¡Hola! So we´ve decided where we´re going this weekend and tomorrow after school a group of 8 of us leave for a 4 hour bus ride to the national park of Miguel Antonio. Every local I´ve asked can´t say enough about how amazingly beautiful it is so I should have some great pictures to share. We bus down to the city of Quepos and spend the night, in the morning it´s a 20 minute bus ride to the park of Miguel Antonio where we´ll spend Saturday and Sunday and then return Sunday night. Miguel Antonio is a large park that contains a series of hiking trails that open up to the beach. They´re known for having a lot of monkeys, sloths, crabs and various other animals. They call it a dry rainforest. And the beach is on the Pacific side (west) of Costa Rica and so the sunsets are supposed to be amazing. Anyhow I´m really looking forward to seeing some new scenery and getting into the water!

So more about what´s been going on around town:

Have any of you ever seen a turkey standing atop a 10` fence, gobbling at you? Well I have and I can report that it`s startling.

That occured two doors down from me. People have all kinds of animals in their yards: roosters, chickens, turkeys, cats, dogs, sheep, mules...and this is in a regular neighborhood! Animals are everywhere and let me tell you, having that many animals living outdoors in a tropical climate can produce some unique odiferous concoctions. I count myself as fortunate however because no roosters live near me....a few students have stories of waking up at 4:00 dawn break to the alarm clock of a rooster.

Alajuela Centro (the square at the center of town) is very pretty and naturally where everyone hangs out. Today as I walked through there was a two-man-band performing songs with a electric keyboard and some type of hand flute. I watched them for a while and was enjoying the music until I realized they were playing an off-key version of My Heart Will Go On, the Celine Dion song from Titanic. Ugh, that kind of killed my vibe and the song is STILL in my head (off key and all).

They did have a clown with them who was selling CDs, so that was entertaining. Sorry, the clown wouldn´t allow his likeness to be reproduced via photograph so you´ll just have to imagine what a Costa Rican clown looks like. (hint: clowns are the same around the world)

Alajuela Centro is very big on art and has beautiful fountains and free form sculptures that adorn the entrance to the main city´s Iglesia (church) which is white and very missionary-style. I learned that Costa Rica didn´t have a printing press until well into the mid 1800s as opposed to Mexico in the 1500s and Europe before that. Consequently they haven´t had the chance to develop an artistic outlet and don´t really have a ¨style¨ of their own. They did figure out how to get to Europe and fell in love with everything European (especially French). So a lot, and I mean a LOT, of the buildings here are various representations of missionary, gothic and other European styles. Interesting.

Here is the main church

And just some of the art dotting the walkways:

And in the middle of the Alajuela Centro sits a lovely fountain where children occasionally take a dip but mainly people just gather around to talk and enjoy the view.

So that´s it for now. My classes are difficult, challenging, and I´m learning a LOT. Already I can have an extended conversation with my host sister and actually stab at using the correct tense. And of course I understand other people even better than I already did. My first test was today and I did well on it, but I had to study for it quite a bit last night. We´re moving quickly and because it´s such a small class you have to really be on top of it. And I´m going to the beach this weekend with a girl, Crystal, who speaks better Spanish than I do so it will give me a chance to practice more.

Tonight I´m going to see Batman Lives in Spanish. Should be interesting!!!