University of Costa Rica

Waking up today to the sound of an alarm clock was a nice change compared to waking up to the crazy animal noises we were hearing while in Monteverde. Today we walked to the University of Costa Rica for our first interracial speaker. The University is right down the street from our hotel and it is pretty cool to see how different the college life is here compared to Athens. They are still in school because their summer is technically over already so they were all out at the bars near the University while we were walking back from class. Here is part of our group outside of our classroom for the day...

At the University we had a professor named Daniel Rojas who spoke only Spanish talking to us about the indigenous tribes here in Costa Rica. We had a translator that was in the room with us but it was still pretty difficult to follow along with what he was saying and listen to hear at the same time. It was important for us to learn about these indigenous tribes because once we arrive in Puerto Viejo we will be staying with a family of indigenous people from the Bribri Tribe.

While walking through the University of Costa Rica campus, everyone starred at us which kind of made me giggle because I felt uncomfortable. I guess we can’t really get mad at them though because we would watch all of the locals as they gathered at the bars during the middle of the day. San Jose is a lot wilder than I thought it would be. I think that may have to do with how close we are staying to the University. We checked out a few bars that we went to go to while we hear to dance and listen to jazz music. Jazz clubs are very popular here.

Tonight we went to the nicest restaurant yet, it looked out over the entire city of San Jose. Seeing all of the lights surrounded by the mountains was just amazing. The restaurant kind of jetted out off the side of a mountain to make for a spectacular view. Everyone split bottles of wine and we stayed there for the dancing show that they were having. Local Costa Rican men and women came out after we ate and started dancing in these crazy outfits and it was very entertaining.

Last night we realized that our hotel room looks out over a McDonalds so we decided to go check it out when we got home. Surprisingly, I didn’t  buy anything in my hopes to stay away from American food while I am here because I know once I have it once here then I will gravitate towards it. Instead we just took a few pictures because it had to be the nicest McDonalds I have ever been in.

We are all about to gather in the common room to hangout and learn to play a game called Spades so I have to run. I miss you all and hope all is well in America!