Dancing

Hola! Time to catch ya'll up!

So its my first weekend here. The school week dragged on FOREVER. I'm pretty sure listening to spanish for four hrs a day is helping my comprehension tremendously...but i'm still worried about my speaking. I haven't really gotten to practice that much yet. Except for yesterday when me and Judah met a tico (costa rican naitive) in downtown jose because we needed help finding the crafts market. He was super nice! Bout 24 ish i think and he lives and works at the beach we happen to be going to next weekend! And get this...he gives surfing lessons! So i met my surf instructor by chance! lol. I can't wait.

The crafts market is crazy. Just so busy and SO colorful. And i get so distracted by color so it takes me a long time to pull myself away. A lot of the vendors sell these amazing hamock chairs that you can hang anywhere and are super strong. I got to sit in one and it is so comfortable. Only ten dollars! Of course i haven't bought one yet because i would have no idea how to get it home. I really wanna buy a full sized hamock, but I have no place to put that in the states. lol. Speaking of the crafts market, they have tons of neat stuff and i wanna bring some back for friends and family so email me and tell me what u guys want! Jewelry, purse, tshirt, shot glass, pen, keychain, scarf...almost anything!!!

We walked around the city again today to try to get a better sense of direction. As u all could probably guess, i'm failing horribly at it. If we take a route i have taken before and actually paid attention to, i'm fine. But when they start saying "oh we could just take this street, it goes the same way" we always get lost. U guys should look up a map of San Jose. It's crazy. I don't think parallel streets exist here. Every street seems to snake thru the city and some just dead end at random times. There is definitely no hope for me here. lol

So last night we went to a dance club. I have been to the dance classes at the Universidad (tho there have only been two so far) and think i have the basics of salsa and merengue down. But i didnt get to try it out last night because none of the ticos asked me to dance. :( I think i'm so tall i scare them! They are all pretty short. I guess it didnt help that i wore heels. Next time, flats. Definitely flats. The other girls got to dance tho and they really liked it. They said the guys don't mind teaching u at all and they are great leaders. It's so crazy how all the guys down here dance and almost none in the states do. Sigh. Anyway, a few others and I left a little earlier than everyone else. I wanted to leave mostly because I felt like a giant and also because there was a really really REALLY creepy american guy that would not stop talking to me. He had started out hitting on Judah, but then she left so he came over to talk to me. Then I left so he went to talk to Sarah. Lol. He kept touching our arms every two seconds which would have been ok...if he was a tico. See, it's part of the culture down her to touch casually a lot. I mean A LOT. But he was straight from L.A. with a horribly sun damaged face and an inflated ego. Not cool. So hopefully next time will be more fun.

I have to go do laundry now. Ick. It's two american dollars a load here plus we had to buy detergent. But that's only till we move in with our families cuz then they do our laundry! Sweet!

Oh side note: ticos y ticas are OBSESSED with shoes. You cannot walk two feet without running into a shoe store. It's insane. I have already bought two pair. One pair of dressy tennies (guys of course) for fun cuz they are really colorful, and a pair of very sturdy (guys once again) hiking sandels. I'm not sure if my size even exists here in womens. Oh well. What's new.

Mucho amor,
Meg