Going home for the holidays was wonderful. I'm so glad I got to spend time with those of you that I did. And for those of you I still haven't seen in a while, let's fix that please.
I returned to CR Sunday January 9 around 10pm. My roommate, Saray, and her best friend Jose Mario came to get me from the airport. They are so great. I definitely hit the jackpot in the roommate situation.
Classes started right back up on Monday evening for me... in San Jose. Politecnico has a campus in downtown San Jose that focuses on curriculum in culinary arts, where I am teaching Monday and Wednesday nights from 6-9pm for at least 8 weeks. The "campus" is a beautiful renovated house with a few small classrooms and a lovely restaurant attached. Teachers get to eat for free at the restaurant, and it's delicious, though I have yet to take real advantage of it given that I mostly work in Heredia. Along with the food, there are a number of pros for working at the San Jose campus: I can take the train there, so my commute is super fast (30 minutes) getting there; the people I work with there are great (both the Politecnico staff and my fellow teachers); and my classes are tiny (I only have 7 people in this class).
The cons: I don't get out til 9pm, and San Jose is dangerous at that time of night; I don't always have access to technology and/or copies; it takes at least an hour to get home between walking to the bus, the bus ride itself and the taxi from downtown Heredia to my apartment; and my class is tiiiiiiiiiiny and super quiet.
Thankfully there are three of us who leave the SJO campus at the same time so that we all walk together for the majority of the walk. It tends to take about 15-20 minutes to walk from Politecnico to the closest bus to Heredia. I walk with Heidi and Delie for most of it, but I have to walk the last 4-5 blocks by myself. Thankfully we walk down the busiest street (pedestrian walkway) so there are lots of people, and often policemen, around to make the walk safe. Regardless, I'm not a big fan and am hoping that any future classes I teach in San Jose are during daylight hours only.
Thursday and Friday Kerensa and I decided to take advantage of the little time we had before the rest of our classes began the next week and get out of the city for the night. We took the 6am bus to Puerto Viejo on Thursday morning and got in at 10:30am. Yes, we took a 4.5 hour bus ride for just one night. It was long, but otherwise fine. Sadly the sun was hiding behind some clouds for the majority of the daylight we had while in Puerto Viejo, so we didn't really get to enjoy the beautiful beach as well as we would have liked, but it was lovely nonetheless. It started raining late in the afternoon while we were taking advantage of the hammocks at Rockin J's, where we stayed. Unfortunately it didn't really stop raining until after we left the next day, but it was alright.
We spent most of Thursday walking around, eating delicious food, and reading in the hammocks. The evening consisted of dinner and drinks at Rocking J's - they actually have pretty good food - and handing around with other travelers. We met a couple hilarious Canadians with whom we swapped stories until we passed out early in our tent. Kerensa and I woke up to catch the 9am bus back to San Jose/Heredia so Kerensa could go to work at 6pm that night. It was still raining when we got up on Friday, so there wasn't much incentive to staying much longer anyway. Rocking J's was pretty fabulous though, I would like to go back there again some time. The entire place is covered with mosaic artwork. Stellar. It was nice to get out of the city before all the other classes started on Monday.
We got back on Friday in time for Kerensa to make it to work (barely) that night. The next morning started my 8-week Saturday class. My Saturday class is the only class I am teaching (so far) that I have actually taught before, so I get to use a lot of my old lesson plans, thankfully. However, this class is absolutely huge. It turns out that Politecnico has so many people signed up for Saturday classes that we don't have enough space (or teachers) to accommodate them, so the class sizes for the Sat. classes are twice the size they are supposed to be. I have 21 students in this class. Now, in comparison to the 30-student classes I taught at OPRF, 21 is a great number. However, teaching 21 students who are used to having only 10 people in their class and who are at completely different proficiency levels is rough. For the most part they are a good group, but there are some students who are clearly struggling, and since I only have one four hour class with them, I can't do as much as I would like to be able to... This week is the midterm, however, so that should give me a better idea of what students are really in need of extra help.
Saturday after class, I met Kerensa and her roommate Jackie downtown San Jose to hop a bus to Palmares. Palmares is (1) a small town to the northwest of SJO, and (2) a 10 day long festival of music and general belligerence. Jackie, Kerensa and I arrived late afternoon on Saturday, and dropped our stuff off at the place we were staying. During the festival, the locals rent out their extra rooms and/or couches for ridiculously high prices, and we ended up at one of Jackie's coworker's cousin's places (I think) for $10/night. Kerensa and I shared a tiny single bed while Jackie slept on the world's smallest cot. Though, considering our alternative (taking the last bus back to San Jose and then sharing an expensive taxi to get back to Heredia) it was well worth it, even with the rooster crowing all night long.
Saturday night was the Calle 13 concert. They are a fabulous band from Puerto Rico. It was free. Beers were $2. Pretty awesome. There were, however, a ridiculous amount of people there. It was insane. At first we tried going in to the actual enclosed concert space - it took about twenty minutes to get just inside the barrier. There were so many people you could barely breathe, let alone move around. After less than five minutes, we decided we had had enough and managed to find a spot next to a tower with some breathing room. Much better. Apparently the three of us were really lucky because basically every other person we knew who went was robbed/pickpocketed. The three of us managed to hold on to everything we came with.
The concert was great, and afterward we ran into a few friends. First we saw Emerson (who I've hung out with before) & the group he was there with, and then we ran into our coworker Zach. Hilarious. The rest of the night we wandered around the festival and saw what there was to see, ate some churros and rode some rides. There is one, la Tagada, that is just ridiculous. I highly recommend looking up a video of it. It spins really fast and then bounces a whole bunch and you are guaranteed to walk away with bruises. I am still confused as to why we went on it. We also went through the haunted house, which was another hilarious adventure. Basically it is just a pitch-black maze where random people jump out at you with weapons they bang against the wall. It was a fun night.
The next day we woke up late, grabbed breakfast and headed back to the fairgrounds for some more music. The concert we went for on Sunday was Luis Enrique, who was pretty good. There were a lot less people though, so it was a bit more enjoyable in that regard. Lots of dancing and day drinking. Elvis Crespo came on later, but we had left by then since all three of us had to work the next morning. So, after the Luis Enrique concert, we grabbed our stuff and hopped the bus back to SJO & Heredia. All in all it was a great way to spend the first week back in Costa Rica. Good people and good fun, despite the bad sunburn. :)
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