PURA VIDA!!

Wow, I basically forgot that this blog even existed! Well, let's see....what is new in my life recently? Oh yeah! I went to Costa Rica!

I think most of you probably already knew this, but it doesn't hurt to go through and chronicle it. I've been home for almost a week now, but it seems like so much longer than that! And it seemed like I was gone for more than a week too. It's weird how time works now.

I think I'll separate this into a couple of posts because I could go on for days, and I know nobody wants to read too much about me in one sitting. (As I get more pictures from people I think I might add them in.)

DAY ONE: Thursday, March 17, 2011

This really just a travel day, so there's not much to say about it. We left at like 8:30 to go to Denver, which seemed like the shortest flight in existence! My seat got moved last minute, which turned out to be somewhat of a good thing because so did Tyler's, and we were able to sit by each other and bond for that short trip. It was good to be able to make a good friend that early on the trip and I liked having somebody there the whole time.

So, in Denver, we had a 2 or 3 hour layover, so we went to get food (but McDonald's was the only option so I passed) and explore. There wasn't much to do, but we did go on the train that connected the terminals. I think we were probably all tired because it was way more fun that it should have been under normal circumstances.

So, then we had the five hour flight to Costa Rica, during which I "slept" leading into.....

DAY TWO: Friday, March 18, 2011

This was somewhat of an uneventful day as well. We got off the flight around 5:30, went through customs, then got on the bus. It was kinda cool looking at the surroundings in Costa Rica, but it gets kinda old after 4 hours. So after our bathroom break, Tyler fell asleep on me, and I followed suit. It was an incredibly bumpy road once we started up' the mountain to Monteverde, but it was amazing how capable our bus driver was at getting up.  We got to the hotel and had a little orientation, then we got to go to Santa Elena to explore on our own.  

Batidos at the Tree House Cafe!

It was pretty cool to see the different culture that was there.  We went to the bank, and it was so different than what I'm used to!  We almost went to the reptile house and the orchid garden, but Tyler, Jake, and I were too cheap, so Braden, Liz, and Shiwani passed also.  We did go to the super sweet Tree House Cafe (it's like literally built into a tree!) and got some batidos to share, papaya, mango, and pineapple.  They were pretty good. We were all still so exhausted from the flight so we wnet back to the hotel after that.  We had a class discussion, ate dinner, then listened to a lecture by Mark Wainwright about the history and politics of Costa Rica, which some people slept through.  And then it was good night!


Okay, so it was still a pretty long post, and probably the most boring one about the trip.  More good stuff is soon to come!!