Volcán Arenal (again), Soccer, and more rain!

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Hello again to all the faithful followers! The big news this week is that tomorrow (Saturday) I’ll be heading off to Guatemala to spend a whole week in Antigua, and a few nights in both Managua (Nicaragua) and San Salvador (El Salvador) during the bus ride there and back. More on that, of course, when I get back. For now, I’d just like to give a bit of an update on what I’ve been up to over the past week since the last post.

So, this past weekend the group did go to Arenal. This was the second time I’ve been there, because last time I went with Ben and Kristen and we spent a few hours at Baldí, a natural hot springs/bath resort near the volcano. Well, guess what the group did? Yup, spent a few hours at Baldí…so that was fun. Not going to lie, I would have loved to have done some different type of adventuring around the area but overall it was a very good day over there and I bonded with many of the program kids that I hadn’t talked to much before, mostly because I didn’t go on the large group Nicaragua trip. Baldí was fun again – this time the waterslides which Ben, Kristen and I didn’t use were open, and so we made heavy use of them. Even though this was a very gringo-ized location, these slides were yet another form of Costa Rican entertainment that likely would fail many U.S. safety standards – oh well, they were fun! Much like my time there last semester, though, there are only so many hours one can spend in warm pools before deciding that simply sitting in warm pools is not that exciting for, well, however many hours one is in them. Nevertheless, we got treated to a delicious meal at the resort’s restaurant, concluded by an amazing tres leches (three milks) cake.

After finally heading back to the hotel around 9:00 or so, a few of us hung out outside Lauren, Brook, and Jolene’s room and played a bizarre “cup game” I had never heard of but turned out to be pretty fun. Strangely, for almost the entire rest of the evening, somehow a fair-sized group of us got started on a conversation about God, non-Christian religions, spirituality, and other such topics. People came and left throughout the chat, but eventually it turned into a conversation between Lauren, Brook, and Ashley Lyons (with whom I’ll be traveling this coming week and a half) about whether or not there’s a heaven and a hell, whether we as humans can know such things for sure, etc. Near the end of the night I jumped in and spouted some Luther dialogue (without explicitly calling it that), which was followed by some more conversation and around 12:30 or so we decided that it was a good talk but we needed sleep.

On a completely different note, there’s been some peculiar weather happening lately – the rain is back! Now, nobody told me that it was going to rain at all this semester, and I was surprised enough that we had some in January/early February. Apparently rain in March is in fact extremely rare, but there have been a couple days where it just poured. All of the new students (that is, not here last semester) were pretty impressed, but those of us who were here during the infamous October days tried to explain to them what real rain was like! Jessica told me that these strange downpours do not hail the beginning of the rainy season, only that it’s on the way. I’m hoping we can keep up clear skies for the most part at least until I leave!

This past Wednesday, I had the privilege of going to a soccer game with Jessica and a few of her friends in San José, where we watched Costa Rica (national selection team) play El Salvador. It was extremely fun and extremely energetic. The whole stadium was basically a stream of red (I went out earlier that day to get myself a jersey, so that I would fit in – had I worn Salvadorian colors my life might have been in peril) jumping and screaming in a unison that one usually only finds in student sections in the States. We arrived extremely early to ensure we had good seats, even though we were in the cheapest section. Nevertheless, we had a pretty good view of the action, behind one of the goals at the end of the field. When the crowd starts jumping up and down, one’s seat shakes violently (it was certainly more so for me than any earthquake I’ve ever felt)! Some of the less impressive aspects of Tico culture come out during soccer games, including a plethora of nonstop vulgarities directed at the opposing team, the officials, and even their own players. One thing that I had known before the game but I still can’t seem to get used to here is that whistling at a game is very much negative gesture or jeer, as opposed to the positive context it has in sports events in the states; as such, it was strange to hear the entire stadium begin whistling loudly whenever a Salvadorian came on or off the field. Cameras were not allowed into the stadium, but I think some friends of mine who were also at the game snuck them in, so I might be able to post some pictures later.

Speaking of pictures, I’ve finally uploaded some from Nicaragua! Sorry for the wait, but it took me a while to get some from the Ashleys.

That’s about all for now. It’ll be a bit before the next post, as I’ll be out of the country again starting tomorrow and won’t be back until the 14th of April. All the while, my remaining time here is slipping away…as of today I have just barely over a month left in Central America!! I’m both excited and sad about the inevitable bittersweetness (is that a word?) of the departure to come, but I’m trying not to think about it too much until I get there.

Until next time then! Please keep me in your prayers, and know that I’m thinking about all of you all the time!! God bless!