedrooms) with my Tico family: the mom, two sons, and two daughters. That makes six of us altogether, but somehow the one-bathroom thing works just fine because nobody lingers in it. And fortunately, I have my own little closet-sized bedroom at the front of the house. The kitchen is entirely outside underneath a tin roof that extends past the main house. Very al fresco. People in the States pay a lot for that!

The roads in Sámara are just like they are in Detroit: full of potholes. At first, I thought everyone was driving drunk. Then I realized that they’re just trying to avoid having their cars become a permanent part of the roads. (Although that might fill in the holes…)

The school and beach are about a mile away, which makes for a sauna-style walk ‘round about mid-afternoon. It makes the cold shower (there is no hot water—with this heat, I don’t miss it at all) feel fantastic when I get back to the house.

I gotta say, the comida here is great! Everyone told me that the only thing they did not like was the food, but I disagree. It’s not as spicy as comida mexicana, but I happen to really like rice and beans prepared in a plethora of different ways. And the salads are served without dressing, so everything is very fresh. My Tica mom made a great lasagne the other night with peppers and mushrooms and the local cheese. !Muy rico!

There’s definitely a slower pace to life here, that’s for sure. The school, though, seems to operate very much on time and is very professional. Interestingly enough, one of the hermanas in my Tico family is also mi profesora. For this week, at least, I’m guaranteed to have good help with my homework should I need it.

Hope the weather is better in Detroit! I’d love to see the reactions of these folks if they were ever faced with snow. They’d either be appalled or think it was the coolest thing they’d ever seen. Literally.

There is a particularly large rooster outside my window right now. Looks damned tasty…maybe I’d better close my door…

!Hasta luego!