As Our Second Week Comes to a Close

Friday, June 15, 2012 The weekend is here again! This means I abandon my role as student and pull on the tourist facade! But first, a bit about this week.  School has been going very well. In Spanish we've learned the majority of the grammar we're going to need (all past, present, future tenses in the imperative and indicative moods - no subjunctive, thank heavens!) and now we are practicing speaking for most of the class period every day. We do basic exercises, like defining our vocabulary words in Spanish, but we've also had real conversations about world affairs and the like. I really enjoy our classes. I find it much less difficult to compose sentences in Spanish than I did when I first got here. It always heartens me when I speak in Spanish and the listener gets my meaning immediately. I'm happy to say that has happened on many occasions today :) Wednesday night we went out to a little strip of bars that were absolutely packed with North Americans, and thus dubbed Gringa bars. They had cheap drinks, and I met many new and fun people! Karaoke at the end was the perfect end to the night. Thursday night the director of our Spanish classes invited us into her home for burgers, hotdogs, beer and more! We were initially put off at the price of $24 per person, but the food was absolutely delicious - I could have eaten the whole Pyrex of salsa/sour cream/jack cheese/guacamole/refried bean paste, and I probably actually did eat a LOT - and also the opportunity to interact with everyone in the program outside of the school context, including the instructors, was very nice. This Friday was another hospital visit! The two groups from last week switched hospitals, so today my group visited Grecia and El Hospital San Francisco. For a pubic hospital in Costa Rica, it was VERY nice! Their wards were spotless and their working equipment in very good repair. They also had a few recent pieces of equipment, like a 1-year-old Finnish mammography machine. It had a very open layout with wards as individual buildings with breezeways connecting the different buildings. Courtyards with greenery were everywhere and didn't give off the strict clinical feel that you get in Duke Hospital, for instance. And every staff member we interacted with was so nice. The doctor in the maternity ward was so excited to show us what he did and he different machines he used, encouraging us to take pictures of the 3-hour-old baby in the incubator (we didn't, haha. If I were the baby I wouldn't have appreciated it). We did basic maintenance on phototherapy lamps, an infant incubator, and assessed problems with a centrifuge and an anesthesia machine. Many thanks to Susana, our Seguridad Social engineer, for allowing us such a great day! From Grecia we went back to San Jose and caught the bus to Manuel Antonio, a small town close to the Pacific coast, where we'll spend he next two days. There are 12 of us tonight, and four or so more will join us tomorrow! There are apparently two things to do in Manuel Antonio: the beach and the nature trails through the national park, and I am excited for both! Those who visited last weekend told us about monkeys who run around the beaches; I can't wait to see them for myself! I've never seen them in he wild before (not that a touristy beach is particularly wild, just not in captivity).  Right now I'm on the bus. This is an actual coach bus with numbered seats and decent foot room. Given the disorganization of last week's bus ride, I assumed our "assigned seats" as written on our tickets were to be totally ignored. Apparently not. Though because we all bought tickets one after another, our group is all together, mostly. I sat down later than the others, and so whoever my seatmate was sat with someone else, leaving me to sit with a beefy local whose butt and biceps are currently encroaching on my present location as I type. It's a good thing I don't know who you are, true seatmate, or I'd pee on your bed tonight >-< Complaining complete. Time to sleep :) P.S. I found out who's really supposed to be in the seat next to me. You better watch your bed tonight >:)