Dear Ellie,

Costa Rica sounds amazing. It almost makes me wish I was going to a Spanish-speaking country. I know a trip to South America is definitely in my future - the culture sounds so vibrant! But I guess that may also be because we have so much to learn about cultures that aren't our own.

I wish we had more local festivals and celebrations in the US. Holidays in Japan such as Obon (お盆) brought parties of native Okinawans, people from mainland Japan and, of course, us camp staff who happened to be around into the streets for music, dancing and laughter. It's always a good feeling when something like these celebrations can make random people seem like friends and family. One of my fellow camp staff was telling me that the Japanese people even encouraged her to dance inside one of the costume dragon heads they were twirling about in.

I am currently in Chico, spending my days lazily hopping from air-conditioned place to place. I can't wait for the cooler English weather and the opportunity to wear jeans!

More and more interesting conversations have been cropping up on the Facebook page for my hall at the university, including the best thing I've heard all year -- there's a Hogwarts Formal. Coincidentally, as I have mentioned before, the hall also looks like Hogwarts. I couldn't be happier.

"Freshers week," which is basically orientation week for incoming students, also includes a series of evening events requiring costumes. Unfortunately, this also means I will have to save space in my suitcase to pack for nights themed "Cavemen," "Iconic Figures," "Toga Party" and more. Let me emphasize that these are university-hosted events, and that on the information post they informed us the drinking would begin at 7 p.m. I'm going to love England.

Can't wait to hear more about the amazing time you're having over there.

Love,

Lauren

Typical Day

Dear Lauren and Readers,

Thought I'd write a bit about my daily schedule. Every morning I wake up (between 6:30 and 7) and roll out of bed. I have no alarm clock, so I just rely on my own body and the light that comes in the crack I leave in the curtains. I pull back the curtains fully every morning for maximum light and open my window. I greet the dogs which anticipate my appearance and pop their heads in to get love (I decided Anusca just had a seizure or something. He has seemed fine ever since). I have class almost every day at 8am, so I get ready for school. If I have extra time in the mornings I sometimes write in my journal.

My host mom Nena goes to her exercise class every morning at 7, so she leaves my breakfast on the counter which I either heat in the mircowave or just eat. Breakfast always includes fresh fruit and usually either a fresco (blended fruit drink) or café if I requested it the night before. Breakfasts range from gallo pinto con queso (the typical cheese here is white, does not melt and seems to squeak slightly against your teeth) to bean empanadas to cereal.

Getting in or out of the house requires passage through three ports: The outside gate encompassing the house and yard which locks automatically and always needs a key (if you are coming) or the push of a button in the living room (if you are going). The gated metal door just before the front door, and the front door itself. At night the security gets even better, as the formidable looking and sounding dogs are released into the front yard. All this security, but there is really very little if any crime here.

I go to class from 8-11, come home for two hours during which I eat lunch, then go back for my spanish class from 1-4, umbrella in hand. Lunch varies, but often includes rice and beans plus some something (fried platanos-plaintains, meat, fried shrimp packages, soup etc). There is always another fresco with lunch (today I had manzana-apple, but one of my favorites is maracuyá-passionfruit).

Here is my class schedule:

M 8-11: Society and Environment

1-4: Spanish

T 8-11: Tropical Ecology

1-4: Spanish

W 5-7pm: Latin American Dance

Th 8-11: Plant Taxonomy

1-4: Spanish

F 8-11: Natural History of Mesoamerica

After classes I don't have a typical plan. My day could include going somewhere downtown, homework, socializing, taking walks with my binoculars, dancing, etc.

The classes here are so far quite a bit easier than those at Chico. Of course, with all my classes only meeting once a week (except spanish), I've only had most of them twice, so they will probably pick up a bit.

Pura Vida,

Ellie

Dear Lauren and readers,

I decided to address it so, I hope you don't mind. It feels more inclusive.

Doggie Update: I think Anusca may have rabies. He was acting very very strange the other day (like spasms and twitches and drool) and I'm definitely going to avoid him for awhile. Of course when I brought my host mom to see, he was just lying there calmly like nothing happened. Apparently an animal can only live with rabies for 10 days so if he is still alive on the 10th I will know he is fine. I'll be rooting for him from afar.

I just got an email from my good friend Mary (I think you met her?) from Senegal. She is studying there this semester and recently arrived. I absolutely love her. The email got me thinking about the way people live and how we are all so different but all fundamentally the same. Even when there are language barriers communication still manages to occur. I love it when I can talk to my host mom and we understand each other. Apparently there is an event this weekend where they bring cattle pulling carts down the roads and I said "En españa tienen..." and she knew exactly what I was talking about. We both had a good laugh miming people running from bulls. Things like that make me smile so so much.

I finally made friends with some ticos (costa ricans). USAC

has a "tico friend" program where the students learning english sign up and are paired with one of us. They are supposed to help us with Spanish and getting adjusted and seeing San Ramón, and we help them with English (which they don't really need from what I've seen). Most of them want to be English teachers. My tica friend is Libia and she is extremely nice. She really likes to dance, and so do I, so we've danced a lot. I actually managed to recruit one of the tico guys to our dance class on Wednesdays. We are in desperate need of men for that class,

and ones that can already dance are preferred. It seems like all the ticos already know how to do salsa, meringue, bachata etc. It seems like they learn young, like how we all know the macarena. It is amazing how quickly I accept people as friends here. I feel like I have known the other USAC students for much longer than two weeks, and the ticos for longer than four days. Come to think of it, my first week here felt like it was about a month.

I finally had a talk with my host mom about not giving me so much food. She goes for walks in the morning, so she leaves my breakfast on the counter and I get ready and go to class while she is gone. This morning I had

huevos con jambon between 2 tortillas, a piña fresca (like a very watery smoothie), two bananas (granted they are small) and a huge bowl of cereal. We agreed that tomorrow I would just have some cereal, and some coffee. I'm growing to like the coffee here a lot. Here is a photo of my host mother by the way. She is in purple and walking with her sister who lives next door and is hosting mi amigo Andrew.

Wednesday was San Ramón day, so the saint (San Ramón) invited all his other holy friends to come party with him. They all arrived on Tuesday in the Entrados de los Santos which was a huge parade and city-wide holiday. Each of the nearby provinces and cities brought a statue of their saint, adorned with real flowers, to San Ramón. The photo is my favorite saint of the day, in a wheelbarrow with lots of flowers. The statue of our saint-San Ramón- paraded through the city, stopping at intersections where the newcomers were waiting to officially welcome them. Then the parade would move on and the welcomed saints would join, carried upon the shoulders of the

representatives from their towns and listening to music from the band they brought. I joined the parade and walked along right behind San Ramón himself, listening to San Ramón's band and the band of the saint behind us. Once the saints got to the church they were placed in their positions along the inside. The fiesta de San Ramón goes on for more than a week, with events and bands

playing each day. Every year they build a covering where vendors

and the bands and people can be and stay dry from the afternoon rains. The event was such a beautiful taste of Costa Rican culture and I absolutely loved it. That night, after dancing, my friends and I split a piña from the ice cream stand at the park. It was filled with fruit, jello, and ice cream and drizzled with sweetened condensed milk. Yummy!

You asked about the weather and boy am I glad to be here and not in the CA valley heat! The temperatures are mid-60s low to upper 80s high. The only thing that is less than perfect is the humidity, which is fairly high, but not unmanageable. It usually rains for a few hours every afternoon. The first thing I bought myself here was an umbrella!

On the wildlife front, I saw my favorite Costa Rican critter thus far, the three-toed sloth. We went last weekend on a USAC fieldtrip to a coffee plantation, then to a wilderness park, and some of us saw this guy hanging out in a tree. There was also a neat butterfly garden. There are lots of photos up on facebook if anyone is interested.

You should be in Chico by now, so say 'hi' to everyone for me!

Pura Vida,

Ellie

Dear Ellie,

You will need to buy a bigger suitcase because you're bringing me home that beautiful husky in the picture. He looks so fluffy and happy!

Costa Rica sounds great. I can completely relate to your salad craving. Fresh fruit and vegetables in Okinawa were so expensive that I never got the chance to buy any ― one avocado was $5 at the commissary on base. The first thing I ate when I got back to L.A. was a big salad and it was quite delicious.

I hate to ask about the weather, of all things, but is it humid or hot there? It's been hitting the hundreds in the San Fernando Valley, where I'm currently at.

I took a trip to San Diego this past weekend. It was my mistake deciding to depart in my tiny, hot convertible at 2:30 in the afternoon ― I spent five hours in bumper to bumper traffic. But the trip was so worth it! I've never really explored S.D., so this was a new experience for me.

The beaches were gorgeous, not in the same way as Okinawa, but in a familiar, California kind of way. It was great seeing three of my friends from Japan who live there as well, especially my roommate. We watched the sunset off of Sunset Cliffs and ate some of the best Mexican food I've had in a long time. (Note to Ellie: if you ever visit S.D. go to Lolita's and order carne asada fries.)

I'm now biding my time until the trip up Cali to Chico on Thursday. I can't wait to see my sister (she started classes at CSUC last Monday) and Paco, of course. Not to mention my return to The Orion! I won't be working there, but I'm sure I'll find some way to help out.

Meanwhile, I've been spending a lot of time online ogling pictures of my hall (a.k.a. dorm)

at the University of Reading and joining Facebook groups for the place. I have a room with a wash basin, which basically means there's a sink and mirror in the middle of my room and that I'm stuck with godforsaken communal bathrooms for another year. I loath communal bathrooms. On the bright side, I'm living in a gorgeous 100-year-old building with an in-house bar ― YAY! ― and a dining hall that very closely resembles the Great Hall at Hogwarts ― DOUBLE YAY!

Love,

Lauren

Dear Lauren,

YOU GOT A TATOO?! Hahaha, I'm somehow not surprised. Your summer sounds amazing, mine was great as well. Summer O definitely formed a similar family and had lots of fun.

Well I arrived in Costa Rica last Friday night and have been here almost a week. I am staying with a mother (I call her Nena) and her older daughter Karen, who lives here but is gone a lot at work etc. There is another daughter who is 30 who comes home on

the weekends, but mainly lives in San José. I have been eating Costa Rican food prepared by Nena and so far I've liked just about everything. Rice with black beans (called Gallo Pinto) is the staple. Also they make delicious drinks of blended fruit juice called Frescas, which are super yummy and I have one almost twice a day with meals. The only thing I'm not too keen on is the amount of fried food. I am craving a fresh salad!

There are 14 students in the program here, one from Australia and the rest from the US. Three

of us are from Chico! And there are a few others from CA as well. The group has been going out almost every night and enjoying the cheap Costa Rican beer, neither of which I'm particularly fond of. But I still hang out with them all most nights and have fun.

My classes are really cool, and definitely not as tough as some of the classes I've had at Chico. Most of them only meet once a week. I wasn't planning to take Spanish (and I had 15 units

without it) but when I got here, my host mom speaks no english so I decided I needed to audit Spanish as well. The spanish class is 8 units, so hopefully I won't get overwhelmed. I'm also just showing up to the latin american dance class which is super fun! (And I think I'm the best US dancer in there, not to toot my own horn [actually, being the leader is much more difficult, so I don't envy the guys]).

I have my bird book and binoculars and have been notating when and where I see each species. I talked to the professor who is really into birds and she said campus is an excellent place to birdwatch (there is supposedly over 100 species on campus). This is a blue-crowned motmot I saw.

Oh yeah, did I mention that I live ACROSS THE STREET from campus? Its pretty cool. The USAC staff is super nice and helpful and we always stop by the office to chat or have coffee, tea or water. I tried the coffee here and I actually like it! It doesn't need any milk and tastes much different from the coffee in the states. The one I've tried is made in San Ramón, but I'm going to a coffee factory tomorrow, so I'll probably try some more. Thats one of the field trips that is included in my program.

On a personal level, I've managed to keep up with my journal here, and I noticed yesterday that I stopped bitting my nails, and have no desire to do so. Also, I realized that this experience is absolutely perfect for me and I love it.

With much love always,

Pura Vida

Ellie

PS: I have two huge dogs outside my window. Here, dogs are more like animals and less like members of the family, so I think the attention I give them each morning is much appreciated. I snuck them a tortilla that I couldn't finish the other day. :)

Dear Ellie,

My summer was literally indescribable. That having been said, let me describe it.

I spent two and a half months on a tropical island in Asia working with the most insufferable, amazing American children (ages 5-10) on a marine base. I drank plenty of Orion beer ― which is brewed ONLY in Okinawa ― ate as much sushi as I could, swam in crystal clear turquoise waters and watched by far the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen in my life from my bedroom window in the barracks.

I am now practically best friends with my roommate who tolerated me this entire summer ― you know how that is ― and I think the people I worked with are more family now than anything.

I watched one day as Japanese drummers of all ages lined a busy, blocked-off street for a festival. You could feel the vibrations through the air and the ground as hundreds of them hit the drums in unison during the finale. I zip-lined through the tropical forest, flipping upside-down mid-flight and admiring the coastline from hundreds of feet in the air. I took a ferry to another small island and went camping with 10 or so other Camp Adventure counselors on our last weekend there and I climbed the rocks in my bathing suit to sit by myself and watch the small waves roll onto the untouched white sand flaked with bits of coral below me.

I've laughed more and cried more this summer than I think I have in my entire life. Oh, and I got a tattoo.

Don't worry it's a small one. My right foot is now decorated with the words “Live with all your might” in Kanji (Japanese). I lived by that phrase this summer and I plan to do the same for the rest of my life.

For the past six days I've been living out of unpacked suitcases. Putting all those clothes away is honestly difficult business when there are so many other important things to attend to, such as catching up on episodes of the Colbert Report and taking naps with O'Malley, who, by the way, is as needy and adorable as ever.

Can't wait to hear how Costa Rica is!

Love,
Lauren

Dear Lauren,

Here I sit, alone in an empty apartment, waiting for sleep to cure my forlorn state. I do enjoy Chico, and I do enjoy the Summer Orientation training that is keeping me here, but I dislike living with only bits and bobs of furniture and things leftover from a year of active life. Actually this will only be my second night here alone since summer started, I've been sleeping other places with other people (not like that, dirty mind!) whenever possible.

The start of summer was a whirlwind. I went home after your party, then my brother and I packed and prepared for a backpacking trip along the lost coast trail way north on the the CA coast. Our mother dropped us off and picked us up three nights later. The coast was absolutely beautiful. We saw lots of wildlife including elephant seals, sea lions, sea otters, pelicans, songbirds and the biggest rattlesnake I have ever seen in my life. I was leading as the trail meandered through tall grasses and stunning wildflowers. Suddenly there was quick movement not four feet in front of me as a gigantic snake fled to the vegetation from where he had been resting in the middle of the trail. He was probably as big in diameter as the bottom of a tall glass, and was quite long, although he disappeared too quickly to gage length. We did get an excellent view of his many-segment-tail, however. Quite exciting.

The trip was wonderful, and I relished the chance to spend so much time with my brother. I feel blessed that we have such a great relationship. Upon our return to civilization, (after a shower and long sleep) we drove to Oakland to surprise Jasper's best friend (who is essentially my other brother) for his birthday. Then I started training for Summer O last Tues. We have one more week of training then the actual orientation sessions start. I can't wait!

I'm actually visiting a chocolate and heath bar shake nestled in the freezer periodically as I write. My mother and I went there when she dropped me off this evening. It continues to amaze me how terrible their service is. The guy who made ours had a hell of a time, and when we finally got them, they were just chocolate, no-heath. I said something and they made me a new one. If their products weren't so tasty I wouldn't go.

I miss you and especially O'Malley when I am home alone. How is he?

Love,

Ellie