To Ellie, From Lauren

Dear Lauren and readers,

England looks absolutely amazing. Makes me miss it and my grandmother, especially the stuff about London. Sorry for not writing for so long. So much has happened here. Classes have sped up so I've been busy with that as well as experiencing as much as I can. I still haven't embraced the "learning spanish" bit as much as I should have. I need to study a lot on my own to improve and I just haven't sat down and really set my nose to the grind stone.

It has occurred to me how vastly different our experiences abroad will be. There is a certain amount of "grouping together" that arises when people study abroad. We treat it like it is something in common... "I'm studying abroad too!" or "My (insert relative) studied abroad also!" But in reality experiences in different countries can't be compared. You are seeing ancient brick buildings and hogwarts-esque halls. I am seeing rainforest and coffee plantations. You are eating bangers and mash and drinking ciders. I am eating rice and beans and drinking tropical fruit juices. We are living in worlds so different. One thing I know about this experience is that it isn't enough for me. I absolutely love Costa Rica, but when I return home I won't be able to say "oh yeah, I studied abroad" like it is a done deal. Experiencing one culture is great, but among my many bug bites is one from the travel bug. I want to be a life-long voyager, learner, experiencer. Well... those are my musings of the moment...

I've been having stupendous adventures here. I looked back and realized that haven't talked about anything since we went to Jaco. There is certainly a lot to write about, so here goes. We'll see how far I get before I have to go...

In general I've been getting closer to my family, though still not as close as I would like. I don't know why it seems so hard to connect with them at times. (Well, it could have something to do with language, but I do feel like I have improved a lot). But anyway, I feel much more connected when more of the family is over, which happens occasionally. After the Plant Taxonomy class day trip to the botanical gardens (way back on september 18th) a bunch of the family was over for lunch, dinner, and quite a few games of bingo, for which Nena had prepared prizes of various little things. I won a handkerchief, mini mug and bath squishy thing. Here is a pic of my winning card (we ran out of markers so had to improvise with whatever was handy).

The next weekend the group went to La Fortuna (home of the famous Volcán Arenal, which is a huge tourist attraction because you can often see the lava.... except that it completely stopped errupting a few months before we arrived. Who knows how the town will fare now that the main attraction is gone). Highlights of La Fortuna included white-water rafting; lunch on a beautiful site with a view of the volcano and brilliantly colored birds at a feeder not 12 feet away; buying the makings for our own ice cream sundaes at the market and creating sweet masterpieces at the hostel; taking a night-hike down a road through the jungle and getting to hold a red-eyed tree frog; soaking in the free hot-springs at night just outside the entrance to the expensive hot-spring resort; swinging off a rope-swing into a pool of water at a beautiful swimming hole; swimming under and sitting behind a waterfall at said pool; finally getting a clear view of the volcano without clouds.

PS: why is this blue all the sudden?