Thankful. One month....

Wow Wow Wow. I am soo horrible about keeping up with this blog, I think about writing a new post a lot, but then I just never get to it. Usually some daiquiris or bounce music are calling my name.

Anyway 3 days ago marked my "one month left" here in New Orleans. I can't believe it! Time has just flown by. I honestly am really sad that I am leaving, I wish I could have stayed the one year, but it's ok, I have soo many supportive friends and family back in Nevada and California that I need to go to. :) So much stuff has happened since my last post..let's see where to begin. Well number one, I went to Voodoo Fest! It was probably the best weekend I have had here. My running partner, Ben, was able to buy me a weekend pass and we just had the best of time. The only artists I knew that were there were Drake, Ozzy and Janelle Monae, the other hundred artists I had NO IDEA! ha ha, it was an ear opening experience. I absolutely love Metric, Muse, Weezer, Kaskade....the list goes on and on. Janelle was by far my favorite, she really is one of the most undeserved artist out there!!




I was supposed to be Nicki Minaj for Halloween and I even bought scandy clothes, huge eyelashes and a pink wig, but voodoo fest made me so exhausted that I ended up staying in on Halloween night...cocoNUTS!!!! HA HA HA

The Monday following Halloween I went to a Day of the Dead Parade. Everyone dressed up and we walked the streets of the French quarter. At the end of it we sent something (I don't know what) in the Mississippi River. It was awesome...although everyone there smelled REAL BAD. Have you heard of Gutter punks, travelers or drifters? Ya, those are the people that were in the parade..people that live on the streets, don't shower and just beg for money. It's a lifestyle...they choose to be homeless. It kinda makes me mad because they can choose to be homeless, but there are people out there THAT ARE BORN INTO POVERTY! Anyway, I don't wanna get into a rant or anything.




UMMM, what next? I stopped running immediately after my half marathon...whooops! I guess I need motivation to run. And I think I might not run track this upcoming Spring. My heart has not been in track even since I started running in college and that is the truth. I don't find it fun or anything. The only things that I love about it are my coach and my awesome teammates (shout out to you guys)

I also attended University of New Orleans' Leadership retreat a few weeks ago. I was kinda getting sick of the city and needed to just get away and a $10 retreat sounded pretty good. It ended up being awesome! I met so many involved people that I wish I could have met the first week of school.



My mom came to New Orleans last week! and Oh my gosh, it was so nice seeing her. It was the fist time we have ever had a mother/daughter trip. She stayed at an awesome French quarter hotel with the cutest courtyard. I stayed with her from Wednesday until Sunday..she even made me miss my Thursday class for her...WORTH IT! On Veterans days we went to the National WWII museum which was so amazing. We rode the street car up St. Charles, walked around Jackson square where she bought some street art, went the Katrina Museum (informative, but extremely sad), listened to some music on Frenchman. I even convinced her to have a daiquiris on bourbon and jello shots. I love her so much! It was so fun to have her here. :)

In a couple days it is Thanksgiving break. I wasn't sure what i was going to do until a week ago. One of my girlfriends offered her house up in Shreveport and I was all ready to go until my biological dad called and said he would love if I came to San Antonio and spent it with all my sisters and brothers. Of course I said yes. I am 21 and this is going to be the first time I spend Thanksgiving with my biological dad. If you told me this when I was in high school I would not have believed you. Life is so crazy, but it's all Love. I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving break. Give thanks for everything you have and be grateful for the people in your life. I LOVE YOU ALL.

Much love,
Skylar

Videos

It's taken a month but here are some videos.

I know I keep missing people on Skype but I am usually on 5-9pm (unless im napping...) my time so that's like 9am - 1pm PST time. Sooo yea. This time difference sucks.

Videos.

cheers!

go buy your harry potter tickets!!!

A plethora...

Sorry I have not blogged in ages and there is so much so let's get cracking.

First and foremost classes here are hard and excellent at the same time. I am taking:

1. Genre and Film - bomb irish teacher, had to explain the awesomeness of Clint Eastwood to the class and explain that Americans, I mean, Westerners and "former" Colonist don't sit around and watch Westerns all day.

2. Children's Literature - taught by the nicest old lady with a Mary Poppin's voice, well she is nice until you get on her bad side and then she turns into crazy lady.

3. Digital Media and Communications - cool teacher sit around and play with photoshop all day rather easy. The first time in history I have ever used Adobe on a PC.

4. Media Policy and Ethics - hardest class of my life. I had to read to extra books on British television just to understand the first day. British TV does not equal or is even similar to American TV. Not super bad because I have a lovely Italian teacher and she is super sweet.

Now on to the trips I have been on.

East Sussex

Very fun trip. It was a USAC trip so all 35 of us got to bond with Mary and Zoe (our advisors.) We hopped in vans and sang songs and played games. We drove through all of these small countryside towns I could not for the life of me tell you what their names are but they were cute. TONS OF SHEEP! TONS OF COWS! We went to a pub and I had the best shepherd's pie. We then went to the Battle Abbey where the Battle of Hastings happened in 1066. It reminded me of Gettysburg but obiviously more medieval. We walked around the entire battle ground which took about 45 minutes. We also looked at where the monks stayed it was kinda epic.

moving on...

Warwick, Liverpool and Manchester

So first stop was Warwick Castle. Crazy place its like Disneyland meets old ancient ACTUAL history. There are tons of people dressed up and singing and yelling at each other it was interestingggg. Check the video below because I can't even explain what this place was.

Then off to Liverpool the land of The Beatles. EPIC EPIC place. The accent is a little harder to understand but we went to all these cool places like Penny Lane!! Another interesting fact about Liverpool is that it's where films are shot when they can't afford to shoot in London. So movies like Sherlock Holmes and even Harry Potter are filmed there. We went to The Cavern where The Beatles, Elton John, Jimi Hendrix and The Rolling Stones played when they were first getting started. It was super fun tons of old people rocking out haha. The next day we went to The Beatles Story museum which was so awesome. I'm a huge George Harrison fan so I didn't really pay attention to all the extra crap they did for Paul and John haha. Poor Ringo... So after Liverpool we hopped over to Manchester which is all about football. We toured the stadium and I guess it was a big deal but I know nothing about soccer so we just looked at all the Beckham stuff.

On to the next...

Robyn Concert

I went I saw one of my favourite artist in Brighton. It was uber cool because her last music video was shot in Brighton. If you don't know who she is well that sucks because she is super talented. Plus it was like 30 bucks to see her which is a steal and when she blows up stateside you all will be jealous of me.

Hang With Me - Robyn (Check out that brilliant seaside)

Amsterdam and Bruges

So we finally got of the island and headed over to The Netherlands and Belgium. It takes about 8 hours which is the same amount of time it takes me to get to Chico...which is RIDICULOUS. 3 countries 8 hours. The scariest part about getting of the island is going through the English Channel. I had a panic attack when our bus got onto a train that went through a tunnel that went under the Channel. I was freaking out, talk about claustrophobic. After that 30 minute death trap we were in France and they literally waved us in, no checking of passports, nothing. Awesome. I was asleep when we arrived in Amsterdam. It was 7 in the morning and pitch black. I already had a cold (surprise surprise) so I was not in a good mood and plus it was like 18 degrees outside. We walked around and of course it rained our tour guide was being lame and we were all in the worst mood until we had free time. What did you guys do with your free time you ask? Heineken Experience. Basically you pay 15 euro and you get a tour, and get 3 pints of beer. For an extra 5 euro you get a custom bottle. Thank you Heineken, I don't like you more than Blue Moon but it was better than being outside in the cold and dying so 100 points to Gryffindor. After that we went to the Hard Rock cafe which was hard to get to because the streets of Amsterdam were alive. Chico is no longer the big bike town I thought it was. Amsterdam is THE bike town of the world. Bikes have the right away every time the lanes are bigger than the car lanes. Our tour guide Omar told us that there are more bikes than people here and you see bikes tied up everywhere or just laying around. We could have literally stole a bike and no one would have noticed. Hard Rock was amazing as usual but I was uber excited to go to Anne Frank's house. There was no photos or videos allowed but I can tell you it was one of the most moving experiences of my life. Each room in the house was preserved and we got to see where they hid and Anne's actual diary. Words cannot express. I was in tears because I cry about everything but it was really powerful stuff more inspiring then sad. It was a good reminder about how blessed I am and how I shouldn't take anything for granted. Later on that night after a good little nap we went back into the city and visited the Red Light District. Very interesting indeed but not as raunchy as I expected it seriously was like "whatever" and we went to get pasta. Oh yes and there is weed everywhere at the floral shops they have "cannabis starter kits" you know just incase you need to grow some at home. Seriously it really propels their economy California should just hop on that wagon so we can get out of debt.

The next morning we went to Zaanse Schans, a dutch village located on the outskirts of Amsterdam. Talk about night and day, these people were walking around in wooden clogs and feeding sheep. There were tons of windmills and we found out that Amsterdam relies on these windmills to pump the water out so the city won't flood. The city is about 4 meters below sea level. We walked around and tasted some cheese and chocolate, watched some shoes being made and then it started to hail. No big deal. We left there about noon and headed for Belgium.

We went to the city of Bruges in Belgium which is an intense medieval town. It is well preserved because Belgium was neutral during the wars. There were tons of horse drawn carriages and cobblestone roads. It felt like Christmas already because of the snow on the ground and all the Christmas stores. We headed straight to a restaurant to get some real Belgian waffles. AMAZZZING!! We were only there for 3 hours and I really want to go back. So our trip was finally coming to a close and we headed back to France. Going back into the UK is way harder than leaving. HARDCORE. We all had to get off the bus and get sniffed by a dog haha. So many people were throwing their weed away it was hilarious. Smart ones. After that whole ordeal we got back on the bus and into the deathtrap train and finally we were back in Brighton.

Good times indeed.

Next up: More escuela, England v France game, Guy Fawkes Night, Paris, Harry Potter, Bath, and Stonehenge!!

Cheers!!

I'll post the video soon-ish! (I hate editing)

My Grand Adventure

I have been on University of New Orleans' "Fall Break" since last Wednesday. :) I really wanted to get out of town to maybe Florida or Baton Rouge, but those plans fell through. Regardless, my friends and I made the most out of New Orleans. Salsa dancing, throwing GI Joes off of buildings downtown, blowing sugar off of beignets, picking up a lost dog (cute!), finding Banksy art... Here it is in pictures. :)

Coding blah blah

I dunno if the weather coding was messing up for anyone else but I just changed it again because it was bothering me...the blog layout is kind annoying me but I won't OCD about it.

But I think the blog is best viewed with Firefox...so yea. :)

I am also obsessing about coding right now because I am bored and I miss all of my friends and family very much and if you do take the time to look at the weather in the sidebar you can see that it is raining constantly here. So I'm being super emo.

Love you lots!!!

Cheers!!

Seriously tell me if the website looks weird I seriously lose sleep at night because of the coding for this thing...okay that is all.

Seriously? How is the layout?

Really.

London. Lewes. Wales.

"You alright love?"

The most common British greeting ever. P.S. You are everyone's love, darling, and sweetie here. Fear it, embrace it.

The past week and a half has been pretty amazing. Moving 1000 kilometers a minute. Kilometers because no one uses miles, it's uncool, just like fahrenheit.

Haven't actually started "teachings" at all, things don't officially start till October 4th so my flatmates and I have decided to travel as much as possible.

Flatmates ar amazing by the way. There is:

Stephanie from California.

Stephanie and Kait the twins from Cheeks!

Wei from Denmark/China.

Hazel from Korea.

Katie from Surrey.

Sophia from London.

It's a wonderful mix and everyone is super sweet and brills.

(We spend most of our time coloring in MY Hello Kitty coloring book which makes me a GENIUS for bringing it in the first place. People from other flats come by to color in it as well. *toots horn*)

The other USAC kids are fantastic as well. Charming bunch. Our advisors in the American office, Mary and Zoe, are terrific. Their advice to us? "Please don't be a boring lot, we are trying desperately to forget the last group that was here. And that one girl...pain in the arse."

All in all Brighton is marvelous and I am very blessed to be here.

There are a few film festivals coming up and I am so excited to be able to meet local English filmmakers and see what types of stories they wish to share with the world. The cinema here is completely different from America and the narratives are fascinating. There is a local cinema here, kinda like The Pageant (shout out) and I am excited to visit it. Also, I cannot forget about the theatre scene, there are tons of plays I am excited to see as well. It is almost like Brighton is San Francisco and London is New York. So much art and history to soak up. So many stories, so little time.

Another interesting fact is that our flatmates, well and other random Brits love the American accent. They think WE sound sophisticated. So...grass is greener y'all. Oh and another thing always be prepared to answer, "So what do you think of Obama and what is it that he has done that you dislike?". Number one question. ALWAYS.

I need to start reading the newspaper again because changing the conversation to Oprah and Disney does not always work.

So this video has London, Lewes and Wales.

London - can't ever put into words. Even more brilliant the second time.

Lewes - a super small town with mounds of history. Thomas Paine used to hang out here. THOMAS PAINE! COMMON SENSE! The man that more than pushed us towards our Revolution. Lewes also features a 15th Century castle, Anne of Cleave's house (Henry dumped her in Lewes after he divorced her luckily she saved her head), and no noise what so ever. Super quiet town where everyone can see the bloody castle from their backyard.

Cardiff, Wales - my new favorite country. 50% of the population speaks fluent Welsh so most of the signs are in Welsh. CRAZY! We only stayed for 2 days but Welsh people have to be the most hospitable people on the planet. The hostel we stayed at was the nicest place. Thanks Abi and Charlie!! If you ever need a place to stay The River House is the spot. Wales also is where Roald Dahl is from which, if you were ever a child, is a pretty big deal.

Till next time

S'later

Cheers!!

Youtube is crap so there is that. Also I need to stop filming with my iPhone but whatever, I am lame as well.

back on my vlog grind!

Cheers love!!!

Ello England is amazing!! I am a horrible writer so I rather just vlog it out mostly! So here ya go!!!

Cheers!!!

Sounds kinda weird sorry I'll get used to it.

Getting ready to bounce...

:) Ultimate chaos right now. Ultimate.

WHO D@!

Sierra brought up to my attention that I neglect this blog and only post on Skylar Shea Shorts. Whoops! well here we go! oh and ciara, you forgot to change your font color homie.

Ok, so I have been in school for 3 weeks and New Orleans for one month! wow, time flies by, doesn't it? I have met so many wonderful people and done so many different things already. I actually feel awful when I am cooped up in my room all day...like hello? I'm in New Orleans! ha ha. School is pretty cool, but it is the last thing on my mind. I really do believe that track grounded me for the past 3 years, without it, I feel like I have nothing to hold me down. Although, I say that school is the last thing on my mind, it is not my nature to do poorly. So I will probably still crank out A's and B's. I'm taking History of New Orleans (surprisingly my least favorite class), Intro to film (it is full of freshman) Performance for the camera (stepping outside my comfort zone) and sociology of race (probably one of the best classes I have ever taken). Some days after I am done with class, I just hop onto the next bus and sees where it takes me. It's like a tour of the city for only $1.25. :)

I have found a great group of people that I call my friends. Most of them are from the same program that I am (national student exchange) They come from all parts of the country and have the same drive as me to experience as much as possible in 4 months. We have become fans of daquaries, beignets, po-boys and live music on Frenchmen street. In Chico, I am usually am surrounded by all my girls (shout out to y'all), but here I have more guy friends than girls, so that in itself is a big change.

The first NFL game was this thursday and the Saints played Vikings! As I walked to my first class, all I could see was a sea of black and gold. Everyone, and I mean Everyone was wearing a jersey or Who Dat shirt...even the teachers. Downtown there was a Saint's parade where I got about 10 pounds worth of beads. We headed down to Jackson square where Taylor Swift and the Dave Mathews band put on a free concert. There were soooo many people down there, it was NUTS! A few of us stayed downtown to watch the game and we found a bar called Lazizza. Everytime the Saint's scored a touchdown, the DJ would put on that ying yang song on and everyone would yell "WHO DAT!" and give everyone high fives. I have never in my life seen so much city spirit, even the buses say "go saints" on the front. The whole day was amazing.

Another great experience I had down here was Aug 29, the 5th anniversary of Katrina. I have no family or friend ties to Katrina, but I feel obligated to become involved in the re-building of New Orleans. On August 29, I went to the lower ninth ward with some friends to march from that area to a park downtown. The atmosphere of the entire event was heartwarming. I was expecting a sense of hatred toward the government and tears over people and things lost, but instead I saw sense of family and community. Instead of crying, hundreds of people sang, clapped and danced. As we passed by the many houses with X’s on them, we joyfully waved to the people inside to come out and join the celebration. Even though the people in the lower ninth ward are still struggling for justice of their community, during the march, no one sulked; we all celebrated the human race. “I am, because we are”

A couple of days ago I skyped Francesca and sierra surprised me by being there too! :) I also was able to talk to Bonnie that day too! So anyone with Skype who wants to chat I am ALWAYS down. My user name is Skydawg0027...let's make a date! Ok, I will leave you with some pictures. I am horrible remembering everything I have done. This is a lesson to me that I should update this more often so ya'll have a fun time reading this damn blog. And FINALLY miss Brandy Reed is leaving for her grand adventure in a few days. She has had the longest summmmer ever!

thinking of everyone.

Much Love,

Sky

So much has happened since my last post that I don’t even know where to begin. Last weekend we went on a field trip to Café Britt (a coffee plantation) and Volcano Poas. It was so much fun! The tour of the coffee plantation was really funny and pretty. Then we had lunch on our way up to the volcano, the food was so good! In fact I have really enjoyed everything I have eaten here! (Except for papaya that fruit is NASTY!!) The volcano was so cool!! Of course right when we got to it my camera died so I didn’t get to take that many pictures, but I’m just going to steal some from others. It was pouring and the night before I had lost my umbrella while we were out (me lose something?! What a surprise!) So I only had my “waterproof” jacket to keep me dry. After about 10 min I realized the jacket I had bought strictly for Costa Rica wasn’t that waterproof and by the time we were back on the bus I was soaked and freezing! But it was so beautiful up there and we were able to hike a trail which was so much fun, I only wish we could have had more time to explore (and that I had a umbrella haha)
That Sunday was the last day of the festival in Barva and we went out with a bang! My friend Amber’s hermano was having a party to celebrate so a group of us went over there. We had good food, good drinks (including moonshine) and good company. The best part was that his house was the last spot of the parade, so we had hundreds of kids running around in masks hitting whoever dared to stand in the streets, a live band that came up onto the porch, dancing, and tons of warm rain. It was so much fun, we threw out bags of jello for the kids and “special” jello for the adults and then I decided to be daring and go dance with everyone in the streets, it was so much fun, but I did get hit 4 or 5 times by the pig bladders and smelt so bad afterwards!
During the week I only have class from 8-11 so it is basically like a weekend every day. A group of us went out to ladies night on Monday and danced the night away, the next day instead of school we had a field trip to San Jose.
In San Jose we visited the National Theatre, Museum of Gold, and the Central Market. Of course once we got there I realized my memory card wasn’t in my camera so once again I don’t have that many pictures (I’m really bad at this!) but I’ll steal some pics from others so everyone can see. The national theatre was gorgeous and a group of us are planning to go back to watch a show. The museum was ok, the first floor was really lame, but the second and third floors had tons of gold and stone sculptures which were really cool. The central market was really interesting as well. It was hidden inside this HUGE building and we weaved in and out of stores that had everything from backpacks, fresh meat (chicken feet, fresh) to souvenirs. I didn’t want to buy anything and my mom is nice enough to pack me lunch every day but I did decide to have a chocolate milkshake and sit with friends while they ate. As we were driving back my friend Morgan was trying to take a picture of a building in San Jose from outside the window on the bus and a man ran up and grabbed it from her hands and ran off! It was so scary and she got really shaken up but she was ok, and while it sucks that she got her camera stolen at least she wasn’t hurt in the process.
Wednesdays we always play soccer at a local gym for an hour. We must be so funny to watch because only a handful of people have ever played before and half of those people (including me) haven’t played in YEARS!! But since we all pretty much suck it’s still really fun and a good workout! Carlitos (one of the USAC people) told Jules and I that there is some local camps for volleyball coming up so we could go and play with local Ticos. I’m so excited to play!
After Wednesday I didn’t do much, while we don’t spend much time in the classroom we do get hw and if you put off the hw (like I did) it piles up by the end of the week, so all day Thursday I worked with others in my class on hw. We are reading a 4th grade level book in Spanish and it is SO hard!!! It’s funny that we can’t even handle a book made for kids that are 10.
This weekend 30 of us are traveled to Joca for the weekend, a local beach. I heard it was dirty from a lot of people but I actually didn’t think it was bad at all and I ended up having an AMAZING weekend. We got there in the evening on Friday, 8 of us had decided to use a different hostel then the rest of us so we said bye to everyone and set off to find ours. When we got there it was really run down with broken windows, then we realized it was closed down and we thought we had gotten ripped off but luckily we had a number to call and found out that we were actually staying in some ones house who has a side room with 8 beds, a couple showers, and a kitchen. The people we stayed with were a couple of hippies Hungary and the states and were living the life in Costa Rica, no job just surfing and allowing travels to crash at their place for ten dollars a night. They were actually really cool and fun, they had a pool so we took full advantage of it swimming until we went out. Then we went to a local club sang some karaoke and then hit up a club with dancing and danced the night away. The next day we decided to spend it at the beach, we were able to rent boards from the people from the hostel for 5 bucks and just laid out in the sun, it was really relaxing. Right before we left Lyndsey and I saw a group of ticos boxing with gloves on and I convinced her to box me, it was so much fun! We went out again that night and sang karaoke again, I was caught on video haha. Sunday 4 of us decided to rent ATVS and go up into the mountains, it was so pretty up there and so much fun. I actually remembered my camera so I finally have a good set of pictures, they are up on facebook. After we grabbed lunch and headed home, it was an amazing weekend.
Oh and one last thing here is a list of things I have learned since being in Costa Rica:
1. 500 colones = 1 dollar, while some things are a lot cheaper (taxis are like 4 bucks) other things are way more expensive, (cheapest umbrella is 14 bucks and cheapest hairdryer is around 100!)
2. The beer to drink here is Imperial and I have to admit it is pretty damn good.
3. Pedestrians don’t have to right of way…ever… so if you don’t get out of the way, you are going to get hit.
4. With that being said we are constantly sprinting across the streets because we are scared of getting hit and it’s one of the easiest ways to pick out a gringo. Other ways? We wear backpacks, we constantly look lost, and of course when we open our mouths.
5. Cars are constantly honking here and I’ve figured out the reasons why, they either honk to say, “Get the hell out of the way”, “go ahead and cross,” “thanks”, or most commonly “you’re a gringa.”
6. Men are constantly whistling and making comments at us gringas walking by, because they think it’s a compliment and they find it amusing that we can’t understand what they are saying (I can’t wait till I can.)
7. Some Costa Rican’s will try to rip you off because they think you are rich, I have been overcharged twice in a taxi, but haven’t wanted to get into a heated debate so let it go.
8. Most ticos are extremely nice and helpful, I think they appreciate that we are ballsy enough to go into a country that doesn’t speak the same language and try to learn it.
9. I am really considering looking into teaching English abroad. I have met tons of people from all over the world that are doing that here and even though I have only been here for two weeks I can really see myself enjoying something like that.
10. I met someone from the states that got his masters in business from here, you can take the classes in english or Spanish and the program was started by Harvard in the 60’s. Found my grad program???

That’s it for now. I know it’s long but I think I’m going to have to resort to a few long ones every once in a while instead of a lot of short ones since I don’t have internet at my house.

Pura Vida,
Sierra

Yeaa...

Still haven't gone anywhere...

:)

Check out Frannie's blog!!!

http://chescamae.tumblr.com/

Pura Vida!

I’m finally in Costa Rica! The flight was long a grueling with a lot of challenges. We were told that we were getting our visas in Costa Rica but the person checking me in wouldn’t let me board without one or a plane ticket back within 90 days!! So luckily we found out it could be refundable and my mom was nice enough to put it on her card for me so I could get on the plane!!! I didn’t run into any other problems getting into the country but I couldn’t sleep at all so by the time I landed in Costa Rica I had gone 24 hours with barely any sleep. Luckily the excitement of being in a new country gave me some energy.

As soon as I had grabbed my luggage my host family picked me up and took me to their place. Felipe had painted a sign with my name on it, it was so cute!!! Felipe is my hermano, he is ten and so nice, we like to play cards with each other. My mama’s name is Celia, she is very nice and provided me with my own room and bathroom and it constantly feeding me!! I finally learned to say I'm full, so she understands that I don't need any more food! My hermana Carla is 31 and nice, I haven’t talked to her much yet but she makes sure I know how to get around town and what taxis to use and so on. No one in my family speaks any english so right now I’m having a very hard time communicating with them, but it's been fun trying to figure each other out.

Our first night out was so much fun, we had a huge group, around 20 of us, and we went to the local bars and watched futbol and drank cervesas. We had a local tico (one of the hermanos of a classmate) show us a couple bars, the Ticos are very nice here and really funny!

I also have been running in the morning (surprisingly) but its so hot and humid with a TON of hills here that after a 25 min run i'm literally dripping in sweat!! But it is so much fun exploring the city on my own and learning my way around the town, (no I haven't gotten lost surprisingly! Luckily in Costa Rica every house is completely different from the next) Oh and by the way all you men out there that make fun of women for not knowing street names and only knowing landmarks, in Costa Rica they don’t have ANY street names they only know how to get places by landmarks!! For example an address for a house would be something like, Santa Lucia, 500 metros (blocks) este of the orange trees 200 metros norte from the school, the blue house. So we know what we are talking about when we go by landmarks not street names!

There is also a crazy two week long fiesta going on right now in Barva (a suburb of Heredia) where people wear masks and try to hit people on the streets with pig bladders while everyone runs away, its kind of crazy but so much fun to watch. I actually got hit once, which was kind of gross but cool that I was apart of the festivities.

Every night they have live music, parades, fireworks, and some many other things to do it has been amazing. Tuesday night a group of us went out and enjoyed the festival and then went to a near by bar. We met local ticos that could speak english and we hugn out all night! I even met my future husband (he just doesn't know it yet) Don't worry mom he is a keeper, he owns a bar, real estate, speaks four languages, can dance, plays the guitar and sings, is really funny, and very cute! I fell in love. Too bad he has a girlfriend :(. I'll win him over by the end though haha!!

Well thats all for now! It's hard to write on here becuase I only have internet at the school and it goes in and out but i'll try to keep this as up to date as I can.

Hasta Luego!

Sierra

P.S. it takes way to logn to upload pics on this thing so check out facebook for pictures