Ziplining! Woot!

Wow, wow, WOW…I don’t even know where to begin about my weekend! I suppose I’ll just go in order. =)
FRIDAY
Well, let me begin with a “funny” story. It’s funny now at least. =) We had “lots” of time between the end of Spanish classes at 12, and when we had to be at LASP at 2. So Mikayla and I decided that we would just take the bus to San Jose and then head to El Carmen for our LASP stuff. We made it into San Jose fine, and of course it had started raining by that time, as it does everyday. We got out our umbrellas and rolled up our pants (soooo Gringo-ish! Haha) and then proceeded to walk through San Jose to the next bus stop. Well, in that process, it began pouring gatos y perros, and by the time we got the bus stop we were drenched (we even had umbrellas) and the wind started blowing the rain basically straight at us, and it even hailed a little! Needless to say, that was a first! We were totally and completely drenched, I mean, water was soaking through my umbrella..yeah, it was bad! But very very memorable! =)
So, Friday afternoon/night we had our group Camino Espiritual (Spiritual Journey). All 56 of us (or so) were given about 3 minutes each to try and just explain a little about our faith journey or a part of our life that makes us sort of who we are now, or to talk about something we just wanted everyone else to know about us. It was amazing to hear everyone share such distinct stories about themselves, and yet I felt that I could relate to every single person there in a totally new way. I really felt like it brought us all together and helped us to be able to look at each other in a different way, sort of wiping away all of the prior thoughts and feelings we had about the other people on the trip. Some good tears, and some even greater bonding (and some cardboard-ish pizza that actually tasted good)..hmm, doesn’t get much better. =)
As I was packing up that night for Monteverde, Greg called my house to let me know for sure the details of where to meet. My sister Ale answered the phone, and before handing it to me she said, “Laura, its for you..it’s a boy!” in English, and Greg overheard her. So of course when I started talking to him he was like, “oooo, It’s a boy it’s a boy!” and I told him my sister had said that, and he told me to ask her if she wanted to hang out some time: well, I did, and boy oh boy did she turn red!! =) hahaha and she said no =) it was definitely an awesome memorable moment with my sister, and we’ve been bonding over it ever since, because I continue to tease her about it and tell her that I’m going to show her some good pictures and hook her up. =) haha I love it.

SATURDAY
This is the other really awesome part of the weekend. =) Probably the most awesome weekend so far! On Friday I decided to head to Monteverde with some of the other people in the program: Christie, Jasmine, Bethany, Kasey, and Greg and I. We had to leave EARLY on Saturday (I woke up at 3:50 am…yeah) because the bus left San Jose at 6:30 in the morning and we had a 5 hour drive to make it to Monteverde. So anywhoo, we made it to the bus stop on time and all that, had a good drive there (minus the fact that some of us had to use the bathroom like crazy and we only had one 15-minute break in that 5 hour span..yeah, for real). Once we hopped off the bus this guy came right up to us and told us he’d take us somewhere to stay, so we just sort of walked along with him, whatever, we didn’t know where we were. Luckily it ended up being the best place ever: $6 a person per night hostel, really nice (for a hostel I think, I don’t know, it was the first time I’ve been in one!), and they gave us awesome advice about food, what to do, everything. It was sort of raining when we got there, because it was basically the afternoon, so we shelled out $15 and headed to Selvatura where we spent a few hours walking up in the cloud forest on suspended bridges. G-oooor-geous! We saw some howler monkeys in the distance from the one bridge after we heard them howling or whatever for about 10 minutes before we got to the bridge. Don’t worry, I have it on video. =) Hahaha. That evening we met up with one of Greg’s friends, Danny Mack, who is in a biology program in Costa Rica, and they happened to be in Monteverde until Sunday. Actually, he is from Columbus and even knows Colt Cunningham and Kelsey Seipel, who I go to college with. Weird little world we live in! Anyways, we ate at this sweet ($$$) restaurante with a live tree in the middle of it: soo delicious! After that Greg’s friend headed out and we all just went back to the hostel and hung out in the guys’ room for a while, being ridiculously loud and having an amazing time bonding (don’t worry, we weren’t disturbing anyone..it was basically us and maybe 2-4 other people on the second floor). After a while we were all completely whipped, so we headed to be in order to get ready for Sunday…yeah =)

SUNDAY
7:30 AM we hopped into a little microbus/van and made our way to Aventura Park where we went ziplining!! Only $30 to zip around the cloud forest for 3 hours! I know, you are probably shocked to be reading this if you know me, since you know I am afraid of heights. =) I was a little nervous before we got there, but once we were strapped into the harness, I was never afraid again! It was amazing really, I was really surprised. There are 14 total ziplines there, and they were just…wow, I don’t really even have words to explain it. We would leave from a platform up in a tree, zip through a space between a lot of trees, and then suddenly it would open up and we were out over all the trees below us, in the clouds and just able to see all around us. It was completely unbelievable to be surrounded in such a way by God’s amazing creation! Definitely one of the coolest things I have done in my life! =) There were two times when I must be honest and say I was terrified: 1) we had to do this “rappel” where we were on a platform and the only way to get down was to step off the edge of it, hanging in the air, until the guy pulled on our rope and we just slid all the way down to the bottom. Needless to say, I definitely had to scream on that one. =) but it was amazing, I just told everyone sitting there who had already done it that screaming just made it more fun. =) Scary part #2…way scarier: the Tarzan Swing. Basically there is a clearing in the trees, and we climbed stairs to the top of this really tall platform. They strapped us in, and then pushed us off the edge of the platform: you basically feel like you’re falling straight down until the rope catches you and you swing way out into the clearing: sooo amazing (after the initial heart-stopping drop) =) it was amazing! After the Tarzan swing the last two ziplines came up, and they were by far the two best of the whole day. The very last one was the longest and highest…just being out in a “canyon” I guess you could call it, hanging above all the trees on a zipline, just you and the wind..it was so gorgeous and just unbelievable. Put it on your list of things to do. =)
When we headed back after that amazing time on Sunday, we ate at a restaurante called Morphos, recommended to us by the awesome hostel guy. We were all completely starving, since we had only eaten two small pancakes for breakfast at a little soda (aka restaurant-sort-of). I ordered a hamburger, and it was the HUGE-est hamburger I have ever eaten in my life. I mean, we’re talking: two beef patties, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, cheese, avocado (sounds weird, but it was totally wicked awesome) and the thing was probably a good 8 inches in diameter (no problem!). =) After lunch we chilled around the hostel for a while, and then made our way to the bus (which we almost missed because we thought the bus left from right in front of our hostel. Thanks again awesome hostel guys for showing us that we were wrong.) I got back home around 8 or so, and did a little unpacking while I caught up with my host sisters on their weekend of graduation dress shopping for Alejandra. Then, even though I was exhausted, we all watched the movie Get Smart, which was a lot of fun to have some good re-bonding time with them and catch back up. =)
So, all in all, not too shabby of a weekend! =) This week is insanely busy, and so this is probably one of the only updates I’ll give for a while, which is probably good because it’s so insanely long. =) I am getting pumped for my birthday on Wednesday, and Thursday is the big Juanes concert! Ahh! =) I hope that all continues to go well with each one of you reading this, thanks for keeping up with me for such a long time. With much love and much missing of you. =)

Con todo el amor en mi corazón.