Week 2

Last week not much to report, we did two and a half days of Grammar! After being drilled on tenses, prepositions, conjunctions, adjectives adverbsverbsnounspronouns etc. we were well ready for another weekend at the beach!
A few highlights of the week were: Buying Raid, traps, gel And boric acid for my roomate and my standoff against the cockroaches invading our kitchen. 5 days later, there are fewer but they are still around. I nearly scalded myself while pouring boiling water out of the pot of pasta and there was a roach crawling on the potholder. We heard from a classmate about another product which apparently is very effective but we have not yet found it.
I made guacamole with deliciously ripe and cheap avocados. I started cooking every meal instead of going out for any lunches in order to save money and also because next month I won't be able to cook. I have either pasta, eggs or cereal.
I made some friends with other Maximo volunteers so I went out with them to a local bar on Monday night called Anochecer. It was nice because I went with Mario, a tico and his brother so I at least got to speak some Spanish. There was an interesting consistent translation between a few ticos who only spoke Spanish and a few volunteers who only spoke English.

Thursday afternoon Jo and I boarded a bus on a mission to purchase tickets to Manuel Antonio beach for the next day. We drove through downtown San Jose and I enjoyed seeing the city since I hadn't really left my neighborhood in San Pedro. We got off the bus and walked along the Calle Central, the main street of downtown san jose. We passed many stores and restaurants and when it began to rain navigated our way through the crowded foot traffic with umbrellas raised. Eventually the area began to appear lower class and "sketchier" so we knew we were near the station. We followed the buses and asked directions to the "coca cola" station. We saw the buses lined up at their stalls for each destination but there was no central counter to purchase a ticket. We wandered around the nearby blocks asking repeatedly for where to buy tickets to Manuel Antonio. We recieved opposing directions several times and found ourselves wandering in circles. We passed a pet store with adorable little puppies that were definitely too young to be away from their mothers. Jo dragged me away from them and we continued asking security guards and ticos for where to buy tickets. We passed ticket counters for jaco, puntarenas, and other destinations on the pacific side that this station catered to. We finally wandered inside a hectic marketplace and saw a sign for Manuel Antonio. We excitedly rounded the corner only to see the drawn metal grate with the hours 6:30 am- 5pm. It was 5:01pm. We groaned, hopped into a cab and begrudgingly paid the elevated fare after having sat in traffic for an hour. I ran into Leo, the paid driver and he offered to get the tickets for us in the morning.

Thursday night one of our classmates, Steph, and her roomate had a party in her apartment. A huge group of Gringos, about 20 of us, wandered down the street and half of us made it onto a bus before pouring into her not so big apartment. We hung out in the street, some of us went to get food at the Latino Rock Cafe, where they were showing a bootleg version of Michael Jacksons This Is It. I got a falafal which was cooked differently and tasted good but not like a normal falafal does. The police eventually pulled up outside the party forcing us to squish back into the apartment, Mario assured us that they were not allowed to enter. We all left and trekked back down the main street, after awhile splitting up into groups to take cabs although without cell phones we didn't all end up going to the same place. I went home to sleep for about 3 hours before getting up at 5 to get a ride to the bus station.