I'm Home! (Last Post)

This past week since my last post has been very busy.  Thursday we said goodbye to everyone at the ACM building, so all of our professors and the administrative workers which was sad cause they really made this such a great experience.  The Thursday night and Friday morning I packed.  Then I had lunch with my host mom and host nephew.  Friday afternoon I went to the National Museum which was really cool.  It was inside an old fort and had all different exhibits.

You walk into a butterfly garden.

My favorite exhibit was photographs from the OET which was were my host dad worked and they run 3 biological reserves.

The gold exhibit (in most of the exhibits we weren't allowed to take pictures).

Then afterwards we all met at the National Theater for tea and coffee and one last goodbye.  It was really hard to say goodbye to everyone.  I will miss all of those people.  When I have been asked what I will miss most about Costa Rica my answer is always the people, the Costa Ricans and all of the people on my trip, they made this the amazing experience that it was.

The best hot chocolate I have ever had.

My trip home was easy with a layover in Miami.  I got home late Saturday night and I have been relaxing and catching up with everyone I haven't seen in  4 months.  I had an amazing time in Costa Rica and I am so glad I had the opportunity to study abroad. This will be my last post since I am now home.  Thank you everyone for reading, I got a lot of positive feedback and I was very happy to share my experiences with all of you.  Enjoy your summers, love Amanda

T-SHIRT

We finally got our t-shirts today and they came out great!  I can't believe I designed a t-shirt that people will be wearing.  My spanish professor said it was his favorite of all of them, but who knows if he was just saying that.  Any way everyone really liked them.

The front of the t-shirt:

The back of the t-shirt:

Everyone in their t-shirts:

 I'm going to miss this great group of people.

Done with School

On Monday I turned in my final paper and today I gave my final presentation so I am all done! (Well until June 18th when I start organic chemistry, but thats another story).  Here are some of the slides from my presentations.

Title Page:

Study Site:

The computer program:

How to identify a species:

The main result of my study was that there was more bat activity in the forest and the border of the forest than in the pineapple farm.

I only had time to analyze an hour per night so I would like to get through a lot more.  Please let me know if you want more detail or have any questions.  I'm heading home in three days...

Poas Volcano

So today was a day to work on our papers and I finished so I went on a trip to the Poas Volcano with Maggie, who didn't want to work.  Check out the crater when we first go there.

Look really closely (just kidding, the cloud forest is aptly named).

We think we should photoshop a background into these pictures.

Then we took another trail up to an old crater that has been filled up with water.

Maggie made a friend.

Because Poas is a cloud forest it looked really different from the other forests I've been too.

This bird stood still for a really long time and just let us take its picture.

When we got back to the main crater the clouds had lifted and we got to see the crater!  The crater is a geyser so the water was about 100 degrees, green, gas was pouring out, and it smelled strongly of sulfur (rotten eggs).  It was kinda scary being so close to an active volcano.


Our snack for the day: a fruit called mamones, you suck off the orangy-yellow part. There is a big seed in the middle.  I ate way too many today but they were way too good to stop eating.

I think this was my favorite of the three volcanoes that I got to see while I was in Costa Rica.

Arenal

Irazu

Poas

My Last Weekend

Saturday was our going away party with all of the students and all of the host families.  It was a lot of fun.  We went to Alajuela (a bordering province about an hour away) to this place with a pool and a soccer field.  My family got their a little so the traditional students vs. families soccer game had already started.  I got to play the second half though.  I wasn't much help, but it was still fun.  It wasn't a devastating loss (13-9).

Yellow is students, red is families.

Then a few people got pushed in the pool and some jumped in.  Everyone brought bathing suits but few people actually ended up using them.


After lunch was a dance class with Roy.  Roy was on the Costa Rican version of dancing with the stars and has led a few classes for us throughout the semester.  He is quite the character.

Roy is the one in the white cowboy outfit.  He made quite the entrance in that getup. 

My host mom (red and white stripes) kept pulling me to the front with her.  She was much better than I am.

Then there was a little talent show of the students: a violinist, dancer, and the three guys in the program sang and played guitar.  Then we all left back to our own homes.  I'm going to miss this group of people.

Then Sunday I spent relaxing and finishing up all of my work.  One more week left and then I will be home in the states.

One Week Left

I only have about 1 week left in this beautiful country.  I can't believe how quickly the time has gone by and as much as I love it here and don't want to leave I am ready to go home and see everyone I love and eat something other than rice and beans.  (I do plan on eating more rice and beans at home than I did before, but that's easy because I never at rice and beans before.)

This past week and this coming week are just finishing up with all of my school work (spanish final, research paper and presentation), saying goodbye to everyone and of course packing.

I'm hoping to get in a few more trips to San José for some cultural experiences.  On Wednesday I was able to go to the Costa Rican Art Museum with a friend of mine and we were proud of ourselves for having figured out how to get there.  We had to take two buses to a new part of San José that we hadn't been to before.  It was worth the trip.

This is the back of the building.  In the 1930's and 40's it used to be the international airport.

There were quotes from the different artists painted on the walls.  This was one of my favorites. "The time passes, the live experiences stay behind, the art nourishes; the ideas, the materials and design utensils are left to guide."

Along with quotations from the artists there were also photos of them working on the pieces in the museum.

The piece in the picture above.  There was a poem on it braille that was painted on the wall in the background.

There were a number of large, curvy women.  There is one of these in downtown San José made out of metal and it is good luck to rub her but.

This whole room was covered in this mural that showed the history of Costa Rica.  This was the room for the dignitaries.

I just thought this one was cool.  Its called "Mind Games" and looked like it was made out of tinfoil.