After
class on Wednesday all the UNK students loaded on a bus and headed out for a
tour of San Jose. Our first stop was at Dr. Rafeal Angel Calderón Guardia’s
house. He was a previous President of Costa Rica and everyone loved him mainly
because of how much he was able to help the people of Costa Rica. He became a
doctor and saw patients for free. He also built tons of schools, hospitals and
libraries. Our tour also included a stop at the National Museum, the National
Theatre, and the Gold Museum. The National Theatre was beautiful; there were
paintings all throughout the walls and ceilings and tons of statues everywhere.
The seats in the actual theatre are still the originals and above the main
floor seats are specific booths for highly esteemed people, such as the
President. Towards the end of the Theatre tour I was getting a little bored and
antsy and that is when Nicki, Amanda and I decided to try and imitate statues
(see attached photos). This idea continued with us at the Gold Museum and we
spent our 45 minutes of free time snapping photos rather than admiring what the
museum had to offer!
After our city tour, we got dropped
off just in time to meet the pouring rain. We attempted to wait in line for a bus;
however, it was five o-clock and everyone was trying to get on the buses and
traffic was horrible. We decided it would be quicker to walk home and didn’t
think we would get too wet. Well boy were we wrong! We came to discover that
after 10 plus minutes of pouring rain your umbrellas really can’t do much. At
first, all of us girls tried to avoid the puddles; however, it soon became pointless.
As we continued walking, the puddles became bigger and bigger and cars and
buses had no choice but to soak us. It was literally like what you would see in
a movie when a person is walking on the sidewalk in the rain and there are huge
puddles near the side of the roads and a bus would come from behind and drench
the person. We reached our house after 30 awful minutes of pouring rain. The
only thing that was dry when we got home were our faces; literally everything
else was soaking wet-our shirts, shorts, shoes, bags, everything inside our
bags, hair etc. Then, to top things off we all had to go back out in the rain
in order to exchange our American money for colones. In order to do this, we
had to walk to Plaza Cristal which was another thirty minute hike. I was really
hopeful that the rain would let up a little bit since it had been down-pouring
for about an hour or so at this point. However, we had no luck and continued to
try to part the Red Sea on our way to change over our money. In the midst of
all this chaos, I did learn something: those ditches I described earlier
between the sidewalks and streets are supposed to help with flood control;
however, after literally 10 minutes of downpour they are useless.
After our eventful afternoon, we
were all starving when dinner time rolled around. Our mom cooked us a
traditional meal: rice and beans with coconut milk on top. We were all enjoying
the meal when Amanda made the comment that the food was a little spicy for her
liking. Her face quickly changed a few shades of red due to the spice and all
of a sudden Nicki said, “Amanda you are sweating!” After this things really
went downhill. Tears started rolling out of Amanda’s eyes and all of a sudden
the spiciness caused her sinuses to open up and everything was going straight
our her nose. After the whole ordeal was over and Amanda was able to compose
herself again, we discovered she had eaten a chili pepper. Needless to say, Amanda
was a little apprehensive to have a second helping of the dish but after a
little encouragement she went for it. Unfortunately for her, she consumed yet
another chili pepper and everything happened all over again: the tears came and
her sinuses were released yet again. In the end, we all were able to make it
through the meal and it was interesting trying this new food!
Mary
No comments:
Post a Comment