Earthquake!

It's a strange sensation when the one thing in your life that you have always felt you can rely on to be stable feels like its about to shatter under your feet. During the few first weeks of being here, it constantly felt like I was dangling on the edge of a cliff, struggling to keep from falling, learning, growing, and having an experience so different from anything I imagined, while still struggling to find solid ground, but today, for the first time in my life, I experienced what is like to feel like the world is crumbling around you.

It began with a small jerk, like a bus slamming on the brakes, only we weren't on a bus, we were taking notes while the teacher dictated in a slow, monotone drone. Almost instantaneously the unbelievably silent classroom (a rare occurrence in school here), was transformed into a zoo of screaming kids, bolting for the door. This task proved to be easier said then done though because as we jumped up out of our seats the floor began shaking back and forth with the intensity of a carnival ride. I didn't really register that it was a big deal. Before I came here I had been told that they have earthquakes fairly frequently so I figured we we just say in our seats and wait until the floor returned to normal, but as the rest of my class began fighting their way to the door I decided it would be best if I followed. Personally, I was having fun. It was like riding the train at the airport while trying to stand up without using the railings.

In reality though, I guess its this kind of thing doesn't happen everyday, and this earthquake was much bigger than anything they had experienced in a while. To the astonishment of practically everyone, I wasn't scared. All of it was kinda a blur happening so quickly, I didn't have time to get scarred. As I stood outside in the field with the rest of my school, I began to notice the tears in my classmates eyes. Many kids were clearly crying, while a few were even having panic attacks, but all of them were frantically trying to get a hold of their families, despite many of the phone lines being out. It wasn't really until that point that I realized how dangerous it actually could have been. Sure, I knew that earthquakes are dangerous, and sometimes even kill people, but it never occurred to me that I would be remotely close to a earthquake large enough to knock buildings over, but there I was. Nothing massive collapsed, but then again, there isn't a whole lot of giant skyscrapers in Costa Rica to collapse. A lot of houses have cracks in the walls, there are trenches in the beaches, a few ceilings caved, and there are some giant cracks in a few streets. My school is fine, but others weren't quite as lucky and more then fifty are going to have to be completly demolished and rebuilt! Our house is totally fine, although the floor was covered in broken glass when we got home and basically all of our cups are shattered. In my room everything feel off of my shelfs except, thankfully, my computer. Nothing of mine broke either so that's good.

After the trembling subsided we stayed outside for another 20 minutes waiting for after shocks. Then the buses came and took us home and we had the rest of the day off, and the rest of the week off. Within an hour after the initial shock I guess there were 25 more small after shocks, though we only felt three, and sense then there have been Later we felt two more. The earthquake was a 7.6 on the Richter scale. We keep having little tiny earthquakes everyday, but they are so small that generally your not really sure if it happened or if you just imagined it. That certainty doesn't stop everyone else from freaking out though... I think these were the little ones that happen all the time that I was told about before I left.

Hot Showers and Iguanas

While it seems hard to believe that I have been living in Costa Rica for a month and a half, its almost impossible to believe that I am already a quarter of the way through my trip! Never the less, it is finally time for the eagerly awaited meet up with the other exchange students to discuss our adventures thus far. 

The weekend started bright and early, or maybe just early as I had to leave before the sun had even begin to rise.  I woke up at 3:30 and by 4:15 we were in the car speeding towards Santa Cruz.  I caught the bus at 5:00 and... Got to take the bus by myself!  While it wasn't exactly the independence that I am desperately starving for, it was a start.  The bus ride was 4 and a half hours which meant we arrived an hour after AFS wanted us too, fully accepting the Costa Rican culture of “hora tico” (Costa Ricans call themselves Ticos).  Friday was spent filling out paperwork for our VISAs' and talking to the other students until dinner time when we walked to our hostel.  

The hostel was nice and as soon as we got there we all headed strait for the pool.   The pool was cold, and San Jose at night is also cold, making for a rather freezing experience for which I only cared to endure for 10 minutes.  After my last trip to San Jose, I was considerably less then happy climbing into the shower, already anticipating the ice water that shocked me last week, but to my surprise, the water wasn't cold, in fact, it was hot! I didn't realize how nice hot showers are until I no longer had them. 

Saturday morning we had pancakes and corn syrup for breakfast and then jumped on a bus and drove to  the BIO Park.  With no shortage of nature reserves and national parks, even close to the capital, I expected something a little more... Wild.  The park looked like the inside of the butterfly pavilion, just without the butterflies, and wayyyy bigger.  The whole thing was man-made, and we wondered around on paved walking paths through fake tropical forests for most of the morning.  Don't get me wrong, it was still really pretty, just not what any of us had been expecting.  It was actually hard hard to tell how big it was because the paths were so windy and I immediately lost my sense of direction.  In Boulder I relied on the mountains being always to the West so here I have no idea which direction is which.  While there wasn't exactly “wildlife” at the park, there were some animals.  We saw snakes in tanks, and there was a little fenced area with crocodiles.  There were turtles, and every so-often we would turn a corner and see an Iguana sunning himself in the middle of the path.  At one point we saw a big ball of fur way up in a tree and were told that it was a sloth, but we really couldn't make out any kind of shape.

For breakfast Sunday morning, we had Gallo Pinto, a typical dish in Costa Rica composed of rice and beans, eaten by practically every Tico every day for breakfast, sometimes lunch, and sometimes dinner.  The morning was spent doing more “orientation stuff”, before we boarded our buses and began the long journey home.  It takes three and a half hours by car to get home from San Jose, in a public, express bus that drive is stretched to four and a half hours.  I should start by saying that the roads in Costa Rica are far from direct, and as we zigzagged our way across the northwestern region, dropping kids off in different towns, our ride dragged on, lasting almost six hours, but I didn't mind because it meant that I got to see a little more of Costa Rica and talk to the other students.

The point of the orientation was to get VISAs, but for some reason we never made it to the fingerprint office on Friday, and I guess it was closed on the weekend, so we have to return to San Jose “sometime soon.”  AFS's organization never ceases to astound me!

Orientation stuff...

Iguana!

Wildlife!

Ox carts are kinda a big deal here, and are soo pretty

May or may not be a sloth...  I like to believe it is

Finals

The combination of my classes being in Spanish and the fact that usually we don't actually do anything in class, means that I learn very little at school.  This week, however, I did learn something.  I learned that I absolutely hate taking finals. 

We took two finals a day, each was an 80 minute test.   Mostly, they were multiple choice with some short answers at the end.  I was planning on just filling in random bubbles, but then my mom became overly invested in my grades so I had to actually think about the answers.  The only problem was that I didn't actually know many of the answers because I haven't been here for much of the trimester, and also I just didn't understand the questions.  The strange part was that when I didn't know an answer, I would just raise my hand and the teacher would come over and give me the answer.  Sometimes they would even write it down for me!  During the psychology test the proctor didn't know the answers so he just asked the rest of the class or consulted someone else's test.  But, the amazing thing about living in Costa Rica is that after a stressful week of finals, you can spend the weekend lounging lazily on the beach, which is exactly what I did.