Tuesday

Today was one radical day. We woke up an hour early thanks to our
herald, Alex, but it worked out nicely since I got to spend some time
in the garden outside of the hotel. There, I spent the better part of
an hour harvesting golden orb weaver spider webs, touching the
spiders, taking pictures, and admiring these white flowers that were
growing completely upside down. Afterwords we ate breakfast and
interview Pepsi Campbell. That was actually pretty awesome; she is
obviously a very intelligent woman with a lot of potential to change
the Costa Rica as we know it. After asking her some follow up
questions about the country and her campaign we set out on the town.
Alfredo expertly guided us through bustling streets and homeless
people harassing us for money we didn't care to give them. After
having lunch at El Bueno Comer, we braved the rainy afternoon to
return to the hotel. We were back for five minutes when we were ousted
from the hotel and into two vans destined for the high school our pen
pals attended. We were making jokes the whole time about how we would
end up not getting to meet our pen pals, and it actually didn't
happen. It turned out that protests throughout the city had the school
closed for the day. Instead we went to the national museum, which was
pretty cool. We walked in through a room filled with butterflies and
plants native to the land. It was cool to see the butterflies landing
on fruits sitting out on pedestals and feeding; it was the only time
the staid still long enough for you to get a good look at them. Then
we took a variety of pictures and parted ways, I decided to go with a
group that would be walking some more through the city. We got some
coffee and strolled through some of the city's parks and took some
more pictures. It's surprising to see how people actually socialize in
the parks here; back in America parks are exclusively for stoners and
the elderly. We then returned to the hotel for dinner. Prior to this I
meditated. After dinner I philosophized with my friend and messaged my
pen pal on Facebook. I am now wrapping up this blog.
So far I feel very comfortable in San Jose. I'm happy that I can
understand a lot of what people are saying, or at least get the gist
of it. I can also form a lot of different sentences and interact
fairly well with the locals.