!Pura Vida!

!Pura Vida!
My new greeting here in Costa Rica.
It's a way of life and thinking, everything will be allright and just relax.

But first I will take everyone back to San Francisco for a bit. Because of course I have to let everyone know how my last weeks in San Francisco were and how the trip with my parents was.

Well I deceided about a month ago that I was going to Costa Rica and eventhough the easy and relaxed lifestyle of Costa Rica, I still had to do a lot before I got there. So I started to let the director of my school know what my plans were and after that I had to book a flight, send some more information to the Netherlands and confirm that I absolutely wanted to go to Costa Rica. So it didn't take to much work but it's still a big step though, but I'm happy I made it =D.

A bit later my parents were comming over. Unfortunately enough they had some troubles with getting to San Francisco but after three days of traveling they arrived. The next day was Christmas so a lot of familly and friends from my host familly came over. I was really happy to meet them, since I already heared a lot about some of them and meeting more Americans (or how I should call it now; people from the United States) was a big benefit for imporving my English as well. In the weeks following we aslo visited an uncle of the familly and a friend of them. Except from going to parties my parents and I also went to different places in San Francisco.

I showed my parents all the touristic places (and also less touristic) of San Francisco. We started off with Union Square and China Town and I didn't spent to much time in China Town yet so even I was sometimes still amazed by the things we saw, such as shark fins. And of course we also saw the chickens and ducks hanging in front of the windows.

Next up was the Ferry Building, with an amazing view over the bay and the bay bridge. Then we walked up Telegraph hill, which is kinda like as if you are walking through a heavilly forest area with some what tropical plants, pretty strange in the middle of a city. Then, when we were at the top, we visited Coit Tower, but unfortunately the top floor was closed. But regardless of that we still had a nice view over San Francisco from Telegraph Hill. From there we walked to Pier 39, looking at the sealions and of course the well known and probably most touristic Pier 39 it self. When we got hungry we walked to Boudin Bakery in Fishermans Wharf and we ate the famous Sourdough of San Francisco. And since we were close to the school in San Francisco, we also payed a visit there. When we headed back, we took the cable car from school to downtown and then back to the host familly.

Other things my parents and I did, or sometimes only my parents were:
Golden Gate Park, Twin Peaks, the Haight, the Exploratorium, walking the Golden Gate Bridge and pay a visit to Sausalito, the Cable Car a couple of times, going out for dinner in a really nice restaurant and afterwards watching the fireworks at the ferry building for the New Year and of course Alcatraz!!!

I really enjoyed Alcatraz. We first had a guided tour up to the prison in which we got some information about the prison and the island. Then when we got to the prison, we got a headset and we followed an audio tour spoken and made by inmates and people who worked in the prison. This gave you a really good images of how it must have been for the prisoners. Especially the demonstration of the 14 massive iron cell doors slamming made everyone really quite.

After all these wonderfull experiences and all the fun I had with my parents in San Francisco, the time to say goodbye came again. My parents and me prepared a dinner for my host familly to say goodbye to them. And the day after my parents left. So I brought them to the airfield and we seperated our ways again.

My last two days I took to say goodbye to everyone in San Francisco. After I left my parents at the airfield I went to school to say goodbye to the teachers and the staff who made my stay at the school in San Francisco a pleasant stay and something I will never forget. Then I helped with the walking tour of the new students and I got to do ice skating on union square one more time =D.
My last day I spent packing my stuff, cleaning my clothes and in the evening I went to a hookah bar to say goodbye to all the dear friends I made during my stay in San Francisco :'-(.
And then I left early in the morning, said goodbye to my host familly who took care of me so well and who I enjoyed so much to be with.

And there I was sitting in the airplane to Houston Texas, I was pretty stressed at that point since my flight had a 20 minutes delay and normally I only had 30 minutes to get to my next airplane. So when I arrived at Texas Airport, I ran to the other gate in order to make my flight. Luckily I made it on time and I met Lisan on the flight :-D.

We arrived in Costa Rica and a bus took us to our new host famillies. It was kinda strange since I can't really speak Spanish to well, but my new host familly is really nice and they try to speak a bit slowely so it's easier for me to folow them.

In my first week at school I met a lot of new people again of course. And I think pretty much everyone can hang along with eachother here in Costa Rica. I also spent some time getting to know my new area where I live and where the school is located, and of course I allready found out where the bars and clubs are ;-).

This Saturday I went to Santa Cruz because there was a big festival there. I had something to do with the celebration of Jesus, but I couldn't completly follow the Spanish explanation. Eventhough I had a lot of fun there, I danced Marengue with a Tica(the term for a girl who is from Costa Rica), I saw rodeo riding on bulls in an arena filled with people running away for the bull, well trying to, since some got caught by the bull and needed to be transfered to the hospital. I only looked and didn't participate :-P. I also went in a crazy attraction which will never be allowed on the carnival in Tilburg since you just had to hold yourself while spinning around, but it wasn't to dangerous though.

Yesterday, Sunday, I did a lot of different activities with some students of EF who were here a bit longer then me. We did canopying (flying through the air on a cable), rock climbing, free fall, horse back riding through the woods, tubing (in a big rubber band going down a somewhat rough river), swimming in a small lake with a waterfall and there was nobody there except for us and we ended up with the spa, where I went in the sauna, which is pretty stupid when it's allready 25+ degrees outside, then a mud bad and in the end into the hot tubs.
I enjoyed it a lot!!!

So yeah, that's the first Amazing week in Costa Rica.

Oops, of course I also studied a lot of Spanish ;-), but that's what I'm here for annyway. It's still kinda hard but I'm managing to push out some sentenses in Spanish.

This week I'm planing to take surf lessons so I will let you know how that went when I did it.

So for now !Pura Vida! and Hasta Luego.

P.S.
Photo's from San Francisco will be on my photo site as soon as I explained my father how to upload them and photo's from Costa Rica will be uploaded as soon as I friended everyone on facebook and everyone uploaded their pictues so I can take them =P.