Down the Rabbit Hole: Sunday, February 6th — Uh, where are we? It's Superbowl Sunday??!

Even though we were fairly wound up, we had decided to go to bed as soon as we arrived on Saturday. Both of us knew that we were exhausted and nothing looks good at night. Under normal circumstances, we probably could have slept for days, but not here! To our morning delight, apparently, we live on a huge farm (and behind a mechanic shop that looks a wee bit more like a junkyard). Needless to say, alarm clocks won’t be necessary here, since we have a large group of roosters happy to wake us up at the crack of dawn right on our front porch. We live on the first floor, and we have to keep our windows open to ventilate our non-air conditioned apartment, so if the animals are feeling rowdy, we are too. Right off of our back porch, there are tons of what we like to call “Cow Goats”. Apparently they are cows, but they have long saggy ears and small horns… now we’re no farm experts but that is not like any cow we have ever seen (which probably doesn’t say much).

We wanted to get out and explore our surroundings, so we put on our swimsuits and dresses and set off to see Samara! First finding: holy heat wave. By the time we reached the end our driveway, we were hot messes (literally). First note to selves: figure out the water situation. We continued down the dirt roads we lived off of, mostly lined in small “Tico” (that’s what costa Ricans call themselves) houses. Second finding: horses are the new squirrels. Instead of little squirrels or rabbits hopping in front of cars, drivers (and pedestrians) have to move for horses that roam all over; seems to take “break for animals” to a new and unusual level. But they are beautiful! We found a tiny little grocery/convenience mart and café on the way which will be great to have nearby! Then we saw it…. As we winded around towards the end of the dirt road we looked up and saw the ocean. Between us is a huge field of horses and cow-goats, so we have to turn and take the main road (where it becomes paved) towards town to cut across to the beach. Well, let me back up… upon the end of the dirt road we weren’t quite sure how to get the beach, or anywhere. A group of girls on their bikes were riding behind us so we asked them and they told us the quickest way. The girl we spoke with, Natalie from Oregon had also been a TEFL student once and now lives here teaching Spanish at the Intercultura school. It was the first person we met who spoke English! As we crossed the bridge and traveled down the road, we came quickly on to town.

Goal 1: look for the internet. Walking around town we were surprised to see a surplus of little white girls, which may sound silly but was a bit reassuring in those first moments. We asked two girls where to find internet and after asking if they were TEFL students, they said “No! But she is!” and pointed over to an adorable petite red head writing down the daily yoga schedule. Our second friendJ. Emma is from the Boston area and lives in the apartment above us! She is tiny but brave as can be. She traveled here alone, and has already been in CR for 3 weeks working on a farm in the mountains near San Jose (where she slept, ate, and worked outside thus considering our new housing a luxury-haha). The 3 of us then made a pit-stop at the internet café so we could Skype/email our families who have no other means of contacting us. After which, Emma went home to get changed and we had lunch across the street. Now, I’ve been told the beef here was incredible (grass fed cows or something) but not being a big meant eater I wasn’t really that interested. I was wrong. We had the best cheeseburgers EVER. We can’t really describe it but they were different and so delicious. All of the restaurants are open air and we watched all the people walk up and down the main road to and from the beach. Two men played a giant xylophone during our lunch, as we tried our first Costa Rican beers- “Imperial”. Delicious! Luckily just about everyone here accepts American dollars, but we receive colones as our change. So we’ve been working with two currencies… 1000 colones= about $2, so the math isn’t hard. From there we eagerly headed to the beach. It really is spectacular, exactly like the pictures we saw online. Samara beach is kind of a cove, lined by palm trees and mountains. We were happy girls for the rest of the day! Although we didn’t tan at all after lathering ourselves in spf 50 and 70 (you’re welcome moms). The town is really small and cute. As you get close to the beach there are tons of little jewelry vendors and tent shops with towels and dresses and other beach necessities. Intercultura school, bars and restaurants line the beach, as well as an American family who rents out lockers, chairs, etc. There are also activities like horse-back riding, surf school, jet-skiing and kayaking right there! Sunday Funday was a great first impression of our new home! It is definitely a beach town, everyone is very laidback. There are Bob Marley flags flying everywhere, a push for going green, the pace is slow, and a general sense of happiness in the air. It is a small town, and we’re told everyone knows everyone, we feel safe and happy!

Later Sunday we took a small cat nap and cold shower (eventually we’ll stop saying cold, but for now we just wanted to remind you a few more times) and then headed back into town with Emma for dinner. There was one place upstairs next to the internet café that seemed to be the liveliest spot on a Sunday evening (it always seems later than it is because it gets dark right at 6oclock). We strolled into “Arriba” to realize the SUPERBOWL was on! HOORAY HOORAY! We felt so connected to all of you at home. We made lots of friends, and heard lots of stories. There are a lot of vacationers here, as well as students of TEFL, intercultural and a massage school. The bar served pizza or Thai, we opted for a pizza as we tried out the local tequila (again moms-only one, we know we know). Later on the bartender introduced us to a group of 4 kids our age that just finished the last TEFL class. They weren’t ready to leave Samara and told us TEFL is an amazing experience, three of the four are going to teach in South Korea and one was staying in CR. Their names are Aryan, Jessica, Amanda and Tim. They walked home with us and Aryan, a guy from Long Island, had lived in the same apartments during his time as a TEFL student, which was reassuring. There are random dogs EVERYWHERE and they get extra yappy when we walk home after dark, but our new friend reassured us they are harmless…well, for the most part. Ha!

We all said goodnight, and the two of us crawled back into bed ready for our first day of school! We laughed, knowing there was no need to set an alarm…