Semana Santa

The week of easter is called Semana Santa (Saint Week) and most of Costa Rica is closed and on vacation. A lot of people go to the beach for the week.  My family stayed at home and we took day trips.  The week before semana santa I saw a wooly opossum, a giant iguana and a goofy looking bird with her chicks.

(Look in the middle of the picture.  I didn't have a lens zoom with me at the time.)  This opossum normally lives in a tube in the bridge and comes out when it gets hot.

The bird blended in with leaves, but it kinda looked like a large quail and walked like a chicken.

 Then Semana Santa came and we were all excited for a week of relaxation.  My host mom was supposed to work but she hurt her back making 8 cakes so she got to hang out with us.  She was making 8 cakes because she used to work in a bakery until her asthma got so bad from the flour. However, now when anyone needs a cake they ask her to make it. (I didn't get a chance to take a picture, but they were beautiful.)  So that was Friday night and Saturday morning.

Then Saturday afternoon we went to a baby shower.  My host mom's sister is due in April with her third son.  She has a 5 year old and a 3 year old.  The sons blew out the candles and then the youngest stuck his face in the cake. It was hysterical.  (Also Saturday morning we watched The Lorax, which I really enjoyed and highly recommend.)

Sunday: we put in the inflatable pool.  I didn't go in, there were too many little children, but it was fun to watch all of them.

Monday: make over time. My host sister, Sofia, paints her nails all the time so she decided to paint mine too.  I think they look like easter eggs, but since they don't paint easter eggs here we settled on mushrooms.

Tuesday- Wednesday: We went to another sisters house about 2 hours away.  We went to the movies and saw The Croods. Everyone liked it excepted my host mom.  The best part was the sloth named Belt. (We watched it in spanish and his name was Abrazo which more means hug.)  Basically he makes dramatic noises and holds the guys pants up.

Thursday: We drove two hours to La Fortuna to see the Arenal Volcano.  This is one of the largest volcanoes in Costa Rica and the only one that still has a conical top.  Unfortunately it was raining and this was all I could see...

Do you see a volcano in this picture? Me neither, I'm not convinced it was there, but we are going to try and go on a day that is sunny.  However, we did go to a friends how and she gives chocolate tours (talks about the history of how chocolate was made and you get to try the different steps).  That was fun.

From left to right: Joel (dad), Ileana (mom), Stephany (13), Me, Sofia (17) and in front Sol (7)

 

Also there was a really pretty bird that lived there.

Friday: There was a procession to the church depicting the crucifixion of Christ.  We had stayed up late the night before doing tongue twisters in english and spanish and then the procession was early so I didn't enjoy it quite as much as I could have cause I was exhausted, but it was still fun.

Saturday (today):  I came back to San Jose.  Everyone in the program will be giving a presentation on Tuesday and doing some preliminary analysis of data and then leaving on Wednesday.