Sunday, November 23, 2014

Student Beaching

Our last (full) weekend together was very bittersweet.  The seven of us went to San Jose on Friday after school and hopped on the bus to head back to Manuel Antonio.  We had booked a new hostel that no one had been to before and it was one of our favorites that we had been to.  It had a downstairs with the bathroom, a bed, and a couch, and an upstairs with a porch, a king sized bed, a queen sized bed, and a twin sized bed.  Up another set of stairs was a little landing that had swings and a beautiful view of the surrounding plant life as well as the ocean.  Plus, the hostel had breakfast and cute little kitties! :)

View from the swings on the roof

Part of the upstairs in our little hostel apartment

Part of the upstairs in our little hostel apartment

On Friday, I slept the whole bus ride to Manuel- around 3ish hours.  As soon as we checked into the hostel and Sophie and I claimed our beds, I hopped in and passed out again.  I don't know what came over me but I was so tired.  Sophie tried waking me up a couple times but otherwise I slept straight through until morning!  Once everyone was up, we went downstairs and had breakfast.  The hostel served a typical Costa Rican breakfast- scrambled eggs, bread and butter/jam, and beans and rice.

After breakfast, we got ready, then took the bus down to the public beach.  We were going to go to the beach at Manuel Antonio National Park but because it is now tourist season, the prices had gone up and we didn't want to pay $16 just to lay in the sand so we went to the public beach instead.  It was fun regardless.  The waves were big and powerful, I didn't spend as much time in them as last weekend.  We mostly enjoyed spending time with each other on our last weekend together.

Sophie, Me, and Darcy and the beach!

The tide began coming in quick in the early afternoon, so we left a little after 2 and went back to the hostel and jumped in the pool for a bit before getting ready for dinner.

Pool at the hostel

A little after five, we took the bus to my favorite restaurant- El Lagarto.  It was the one we went to the last time I was in Manuel with the delicious potatoes.  You could see the sun set from the restaurant and it was absolutely gorgeous.  I will definitely miss the beach sun sets here!  We took the time after dinner to go around and pick our favorite part about the trip.  It was definitely a difficult task, there are so many amazing memories.



We went back to the hostel after dinner and had a little wine night, hung out, and danced.  It was hard to accept that this was our last weekend.

I woke up this morning early, a little after 6, and sat out on the porch reading.  I figured I had to soak up all the beautiful weather that I could before heading back home where it will be cold and snowy for the next 5 months.  Once everyone was up and ready, we took the bus back to Quepos and had Subway for lunch before boarding the bus home.


In other news, this past week was fun.  Since this week is the students' last week of school, we finished up most of their course work last week.  They have been researching the solar system and then using the information to write stories which they will be sharing this week.  Of course I had to write one and I actually rather impressed myself with it.  The kids are super excited for it too.  My teacher and I have been working with the kids on creating decorations for the season.  We made snowmen out of lanterns and styrofoam cups last week and have been working a Christmas Tree made out of triangular prisms which I will hopefully finish up tomorrow.


A week or so ago we went to a movie (as we do every Wednesday) and on the bus ride home I ended up sitting next to this random guy who would not stop talking to me.  At least it was in English, but it was still so funny.  I swear he just about grilled me for my life story- in a friendly way of course.  He said he had only been practicing English for 5 months but it was much better than my Spanish has ever been so I wasn't sure I believed him.  He kept wanting to hear me speak Spanish but of course I got all shy and skirted my way around it.  Luckily he got off many stops before me.  He was nice and all but I didn't want him to know where I lived.

I am excited for Wednesday night movies because we are going to see Horrible Bosses 2 and then on Thursday for Thanksgiving we are going to see The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 and have KFC for dinner because we figured chicken and potatoes is pretty close to turkey and potatoes.  It will be nice to have Thanksgiving 'dinner' with my honorary family here.

Friday we're going to stay in a hotel in San Jose as half the crew leaves to head back to the states early on Saturday morning.  Sophie, Becca and I are going to be staying again on Saturday night after (hopefully) spending the day outside at the pool enjoying the sun and beautiful weather for one last time before I head back home Sunday morning.

It is crazy how fast the past two months have flown by.  Although I miss everyone and I miss sleeping in my own bed, it is going to be incredibly hard to leave this all behind.


You can find all travel posts from Hey Dreamer Blog here.

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