Ahh, yes. The end is near. Allow me to reflect (some more).
To Take Away
There were three things I wanted to get out of this experience. First and foremost, I wanted to improve my Spanish. I had taken 6 years of Spanish in school, and I could hardly speak the language. That was a waste, and I wanted to change that situation. Second, I wanted to experience a different culture. And third, I was hoping that having to do everything in a different language and a different environment would force me to be more outgoing.
The reality of what I will take away is very different from what I had imagined. Yes, my Spanish is better (but I'm still not fluent by any stretch of the imagination, so don't get your hopes up) and I have experienced another culture. (I'm not any more outgoing. I should just give up on that.) But more importantly, I have a totally new level of respect for foreigners, and I have a much deeper appreciation for what I have in my life.
To Sum Up
If I had to sum up this trip in one sentence (Me? Sum up? In one sentence? Yes, this is rare indeed) I would say this: You don't know what you've got 'till you don't got it anymore.
There you go. That is the most important thing I have learned from this experience. Admittedly, it will be hard to apply that in the future because I won't appreciate many of the things I have (unless, by chance, I happen to not have them anymore) , but I hope I can take the time to think about all the great things I've got and truly appreciate them for what they are.
It's weird, but I feel like I've finally gotten used to being here, just in the last month or so. I am still excited to be reunited with home, but it will be weird (but also wonderful) to order food in English and drive my car and do whatever I want whenever I want. It's weird to think that home will be weird to me. That's a lot of weird, I guess, but whatever.
To head off some questions
Since I know it is inevitable that someone will ask, I'll just go ahead and respond...
So, how was your trip?
Err.... how was the last 5 months of your life? Good? No way! My trip was good too.
Say something in Spanish!
Algo.
What have you learned?
See above.
What was your favorite part of the trip?
I dislike this question. How about you go through my blog, pick whichever post YOU like best, and pretend that I told you that that was my favorite part of the trip.
Do you have any regrets?
Regretfully, yes. I wish I had spoken Spanish more often with my grupo buddies. I would be a lot better now if I had. I wish I had chosen different classes -- ones NOT all in the School of Geography. I wish I had gotten to see more of Costa Rica and go back to Arenal Volcano. I wish that I had gotten to go to Nicaragua (for real, not just on the plane). Also, the Panama Canal was cool, but honestly, we have cities in the U.S. I think I would have been better off spending my time enjoying whatever I could of the natural paradise, because we are short on that back in my neck of the woods.
What will you miss the most?
My grupo buddies, for sure.
What WON'T you miss?
Um... let's see here. Waiting for the bus. Finding (and paying for) taxis. Rain. Being served food. Really super noisy trucks/vehicles. The Huevos Man.
Is that really all I can think of? That all boils down to transportation, food, and noise. That's not much at all.
To say...
This is probably going to be my last entry. I suppose I might make a post when I get back about how readjustment is going and to complain about how cold I am, but we'll see. So anyway, here's where I say "Peace out, Costa Rica. Peace out."
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Adventures in Panama
I will say right now that this will probably be long. Sorry 'bout that, although it isn't easy to sum up 5 jam-packed days of Panamanian adventures in a small amount of space (especially not for me).
So, I shall start from the beginning, because this will become important later. The beginning is, of course, buying our tickets for this adventure back in November. Me and the other girl I was traveling with both bought our tickets online, at the same time. We used two different computers on two different connections, although we were talking to each other on Skype to make sure we had the same flights and stuff. We clicked on the 7am flight going there, and the 11am flight coming back. Both of these flights were $34. When we went to check out, the total said $68 for the flight, and $123 or something for the taxes. The total was $191. That was lame of them, but we bought the tickets anyway. We both remember seeing another page that showed different totals ... I remember mine being $90 something for the flight, and then something different for taxes -- but the total was still $191, so I didn't really care. They sent us a confirmation e-mail, but neither of us checked these e-mails because we didn't think we had to. (We won't be making that mistake again.)
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 4
On the day we left, I woke up at 3:50 am. This was to meet the taxi at 4, pick up the other girl, and get ourselves to the airport by 5-ish (the flight left at 6:55 am). We enjoyed a relatively uneventful flight. Copa even gave us food, although (naturally) it had pig in it that was not pick-off-able. (Jerks.) We landed in Panama City, got off the plane, and looked at each other ... Now what? We didn't have any real plan, other than to take the bus. But of course, we had no idea how the Panamanian bus system worked, where to catch it, or anything like that. So we asked about 10 people, and eventually walked to the correct bus stop. The guy we were talking to at the bus stop said we wanted the Corredor bus -- it costs more, but is faster. The other buses work too, but they take longer. We waited and waited and waited for a Corredor bus, but it never came. Finally we got tired of waiting in the heat (it is HOT in Panama. Think like, end of June in Kansas) and just took one of the regular buses. The guidebook wasn't kidding about the 2 hours part. That bus "ride" was best defined as sitting in traffic, periodically interspersed with small amounts of movement.
Just as we didn't know where to catch the bus, we also had no idea where to get off. Each of the 5 or so people we asked on the bus gave us a different answer. This is just the first of many examples of what I have decided to call the "Panamanian Invent-an-Answer Syndrome." We have come to the conclusion that a lot of people don't actually know the answer to what you're asking, so they just tell you whatever they THINK the answer is, which is often wrong and always conflicts with the answers other people have invented. Okay, so anyway, someone who seemed to know what they were talking about told us to get off in the middle of this random street downtown. We had absolutely no idea where we were, or where the mysterious "Plaza Cinco de Mayo" was that we were supposed to be finding. The plan was to take a taxi, because surely the taxi would know where our hostel was. Only thing was, we couldn't get a taxi to stop for us. At least 20 perfectly good, empty taxis refused to stop for us. They would just look at us, shake their heads, and keep driving. After about 10 minutes, we FINALLY got a taxi to stop for us. The other girl was trying to negotiate the price, and I was like, "I DON'T CARE! GET IN! HE STOPPED!" (This is another theory of mine... they don't stop, so finally when someone does, you're so glad they stopped that you'll pay any price).
It was a good thing that the taxis in Panama use a flat rate system in this case, because the guy obviously did not know where our hostel was. This was new to us. In Costa Rica, the taxi drivers always know what you're talking about and can take you somewhere with very little direction-giving on your part. Or, if they don't know where you're going, they say they don't know. But so this guy drove around Casco Viejo (the neighborhood where we stayed) for a good 10 minutes. When he got us to the STREET the hostel was on, he was like, "Okay, you're here." Jerk. So we paid him and had to walk to our hostel from there, although it wasn't that far. We didn't get in until almost 1 (the flight landed at 9 something), and we were too exhausted to do anything else that day except walk up the street a little bit and check out the grocery store/buy pizza for dinner. (The pizza and a drink was like, $3. Food is cheap in Panama.)
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 5
We started the day off with a hearty breakfast of pancakes, provided by our hostel. (They have a make-your-own pancakes thing for breakfast every day, for free.) After that, we walked outside and spent another 10 minutes trying to flag down a taxi to take us to the Parque Metropolitana. This is a park just north (?) of the city, and it's like a nature reserve. The guidebook made it sound really cool, but they didn't mention the hiking part. (Remember that my definition of "hiking" is somewhat different from most people's). It didn't help that the park ranger led us to the more difficult of the two first trails, and then we wanted to see the viewing area, which involved taking a more difficult trail up, and a more difficult trail down (the reason it's a viewpoint is because it's at the top of a small mountain/really big hill). We took many "nature breaks" (sitting and resting so that we could ... "enjoy nature"). The views from the top were pretty neat, although the whole thing wasn't quite as cool as I'd thought. It also didn't help that it was 900 degrees and 500% humidity. The trees cooled it off to about 800 degrees, but we were still sweaty and gross.
After that, we went to Mi Pueblito. The guidebook says this has an artisan market and life-size replicas of different kinds of historical villages or something. It's supposed to be touristy, but still worth seeing. Of course, when we told the guy at the end of the trail (he was helping get us a taxi) that we wanted to go there, he didn't really know where that was, and we had to explain very carefully to avoid another instance Panamanian Invent-an-Answer Syndrome. Once we got there, we wandered over to the artisan market area. This was pretty weak. Maybe there was more that we didn't see, but basically it was a handful of small, totally overpriced shops selling stuff. There was also a restaurant selling food, although $8-10 a plate was way too rich for our meager budget (this ends up being ironic). We walked through one of the villages, although it wasn't very interesting. After that, we decided to go to the mall to enjoy some air conditioning and get lunch.
Albrook Mall (I'm pretty sure "Albrook" was one of the U.S. neighborhoods in the Panama Canal Zone ... so no, "Albrook" is not a Spanish word) is HUGE, and it also happens to be connected to the Albrook bus terminal. This is the terminal where all the buses end up eventually. The terminal and the mall are both brand spanking new, and a good chunk of the mall isn't finished/doesn't have stores in it yet. However, there are still plenty of shopping choices to satiate any retail therapy needs. The first thing we did was find the food court (which was hard, since they didn't have mall directories anywhere) and get lunch. We ended up getting mediocre mall chinese food (mall chinese food is always mediocre, and I don't know why I am incapable of remembering that). Mine was $6 and the other girl's was $9. (Ironic how we didn't want to eat at the other place because it was "too expensive" eh?) After that, we got our shopping on -- I wasn't expecting to find cheap stuff in such a new mall, but we actually found some good deals. The best was in a store called "El Costo." You know when you go to, say, JCPenney's or Kohls, and they're having a huge clearance sale? And then you have a coupon on top of that? Plus everything is marked down an additional 20%? And you walk out of the store feeling like you stole that shirt for $3? This is what El Costo is like -- except you don't need coupons or clearance sales. I found a bunch more earrings (which I DID not need... I've been earring deprived my whole life, and now that I've figured out I can wear them, I've turned into an earring fiend) for like, $0.79 each pair, plus a few other random little things. This trip was the first of 3 El Costo runs we had while in Panama. When we finally finished our mall run, we were, once again, exhausted, and we returned to our hostel. There was probably additional taxi/bus drama, but I don't remember exactly what happened.
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 6
PANAMA CANAL, BABY! This was what I had REALLY wanted to see in Panama, so I was super excited. We managed to find the correct bus to take us there, and the bus driver actually told us where to get off (in the right spot, even!) We met two other girls studying in Costa Rica and vacationing in Panama while we were walking from the bus stop to the canal, and we ended up hanging out with them for the rest of the day and on Sunday. Anyway, the specific viewing spot we went to was the Miraflores Locks. They have a huge visitors center set up there, with two viewing decks, and, if you pay for it, exhibits and a film. We got there just in time to watch a ship go though, which was really cool. The film was kind of weak (it could have explained a lot more of the history and stuff), but sitting in cushy chairs in an air-conditioned auditorium made it okay. When we finished at the canal, we went back to the terminal and ate at Niko's Cafe. The setup was confusing for us (it was a giant, multi-part lunch counter) and we didn't really know how much anything cost. My food ended up being about $5, which wasn't too bad.
After lunch, we decided to go to Panama Viejo (not to be confused with Casco Viej0). Panama Viejo is the ruins of the old Panama City -- it was sacked by, if I'm remembering correctly, the pirate Captain Morgan way back when. Naturally, we got on a bus and didn't know when to get off. I saw the ruins as we were driving by them, but I figured the bus driver would stop if that was actually where we were supposed to get off. He didn't, so I didn't say anything. We ended up in the Balboa neighborhood, and we had to take a bus back to the ruins once we figured it all out. This was really cool too, although my camera ran out of batteries and I was exhausted, so I didn't look around as much as I probably should have. There was also another (overpriced) artisan market where I didn't buy anything. We took a bus back to Plaza Cinco de Mayo, which is within walking distance of our hostel. I'm pretty sure that that night I went down to the fish market and got some fish, which I went back to the hostel and cooked. It was pretty good, although it could have used more salt/seasoning (it didn't help that, due to the humidity, all the salt in the hostel was in clod formation). I suppose I should also mention now that our hostel had a big home-made theater, and we watched movies pretty much every night. We had gotten popcorn and candy (snickers and almond Hershey's kisses) at the grocery store, although they didn't have a microwave for the popcorn, so we made a rather unsuccessful attempt to pop it on the stove.
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 7
We woke up late and took our time eating and getting ready, which meant that we were rushing to get to the ferry to Isla Taboga. Our taxi driver had to ask another taxi driver for directions to the ferry (this was not the first or only time this happened), but he made up for it by speeding like a maniac to get down there. We arrived at 10:29, and the ferry supposedly left at 10:30. It actually ended up leaving around 10:40, but we still just made it. We saw all kinds of ships on the way to the island, and the beach/ocean there was fantastic. It was so hot, but the water was clear and refreshingly cold. I had my snorkeling gear, and I saw some neat fish. We met up with the girls from Saturday there, and we all four ended up talking to an American couple who had a house on the island. Turns out that the oldest church in the western hemisphere is located on this island. We wanted to go see it, but we ended up talking for too long, and we forgot/ran out of time. We ate at a restaurant just off the beach -- I got a fried fish (like, a WHOLE fried fish) and fries for like, $5.
Since the ferry left from the Causeway (a long strip of road that leads out into the ocean, more or less), we decided to do the "rent bikes on the Causeway" thing afterwards. We got bikes for $2/hr, and we pedaled almost all the way down (I think the mouth of the canal was at the very end) and back. My two cents on biking: 1) That seat really made my butt hurt. 2) What? No throttle? Psh. Lame. Still though, it was fun.
MONDAY, DECEMBER 8
The day the Panamanian Invent-an-Answer Syndrome struck the hardest, with devastating consequences. We had heard about a beach on the Pacific coast called Playa Santa Clara (playa = beach). We had looked up all the necessary bus/transport stuff at the hostel, but of course, it couldn't be that easy. Our directions said to take this one bus, which you can catch at the Plaza Cinco de Mayo. We got to the Plaza and asked around if that bus would come by. We were told it went by the other corner. So we went to the other corner and asked again. They asked where we were going, and when we told them, they said we had to take a bus to the terminal, then take the Ancon bus from there. That wasn't what our directions had said, but we just went along with what they said. (We figured maybe the directions were from before the terminal existed or something).
When we got to the terminal, we asked one person where the Ancon buses were. He pointed down the central area. We walked that way for a while without seeing it. So we asked someone else. They pointed further down the way we were going. We kept walking. When we got to the end, we still didn't see it. We asked another person, and they pointed around the corner. As we were going through the turnstile (you have to pay 5 cents to get into most of the areas where the buses leave), we asked the woman there if the Ancon buses to Santa Clara left from this area. She said yes, and the sign confirmed this, so we figured we were okay. But then we couldn't find the bus. We asked one guy, and he pointed us to the right. We walked that way, didn't see it, and asked someone else. That guy said we had to go around this gate thing. We did that, but it didn't look right, so we asked another person. That guy sent us back the way we came, but we still didn't see the bus. Finally we asked a woman at the ticket counter, and she pointed to a yellow bus with "Santa Clara" written on it. Since it had "Santa Clara" written on it, we figured we were okay. We got seats on the bus (thankfully), although we waited probably about 20 minutes before it left (keep in mind that it was, as always, wicked hot on that bus).
As we're on the bus, it keeps stopping to pick up people. After a while, it gets full ("full" is a relative term). But then, another mile down the road, it stops again, and there are at least another 15-20 people who want on. I was looking at them like, "Sorry, looks like you're out of luck." Except they weren't. They all squeezed on that bus. There were probably about 8 people standing on the stairs/right next to the driver, and there were two guys who each had about one foot on the first stair and were hanging on to the outside of the bus. It was INSANE. Eventually most of them got off, which improved the air circulation situation on the bus. After about an hour on the bus (the trip to the beach was supposed to take 1.5 to 2 hours), the bus driver told us to get off at the next stop for the beach. We got off, and it kind of looked like what was described to us ... I mean, get off, and there's a road, and you go down that road to get to the beach. We asked a girl sitting at the bus stop where the beach was. She gave us a really weird look and was like, "There's no beach here." We asked, "We're in Santa Clara, right?" and she said yes, but that there wasn't a beach there. There was a river, but no beach.
Let me interrupt the story here to say WHAT?!! We most definitely told everyone we asked for directions that we wanted to go to PLAYA Santa Clara. The other girl could pass for a Panamanian, but I look totally gringa. WHY would a gringa want to go to a small mountainside town to swim in the local river? This means that the 3 people we originally asked for bus directions, the 5 or 6 people at the terminal, plus the bus driver all told us the wrong thing. I repeat, WHAT?!! I don't know how you could misunderstand "playa" or the fact that there would be no reason for me to go to some random river, yet somehow, all those people told us the wrong thing. I boil this down (perhaps somewhat unfairly) to Panamanian Invent-an-Answer Syndrome.
To resume the story: Since we were already there, we figured we might as well check out this river. We walked to a little store and got directions. There was a local kid there, and he lived near the river, so he showed us the way. Turns out the river is at the bottom of this gigantic hill. We walked down that and got to the river/swimming hole. There was a little waterfall, and a pool at the base of it where two guys were swimming. It looked relatively clean, but I wasn't getting in. I just wanted to go back to the hostel and take a long cold shower, but the other girl wanted to stay a while. She swam for a bit, I dunked my head in the water, and then we left. Climbing back up that hill was horrible, and it didn't help that the two guys there left right after we did, caught up to us on the hill, and then spent the rest of the walk back murmuring piropos at us in a continuous stream while trying to take photos of us with a cell phone. (I did mention that men in Panama are out of control with the piropos).
We got back, I took a long cold shower, at pizza for dinner, and we watched movies that night. I was sad that we'd already eaten all the candy.
I was downstairs reading later, and the other girl I was with was on the computer. At some point, she came down and said, "Um, I just checked the "print your boarding pass" e-mail, and it says our flight is at 8am, not 11." I went upstairs to the computer she was using, and sure enough, it said 8. Then we checked the original confirmation e-mail, and it said 20:38. Turns out we'd read the am wrong ... according to the e-mail, our flight actually left at 8:38 pm. Naturally, we were both confused and kind of angry. We picked the 11am flights so we wouldn't have to take a $30 taxi from the airport to San Jose, but that wasn't an option if the flight didn't get back till almost 9. (There's a time change between Panama and Costa Rica). The other girl tried to call the airline, but nobody answered their "24 hour" hotline. I used their complaint form to let them know what was up. We went to bed not knowing what was going on, although we planned to wake up early so we could call first thing in the morning.
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 9
In the morning, the other girl finally got ahold of the airline. They told us that we had booked the 8pm flight, and they didn't want to listen to what we were saying about how we had clicked on the 11am flight. The also answered my e-mail and told me pretty much the same thing. They also wouldn't pay our taxi in San Jose, nor refund the difference in money between the flights (the other girl is convinced that the 8pm flight was $124 instead of $34, and we got charged the $124... which is possible/likely, I suppose, but that's not how I remember the breakdown of charges).
This meant that we had all day to hang around or come up with something to do. We goofed off on the hostel's computers for most of the morning. After that, we went around to take pictures of Casco Viejo, which is actually a really neat neighborhood. A little before noon, we left the hostel for the mall, which I was quite happy about. The mall has AC. We dropped off our bags at the paqueteria (they make you leave all your bags when you go into stores, and they staple your bags of bought stuff shut when you check out ... they're really paranoid about theft, I guess) and hung out/shopped. We went on our 3rd run to El Costo (#2 happened one of the other days at the El Costo location near Plaza Cinco de Mayo), and I got a watch for $4. So long as you don't look at it closely, it looks really fancy and nice.
Around 5pm, we headed through the terminal to find the Corredor bus to the airport. The line was long, but thankfully the buses came quickly, and we got on one by 5:20. It probably took about an hour to get to the airport because of all the traffic, but the lines in the airport weren't too bad either. When we got to the counter, the other girl I was with began to explain the whole fiasco with the tickets. She wanted them to pay the taxi and the difference between the prices, but they kept telling us no, that we had booked the 8pm flight and there wasn't anything they could do. Of course, all of this took 3 times longer than it needed to because we were talking in Spanish, and there was a lot of misunderstanding (or presumed misunderstanding) going on. The airline's version of the story is that we clicked on the 11am flight, got a warning message that the 11am flight was full (although we know that full flights don't show up on their website), and that it told us we'd be on the 8pm flight, and we continued from there. How BOTH of us missed this warning message is beyond me. We still think that it never gave us the warning message, but whatever. The airline refused to do anything about it, so we gave up and went to go wait for our plane.
We were supposed to start boarding at 7:38, but we didn't start until like, 8:10. I was supposed meet one of my other grupo buddies that night to see her for the last time, but I wasn't going to be able to do that if the plane was late. Thankfully, they got everyone boarded, and we left not too late, like 8:45 or something. However, once we got to San Jose, we couldn't land. The plane would start descending, and then speed up and ascend rapidly. We did that about three or four times before they told us that we couldn't land due to "bad conditions" (I think it was fog/clouds) and that we'd either be going back to Panama City or to Manauga (capital of Nicaragua). About 5 minutes later, they decided on Managua. Me and the other girl were pretty ticked off at this point, because we weren't even supposed to be on this flight anyway, and now it was all messed up. But then we started to think about opportunities ... like perhaps getting Nicaragua passport stamps, and visiting the city (or at least stepping outside the airport and then running back inside ... Managua is kind of sketch). But alas, it was not meant to be. We landed in Nicaragua, and they told us to stay seated while they refueled the plane. That took about 40 minutes, and then they said they were going to try San Jose again because conditions were better, and if that failed, we'd go back to Panama City. So I've been in Nicaraguan territory, but I don't really think I can say I've been to Nicaragua since I wasn't even allowed off the plane.
This time we managed to land in San Jose, but it was after 11 at night. At least the line at customs wasn't very long. As an added bonus, the other girl went and talked with someone from the airline, and since we'd been delayed and gotten back so late, they agreed to pay for a taxi for us. Score! I was going to write them a really long nasty letter, but since they paid for the taxi (which is what I really wanted anyway), I'm not going to. Or well, if I do, it will be to chastise them for the lack of vegetarian/pig-free food on their flights (the flight back we had pepperoni pizza, although at least that was pick-off-able).
I didn't get back to my host family's house until 1 in the morning, which meant that I didn't get to see my grupo buddy that night. I was really sad, but thankfully she stopped by in the morning, so I got to talk to her for a little bit before she had to leave. She also brought me a hammock from Nicaragua (she'd been in Nicaragua while I was in Panama, and I gave her money to get me a hammock since they're so cheap there). Note to parental units: This hammock will be hung in one of my two rooms, so I suggest you work on figuring out a way to do that before I come back.
REFLECTIONS ON PANAMA
It's amazing how different two countries can be when they're so close together (and so small) and they use the same languange. Sure, there are similarities -- Costa Ricans have been known to suffer from Panamanian Invent-an-Answer Syndrome at times, although the Panamanians win that contest hands down, and the Costa Ricans also do the "leave your bags at the door and let us staple the bag with your purchases shut which will render the bag useless for future reuse because you will invariably rip it when you open it" thing, but there are so many differences too. The Panamanians have a slightly different accent (they don't pronounce their the letter "s" and they don't do the ll=j thing) and their country, their climate, their buses, their taxis, their streets, their buildings, their food .... it's all definitely not the same as in Costa Rica. Even though Panama City is a much prettier place, I prefer Costa Rica/San Jose. Some of that likely boils down to familarity and climate preferences, but I just think Costa Rica is better.
It was weird how by the end of Panama, I was ready to go home... to my Costa Rican home. I never thought I'd feel that way or call where I live in Costa Rica "home," but I guess I've finally gotten used to being here (plus compared to Panama, Costa Rica is much more like home). I mean, it's not HOME home, but it's a home, and that's something. The Panamanian buses and taxis also made me appreciate the Costa Rican buses and taxis, which I've never particularly liked before now. (Once again, you never appreciate what you've got until you don't got it anymore).
Going to Panama made me realize exactly how much help we had and how sheltered we were in the Grupo program. We got picked up at the airport by our wonderful English-speaking program coordinators, our host families took us home and showed us the buses, and we had each other to rely on. In Panama, we walked off the plane and had no idea how anything worked or where anything was. I suppose we could have researched better and known more, but even that wouldn't compare to the support we had in Costa Rica.
So, I shall start from the beginning, because this will become important later. The beginning is, of course, buying our tickets for this adventure back in November. Me and the other girl I was traveling with both bought our tickets online, at the same time. We used two different computers on two different connections, although we were talking to each other on Skype to make sure we had the same flights and stuff. We clicked on the 7am flight going there, and the 11am flight coming back. Both of these flights were $34. When we went to check out, the total said $68 for the flight, and $123 or something for the taxes. The total was $191. That was lame of them, but we bought the tickets anyway. We both remember seeing another page that showed different totals ... I remember mine being $90 something for the flight, and then something different for taxes -- but the total was still $191, so I didn't really care. They sent us a confirmation e-mail, but neither of us checked these e-mails because we didn't think we had to. (We won't be making that mistake again.)
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 4
On the day we left, I woke up at 3:50 am. This was to meet the taxi at 4, pick up the other girl, and get ourselves to the airport by 5-ish (the flight left at 6:55 am). We enjoyed a relatively uneventful flight. Copa even gave us food, although (naturally) it had pig in it that was not pick-off-able. (Jerks.) We landed in Panama City, got off the plane, and looked at each other ... Now what? We didn't have any real plan, other than to take the bus. But of course, we had no idea how the Panamanian bus system worked, where to catch it, or anything like that. So we asked about 10 people, and eventually walked to the correct bus stop. The guy we were talking to at the bus stop said we wanted the Corredor bus -- it costs more, but is faster. The other buses work too, but they take longer. We waited and waited and waited for a Corredor bus, but it never came. Finally we got tired of waiting in the heat (it is HOT in Panama. Think like, end of June in Kansas) and just took one of the regular buses. The guidebook wasn't kidding about the 2 hours part. That bus "ride" was best defined as sitting in traffic, periodically interspersed with small amounts of movement.
Just as we didn't know where to catch the bus, we also had no idea where to get off. Each of the 5 or so people we asked on the bus gave us a different answer. This is just the first of many examples of what I have decided to call the "Panamanian Invent-an-Answer Syndrome." We have come to the conclusion that a lot of people don't actually know the answer to what you're asking, so they just tell you whatever they THINK the answer is, which is often wrong and always conflicts with the answers other people have invented. Okay, so anyway, someone who seemed to know what they were talking about told us to get off in the middle of this random street downtown. We had absolutely no idea where we were, or where the mysterious "Plaza Cinco de Mayo" was that we were supposed to be finding. The plan was to take a taxi, because surely the taxi would know where our hostel was. Only thing was, we couldn't get a taxi to stop for us. At least 20 perfectly good, empty taxis refused to stop for us. They would just look at us, shake their heads, and keep driving. After about 10 minutes, we FINALLY got a taxi to stop for us. The other girl was trying to negotiate the price, and I was like, "I DON'T CARE! GET IN! HE STOPPED!" (This is another theory of mine... they don't stop, so finally when someone does, you're so glad they stopped that you'll pay any price).
It was a good thing that the taxis in Panama use a flat rate system in this case, because the guy obviously did not know where our hostel was. This was new to us. In Costa Rica, the taxi drivers always know what you're talking about and can take you somewhere with very little direction-giving on your part. Or, if they don't know where you're going, they say they don't know. But so this guy drove around Casco Viejo (the neighborhood where we stayed) for a good 10 minutes. When he got us to the STREET the hostel was on, he was like, "Okay, you're here." Jerk. So we paid him and had to walk to our hostel from there, although it wasn't that far. We didn't get in until almost 1 (the flight landed at 9 something), and we were too exhausted to do anything else that day except walk up the street a little bit and check out the grocery store/buy pizza for dinner. (The pizza and a drink was like, $3. Food is cheap in Panama.)
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 5
We started the day off with a hearty breakfast of pancakes, provided by our hostel. (They have a make-your-own pancakes thing for breakfast every day, for free.) After that, we walked outside and spent another 10 minutes trying to flag down a taxi to take us to the Parque Metropolitana. This is a park just north (?) of the city, and it's like a nature reserve. The guidebook made it sound really cool, but they didn't mention the hiking part. (Remember that my definition of "hiking" is somewhat different from most people's). It didn't help that the park ranger led us to the more difficult of the two first trails, and then we wanted to see the viewing area, which involved taking a more difficult trail up, and a more difficult trail down (the reason it's a viewpoint is because it's at the top of a small mountain/really big hill). We took many "nature breaks" (sitting and resting so that we could ... "enjoy nature"). The views from the top were pretty neat, although the whole thing wasn't quite as cool as I'd thought. It also didn't help that it was 900 degrees and 500% humidity. The trees cooled it off to about 800 degrees, but we were still sweaty and gross.
After that, we went to Mi Pueblito. The guidebook says this has an artisan market and life-size replicas of different kinds of historical villages or something. It's supposed to be touristy, but still worth seeing. Of course, when we told the guy at the end of the trail (he was helping get us a taxi) that we wanted to go there, he didn't really know where that was, and we had to explain very carefully to avoid another instance Panamanian Invent-an-Answer Syndrome. Once we got there, we wandered over to the artisan market area. This was pretty weak. Maybe there was more that we didn't see, but basically it was a handful of small, totally overpriced shops selling stuff. There was also a restaurant selling food, although $8-10 a plate was way too rich for our meager budget (this ends up being ironic). We walked through one of the villages, although it wasn't very interesting. After that, we decided to go to the mall to enjoy some air conditioning and get lunch.
Albrook Mall (I'm pretty sure "Albrook" was one of the U.S. neighborhoods in the Panama Canal Zone ... so no, "Albrook" is not a Spanish word) is HUGE, and it also happens to be connected to the Albrook bus terminal. This is the terminal where all the buses end up eventually. The terminal and the mall are both brand spanking new, and a good chunk of the mall isn't finished/doesn't have stores in it yet. However, there are still plenty of shopping choices to satiate any retail therapy needs. The first thing we did was find the food court (which was hard, since they didn't have mall directories anywhere) and get lunch. We ended up getting mediocre mall chinese food (mall chinese food is always mediocre, and I don't know why I am incapable of remembering that). Mine was $6 and the other girl's was $9. (Ironic how we didn't want to eat at the other place because it was "too expensive" eh?) After that, we got our shopping on -- I wasn't expecting to find cheap stuff in such a new mall, but we actually found some good deals. The best was in a store called "El Costo." You know when you go to, say, JCPenney's or Kohls, and they're having a huge clearance sale? And then you have a coupon on top of that? Plus everything is marked down an additional 20%? And you walk out of the store feeling like you stole that shirt for $3? This is what El Costo is like -- except you don't need coupons or clearance sales. I found a bunch more earrings (which I DID not need... I've been earring deprived my whole life, and now that I've figured out I can wear them, I've turned into an earring fiend) for like, $0.79 each pair, plus a few other random little things. This trip was the first of 3 El Costo runs we had while in Panama. When we finally finished our mall run, we were, once again, exhausted, and we returned to our hostel. There was probably additional taxi/bus drama, but I don't remember exactly what happened.
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 6
PANAMA CANAL, BABY! This was what I had REALLY wanted to see in Panama, so I was super excited. We managed to find the correct bus to take us there, and the bus driver actually told us where to get off (in the right spot, even!) We met two other girls studying in Costa Rica and vacationing in Panama while we were walking from the bus stop to the canal, and we ended up hanging out with them for the rest of the day and on Sunday. Anyway, the specific viewing spot we went to was the Miraflores Locks. They have a huge visitors center set up there, with two viewing decks, and, if you pay for it, exhibits and a film. We got there just in time to watch a ship go though, which was really cool. The film was kind of weak (it could have explained a lot more of the history and stuff), but sitting in cushy chairs in an air-conditioned auditorium made it okay. When we finished at the canal, we went back to the terminal and ate at Niko's Cafe. The setup was confusing for us (it was a giant, multi-part lunch counter) and we didn't really know how much anything cost. My food ended up being about $5, which wasn't too bad.
After lunch, we decided to go to Panama Viejo (not to be confused with Casco Viej0). Panama Viejo is the ruins of the old Panama City -- it was sacked by, if I'm remembering correctly, the pirate Captain Morgan way back when. Naturally, we got on a bus and didn't know when to get off. I saw the ruins as we were driving by them, but I figured the bus driver would stop if that was actually where we were supposed to get off. He didn't, so I didn't say anything. We ended up in the Balboa neighborhood, and we had to take a bus back to the ruins once we figured it all out. This was really cool too, although my camera ran out of batteries and I was exhausted, so I didn't look around as much as I probably should have. There was also another (overpriced) artisan market where I didn't buy anything. We took a bus back to Plaza Cinco de Mayo, which is within walking distance of our hostel. I'm pretty sure that that night I went down to the fish market and got some fish, which I went back to the hostel and cooked. It was pretty good, although it could have used more salt/seasoning (it didn't help that, due to the humidity, all the salt in the hostel was in clod formation). I suppose I should also mention now that our hostel had a big home-made theater, and we watched movies pretty much every night. We had gotten popcorn and candy (snickers and almond Hershey's kisses) at the grocery store, although they didn't have a microwave for the popcorn, so we made a rather unsuccessful attempt to pop it on the stove.
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 7
We woke up late and took our time eating and getting ready, which meant that we were rushing to get to the ferry to Isla Taboga. Our taxi driver had to ask another taxi driver for directions to the ferry (this was not the first or only time this happened), but he made up for it by speeding like a maniac to get down there. We arrived at 10:29, and the ferry supposedly left at 10:30. It actually ended up leaving around 10:40, but we still just made it. We saw all kinds of ships on the way to the island, and the beach/ocean there was fantastic. It was so hot, but the water was clear and refreshingly cold. I had my snorkeling gear, and I saw some neat fish. We met up with the girls from Saturday there, and we all four ended up talking to an American couple who had a house on the island. Turns out that the oldest church in the western hemisphere is located on this island. We wanted to go see it, but we ended up talking for too long, and we forgot/ran out of time. We ate at a restaurant just off the beach -- I got a fried fish (like, a WHOLE fried fish) and fries for like, $5.
Since the ferry left from the Causeway (a long strip of road that leads out into the ocean, more or less), we decided to do the "rent bikes on the Causeway" thing afterwards. We got bikes for $2/hr, and we pedaled almost all the way down (I think the mouth of the canal was at the very end) and back. My two cents on biking: 1) That seat really made my butt hurt. 2) What? No throttle? Psh. Lame. Still though, it was fun.
MONDAY, DECEMBER 8
The day the Panamanian Invent-an-Answer Syndrome struck the hardest, with devastating consequences. We had heard about a beach on the Pacific coast called Playa Santa Clara (playa = beach). We had looked up all the necessary bus/transport stuff at the hostel, but of course, it couldn't be that easy. Our directions said to take this one bus, which you can catch at the Plaza Cinco de Mayo. We got to the Plaza and asked around if that bus would come by. We were told it went by the other corner. So we went to the other corner and asked again. They asked where we were going, and when we told them, they said we had to take a bus to the terminal, then take the Ancon bus from there. That wasn't what our directions had said, but we just went along with what they said. (We figured maybe the directions were from before the terminal existed or something).
When we got to the terminal, we asked one person where the Ancon buses were. He pointed down the central area. We walked that way for a while without seeing it. So we asked someone else. They pointed further down the way we were going. We kept walking. When we got to the end, we still didn't see it. We asked another person, and they pointed around the corner. As we were going through the turnstile (you have to pay 5 cents to get into most of the areas where the buses leave), we asked the woman there if the Ancon buses to Santa Clara left from this area. She said yes, and the sign confirmed this, so we figured we were okay. But then we couldn't find the bus. We asked one guy, and he pointed us to the right. We walked that way, didn't see it, and asked someone else. That guy said we had to go around this gate thing. We did that, but it didn't look right, so we asked another person. That guy sent us back the way we came, but we still didn't see the bus. Finally we asked a woman at the ticket counter, and she pointed to a yellow bus with "Santa Clara" written on it. Since it had "Santa Clara" written on it, we figured we were okay. We got seats on the bus (thankfully), although we waited probably about 20 minutes before it left (keep in mind that it was, as always, wicked hot on that bus).
As we're on the bus, it keeps stopping to pick up people. After a while, it gets full ("full" is a relative term). But then, another mile down the road, it stops again, and there are at least another 15-20 people who want on. I was looking at them like, "Sorry, looks like you're out of luck." Except they weren't. They all squeezed on that bus. There were probably about 8 people standing on the stairs/right next to the driver, and there were two guys who each had about one foot on the first stair and were hanging on to the outside of the bus. It was INSANE. Eventually most of them got off, which improved the air circulation situation on the bus. After about an hour on the bus (the trip to the beach was supposed to take 1.5 to 2 hours), the bus driver told us to get off at the next stop for the beach. We got off, and it kind of looked like what was described to us ... I mean, get off, and there's a road, and you go down that road to get to the beach. We asked a girl sitting at the bus stop where the beach was. She gave us a really weird look and was like, "There's no beach here." We asked, "We're in Santa Clara, right?" and she said yes, but that there wasn't a beach there. There was a river, but no beach.
Let me interrupt the story here to say WHAT?!! We most definitely told everyone we asked for directions that we wanted to go to PLAYA Santa Clara. The other girl could pass for a Panamanian, but I look totally gringa. WHY would a gringa want to go to a small mountainside town to swim in the local river? This means that the 3 people we originally asked for bus directions, the 5 or 6 people at the terminal, plus the bus driver all told us the wrong thing. I repeat, WHAT?!! I don't know how you could misunderstand "playa" or the fact that there would be no reason for me to go to some random river, yet somehow, all those people told us the wrong thing. I boil this down (perhaps somewhat unfairly) to Panamanian Invent-an-Answer Syndrome.
To resume the story: Since we were already there, we figured we might as well check out this river. We walked to a little store and got directions. There was a local kid there, and he lived near the river, so he showed us the way. Turns out the river is at the bottom of this gigantic hill. We walked down that and got to the river/swimming hole. There was a little waterfall, and a pool at the base of it where two guys were swimming. It looked relatively clean, but I wasn't getting in. I just wanted to go back to the hostel and take a long cold shower, but the other girl wanted to stay a while. She swam for a bit, I dunked my head in the water, and then we left. Climbing back up that hill was horrible, and it didn't help that the two guys there left right after we did, caught up to us on the hill, and then spent the rest of the walk back murmuring piropos at us in a continuous stream while trying to take photos of us with a cell phone. (I did mention that men in Panama are out of control with the piropos).
We got back, I took a long cold shower, at pizza for dinner, and we watched movies that night. I was sad that we'd already eaten all the candy.
I was downstairs reading later, and the other girl I was with was on the computer. At some point, she came down and said, "Um, I just checked the "print your boarding pass" e-mail, and it says our flight is at 8am, not 11." I went upstairs to the computer she was using, and sure enough, it said 8. Then we checked the original confirmation e-mail, and it said 20:38. Turns out we'd read the am wrong ... according to the e-mail, our flight actually left at 8:38 pm. Naturally, we were both confused and kind of angry. We picked the 11am flights so we wouldn't have to take a $30 taxi from the airport to San Jose, but that wasn't an option if the flight didn't get back till almost 9. (There's a time change between Panama and Costa Rica). The other girl tried to call the airline, but nobody answered their "24 hour" hotline. I used their complaint form to let them know what was up. We went to bed not knowing what was going on, although we planned to wake up early so we could call first thing in the morning.
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 9
In the morning, the other girl finally got ahold of the airline. They told us that we had booked the 8pm flight, and they didn't want to listen to what we were saying about how we had clicked on the 11am flight. The also answered my e-mail and told me pretty much the same thing. They also wouldn't pay our taxi in San Jose, nor refund the difference in money between the flights (the other girl is convinced that the 8pm flight was $124 instead of $34, and we got charged the $124... which is possible/likely, I suppose, but that's not how I remember the breakdown of charges).
This meant that we had all day to hang around or come up with something to do. We goofed off on the hostel's computers for most of the morning. After that, we went around to take pictures of Casco Viejo, which is actually a really neat neighborhood. A little before noon, we left the hostel for the mall, which I was quite happy about. The mall has AC. We dropped off our bags at the paqueteria (they make you leave all your bags when you go into stores, and they staple your bags of bought stuff shut when you check out ... they're really paranoid about theft, I guess) and hung out/shopped. We went on our 3rd run to El Costo (#2 happened one of the other days at the El Costo location near Plaza Cinco de Mayo), and I got a watch for $4. So long as you don't look at it closely, it looks really fancy and nice.
Around 5pm, we headed through the terminal to find the Corredor bus to the airport. The line was long, but thankfully the buses came quickly, and we got on one by 5:20. It probably took about an hour to get to the airport because of all the traffic, but the lines in the airport weren't too bad either. When we got to the counter, the other girl I was with began to explain the whole fiasco with the tickets. She wanted them to pay the taxi and the difference between the prices, but they kept telling us no, that we had booked the 8pm flight and there wasn't anything they could do. Of course, all of this took 3 times longer than it needed to because we were talking in Spanish, and there was a lot of misunderstanding (or presumed misunderstanding) going on. The airline's version of the story is that we clicked on the 11am flight, got a warning message that the 11am flight was full (although we know that full flights don't show up on their website), and that it told us we'd be on the 8pm flight, and we continued from there. How BOTH of us missed this warning message is beyond me. We still think that it never gave us the warning message, but whatever. The airline refused to do anything about it, so we gave up and went to go wait for our plane.
We were supposed to start boarding at 7:38, but we didn't start until like, 8:10. I was supposed meet one of my other grupo buddies that night to see her for the last time, but I wasn't going to be able to do that if the plane was late. Thankfully, they got everyone boarded, and we left not too late, like 8:45 or something. However, once we got to San Jose, we couldn't land. The plane would start descending, and then speed up and ascend rapidly. We did that about three or four times before they told us that we couldn't land due to "bad conditions" (I think it was fog/clouds) and that we'd either be going back to Panama City or to Manauga (capital of Nicaragua). About 5 minutes later, they decided on Managua. Me and the other girl were pretty ticked off at this point, because we weren't even supposed to be on this flight anyway, and now it was all messed up. But then we started to think about opportunities ... like perhaps getting Nicaragua passport stamps, and visiting the city (or at least stepping outside the airport and then running back inside ... Managua is kind of sketch). But alas, it was not meant to be. We landed in Nicaragua, and they told us to stay seated while they refueled the plane. That took about 40 minutes, and then they said they were going to try San Jose again because conditions were better, and if that failed, we'd go back to Panama City. So I've been in Nicaraguan territory, but I don't really think I can say I've been to Nicaragua since I wasn't even allowed off the plane.
This time we managed to land in San Jose, but it was after 11 at night. At least the line at customs wasn't very long. As an added bonus, the other girl went and talked with someone from the airline, and since we'd been delayed and gotten back so late, they agreed to pay for a taxi for us. Score! I was going to write them a really long nasty letter, but since they paid for the taxi (which is what I really wanted anyway), I'm not going to. Or well, if I do, it will be to chastise them for the lack of vegetarian/pig-free food on their flights (the flight back we had pepperoni pizza, although at least that was pick-off-able).
I didn't get back to my host family's house until 1 in the morning, which meant that I didn't get to see my grupo buddy that night. I was really sad, but thankfully she stopped by in the morning, so I got to talk to her for a little bit before she had to leave. She also brought me a hammock from Nicaragua (she'd been in Nicaragua while I was in Panama, and I gave her money to get me a hammock since they're so cheap there). Note to parental units: This hammock will be hung in one of my two rooms, so I suggest you work on figuring out a way to do that before I come back.
REFLECTIONS ON PANAMA
It's amazing how different two countries can be when they're so close together (and so small) and they use the same languange. Sure, there are similarities -- Costa Ricans have been known to suffer from Panamanian Invent-an-Answer Syndrome at times, although the Panamanians win that contest hands down, and the Costa Ricans also do the "leave your bags at the door and let us staple the bag with your purchases shut which will render the bag useless for future reuse because you will invariably rip it when you open it" thing, but there are so many differences too. The Panamanians have a slightly different accent (they don't pronounce their the letter "s" and they don't do the ll=j thing) and their country, their climate, their buses, their taxis, their streets, their buildings, their food .... it's all definitely not the same as in Costa Rica. Even though Panama City is a much prettier place, I prefer Costa Rica/San Jose. Some of that likely boils down to familarity and climate preferences, but I just think Costa Rica is better.
It was weird how by the end of Panama, I was ready to go home... to my Costa Rican home. I never thought I'd feel that way or call where I live in Costa Rica "home," but I guess I've finally gotten used to being here (plus compared to Panama, Costa Rica is much more like home). I mean, it's not HOME home, but it's a home, and that's something. The Panamanian buses and taxis also made me appreciate the Costa Rican buses and taxis, which I've never particularly liked before now. (Once again, you never appreciate what you've got until you don't got it anymore).
Going to Panama made me realize exactly how much help we had and how sheltered we were in the Grupo program. We got picked up at the airport by our wonderful English-speaking program coordinators, our host families took us home and showed us the buses, and we had each other to rely on. In Panama, we walked off the plane and had no idea how anything worked or where anything was. I suppose we could have researched better and known more, but even that wouldn't compare to the support we had in Costa Rica.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Lo hace mejor
"Lo hace mejor" -- that's my translation of "Does it better," because I think I need a "does it better" discussion -- Central American style. There are some things Panama does better. There are some things Costa Rica does better. Here's a short break-d0wn:
Panama does it better:
1) Modernization. Panama City is eerily like a lot of American cities. I've actually felt like I'm back in KC a few times (using a little selective perception and imagination, of course). They have skyscrapers, and urban-seeming roads, and decently well-marked street names.
2) Character. It's amazing to see how much the history of a country affects what it looks like today. Costa Rica was spared a lot of the colonial nonsense because (if I'm remebering correctly) it was so inaccessible and didn't have a lot of gold or indigenous peoples to exploit. Panama, on the other hand, has a long rich history -- we went to the ruins of Panama Viejo, which was sacked by pirates way back when. Old buildings in Costa Rica just look old and run down. Old, run-down buildings here look cool and have character.
3) Road quality. The roads are a lot better here than in Costa Rica. They're still not quite up to US standards in some places, but overall, they're quite good.
4) Bus system. This is different from buses (see below) because I am referring to the routes and schedules. In Panama, the buses all go from whichever part of town their route covers to the Albrook terminal. From there, you switch onto whichever other bus you want to take. Costa Rica has no such central terminal. If you're switching buses, you have to know where to get off one bus and where to get on to another, and that can be really confusing.
Costa Rica does it better
1) Buses. I never thought I would be complimenting the Costa Rican bus system, but here is just one more example of how you don't realize how good you've got it until you don't got it anymore. Panamanian buses are basically old school buses. They're painted and pimped out (which is cool), but they only have one door. This means that people in the back have to squeeze past everyone in front of them to get out. Also, the aisles are smaller, which makes it even harder to get out. The seats are 3 on one side and 2 on the other, but they're bench seats, and you end up being really squished. Costa Rican buses have defined seats for each person, wider aisles, and two doors. As crowded as I've seen Costa Rican buses get, I've never seen one as crowded as the Panamanian bus we took the other day. It was literally stuffed full of people, and then there were two guys who each had one foot on the step by the door, and then they everything except that foot was hanging outside the bus. INSANE.
2) Taxis. I don't know what it is about taxis here, but we CANNOT catch one to save our lives. A lot of times they'll already have people in them, but we've had at least 20 empty taxis drive by us and just kind of look and shake their heads and keep going. It is SO frustrating. Also, taxis in Panama are flat rate. You add money if you go through more than one zone, or if you have more people, and to some parts of the city it's more. Of course, being foreigners, we don't know how many zones we've been through and we keep getting conflicting information about how much certain areas should cost, so we get ripped off a lot. Costa Rican taxis use a meter, so they really can't rip you off.
3) Piropos (catcalls). Piropos in Panama are out of control. Completely out of control. It's seriously like every 15 seconds we're outside, we have some guy tsking or whistling or honking at us or saying stuff. In Costa Rica, there are some guys on the corner by where I live who will usually say something, but that's about it. San Pedro is mostly students, and they know better than to say stuff, and in downtown San Jose, everyone is too busy trying to get places and/or not get run over while crossing the streets to be making comments to women. I understand it's a cultural thing and I shouldn't be offended, but it's hard. I consider comments like that to be completely disrespectful, and there are times I really just want to go slap some of these guys.
4) Climate. Yeah yeah, it isn't through any great act of the Ticos that they have a better climate (in the central valley, anyhow) but I'm going to include this anyway. Panama is hot. Like, ridiculously hot. I have been sweating nonstop ever since I got here. It feels like the end of June in Kansas, except it's December. This is not going to do good things for the process of reaclimatization. I can't wait to get back to the nice 70-degree weather of San Jose, instead of this cursed 90-degree, 100% humidity stuff here in Panama.
Anyway, I'm trying to get us out of the hostel so we can head to the terminal (there's a huge air-conditioned mall next door) before our flight leaves. We booked the 11am flight, but there was a glitch in Copa's system, and they think we booked the 8pm flight. We called them to tell them, but they didn't care, and they won't even pay for our taxi from the airport in Costa Rica to where we live (if we'd gotten back at 12 pm like we were supposed to, we would have taken a $0.50 bus instead of a $30 taxi). So for anyone reading this, please never use Copa Airlines, because they suck. I'm going to write them a nasty letter later, and I'll also write another entry telling of my Panamanian adventures.
Panama does it better:
1) Modernization. Panama City is eerily like a lot of American cities. I've actually felt like I'm back in KC a few times (using a little selective perception and imagination, of course). They have skyscrapers, and urban-seeming roads, and decently well-marked street names.
2) Character. It's amazing to see how much the history of a country affects what it looks like today. Costa Rica was spared a lot of the colonial nonsense because (if I'm remebering correctly) it was so inaccessible and didn't have a lot of gold or indigenous peoples to exploit. Panama, on the other hand, has a long rich history -- we went to the ruins of Panama Viejo, which was sacked by pirates way back when. Old buildings in Costa Rica just look old and run down. Old, run-down buildings here look cool and have character.
3) Road quality. The roads are a lot better here than in Costa Rica. They're still not quite up to US standards in some places, but overall, they're quite good.
4) Bus system. This is different from buses (see below) because I am referring to the routes and schedules. In Panama, the buses all go from whichever part of town their route covers to the Albrook terminal. From there, you switch onto whichever other bus you want to take. Costa Rica has no such central terminal. If you're switching buses, you have to know where to get off one bus and where to get on to another, and that can be really confusing.
Costa Rica does it better
1) Buses. I never thought I would be complimenting the Costa Rican bus system, but here is just one more example of how you don't realize how good you've got it until you don't got it anymore. Panamanian buses are basically old school buses. They're painted and pimped out (which is cool), but they only have one door. This means that people in the back have to squeeze past everyone in front of them to get out. Also, the aisles are smaller, which makes it even harder to get out. The seats are 3 on one side and 2 on the other, but they're bench seats, and you end up being really squished. Costa Rican buses have defined seats for each person, wider aisles, and two doors. As crowded as I've seen Costa Rican buses get, I've never seen one as crowded as the Panamanian bus we took the other day. It was literally stuffed full of people, and then there were two guys who each had one foot on the step by the door, and then they everything except that foot was hanging outside the bus. INSANE.
2) Taxis. I don't know what it is about taxis here, but we CANNOT catch one to save our lives. A lot of times they'll already have people in them, but we've had at least 20 empty taxis drive by us and just kind of look and shake their heads and keep going. It is SO frustrating. Also, taxis in Panama are flat rate. You add money if you go through more than one zone, or if you have more people, and to some parts of the city it's more. Of course, being foreigners, we don't know how many zones we've been through and we keep getting conflicting information about how much certain areas should cost, so we get ripped off a lot. Costa Rican taxis use a meter, so they really can't rip you off.
3) Piropos (catcalls). Piropos in Panama are out of control. Completely out of control. It's seriously like every 15 seconds we're outside, we have some guy tsking or whistling or honking at us or saying stuff. In Costa Rica, there are some guys on the corner by where I live who will usually say something, but that's about it. San Pedro is mostly students, and they know better than to say stuff, and in downtown San Jose, everyone is too busy trying to get places and/or not get run over while crossing the streets to be making comments to women. I understand it's a cultural thing and I shouldn't be offended, but it's hard. I consider comments like that to be completely disrespectful, and there are times I really just want to go slap some of these guys.
4) Climate. Yeah yeah, it isn't through any great act of the Ticos that they have a better climate (in the central valley, anyhow) but I'm going to include this anyway. Panama is hot. Like, ridiculously hot. I have been sweating nonstop ever since I got here. It feels like the end of June in Kansas, except it's December. This is not going to do good things for the process of reaclimatization. I can't wait to get back to the nice 70-degree weather of San Jose, instead of this cursed 90-degree, 100% humidity stuff here in Panama.
Anyway, I'm trying to get us out of the hostel so we can head to the terminal (there's a huge air-conditioned mall next door) before our flight leaves. We booked the 11am flight, but there was a glitch in Copa's system, and they think we booked the 8pm flight. We called them to tell them, but they didn't care, and they won't even pay for our taxi from the airport in Costa Rica to where we live (if we'd gotten back at 12 pm like we were supposed to, we would have taken a $0.50 bus instead of a $30 taxi). So for anyone reading this, please never use Copa Airlines, because they suck. I'm going to write them a nasty letter later, and I'll also write another entry telling of my Panamanian adventures.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Done
I'm done.
There you go. That's all the enthusiasm I can work up right now. I have never been so burnt out in my life.
It's a good thing I've got a month and a half of traveling (first) and then relaxation at home (second) before I have to go back to school.
My test today wasn't that great. As I expected, 3/4 of it was about the presentations we had that I didn't pay attention to. I tried to study yesterday, but I couldn't focus and I didn't care. So naturally, I had some issues answering a lot of the questions. I just repeated the few things I knew over and over. My teacher already e-mailed me a break-down of my grade... here, let me copy and past for you:
IEXA IIEXA LABS GIRA TC ASIS NOTA NOTA FINAL
20% 20% 40% 10% 5% 5% 100% 100%
15,5 16,6 37,6 10 4,5 4 88,2 90
If anyone wants to tell me what my grade is, that'd be great. Honestly, though, I don't really care anymore. I wouldn't be surprised if I end up with a C, and I will almost certainly have at least one or two B's. But like I said, I'm so burnt out right now that I just don't care.
I still need to go pack and get organized for Panama, and I need to make lists of what I want to do there and when I get back to Curri. I should also figure out my financial situation, and do a bunch of other stuff I don't remember. But at least I'm done with school.
There you go. That's all the enthusiasm I can work up right now. I have never been so burnt out in my life.
It's a good thing I've got a month and a half of traveling (first) and then relaxation at home (second) before I have to go back to school.
My test today wasn't that great. As I expected, 3/4 of it was about the presentations we had that I didn't pay attention to. I tried to study yesterday, but I couldn't focus and I didn't care. So naturally, I had some issues answering a lot of the questions. I just repeated the few things I knew over and over. My teacher already e-mailed me a break-down of my grade... here, let me copy and past for you:
IEXA IIEXA LABS GIRA TC ASIS NOTA NOTA FINAL
20% 20% 40% 10% 5% 5% 100% 100%
15,5 16,6 37,6 10 4,5 4 88,2 90
If anyone wants to tell me what my grade is, that'd be great. Honestly, though, I don't really care anymore. I wouldn't be surprised if I end up with a C, and I will almost certainly have at least one or two B's. But like I said, I'm so burnt out right now that I just don't care.
I still need to go pack and get organized for Panama, and I need to make lists of what I want to do there and when I get back to Curri. I should also figure out my financial situation, and do a bunch of other stuff I don't remember. But at least I'm done with school.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Apathetic rage-guilt
I have spent sooo much time daydreaming about this time of the semester, imagining just how incredible it would feel to be practically done with classes, looking forward to glorious traveling, and then returning home. You know what though? It really isn't that great. I stopped caring about classes after I turned in my last big project, and I've been enjoying the (relatively) stress-free life since then. And then I got sick, and all that made me want to do was go home. And now I just don't know.
For the most part, I don't really care. I have one more final, then I am done. I'm looking forward to Panama, but I'm not like, 5-year-old-night-before-Christmas excited. I had my second-to-last final tonight in Environmental Management. I would be lucky to get a 50% on it. I can't pretend like I studied very hard for it, but I was prepared to respond to a test similar to the last test he gave us. This one was completely different, and, despite the fact that his lead-up to the test said that it wasn't about memorization, it was totally memorization. We were supposed to know which part of the laws in Costa Rica mentioned specific terms, terms which were supposedly "instruments of environmental management." Yeah, I had no idea what those laws were, and it isn't even like I've been hearing about these laws all my life like the Ticos so I would be able to just invent something that sounded correct. I randomly wrote down names of laws that I remembered, but I have no doubt I got them wrong. I think a lof of people in the class didn't remember either though, so perhaps he'll curve it and I'll get like a 55% instead of a 30%. I'm obviously mad about this test, because I wouldn't be writing about it if I weren't, but I also don't care. It's over. It's done. It is what it is.
In good news, my Geography of Costa Rica teacher has officially told me to "not worry about the final" in her class. What, precisely, that means, I have no idea. I'm trying not to worry about it, except that I need something in that class to bring my grade up. I probably have a C, and that is not acceptable. I am not going to mess up my GPA over a class I have no use for and does not count for any of my required classes. I AM WORRYING. Here's the worst part, though: I should be very, very happy that I am getting out of this final. Am I happy? Yeah, I guess. Do I feel totally guilty? Very. When we called the professor to find out what she wanted me to do, it sounded like (my program director was calling, I listened) she was letting me out of it because she felt bad for me and because she wanted to make sure I was better instead of stressing more about tests. (Well, part of it was because she talked with my Cartography teacher and decided that I'd been a good student all semester, and that helped her decision, but still). Okay, I'm not like, 100% better or anything, but I'm planning on going to Panama in two days. If I'm well enough to do that, I'm probably well enough to do a final for her class. So now I'm feeling guilty about being well enough to go to Panama but not well enough to take a final for her. I just can't win.
All I have left for this semester is my Cartography final, which we have determined is on Wednesday at 9am. I NEED to do well on this. I've gotten out of two finals, and bombed the third. I need to do well on one so I don't come home feeling like a complete and total scholastic failure. I WILL study tomorrow. I WILL study tomorrow.
... except that I'm going to spend at least part of the day taking photos ("A day in the life" kinda thing) and figuring out what I'm doing in Panama. I also need to go buy a bag in Hipermas, and I need to go back to the hospital so I can talk with a doctor about my blood test results.
About the blood test today... Nice doctor told me what I was supposed to do regarding the blood test as I was leaving on Saturday. He even told me in English (parts were Spanish, but the majority was English). Somehow, I managed to completely forget his directions. So today was interesting. I remembered that I was supposed to go to the emergency area and talk to them, at around 3:00. I did this. They sent me to the lab. The lab people eventually figured out why I was there, and they sent me somewhere to pay. But they wanted to know if I had an appointment with anyone. Err...? I had no idea. So we (my friend came with me, and thank goodness too, because I had no idea where I was going), wandered around for a while looking completely lost. Then I called my host mom to see if she knew anything about any appointment, but she didn't. So we went back to the emergency people to talk ask if I had to talk to my doctor. They said that when the results were in, my doctor would go over them with me. But it would take 2.5 hours to get results, and we had a final in like, 1 hour. So we asked if I could come back tomorrow, and they said we could. But throughout this whole time, I was asking for medium-nice doctor. I'm almost positive that Nice doctor wanted me to get the hospital people to call him so he could talk to me. So now I don't know what. I guess tomorrow I'll bring all my paperwork and say that I think Nice doctor wanted to be involved in the reviewing-of-the-bloodwork process... Is anyone else confused?
Obvious statement of the day: It's December. HOW IN THE WORLD IS IT ALREADY DECEMBER?! I swear just yesterday I was writing about spending Halloween on black sand beaches... and that was a WHOLE MONTH AGO! I feel like I've been here forever, but I also feel like time has flown. Where did it all go? My friends and I have already figured out the last times we're going to see each other, and it's horrible. I mean, obviously we'll still talk to each other online, and we're going to come up with excuses to see each other later if it kills us, but still, saying goodbye to people who have been what truly made this experience enjoyable for me is so ridiculously hard. I want to go home, but I don't want to leave my grupo buddies. I guess I can't win on this either.
For the most part, I don't really care. I have one more final, then I am done. I'm looking forward to Panama, but I'm not like, 5-year-old-night-before-Christmas excited. I had my second-to-last final tonight in Environmental Management. I would be lucky to get a 50% on it. I can't pretend like I studied very hard for it, but I was prepared to respond to a test similar to the last test he gave us. This one was completely different, and, despite the fact that his lead-up to the test said that it wasn't about memorization, it was totally memorization. We were supposed to know which part of the laws in Costa Rica mentioned specific terms, terms which were supposedly "instruments of environmental management." Yeah, I had no idea what those laws were, and it isn't even like I've been hearing about these laws all my life like the Ticos so I would be able to just invent something that sounded correct. I randomly wrote down names of laws that I remembered, but I have no doubt I got them wrong. I think a lof of people in the class didn't remember either though, so perhaps he'll curve it and I'll get like a 55% instead of a 30%. I'm obviously mad about this test, because I wouldn't be writing about it if I weren't, but I also don't care. It's over. It's done. It is what it is.
In good news, my Geography of Costa Rica teacher has officially told me to "not worry about the final" in her class. What, precisely, that means, I have no idea. I'm trying not to worry about it, except that I need something in that class to bring my grade up. I probably have a C, and that is not acceptable. I am not going to mess up my GPA over a class I have no use for and does not count for any of my required classes. I AM WORRYING. Here's the worst part, though: I should be very, very happy that I am getting out of this final. Am I happy? Yeah, I guess. Do I feel totally guilty? Very. When we called the professor to find out what she wanted me to do, it sounded like (my program director was calling, I listened) she was letting me out of it because she felt bad for me and because she wanted to make sure I was better instead of stressing more about tests. (Well, part of it was because she talked with my Cartography teacher and decided that I'd been a good student all semester, and that helped her decision, but still). Okay, I'm not like, 100% better or anything, but I'm planning on going to Panama in two days. If I'm well enough to do that, I'm probably well enough to do a final for her class. So now I'm feeling guilty about being well enough to go to Panama but not well enough to take a final for her. I just can't win.
All I have left for this semester is my Cartography final, which we have determined is on Wednesday at 9am. I NEED to do well on this. I've gotten out of two finals, and bombed the third. I need to do well on one so I don't come home feeling like a complete and total scholastic failure. I WILL study tomorrow. I WILL study tomorrow.
... except that I'm going to spend at least part of the day taking photos ("A day in the life" kinda thing) and figuring out what I'm doing in Panama. I also need to go buy a bag in Hipermas, and I need to go back to the hospital so I can talk with a doctor about my blood test results.
About the blood test today... Nice doctor told me what I was supposed to do regarding the blood test as I was leaving on Saturday. He even told me in English (parts were Spanish, but the majority was English). Somehow, I managed to completely forget his directions. So today was interesting. I remembered that I was supposed to go to the emergency area and talk to them, at around 3:00. I did this. They sent me to the lab. The lab people eventually figured out why I was there, and they sent me somewhere to pay. But they wanted to know if I had an appointment with anyone. Err...? I had no idea. So we (my friend came with me, and thank goodness too, because I had no idea where I was going), wandered around for a while looking completely lost. Then I called my host mom to see if she knew anything about any appointment, but she didn't. So we went back to the emergency people to talk ask if I had to talk to my doctor. They said that when the results were in, my doctor would go over them with me. But it would take 2.5 hours to get results, and we had a final in like, 1 hour. So we asked if I could come back tomorrow, and they said we could. But throughout this whole time, I was asking for medium-nice doctor. I'm almost positive that Nice doctor wanted me to get the hospital people to call him so he could talk to me. So now I don't know what. I guess tomorrow I'll bring all my paperwork and say that I think Nice doctor wanted to be involved in the reviewing-of-the-bloodwork process... Is anyone else confused?
Obvious statement of the day: It's December. HOW IN THE WORLD IS IT ALREADY DECEMBER?! I swear just yesterday I was writing about spending Halloween on black sand beaches... and that was a WHOLE MONTH AGO! I feel like I've been here forever, but I also feel like time has flown. Where did it all go? My friends and I have already figured out the last times we're going to see each other, and it's horrible. I mean, obviously we'll still talk to each other online, and we're going to come up with excuses to see each other later if it kills us, but still, saying goodbye to people who have been what truly made this experience enjoyable for me is so ridiculously hard. I want to go home, but I don't want to leave my grupo buddies. I guess I can't win on this either.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Happiness, redefined
I am out! I am free! I have been liberated!
(I would go do cartwheels right now, but I'd probably hurt myself, and that would be majorly counterproductive).
This afternoon, my host mom and dad came to visit. They said that the nurses told them I was there till Monday, which is what mean doctor was saying. And of course, I do not take this news well (I've already spent pretty much the whole day being a sobbing, emotional, completely and hopelessly depressed mess). But when I mentioned that all the doctors were giving me different stories, we made a bunch of calls between host mother, program director, and doctor, and came to the conclusion that I COULD LEAVE. That right there is quite possibly the new winner of the best moment of my life. It took them forever to get their acts together, and I put a ridiculous amount of money on the credit card (although the insurance should pay that back ... "should" ) but here I am, sitting on a bed in a room I never thought I could be so happy to see. I. AM. THANKFUL. After 5 days of going crazy from being alone in that hospital room, I was beginning to think I'd never be happy again. But here I am -- happy once again!! Yay! Happy!
Here's the other good part: I asked nice doctor what he thought about me going to Panama. He didn't have any problems with it (so long as my bloodwork on Monday still looks good and all). So I don't have to cancel the Panama flight and come home early. I think I'm going to skip Nicaragua, though -- 10 hours on a bus is a lot for me to handle. There was a lot of stuff I really wanted to do there, but at least this way I have a lot of time to hang out here and get caught up with my buddies before I head home. I think I kind of like it this way better. Heck, maybe we can even spend a day or two in Manual Antonio -- a beach I've missed going to twice now because I haven't felt good (we were supposed to go this weekend). Did I mention I'm happy?
I can say one thing, though: You don't know just how good you've got it till you don't got it anymore. (Yes, that was horrible grammar on purpose). I've spent a lot of this experience missing home and wondering about all the things I've missed out on: spending time with my family and friends, riding/fixing mopeds, moped rallies, fall, the first snow, Thanksgiving (I pondered that one a LOOONNNGG time), black Friday, the holiday bustle and cheer .... watching U.S. TV in a hospital room for many many hours brings you back to all the things you're missing kind of the same way a slap in the face catches your attention. I'm not ready to come to a final decision on this experience, but I know better now than ever before that I've got it good. And to repeat: I am thankful.
(I would go do cartwheels right now, but I'd probably hurt myself, and that would be majorly counterproductive).
This afternoon, my host mom and dad came to visit. They said that the nurses told them I was there till Monday, which is what mean doctor was saying. And of course, I do not take this news well (I've already spent pretty much the whole day being a sobbing, emotional, completely and hopelessly depressed mess). But when I mentioned that all the doctors were giving me different stories, we made a bunch of calls between host mother, program director, and doctor, and came to the conclusion that I COULD LEAVE. That right there is quite possibly the new winner of the best moment of my life. It took them forever to get their acts together, and I put a ridiculous amount of money on the credit card (although the insurance should pay that back ... "should" ) but here I am, sitting on a bed in a room I never thought I could be so happy to see. I. AM. THANKFUL. After 5 days of going crazy from being alone in that hospital room, I was beginning to think I'd never be happy again. But here I am -- happy once again!! Yay! Happy!
Here's the other good part: I asked nice doctor what he thought about me going to Panama. He didn't have any problems with it (so long as my bloodwork on Monday still looks good and all). So I don't have to cancel the Panama flight and come home early. I think I'm going to skip Nicaragua, though -- 10 hours on a bus is a lot for me to handle. There was a lot of stuff I really wanted to do there, but at least this way I have a lot of time to hang out here and get caught up with my buddies before I head home. I think I kind of like it this way better. Heck, maybe we can even spend a day or two in Manual Antonio -- a beach I've missed going to twice now because I haven't felt good (we were supposed to go this weekend). Did I mention I'm happy?
I can say one thing, though: You don't know just how good you've got it till you don't got it anymore. (Yes, that was horrible grammar on purpose). I've spent a lot of this experience missing home and wondering about all the things I've missed out on: spending time with my family and friends, riding/fixing mopeds, moped rallies, fall, the first snow, Thanksgiving (I pondered that one a LOOONNNGG time), black Friday, the holiday bustle and cheer .... watching U.S. TV in a hospital room for many many hours brings you back to all the things you're missing kind of the same way a slap in the face catches your attention. I'm not ready to come to a final decision on this experience, but I know better now than ever before that I've got it good. And to repeat: I am thankful.
And the new winner for the worst time of my life goes to...
RIGHT NOW.
I know I said at least once during the month of October, "We'll know by the end of this experience if too much work can kill you." Well, this experience is almost done, and here I am, alive. So I guess too much work can't kill you. HOWEVER, too much work can make you very, very sick (I'm blaming this all on too much work, FYI). Being very, very sick leads to hospitals. And in hospitals, they fix bodies and destroy minds. When I left Kansas, I left a little part of my soul there. I would like to say that some part of my soul will probably stay in Costa Rica too, but considering the rate at which this hospital is destroying it, I'm not sure I'll have any left.
Do you have any idea how hard it is to sit in your room, alone on thanksgiving, knowing that everyone you care about is celebrating the holiday together? Your family is together. Your friends are together. And you are alone, in a foreign country, strapped to an IV in a hospital. You can't even forget the fact that it's Thanksgiving, because Thanksgiving and Black Friday ads are all all over the TV and internet. Welcome to the worst Thanksgiving of my life.
And so, here I am. Two days later. Still in the hospital. Going insane. I have 3 doctors. Doctor 1 ... I don't know what he does. But he's medium-nice. Doctor 2 is a surgeon (?) and he's not very nice. Doctor 3 deals with infections, and he's really nice. Doctors 1 and 3 want to let me leave. Doctor 2 thinks this is a bad idea and wants to keep me for two more days. Doctor 2 has also forbidden me from going to Panama. Well, great. If I can't do anything fun here, why even be here? I just want to go home. Like, HOME home. I want them to let me out of this hospital. I will rest and study until my final on Monday. I will take that final and wrap up a few loose ends around the university. I will take my other final Tuesday. Then I will go home and pack and fly home Wednesday. Or at least, that's how it works in my head. I'm not going to trust how things work in my head anymore, though, because this glorious reality of the end of study abroad was not how it worked in my head either.
I know I said at least once during the month of October, "We'll know by the end of this experience if too much work can kill you." Well, this experience is almost done, and here I am, alive. So I guess too much work can't kill you. HOWEVER, too much work can make you very, very sick (I'm blaming this all on too much work, FYI). Being very, very sick leads to hospitals. And in hospitals, they fix bodies and destroy minds. When I left Kansas, I left a little part of my soul there. I would like to say that some part of my soul will probably stay in Costa Rica too, but considering the rate at which this hospital is destroying it, I'm not sure I'll have any left.
Do you have any idea how hard it is to sit in your room, alone on thanksgiving, knowing that everyone you care about is celebrating the holiday together? Your family is together. Your friends are together. And you are alone, in a foreign country, strapped to an IV in a hospital. You can't even forget the fact that it's Thanksgiving, because Thanksgiving and Black Friday ads are all all over the TV and internet. Welcome to the worst Thanksgiving of my life.
And so, here I am. Two days later. Still in the hospital. Going insane. I have 3 doctors. Doctor 1 ... I don't know what he does. But he's medium-nice. Doctor 2 is a surgeon (?) and he's not very nice. Doctor 3 deals with infections, and he's really nice. Doctors 1 and 3 want to let me leave. Doctor 2 thinks this is a bad idea and wants to keep me for two more days. Doctor 2 has also forbidden me from going to Panama. Well, great. If I can't do anything fun here, why even be here? I just want to go home. Like, HOME home. I want them to let me out of this hospital. I will rest and study until my final on Monday. I will take that final and wrap up a few loose ends around the university. I will take my other final Tuesday. Then I will go home and pack and fly home Wednesday. Or at least, that's how it works in my head. I'm not going to trust how things work in my head anymore, though, because this glorious reality of the end of study abroad was not how it worked in my head either.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
More thoughts n' stuff
Well, when you're lying around in bed all day, you have a lot of spare time to think.
So, news... I do not have to take my World Geography test next Wednesday. BUT that's not because I'm sick. It's because I was doing well in the class, and I guess he excused everyone who was doing well. This makes me very happy, because now my Environmental Management test will be last, unless I end up taking tests (say, for Cartography or CR geography) next week on Tuesday or Wednesday (which are distinct possibilities).
I've gotten real (well, real by hospital food standards) food for two whole meals now! Wohoo! For breakfast, I got ... I think it was an egg... papaya juice, bread, and fruit. The egg was not very tasty, the papaya juice tasted like feet (I think papaya always tastes like feet), but the bread was good. Then for lunch, I got like this chicken pastry thing, which, despite having vegetables hidden inside of it, was rather tasty. I also got piña juice, which is loads better than the papaya juice.
They took blood again this morning (new needle total: 8, new right elbow total: 4), and once that's done being analyzed or whatever it is that they do to blood, they'll get back to me with the results. One of the doctors just came in, and I don't know what he said. Or well, I kind of know what he said, but I don't know what it means in terms of "when do I get outta here?" (Funny how that trait carries over between languages). I guess I'm just stuck here until they tell me something more definitive one way or another.
So in the meantime, I've been spending a lot of time on my computer (which is nothing new), watching a bit of TV here and there (which is new, since I never really watch TV anymore), and just chillin. I feel like I ought to go study for the two tests I know I have left, but I just haven't gotten around to it yet. Ah well, maybe later. The test I was most worried about (besides the Periferica thing) was World Geography, mostly because I still had a lot of reading to do. But now since I don't have to take that one, I feel a little better. Cartography still needs much studying, though, and I've got some reading wikipedia-ing to do for Environmental Management.
So, news... I do not have to take my World Geography test next Wednesday. BUT that's not because I'm sick. It's because I was doing well in the class, and I guess he excused everyone who was doing well. This makes me very happy, because now my Environmental Management test will be last, unless I end up taking tests (say, for Cartography or CR geography) next week on Tuesday or Wednesday (which are distinct possibilities).
I've gotten real (well, real by hospital food standards) food for two whole meals now! Wohoo! For breakfast, I got ... I think it was an egg... papaya juice, bread, and fruit. The egg was not very tasty, the papaya juice tasted like feet (I think papaya always tastes like feet), but the bread was good. Then for lunch, I got like this chicken pastry thing, which, despite having vegetables hidden inside of it, was rather tasty. I also got piña juice, which is loads better than the papaya juice.
They took blood again this morning (new needle total: 8, new right elbow total: 4), and once that's done being analyzed or whatever it is that they do to blood, they'll get back to me with the results. One of the doctors just came in, and I don't know what he said. Or well, I kind of know what he said, but I don't know what it means in terms of "when do I get outta here?" (Funny how that trait carries over between languages). I guess I'm just stuck here until they tell me something more definitive one way or another.
So in the meantime, I've been spending a lot of time on my computer (which is nothing new), watching a bit of TV here and there (which is new, since I never really watch TV anymore), and just chillin. I feel like I ought to go study for the two tests I know I have left, but I just haven't gotten around to it yet. Ah well, maybe later. The test I was most worried about (besides the Periferica thing) was World Geography, mostly because I still had a lot of reading to do. But now since I don't have to take that one, I feel a little better. Cartography still needs much studying, though, and I've got some reading wikipedia-ing to do for Environmental Management.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
What have you taken for granted today?
I'm going to be honest and say I've been compiling the thoughts in this post for a long time. However, recent events have conspired, and this now goes much deeper than it once did. So I apologize in advance, because this could very well be my longest entry yet... and this is coming from someone who doesn't write short blog entries.
PART 1:
So it's just about Thanksgiving time, and I have some reflections and thoughts to share with you.
I'll start with things I'm thankful for:
1) I'm thankful for all my amazing grupo buddies. They've been my best friends for the last 139 days, and this experience would have been so much harder and so much less fun without them.
2) I'm thankful for gallo pinto on Sunday mornings and for all my host mom's amazing desserts.
3) I'm thankful that classes are almost over (and that traveling time is almost here, and that coming home time is almost here).
4) I am thankful for everything I had at home that I don't have here -- be they tangible or intangible. (More on this later).
5) I am thankful for Coke made with sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup (especially when it comes in glass bottles!), Monster Pizza, the casado place, World Cafe, Cyro's, Buffalo's, ice cream from McDonald's (although why it would kill them to give me a McFlurry with chocolate ice cream I still haven't figured out), Pague Menos, Hipermas, and the corner store.
6) I am thankful for my family and their support, because there are a lot of people who aren't as fortunate as I am in the support department.
Now I've got some questions for you.... Namely, what have you taken for granted today? Here's a list of things that I don't think I will ever take for granted again.
1) My bed, with my mattress, my sheets, and my pillow, in my room, with my furniture, my closets, "my" bathroom (even when I have to share it with sister and brother dearest) and decorated/cleaned as I please.
2) My house, with my kitchen, my fridge, my pantry, my dishes, my pots and pans, my kitchen table, and all for me to use as I please.
3) My car/moped, so that I can go anywhere I want, when I want, at my convenience, without waiting for 20 minutes (in the rain/snow) for a bus.
4) As an extension of the car/kitchen: grocery stores -- the ability to go to a grocery store and buy whatever food I feel like cooking, then go home and cook it, whenever I want. Also, choosing what food goes on my plate, how much, and when.
5) 95% of the foreigners I come across in the U.S. speak really good English. Do you have any idea how amazing that is? Don't take it for granted that foreigners in the U.S. should speak good English, because a) living in a foreign country is NOT EASY, and b) there are people (raises hand) in foreign countries who don't speak the native language as well as a lot of the foreigners in the U.S.
6) Sleeping in past 8 (and not feeling guilty about it).
7) Silence.
8) Cheese pizza, grilled food, and my recipes.
9) Paying for something with a $20 bill (and not feeling guilty about it).
10) Time spent with my family and friends.
11) Fall, and the seasons in general.
12) Being able to express myself fully, and not just taking a backseat on everything because I don't know how to say what I want.
So perhaps you got up this morning. You slept in your own bed last night. You decided you wanted cereal for breakfast, but then you changed your mind and decide to go to McDonald's for food. You pay with a $20 bill, and you don't get asked, "Do you have anything smaller?" Instead of waiting on public transportation to arrive (and possibly being jammed on the bus like a sardine in a tin), you get in your own car and drive to wherever you're going. At lunch time, you are faced with the same wonderful series of choices: What do I want to eat? When? Where? If you decide on pizza, you have the option to get just plain ol' cheese. Even if it's bitterly cold out and you hate winter, at least you got to experience the beauty of fall, and at least you will appreciate spring that much more when it gets here. And finally, if someone cuts you off on the road, or your boss makes you mad, or anything like that, you can let loose and tell them exactly what you want. I currently have none of these things, and I will never take them for granted again.
(In case it wasn't clear enough, I've decided that the thing I miss the most in this experience is my independence.)
PART 2
So, here's a new addition to that list. Never take for granted your good health. Any day you don't feel horrible, be glad. I should already have learned this 5 times over by now, but apparently not.
Here's the story, more or less.
On Monday during my last (wohoo! -- except for the final) Evironmental Management class, my stomach was really hurting. That's not something particularly new for me, so I just ignored it. But then I went home after class, and it got worse. I couldn't sleep because of it, and that WAS new for me. But on Tudesday morning, I didn't want to miss my the Cartography lab because I figured I'd have to make it up sometime -- time which I don't really have or feel like making. So, feeling horrible and not having slept, I dragged my sorry self out of bed, into clothes, and caught a taxi to class. I sat through all two hours of class and got the last lab assignment done. I SOOO wanted to go home and sleep (sleep has cured me every other time I've felt bad down here), but I needed to meet with my group for my Periferica bus project. As always, it is possible that I misunderstood their directions, but I am almost certain that they said, "We're going to meet at 9am in the classroom" -- you know, to meet and work at the time of the class in the same place as class because class was cancelled and that was easier. I said I had class until 10, and they said I should just come when I got done. Well, we got done early in my first class. I was outside that room at 9. I was still outside that room at 10. All I wanted was for one of them to show up so that I could hand them a piece of paper with my e-mail on it and go home. But of course, I did not see any of them.
Right around 10, a girl who is in my class came to wait -- I guess she just wanted to make sure that class was actually cancelled. I told her it was, but that I was waiting for my group. She went upstairs to ask at the geography office, and came back down a few minutes later to tell me she'd talked with the professor and we indeed did not have class. I was like, "Okay, but I'm waiting for my group." Well, not five minutes later, my professor comes down to ask me what's up. I told her I was waiting for my group. Then I asked if she had their e-mails (then I could leave and e-mail them when I got home and felt better). She did, up in her office. So I slowly shuffled my way up to her office. I was waiting out in the hallway leaned up against the wall, and some of the other women in the geography department came out and were like, "Are you sick? What do you have? You don't look good." I told them that I was just really tired and my stomach hurt. They took me back to the little eating area in the geography department and gave me hot sugar water (if you think that sounds like a weird remedy, I should tell you about some of the stuff that other people's families have given them when they're sick). At that point, my geography teacher comes back, and my cartography teacher is also there. Now I've got 4 people standing over me, trying to feed me hot sugar-water and figure out what's wrong with me. My geography teacher lives in Zapote, which is right next to Curridabat, so she said she'd take me home. I get in her car (my cartography teacher comes too), but we stop by the on-campus medical facility first to see if they can make room for me. Apparently they can, so I go in there.
I get asked the usual round of doctor questions and do the usual doctor exam stuff. The doctor doesn't know what's wrong with me, but they decide to give me some pain medicine. So I go to the back, and they take a blood sample. (First needle doesn't hit, so they move on to the second elbow). Then the pain medicine is an IV, so that's two more needles -- one for each hand (apparently my veins were "hiding"). Then I kind of go to sleep back there for a while. Get this, though: my cartography teacher stayed with me this whole time. That is SO above and beyond the call of duty, and she is SOO nice. After maybe 2 or 3 hours, I feel a little better but not much, and the doctor at the clinic doesn't know what else to do. So he recommends that I go to the hospital. We call the program directors, and they come to the clinic. Then my cartography teacher leaves.
(Oh, it gets better)
So then, they decide to use an ambulance to take me to the hospital, just because they wanted to have somewhere to hang the IV bag. I usually would have argued against that, so it's not a good sign that I didn't even have the energy to tell them no. Once I get to the hospital, I am subjected to two more needles (they have to re-do the IV in the other hand because the one I already had "wasn't big enough", and one for more blood testing), ultrasound, X-rays, and some sort of MRI scan or something. They determined that my intestines are inflamed and infected, but THANKFULLY not ruptured. So now I'm being pumped full of antibioitics, pain killers, and anti-inflammatories. I also get periodic does of oral antibioitics. The last dose the brought me was accompanied by a straw, just in case I wanted to savor its flavor I guess. (I don't.) I'm going to pretend that this is good practice for taking shots. I'm also on a liquid diet. Last night I got some nasty chicken broth an apple juice. Today I've had tea, and another helping of nasty chicken broth and apple juice. I'm going to pretend that this is good because when I go to Panama, at least I'm going to look skinnier in my bathing suit. I've also gotten needle #7, since they had to take blood again this morning. So that brings the total to: Left elbow 1, right elbow 3 right hand 1, left hand 2. Usually needles don't bother me, but 7? 7 bothers me.
I don't know when I get out of here. I would LOVE to be out in time to go the Thanksgiving dinner we're having, but I'm not hopeful. So, whatever you're thankful for this Thanksgiving, be thankful that you're not in a hospital enjoying a liquid diet of bad chicken broth and apple juice, periodically interspersed with doses of very nasty liquid antibiotics.
I know this isn't going to get me out of my cartography test (I'll just take it later) but I'm holding out hope for either an easier assignment than the Periferica one, or just getting out of it all together. Although I do kind of need something to help my grade in that class. Well, we'll see.
PART 1:
So it's just about Thanksgiving time, and I have some reflections and thoughts to share with you.
I'll start with things I'm thankful for:
1) I'm thankful for all my amazing grupo buddies. They've been my best friends for the last 139 days, and this experience would have been so much harder and so much less fun without them.
2) I'm thankful for gallo pinto on Sunday mornings and for all my host mom's amazing desserts.
3) I'm thankful that classes are almost over (and that traveling time is almost here, and that coming home time is almost here).
4) I am thankful for everything I had at home that I don't have here -- be they tangible or intangible. (More on this later).
5) I am thankful for Coke made with sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup (especially when it comes in glass bottles!), Monster Pizza, the casado place, World Cafe, Cyro's, Buffalo's, ice cream from McDonald's (although why it would kill them to give me a McFlurry with chocolate ice cream I still haven't figured out), Pague Menos, Hipermas, and the corner store.
6) I am thankful for my family and their support, because there are a lot of people who aren't as fortunate as I am in the support department.
Now I've got some questions for you.... Namely, what have you taken for granted today? Here's a list of things that I don't think I will ever take for granted again.
1) My bed, with my mattress, my sheets, and my pillow, in my room, with my furniture, my closets, "my" bathroom (even when I have to share it with sister and brother dearest) and decorated/cleaned as I please.
2) My house, with my kitchen, my fridge, my pantry, my dishes, my pots and pans, my kitchen table, and all for me to use as I please.
3) My car/moped, so that I can go anywhere I want, when I want, at my convenience, without waiting for 20 minutes (in the rain/snow) for a bus.
4) As an extension of the car/kitchen: grocery stores -- the ability to go to a grocery store and buy whatever food I feel like cooking, then go home and cook it, whenever I want. Also, choosing what food goes on my plate, how much, and when.
5) 95% of the foreigners I come across in the U.S. speak really good English. Do you have any idea how amazing that is? Don't take it for granted that foreigners in the U.S. should speak good English, because a) living in a foreign country is NOT EASY, and b) there are people (raises hand) in foreign countries who don't speak the native language as well as a lot of the foreigners in the U.S.
6) Sleeping in past 8 (and not feeling guilty about it).
7) Silence.
8) Cheese pizza, grilled food, and my recipes.
9) Paying for something with a $20 bill (and not feeling guilty about it).
10) Time spent with my family and friends.
11) Fall, and the seasons in general.
12) Being able to express myself fully, and not just taking a backseat on everything because I don't know how to say what I want.
So perhaps you got up this morning. You slept in your own bed last night. You decided you wanted cereal for breakfast, but then you changed your mind and decide to go to McDonald's for food. You pay with a $20 bill, and you don't get asked, "Do you have anything smaller?" Instead of waiting on public transportation to arrive (and possibly being jammed on the bus like a sardine in a tin), you get in your own car and drive to wherever you're going. At lunch time, you are faced with the same wonderful series of choices: What do I want to eat? When? Where? If you decide on pizza, you have the option to get just plain ol' cheese. Even if it's bitterly cold out and you hate winter, at least you got to experience the beauty of fall, and at least you will appreciate spring that much more when it gets here. And finally, if someone cuts you off on the road, or your boss makes you mad, or anything like that, you can let loose and tell them exactly what you want. I currently have none of these things, and I will never take them for granted again.
(In case it wasn't clear enough, I've decided that the thing I miss the most in this experience is my independence.)
PART 2
So, here's a new addition to that list. Never take for granted your good health. Any day you don't feel horrible, be glad. I should already have learned this 5 times over by now, but apparently not.
Here's the story, more or less.
On Monday during my last (wohoo! -- except for the final) Evironmental Management class, my stomach was really hurting. That's not something particularly new for me, so I just ignored it. But then I went home after class, and it got worse. I couldn't sleep because of it, and that WAS new for me. But on Tudesday morning, I didn't want to miss my the Cartography lab because I figured I'd have to make it up sometime -- time which I don't really have or feel like making. So, feeling horrible and not having slept, I dragged my sorry self out of bed, into clothes, and caught a taxi to class. I sat through all two hours of class and got the last lab assignment done. I SOOO wanted to go home and sleep (sleep has cured me every other time I've felt bad down here), but I needed to meet with my group for my Periferica bus project. As always, it is possible that I misunderstood their directions, but I am almost certain that they said, "We're going to meet at 9am in the classroom" -- you know, to meet and work at the time of the class in the same place as class because class was cancelled and that was easier. I said I had class until 10, and they said I should just come when I got done. Well, we got done early in my first class. I was outside that room at 9. I was still outside that room at 10. All I wanted was for one of them to show up so that I could hand them a piece of paper with my e-mail on it and go home. But of course, I did not see any of them.
Right around 10, a girl who is in my class came to wait -- I guess she just wanted to make sure that class was actually cancelled. I told her it was, but that I was waiting for my group. She went upstairs to ask at the geography office, and came back down a few minutes later to tell me she'd talked with the professor and we indeed did not have class. I was like, "Okay, but I'm waiting for my group." Well, not five minutes later, my professor comes down to ask me what's up. I told her I was waiting for my group. Then I asked if she had their e-mails (then I could leave and e-mail them when I got home and felt better). She did, up in her office. So I slowly shuffled my way up to her office. I was waiting out in the hallway leaned up against the wall, and some of the other women in the geography department came out and were like, "Are you sick? What do you have? You don't look good." I told them that I was just really tired and my stomach hurt. They took me back to the little eating area in the geography department and gave me hot sugar water (if you think that sounds like a weird remedy, I should tell you about some of the stuff that other people's families have given them when they're sick). At that point, my geography teacher comes back, and my cartography teacher is also there. Now I've got 4 people standing over me, trying to feed me hot sugar-water and figure out what's wrong with me. My geography teacher lives in Zapote, which is right next to Curridabat, so she said she'd take me home. I get in her car (my cartography teacher comes too), but we stop by the on-campus medical facility first to see if they can make room for me. Apparently they can, so I go in there.
I get asked the usual round of doctor questions and do the usual doctor exam stuff. The doctor doesn't know what's wrong with me, but they decide to give me some pain medicine. So I go to the back, and they take a blood sample. (First needle doesn't hit, so they move on to the second elbow). Then the pain medicine is an IV, so that's two more needles -- one for each hand (apparently my veins were "hiding"). Then I kind of go to sleep back there for a while. Get this, though: my cartography teacher stayed with me this whole time. That is SO above and beyond the call of duty, and she is SOO nice. After maybe 2 or 3 hours, I feel a little better but not much, and the doctor at the clinic doesn't know what else to do. So he recommends that I go to the hospital. We call the program directors, and they come to the clinic. Then my cartography teacher leaves.
(Oh, it gets better)
So then, they decide to use an ambulance to take me to the hospital, just because they wanted to have somewhere to hang the IV bag. I usually would have argued against that, so it's not a good sign that I didn't even have the energy to tell them no. Once I get to the hospital, I am subjected to two more needles (they have to re-do the IV in the other hand because the one I already had "wasn't big enough", and one for more blood testing), ultrasound, X-rays, and some sort of MRI scan or something. They determined that my intestines are inflamed and infected, but THANKFULLY not ruptured. So now I'm being pumped full of antibioitics, pain killers, and anti-inflammatories. I also get periodic does of oral antibioitics. The last dose the brought me was accompanied by a straw, just in case I wanted to savor its flavor I guess. (I don't.) I'm going to pretend that this is good practice for taking shots. I'm also on a liquid diet. Last night I got some nasty chicken broth an apple juice. Today I've had tea, and another helping of nasty chicken broth and apple juice. I'm going to pretend that this is good because when I go to Panama, at least I'm going to look skinnier in my bathing suit. I've also gotten needle #7, since they had to take blood again this morning. So that brings the total to: Left elbow 1, right elbow 3 right hand 1, left hand 2. Usually needles don't bother me, but 7? 7 bothers me.
I don't know when I get out of here. I would LOVE to be out in time to go the Thanksgiving dinner we're having, but I'm not hopeful. So, whatever you're thankful for this Thanksgiving, be thankful that you're not in a hospital enjoying a liquid diet of bad chicken broth and apple juice, periodically interspersed with doses of very nasty liquid antibiotics.
I know this isn't going to get me out of my cartography test (I'll just take it later) but I'm holding out hope for either an easier assignment than the Periferica one, or just getting out of it all together. Although I do kind of need something to help my grade in that class. Well, we'll see.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Does it better
There are some things that we Gringos do better. There are some things that the Ticos do better. Here's a break-down.
Ticos do it better:
1) All fruit (Except apples and grapes)
2) Rice and beans (That's really not a fair contest)
3) Conserving energy and gasoline
4) Coke and all other products that are sweetened with high fructose corn syrup in the U.S.
5) Tortilla chips. There's this kind that comes in a purple bag, and those plus some guacamole... SO delicious. Tostitos just can't compete.
6) Not having an overpopulation of gigantic ugly motorcycles
7) Use of public transportation
8) Textbooks and copyright policy (we just get copies of readings for like, $1, instead of buying textbooks for $100)
9) Fried chicken
10) Cheap food
11) Peace
12) Corner stores and quick-shops
13) Family closeness and get-togethers
14) Dressing in nice clothing for classes
15) Earrings
Gringos do it better:
1) Apples and grapes
2) Peanut butter
3) Roads/sidewalks
4) Driving (we actually stop for stop lights and yield to pedestrians ..... these things are in short supply down here)
5) Grilled food (That's not really a fair contest either)
6) Candy (I might be biased)
7) Efficiency in shopping (and efficiency in general)
8) Abundance of restaurants and places to eat out
9) War
10) Organization and naming of streets, and keeping the roads in good condition (you think your roads are bad? Trust me, it could be much, much worse).
11) Hot water
12) Laundry (their laundry system is okay, but let's face it, dryers are sooo much faster than hang drying)
13) Dressing in clothing that fits (aka not glued to body) for classes
14) Hats
15) Being on time
There are probably some other things I'm forgetting right now, but I'm going to blame that on my need to rant. You see, there is one thing that I have discovered that Ticos -- or at least the Ticos in my world geography class, and especially the Ticos in my world geography class with whom I am working -- are bad at: Power point presentations.
Today we began our presentations in world geography. The first group went, and their powerpoint was lackluster. Some of the slides were good, but like 75% of them were graphs which took up maybe 25% of the area of the slide. They picked ugly colors (I am a horrible person for saying that after I complained about my cartography teacher being so picky) and didn't center or label them properly. They also used line graphs for things that should have been bar graphs and pie charts for things that DEFINITELY did not belong in the pie-chart family of graphical representation. Another group went, and their presentation was about water. They used the water background from the old version of power point. This is the dumbest background in the history of forever. First of all, it's overused. Second, it's eerily and unnaturally blue. Third, you can't really use white OR black font on it -- both colors blend into the background a bit in different parts of the image. I bet there are thousands of better pictures they could have used for their background on that presentation besides the ugly one that Microsoft put in the program. One group did a presentation about the Arab-Israeli conflict. The actual slides themselves were okay, but they had about 6 maps on different slides, and the guy had to keep flipping through them to show us stuff. It was like a map flip book, and that was unnecessarily confusing. I don't remember my specific critiques of the other groups, but none of the presentations I saw today was particularly well-designed or good-looking.
All the other groups took so long that my group didn't have to go today (gracias a dios!) This is very good, because the ugliness of everyone else's presentations would have had nothing on the hideousness of my group's disjointed and half-ugly presentation. I say "half ugly" because only half of it would have been ugly. The part I did is quite pretty. I tried to find a happy medium between putting too much information on a slide and not putting enough information on a slide (another thing the Ticos seem to have trouble with). I found out what the other half looked like -- the half the guy in my group did -- when I went to the lab with him after class. He wanted to pull my part off my USB drive (this device will henceforth be referred to as a "llave"), then save it to his llave and combine it. Well, he pulled his up, and it's ugly. Or well, if you were just looking at his background as a picture, it would be fine. However, it's too busy and has too much variation in color to serve well as a background. He also put nowhere near enough information on his slides, and his animations were kind of dumb. Now, perhaps I'm just biased that I think mine looks better. But then again, perhaps the part of my brain that says "this is ugly, fix it" has more than one brain cell to rub together.
THANKFULLY, I had saved my part as a .pptx file (the new power point) instead of a .ppt (old power point) because the graphs I used wouldn't have transferred. The computers in the lab were not able to open my .pptx file. So then the guy in my group did this whole "download a thing to make it work" .... I did not want him opening my power point and ugly-fying it, so I suggested that he save his to my llave and I would combine them. Ahh, yes, how logical! Except there are several dilemmas. First, from what I understood, the girl in our group has not fixed her part of the paper (which was due today), nor did she really do any slides. I asked the guy if he could get her to e-mail me her slides so I could add them to ours, but some part of that was lost in translation and/or not going to happen because she's being a slacker. Second, the guy wants to add more to his slides. Why even bother giving me the half-done stuff then? Why not just e-mail me your part when you finish, and I'll put it together? If I do it now, I'm just going to have to do it twice, which is a waste of time. It made me very sad that I was not able to express this sentiment properly in Spanish. Third, I face a moral dilemma. Whose background do I use? His is ugly, but I wouldn't want people changing my stuff around. I'm tempted to just leave the parts with different backgrounds (although make the text the same and stuff) ... you know, to better "divide the sections" or something.
So now I have to add his 4 really lousy slides to my 11 very pretty ones. Then I have to find a way to save it in the old format but while keeping my graphs. Then I have to e-mail it to him so he can add more to his parts, at which point I would hope he would e-mail it back to me so I could un-uglyfy anything he did to it. This is riduculous. I think I'm just going to e-mail him and say that I combined them and I can send it as a .pptx, but I can't save it as a .ppt file because I get an error message about my graphs (which is true.) Then I'll tell him just to finish his slides and send them to me, then I'll add his to mine and we'll be good.
I feel kind of hypocritical for typing all this since when it comes to actually presenting the information, all of the Ticos are 20x better than I am (even if the language barrier were removed). However, ugly, unreadable power points kind of detract from what they're saying, so I still feel somewhat justified.
In other news, it's now officially "cold" here. Winter (which they seem to call summer, even though we're still in the northern hemisphere) has arrived. In general, this time of year is nicer than the rest of the year, especially later on, like in Jan-March. It's a little bit colder, but there's less rain and more sun. Well, anyway, today I guess there's a cold front hanging over the area, and it was pretty windy. I'd guess the temperature was about 65, although maybe with the wind it felt like 55 or 60. If I had a nickel for every time I heard "Ay, que frio!" today, I would be very rich. Come on, really? It's like, 60 degrees outside. That's NOT COLD. You guys do not know what cold is. You would die if you came to my state, and my state isn't even that cold. A guy in my geography class was literally wearing gloves and a scarf DURING CLASS, surrounded by 4 nice wind-blocking walls. It was probably 70 in that classroom, and he's sitting there in a scarf and gloves. I repeat: come on, really?
Ticos do it better:
1) All fruit (Except apples and grapes)
2) Rice and beans (That's really not a fair contest)
3) Conserving energy and gasoline
4) Coke and all other products that are sweetened with high fructose corn syrup in the U.S.
5) Tortilla chips. There's this kind that comes in a purple bag, and those plus some guacamole... SO delicious. Tostitos just can't compete.
6) Not having an overpopulation of gigantic ugly motorcycles
7) Use of public transportation
8) Textbooks and copyright policy (we just get copies of readings for like, $1, instead of buying textbooks for $100)
9) Fried chicken
10) Cheap food
11) Peace
12) Corner stores and quick-shops
13) Family closeness and get-togethers
14) Dressing in nice clothing for classes
15) Earrings
Gringos do it better:
1) Apples and grapes
2) Peanut butter
3) Roads/sidewalks
4) Driving (we actually stop for stop lights and yield to pedestrians ..... these things are in short supply down here)
5) Grilled food (That's not really a fair contest either)
6) Candy (I might be biased)
7) Efficiency in shopping (and efficiency in general)
8) Abundance of restaurants and places to eat out
9) War
10) Organization and naming of streets, and keeping the roads in good condition (you think your roads are bad? Trust me, it could be much, much worse).
11) Hot water
12) Laundry (their laundry system is okay, but let's face it, dryers are sooo much faster than hang drying)
13) Dressing in clothing that fits (aka not glued to body) for classes
14) Hats
15) Being on time
There are probably some other things I'm forgetting right now, but I'm going to blame that on my need to rant. You see, there is one thing that I have discovered that Ticos -- or at least the Ticos in my world geography class, and especially the Ticos in my world geography class with whom I am working -- are bad at: Power point presentations.
Today we began our presentations in world geography. The first group went, and their powerpoint was lackluster. Some of the slides were good, but like 75% of them were graphs which took up maybe 25% of the area of the slide. They picked ugly colors (I am a horrible person for saying that after I complained about my cartography teacher being so picky) and didn't center or label them properly. They also used line graphs for things that should have been bar graphs and pie charts for things that DEFINITELY did not belong in the pie-chart family of graphical representation. Another group went, and their presentation was about water. They used the water background from the old version of power point. This is the dumbest background in the history of forever. First of all, it's overused. Second, it's eerily and unnaturally blue. Third, you can't really use white OR black font on it -- both colors blend into the background a bit in different parts of the image. I bet there are thousands of better pictures they could have used for their background on that presentation besides the ugly one that Microsoft put in the program. One group did a presentation about the Arab-Israeli conflict. The actual slides themselves were okay, but they had about 6 maps on different slides, and the guy had to keep flipping through them to show us stuff. It was like a map flip book, and that was unnecessarily confusing. I don't remember my specific critiques of the other groups, but none of the presentations I saw today was particularly well-designed or good-looking.
All the other groups took so long that my group didn't have to go today (gracias a dios!) This is very good, because the ugliness of everyone else's presentations would have had nothing on the hideousness of my group's disjointed and half-ugly presentation. I say "half ugly" because only half of it would have been ugly. The part I did is quite pretty. I tried to find a happy medium between putting too much information on a slide and not putting enough information on a slide (another thing the Ticos seem to have trouble with). I found out what the other half looked like -- the half the guy in my group did -- when I went to the lab with him after class. He wanted to pull my part off my USB drive (this device will henceforth be referred to as a "llave"), then save it to his llave and combine it. Well, he pulled his up, and it's ugly. Or well, if you were just looking at his background as a picture, it would be fine. However, it's too busy and has too much variation in color to serve well as a background. He also put nowhere near enough information on his slides, and his animations were kind of dumb. Now, perhaps I'm just biased that I think mine looks better. But then again, perhaps the part of my brain that says "this is ugly, fix it" has more than one brain cell to rub together.
THANKFULLY, I had saved my part as a .pptx file (the new power point) instead of a .ppt (old power point) because the graphs I used wouldn't have transferred. The computers in the lab were not able to open my .pptx file. So then the guy in my group did this whole "download a thing to make it work" .... I did not want him opening my power point and ugly-fying it, so I suggested that he save his to my llave and I would combine them. Ahh, yes, how logical! Except there are several dilemmas. First, from what I understood, the girl in our group has not fixed her part of the paper (which was due today), nor did she really do any slides. I asked the guy if he could get her to e-mail me her slides so I could add them to ours, but some part of that was lost in translation and/or not going to happen because she's being a slacker. Second, the guy wants to add more to his slides. Why even bother giving me the half-done stuff then? Why not just e-mail me your part when you finish, and I'll put it together? If I do it now, I'm just going to have to do it twice, which is a waste of time. It made me very sad that I was not able to express this sentiment properly in Spanish. Third, I face a moral dilemma. Whose background do I use? His is ugly, but I wouldn't want people changing my stuff around. I'm tempted to just leave the parts with different backgrounds (although make the text the same and stuff) ... you know, to better "divide the sections" or something.
So now I have to add his 4 really lousy slides to my 11 very pretty ones. Then I have to find a way to save it in the old format but while keeping my graphs. Then I have to e-mail it to him so he can add more to his parts, at which point I would hope he would e-mail it back to me so I could un-uglyfy anything he did to it. This is riduculous. I think I'm just going to e-mail him and say that I combined them and I can send it as a .pptx, but I can't save it as a .ppt file because I get an error message about my graphs (which is true.) Then I'll tell him just to finish his slides and send them to me, then I'll add his to mine and we'll be good.
I feel kind of hypocritical for typing all this since when it comes to actually presenting the information, all of the Ticos are 20x better than I am (even if the language barrier were removed). However, ugly, unreadable power points kind of detract from what they're saying, so I still feel somewhat justified.
In other news, it's now officially "cold" here. Winter (which they seem to call summer, even though we're still in the northern hemisphere) has arrived. In general, this time of year is nicer than the rest of the year, especially later on, like in Jan-March. It's a little bit colder, but there's less rain and more sun. Well, anyway, today I guess there's a cold front hanging over the area, and it was pretty windy. I'd guess the temperature was about 65, although maybe with the wind it felt like 55 or 60. If I had a nickel for every time I heard "Ay, que frio!" today, I would be very rich. Come on, really? It's like, 60 degrees outside. That's NOT COLD. You guys do not know what cold is. You would die if you came to my state, and my state isn't even that cold. A guy in my geography class was literally wearing gloves and a scarf DURING CLASS, surrounded by 4 nice wind-blocking walls. It was probably 70 in that classroom, and he's sitting there in a scarf and gloves. I repeat: come on, really?
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Karma strikes again!
Am I good or what? Just as I predicted, Karma paid me a visit for round two of "this is why you shouldn't gloat." I got my test from Geography of Costa Rica back today, and I got a whopping 73 on it. Oh yes, another juicy delicious C. I also had to give my presentation today. Thankfully I went first, because I would have not wanted to follow anyone who went after me. I just fail at presentations. It doesn't matter what language I use, I am just bad at giving presentations. Period. You know what, though? I don't really care. It's over. It's done. My paper is turned in. Hopefully I'll get at least a C on the paper, and then I can be well on my way to not failing the class. Yay not failing!! It's strange how I used to care so much about my grades... okay, well, I still care a lot. Just not right this instant, not in this class. It's really hard to care right now for several reasons.
(1) That paper/presentation are done. That feels soooooo good. This good feeling goes a long way towards blocking the bad feelings.
(2) This class does not count for any requirements, either Gen-Ed or major/minor. Basically the only reason to try is so it doesn't mess up my GPA.
(3) There is no point in learning about the Geography of Costa Rica. I leave this country in less than a month. I'm sure I'll be back someday, but I don't need to know this stuff for my career or for any future visits. It's pointless knowledge.
Even though I got a C on this test and I don't think my paper is going to bring my grade up at all, I'm still in a good mood. Why, you ask? Well, I can no officially count all remaining assignments and tests on one hand. (You have no idea how good it feels to type that.) This is due to a combination of an assignment and test into one project, and the fact that my Environmental Management teacher decided that we don't actually have to give presentations. (I'm almost sad about that... I was kind of looking forward to explaining two stroke engines to my class...)
I have remaining:
Tomorrow: 1 presentation about Petroleum. The guy from my group did finally e-mail me last night, but I got the impression that he had forgotten all about the presentation. I bet he's going to have an unhappy moment when he opens my e-mail and is reminded about this. I haven't worked on this presentation (my part) at all yet, but I have the rest of today. This is much better than the presentation I made last night after I got home from class at 8:00
Tomorrow/Friday/whenever: 1 homework assignment. This is the assignment from Geography of Costa Rica about taking the Periferica bus. My teacher decided that this assignment would be our final. This means I have one less test, and this is the one test I was looking forward to the least anyhow. Better yet, when I went up to ask the teacher about it at the end of class, I mentioned that I didn't have a partner. There was a group of 3 girls who were going to do it together, and they offered to let me work with them (we're going to turn in 2 versions between the 4 of us, I guess). I was soooooo relieved when I had people to work with. This goes back to what I've said about being nice to foreign people -- those girls made my day.
Next Tuesday, the Monday and Wednesday after that: Finals. I need to do well on my cartography test since I did not-so-hot on the last one. This is going to require some serious studying since a lot of it is going to be over the presentations that some guest speakers gave -- presentations which I did NOT pay attention to. I do need to study a little bit for my Evrn Management test. There's apparently a paper he wrote that he wants us to read (always a good idea to be familiar with things the professor wrote), and some other stuff that I need to go over. We still haven't gotten back any of our assignments, so I can't say for sure that I'm doing well in that class. Finally, I have my world geography test. This is open book, which is good -- if I manage to finish my backlog of reading between now and then. I'm feeling REALLY smart for having meticulously utilized the highlighter and looked up unknown words while I was reading the readings.
So there you go. 1 presentation. 1 homework assignment (that counts as a test). 3 finals. Panama. Nicaragua. Home. Popsicle. (Because I'm going to be a giant popsicle when I get home). I am beginning to feel the warm rays of the light at the end of the tunnel, and it feels good. VERY GOOD.
And finally, my observation of the day: Ticos are not very good at recognizing things that should be obvious. Example 1: I walk to the corner store to buy a coke. Two women in an SUV pull up. ¿Muchacha, sabe donde está el Hipermás? (Do you know where Hipermas is?) Um...do I LOOK like I know where Hipermas is? 95% of the people in this country who look like gringos are, in fact, gringos. Probability therefore says that I am gringa. Why would you ask a foreigner where something is? That's just a bad plan. As it turns out, I do actually know where Hipermas is, although my explanation of its location was pretty weak. I think they figured it out, though. Exmaple 2: The girls who let me in on their group for the Geog. of CR class project asked if I spoke English and what country I'm from. I suppose I can't expect them to be able to differentiate accents, even between French, German, and English, but really? All the French and German students I've run in to have spoken almost perfect Spanish. These girls just sat through a class and listened to me butcher their language. I think that should say perfectly well what language I speak, and for that matter, what country I'm from. (Sad but true statement. Note to all future parents: find a way to teach your children other languages when they're young, because the U.S. education system isn't going to.)
(1) That paper/presentation are done. That feels soooooo good. This good feeling goes a long way towards blocking the bad feelings.
(2) This class does not count for any requirements, either Gen-Ed or major/minor. Basically the only reason to try is so it doesn't mess up my GPA.
(3) There is no point in learning about the Geography of Costa Rica. I leave this country in less than a month. I'm sure I'll be back someday, but I don't need to know this stuff for my career or for any future visits. It's pointless knowledge.
Even though I got a C on this test and I don't think my paper is going to bring my grade up at all, I'm still in a good mood. Why, you ask? Well, I can no officially count all remaining assignments and tests on one hand. (You have no idea how good it feels to type that.) This is due to a combination of an assignment and test into one project, and the fact that my Environmental Management teacher decided that we don't actually have to give presentations. (I'm almost sad about that... I was kind of looking forward to explaining two stroke engines to my class...)
I have remaining:
Tomorrow: 1 presentation about Petroleum. The guy from my group did finally e-mail me last night, but I got the impression that he had forgotten all about the presentation. I bet he's going to have an unhappy moment when he opens my e-mail and is reminded about this. I haven't worked on this presentation (my part) at all yet, but I have the rest of today. This is much better than the presentation I made last night after I got home from class at 8:00
Tomorrow/Friday/whenever: 1 homework assignment. This is the assignment from Geography of Costa Rica about taking the Periferica bus. My teacher decided that this assignment would be our final. This means I have one less test, and this is the one test I was looking forward to the least anyhow. Better yet, when I went up to ask the teacher about it at the end of class, I mentioned that I didn't have a partner. There was a group of 3 girls who were going to do it together, and they offered to let me work with them (we're going to turn in 2 versions between the 4 of us, I guess). I was soooooo relieved when I had people to work with. This goes back to what I've said about being nice to foreign people -- those girls made my day.
Next Tuesday, the Monday and Wednesday after that: Finals. I need to do well on my cartography test since I did not-so-hot on the last one. This is going to require some serious studying since a lot of it is going to be over the presentations that some guest speakers gave -- presentations which I did NOT pay attention to. I do need to study a little bit for my Evrn Management test. There's apparently a paper he wrote that he wants us to read (always a good idea to be familiar with things the professor wrote), and some other stuff that I need to go over. We still haven't gotten back any of our assignments, so I can't say for sure that I'm doing well in that class. Finally, I have my world geography test. This is open book, which is good -- if I manage to finish my backlog of reading between now and then. I'm feeling REALLY smart for having meticulously utilized the highlighter and looked up unknown words while I was reading the readings.
So there you go. 1 presentation. 1 homework assignment (that counts as a test). 3 finals. Panama. Nicaragua. Home. Popsicle. (Because I'm going to be a giant popsicle when I get home). I am beginning to feel the warm rays of the light at the end of the tunnel, and it feels good. VERY GOOD.
And finally, my observation of the day: Ticos are not very good at recognizing things that should be obvious. Example 1: I walk to the corner store to buy a coke. Two women in an SUV pull up. ¿Muchacha, sabe donde está el Hipermás? (Do you know where Hipermas is?) Um...do I LOOK like I know where Hipermas is? 95% of the people in this country who look like gringos are, in fact, gringos. Probability therefore says that I am gringa. Why would you ask a foreigner where something is? That's just a bad plan. As it turns out, I do actually know where Hipermas is, although my explanation of its location was pretty weak. I think they figured it out, though. Exmaple 2: The girls who let me in on their group for the Geog. of CR class project asked if I spoke English and what country I'm from. I suppose I can't expect them to be able to differentiate accents, even between French, German, and English, but really? All the French and German students I've run in to have spoken almost perfect Spanish. These girls just sat through a class and listened to me butcher their language. I think that should say perfectly well what language I speak, and for that matter, what country I'm from. (Sad but true statement. Note to all future parents: find a way to teach your children other languages when they're young, because the U.S. education system isn't going to.)
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Footnotes and such
Today my cartography class went on a field trip, and I have some footnotes and/or insights to share, even though I desperately need to be working on my paper that's due Tuesday. (I have a fairly well-fleshed out outline, but that isn't consoling me much right now since I only have the rest of tonight and tomorrow to finish it.)
Our field trip was mainly to Parque Nacional Volcan Poas, (Poas Volcano, for anyone who needed that hint), although we also stopped at the La Paz waterfall and a few random places on the side of the road. This field trip was kind of surreal for me for a few reasons.
First, I've already been to La Paz and Poas. La Paz especially was trippy because that was one of our first trips way back when. As of today, I have exactly one month left in Costa Rica. As much as I think symbolism is a bunch of nonsense, returning still kind of felt symbolic of how far I've come and how long it's been.
Second, although all the Ticos know the country and cities much better than I do, it would appear from the small sample size that my class represents that I am better-traveled that most Ticos. Of the 6 of us on the field trip (the class only has like, 8 people), I think only one other person had been to Poas, and I was the only one who had been to La Paz. I'm sure the Ticos have been plenty of places I haven't, but it surprised me that they hadn't been to see all these cool things a million times before on field trips or with their families.
Third -- perhaps this is redundant, but -- we went on a field trip. To a volcano. A VOLCANO. When was the last time you went on a field trip to a volcano? That field trip would be the height of cool back in the states. And although we didn't go on field trips to the Caribbean or Pacific, those were options for other classes. How cool is that? There's no way I'd be going on a field trip to any ocean back in the states, much less having a choice of two. This is one of the really cool things about Costa Rica. It's such a tiny tiny country (about the size of West Virginia), so all of the wonderful things they have to see are condensed and easily accessible from almost anywhere in the country. ("Easily" is relative). You can see cities, mountains, beaches, rain forest, and coffee and banana plantations all in the same day. I repeat: How cool is that?
Fourth, I have an inkling that I'm not the only one who did not-so-hot on the test. My professor was telling us something about the next test, and all the other students were making comments that, assuming I understood correctly, were complaining about how hard/long the last test was. Better yet, I am nearly positive that they all missed points on the same blowing-up-the-map question, because it was specifically pointed out and requested that for the next test, she NOT enlarge the map. This makes me feel better about myself.
I think I'll end there, since I REALLY need to get to work on the destroyer-of-my-soul also known as my paper that's due Tuesday. I have a month left here, and just about half a month left of classes. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but I can't get there because of the cave-in (made of homework, presentations, papers, and tests) that's in front of me. I know being home will heal my soul, but I'm not sure I'll have any left to heal by the time I finish all this work. (Sorry, I guess I'm in a symbolic and philosophical mood today. I blame school.)
Our field trip was mainly to Parque Nacional Volcan Poas, (Poas Volcano, for anyone who needed that hint), although we also stopped at the La Paz waterfall and a few random places on the side of the road. This field trip was kind of surreal for me for a few reasons.
First, I've already been to La Paz and Poas. La Paz especially was trippy because that was one of our first trips way back when. As of today, I have exactly one month left in Costa Rica. As much as I think symbolism is a bunch of nonsense, returning still kind of felt symbolic of how far I've come and how long it's been.
Second, although all the Ticos know the country and cities much better than I do, it would appear from the small sample size that my class represents that I am better-traveled that most Ticos. Of the 6 of us on the field trip (the class only has like, 8 people), I think only one other person had been to Poas, and I was the only one who had been to La Paz. I'm sure the Ticos have been plenty of places I haven't, but it surprised me that they hadn't been to see all these cool things a million times before on field trips or with their families.
Third -- perhaps this is redundant, but -- we went on a field trip. To a volcano. A VOLCANO. When was the last time you went on a field trip to a volcano? That field trip would be the height of cool back in the states. And although we didn't go on field trips to the Caribbean or Pacific, those were options for other classes. How cool is that? There's no way I'd be going on a field trip to any ocean back in the states, much less having a choice of two. This is one of the really cool things about Costa Rica. It's such a tiny tiny country (about the size of West Virginia), so all of the wonderful things they have to see are condensed and easily accessible from almost anywhere in the country. ("Easily" is relative). You can see cities, mountains, beaches, rain forest, and coffee and banana plantations all in the same day. I repeat: How cool is that?
Fourth, I have an inkling that I'm not the only one who did not-so-hot on the test. My professor was telling us something about the next test, and all the other students were making comments that, assuming I understood correctly, were complaining about how hard/long the last test was. Better yet, I am nearly positive that they all missed points on the same blowing-up-the-map question, because it was specifically pointed out and requested that for the next test, she NOT enlarge the map. This makes me feel better about myself.
I think I'll end there, since I REALLY need to get to work on the destroyer-of-my-soul also known as my paper that's due Tuesday. I have a month left here, and just about half a month left of classes. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but I can't get there because of the cave-in (made of homework, presentations, papers, and tests) that's in front of me. I know being home will heal my soul, but I'm not sure I'll have any left to heal by the time I finish all this work. (Sorry, I guess I'm in a symbolic and philosophical mood today. I blame school.)
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Oh, hello there, Karma
As I so astutely predicted, Karma has paid me a delightful little visit. We got our Cartography tests back on Tuesday, and I got a 77 on it. I'm surprisingly apathetic about my grades in that class, although I think that's because I've figured out that my teacher is impossible to please, and that I will be getting a B in that class no matter what I do. We also got back the grade on our second lab assignment, and I got an 84 or something on that -- and at least part of the reason was because I didn't use colors that were "pretty enough." (Did I mention she's impossible to please?)
So, on this test.... Part 1 had three questions. I missed a point each on two of them because I "lacked a little more detail." The third one I missed completely because I assumed "datum" meant "data" and made a mini "data base" (apparently "datum" is the points where the line of the earth's "geoide" and "eliposide" are tangent. Go figure.) Part 2 was defining words. There were 11 words to define, worth 2 points each. I got the full two points on four of them, with my general fault being that I didn't write enough. (Me, not write enough... I know, right?) Part 3 was drawing scale bars. Despite the fact that she picked the most ridiculously small scales and insisted that we make all of them in kilometers (like, seriously, why would anyone write ".075 km" when you could just write "75 m"?), I got full credit on all of these. Part 4 was essay-ish questions. I got full credit on one of them, and lost a total of 4 points on the other 3, again because I lacked detail or certain points that she was apparently looking for.
Part 5 is the most ridiculous though. We went over in class today how to do this part, and I was not pleased. Basically, she had copied a section of a topographical map, including the map line coordinates (based in meters/km). There were two points, and we were supposed to find the coordinates of these two points. In class, we learned that you do this by figuring out the scale (how many meters are represented by a mm on the map), then by measuring the distance from nearest line to point, multiplying that by the scale, then adding the distance to the product to get a coordinate. I performed what we did in class perfectly, yet I only got 5.5 of the 10 points. Why is this, you ask? It's because she BLEW UP THE MAP TO PUT IT ON THE TEST. This completely destroyed the scale that I was using. She told us that she messed up the scale, and she told us to just use what it was supposed to be (1:50,000). Well, that's what I thought I did. I used that number to figure out how many mm are equal to how many meters, but that apparently wasn't what she was trying to get us to do. Apparently, we were supposed to supposed to not measure or something, and do some sort of crazy "Well, if the distance between these two lines is x, then halfway would be .5x, and halfway between that would be .25x, and if I know x = y, then .25x must be..." and figure it out that way. Come on, really now? Don't teach us how to do something if you're not going to do it that way on the test. I'm kind of mad, but I also kind of don't care.
Because Karma loves me so much, it also decided to make me feel horrible and sick Tuesday morning. I left Cartography early to go home, which means that I missed lab time, which means I have to go to the lab outside of class hours to get my stuff done, which is something I really don't have time to do right now. I also completely skipped my geography of Costa Rica class, which means I didn't get my test back to see how bad it was (Karma round two will be next week, just wait for it), and which means I didn't get to verify my presentation topic with my professor. I've finally narrowed it down to problems with transportation in the metropolitan area; I have sources and I'm working on fleshing out an outline. I e-mailed her today to verify it that way, however, I'm completely terrified that she's going to e-mail me back and say that either I can't do that or that someone else already did the same thing, so I have to find a new topic. I also still have no idea how or what to do about the last homework assignment in that class, but I figure I can ask her about that after class next Tuesday when I'm not totally freaking out about this paper/presentation.
To add fuel to the fire, I have a presentation for World Geography next Wednesday. This is supposed to be a group presentation, but I was the only one from my group who showed up for class today. I don't have their e-mails, so I have no way to contact them so we can come up with a plan for our presentation. The guy in the group has my e-mail, but he's never used it, so for all I know, he lost it and has no way to contact me either. I did talk to the professor after class, and he was sympathetic. He said something kind of jokingly about irresponsibility being a cultural policy in Costa Rica (cultural policy and policies of culture was something we talked about today in class, although beyond that I don't remember much because it was really boring), and that I should just do what I can. He also said that they might try to contact me at the last minute or something, because (apparently) that's what Ticos do sometimes. He told me just to be ready to present my part, and the way he said it makes me just about certain that he would not penalize my grade just because my group doesn't have their act together. This class is so boring and I hate all the readings, but for some reason, I still like it... That could have something to do with the professor being fair and understanding, and for generally giving me good grades when I write a bunch of nonsense though. The good news: I finished my last reflexion in that class, so all I have left is a presentation and a final. Wohoo!!
So, life in general... it's pretty horrible right now. Perhaps the last sentence of the previous paragraph made you think that life is good, but overall, it's currently very bleak and depressing. I have a whole paper to write and a presentation to make by Tuesday. This presentation is, from the get-go, going to be a fracaso estrepitoso (spectacular failure). I am going to present to the Ticos about problems with transportation in the area where they've all grown up. They are all 500 times more familiar with this area than I will ever be, and yet I am going to get up there and talk about it. This is just a bad bad idea. Life would be looking up after that presentation, but the next day I've got my "group" presentation, which I will almost certainly be making the night before it's due. After that, assuming my professor remembers to tell us that we actually have to do it, I will have a third presentation due not this Monday but the one after. I also get a take-home test the day after that, and have my final cartography test the day after that. Then the Monday after all that fun, I have my Evrn. Management final, followed on Tuesday by my World Geography final. Then occurs the moment I've been waiting over four months for -- being done with classes and more ecstatic that I will have ever have been previously in my entire life. Thinking of this moment gives me much joy, until I realize the mountain of work I have to dig myself out of before I get there. And then I'm just depressed again. I know that the time will pass and the work will get done, but it's the "how" part that's perplexing me right now. I'm sure that when all this is said and done, I'll be glad for this experience, but until then, I have a few things I wish I could say to this experience, and none of them are very nice.
So, on this test.... Part 1 had three questions. I missed a point each on two of them because I "lacked a little more detail." The third one I missed completely because I assumed "datum" meant "data" and made a mini "data base" (apparently "datum" is the points where the line of the earth's "geoide" and "eliposide" are tangent. Go figure.) Part 2 was defining words. There were 11 words to define, worth 2 points each. I got the full two points on four of them, with my general fault being that I didn't write enough. (Me, not write enough... I know, right?) Part 3 was drawing scale bars. Despite the fact that she picked the most ridiculously small scales and insisted that we make all of them in kilometers (like, seriously, why would anyone write ".075 km" when you could just write "75 m"?), I got full credit on all of these. Part 4 was essay-ish questions. I got full credit on one of them, and lost a total of 4 points on the other 3, again because I lacked detail or certain points that she was apparently looking for.
Part 5 is the most ridiculous though. We went over in class today how to do this part, and I was not pleased. Basically, she had copied a section of a topographical map, including the map line coordinates (based in meters/km). There were two points, and we were supposed to find the coordinates of these two points. In class, we learned that you do this by figuring out the scale (how many meters are represented by a mm on the map), then by measuring the distance from nearest line to point, multiplying that by the scale, then adding the distance to the product to get a coordinate. I performed what we did in class perfectly, yet I only got 5.5 of the 10 points. Why is this, you ask? It's because she BLEW UP THE MAP TO PUT IT ON THE TEST. This completely destroyed the scale that I was using. She told us that she messed up the scale, and she told us to just use what it was supposed to be (1:50,000). Well, that's what I thought I did. I used that number to figure out how many mm are equal to how many meters, but that apparently wasn't what she was trying to get us to do. Apparently, we were supposed to supposed to not measure or something, and do some sort of crazy "Well, if the distance between these two lines is x, then halfway would be .5x, and halfway between that would be .25x, and if I know x = y, then .25x must be..." and figure it out that way. Come on, really now? Don't teach us how to do something if you're not going to do it that way on the test. I'm kind of mad, but I also kind of don't care.
Because Karma loves me so much, it also decided to make me feel horrible and sick Tuesday morning. I left Cartography early to go home, which means that I missed lab time, which means I have to go to the lab outside of class hours to get my stuff done, which is something I really don't have time to do right now. I also completely skipped my geography of Costa Rica class, which means I didn't get my test back to see how bad it was (Karma round two will be next week, just wait for it), and which means I didn't get to verify my presentation topic with my professor. I've finally narrowed it down to problems with transportation in the metropolitan area; I have sources and I'm working on fleshing out an outline. I e-mailed her today to verify it that way, however, I'm completely terrified that she's going to e-mail me back and say that either I can't do that or that someone else already did the same thing, so I have to find a new topic. I also still have no idea how or what to do about the last homework assignment in that class, but I figure I can ask her about that after class next Tuesday when I'm not totally freaking out about this paper/presentation.
To add fuel to the fire, I have a presentation for World Geography next Wednesday. This is supposed to be a group presentation, but I was the only one from my group who showed up for class today. I don't have their e-mails, so I have no way to contact them so we can come up with a plan for our presentation. The guy in the group has my e-mail, but he's never used it, so for all I know, he lost it and has no way to contact me either. I did talk to the professor after class, and he was sympathetic. He said something kind of jokingly about irresponsibility being a cultural policy in Costa Rica (cultural policy and policies of culture was something we talked about today in class, although beyond that I don't remember much because it was really boring), and that I should just do what I can. He also said that they might try to contact me at the last minute or something, because (apparently) that's what Ticos do sometimes. He told me just to be ready to present my part, and the way he said it makes me just about certain that he would not penalize my grade just because my group doesn't have their act together. This class is so boring and I hate all the readings, but for some reason, I still like it... That could have something to do with the professor being fair and understanding, and for generally giving me good grades when I write a bunch of nonsense though. The good news: I finished my last reflexion in that class, so all I have left is a presentation and a final. Wohoo!!
So, life in general... it's pretty horrible right now. Perhaps the last sentence of the previous paragraph made you think that life is good, but overall, it's currently very bleak and depressing. I have a whole paper to write and a presentation to make by Tuesday. This presentation is, from the get-go, going to be a fracaso estrepitoso (spectacular failure). I am going to present to the Ticos about problems with transportation in the area where they've all grown up. They are all 500 times more familiar with this area than I will ever be, and yet I am going to get up there and talk about it. This is just a bad bad idea. Life would be looking up after that presentation, but the next day I've got my "group" presentation, which I will almost certainly be making the night before it's due. After that, assuming my professor remembers to tell us that we actually have to do it, I will have a third presentation due not this Monday but the one after. I also get a take-home test the day after that, and have my final cartography test the day after that. Then the Monday after all that fun, I have my Evrn. Management final, followed on Tuesday by my World Geography final. Then occurs the moment I've been waiting over four months for -- being done with classes and more ecstatic that I will have ever have been previously in my entire life. Thinking of this moment gives me much joy, until I realize the mountain of work I have to dig myself out of before I get there. And then I'm just depressed again. I know that the time will pass and the work will get done, but it's the "how" part that's perplexing me right now. I'm sure that when all this is said and done, I'll be glad for this experience, but until then, I have a few things I wish I could say to this experience, and none of them are very nice.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Gloats ... round two
I have a second reason to gloat my brains out.
On Monday, we got our tests in Environmental Management back. He drew out the whole process -- such and such percentage got this score, and overall they were okay, but some people didn't do well, here, let me draw a graph, etc -- but he did finally hand them back. He told us that 3 people in the class (class has probably about 25 people) got 10's. I was one of them, and -- get this -- one of my friends from the grupo got the one of the other ones. Yes, you heard right: the gringas accounted for 2/3 of the perfect scores on this test. You have no idea how hard it was for me to contain my gloating until class was over.
To backtrack slightly, last weekend we went to Parque Nacional Cahuita, one of the national parks on the carribean side. I feel like it's mostly known for the coral reefs -- reefs which we sadly did not get to visit -- but the land-based side of the park was pretty neat too.
On the first day we were there (Halloween) we went down to Playa Negra, a black sand beach. That was cool in itself, but this sand was the weirdest, funnest sand I've ever played with. It was super fine, and it just had this really weird consistency. You could scoop up a handful and actually form a ball with it. And with these balls, I discovered, you could juggle fairly successfully. Sand you can juggle -- weird, right? If you got some of the sand closer to the water, it would run through your fingers kind of like mud, and if you made a ball and threw it at someone, it looked like they'd just been splattered with a mud ball. It was great fun. Our big Halloween celebration consisted of making our now signature grupo pasta (spaghetti, tomato paste, and fresh garlic, onions, and tomatoes all cooked together) and grupo guacamole (wondeful ripe Costa Rican avocados, tomato, onion, garlic, salt, NO cilantro, and the chips that come in the purple bag). And then we went to bed early. I was a little sad for a while that I missed out on all the "normal" Halloween fun, but I figure that I've already celebrated Halloween like that for 19 years, and I've got the rest of my life to go to big Halloween parties... how many times am I going to get to celebrate Halloween eating delicious guacamole, pasta, and hanging out with my grupo buddies on a black sand beach?
On Saturday, I started off the day with a gallo pinto feast with one of my friends. We got these massive plates of gallo pinto and huevos (eggs) and some really good juice for like, $4 each or something. I suppose that's expensive for beans, rice, and eggs, but it was totally worth it. After that, we all went to the parque nacional. The enterance was literally 100 meters away from where we were staying. There was a trail through jungle-ish/mangrove-ish forest that skirted the beach. I wasn't up for much walking that day, so I got maybe 1/3 or 1/2 the way along the trail and plunked myself down on the beach. Even so, I still saw some really cool plants and a sloth. The beach kind of turned out to be a bust though. Every time me and the other girl who stayed on the beach thought we'd found a dry spot, there would be one wave that would come out of nowhere and almost swamp us. We'd pick up all our stuff just in time, until one particularly big wave caught us completely uprepared. After that, we moved down the beach to a little sand platform, figuring that the ocean couldn't get us there. That theory worked for maybe 45 minutes, when a huge wave came and completely soaked anything we had left that had been dry. Well, if I couldn't beat the system, I decided to join it by going for a swim. Except that the waves were not exactly these little gentle waves. Some of these were probably 5 or even 6 feet tall, although you had to hit it at the exact right point before it crested to experience the full height and power of the wave.
How do I know this, you ask? Because I hit a wave at the exact right point before it crested, and I experienced the full height and power of the wave. I saw it coming, but it hadn't crested yet, so I thought I could just float over the top and be fine. Well, I must have been about 3 inches away from being safe on the other side of thee wave when it crested ... with me in it. It was what I like to call a "don't panic" wave because you just have to let it do it's thing and spit you out. Panicing is not only pointless because there's nothing you can do, it's also likely to make you get even more salt water and sand stuffed down your facial orifices. So, the wave caught me. And it tossed me around like a rag doll. The ocean does not play nicely. When I finally surfaced (a good 20+ feet from where I'd started) my friend bust out laughing, "Linda, you have SO much sand in your hair!" Yes, even from 20 feet away, the amount of sand I had in my hair as a result of the wave jamming my head into the bottom of the ocean was apparent. I was done with the ocean for the day after that experience. I'm still finding sand in my ears a week after this happened.
So, returning to a more chronological timeline, back to classes. Tuesday was pretty normal. I finished the work in Cartography so I didn't have to come back to the lab some other time to finish, and that was good.
I asked my Geography of Costa Rica teacher when I should do my paper/presentation, and we decided on the 18th. This is very good, because it gives me more time to finish. However, I'm still totally freaking out about this because I have no idea what I'm going to write about. It has to be something about urbanization in Costa Rica. In the U.S., a project like this wouldn't be a problem. I know the newspapers to check, the magazines to look at, the books to read, the government sites to search, or if all that fails, I have a whole bank of keywords I can use to search. Here, though, I have limited knowledge of all of those things. I already tried searching their libraries, and I came up with very little. Some of that was that I kept getting server errors in my searches, and some of it was that there weren't that many useful books, and some of it was that a lot of the stuff was old theis papers from students that they'd bound and put in the library. And by old, I mean like, 60's. 70's. 80's... not stuff that's super useful for discussing the current situation. It was really frustrating. KU's databases don't have much for Costa Rica either. So now I have a lot of internet searching to do, although one of my friends from the grupo lent me a book that I'm pretty sure is going to be my best source.
On top of that paper and presentation, I have two more presentations (one group, one indiviudal), a reflexion, and a last project. The last project kind of scares me because I have no idea what we're doing. It's something about mapping and discussing the neighborhoods that the Periferica bus route goes through (it goes around the edge of the city). Only thing is, I'm not sure if we're actually supposed to take the bus. And then if we are, how are we going to know anything about the neighborhoods without getting off? But if we get off, how is that going to take 1.5 hours (I think she said that)? And if we aren't supposed to take the bus, where should we get our info? She also wants us to do it with a partner, and I'm considering just doing it on my own since I don't think it's fair to make a Tico do it with me. Bah, too much work. I just want this semester to be over so I can get my 13 days of travelling in (Panama and Nicaragua, baby!) and return to the wonderful land of home.
On Monday, we got our tests in Environmental Management back. He drew out the whole process -- such and such percentage got this score, and overall they were okay, but some people didn't do well, here, let me draw a graph, etc -- but he did finally hand them back. He told us that 3 people in the class (class has probably about 25 people) got 10's. I was one of them, and -- get this -- one of my friends from the grupo got the one of the other ones. Yes, you heard right: the gringas accounted for 2/3 of the perfect scores on this test. You have no idea how hard it was for me to contain my gloating until class was over.
To backtrack slightly, last weekend we went to Parque Nacional Cahuita, one of the national parks on the carribean side. I feel like it's mostly known for the coral reefs -- reefs which we sadly did not get to visit -- but the land-based side of the park was pretty neat too.
On the first day we were there (Halloween) we went down to Playa Negra, a black sand beach. That was cool in itself, but this sand was the weirdest, funnest sand I've ever played with. It was super fine, and it just had this really weird consistency. You could scoop up a handful and actually form a ball with it. And with these balls, I discovered, you could juggle fairly successfully. Sand you can juggle -- weird, right? If you got some of the sand closer to the water, it would run through your fingers kind of like mud, and if you made a ball and threw it at someone, it looked like they'd just been splattered with a mud ball. It was great fun. Our big Halloween celebration consisted of making our now signature grupo pasta (spaghetti, tomato paste, and fresh garlic, onions, and tomatoes all cooked together) and grupo guacamole (wondeful ripe Costa Rican avocados, tomato, onion, garlic, salt, NO cilantro, and the chips that come in the purple bag). And then we went to bed early. I was a little sad for a while that I missed out on all the "normal" Halloween fun, but I figure that I've already celebrated Halloween like that for 19 years, and I've got the rest of my life to go to big Halloween parties... how many times am I going to get to celebrate Halloween eating delicious guacamole, pasta, and hanging out with my grupo buddies on a black sand beach?
On Saturday, I started off the day with a gallo pinto feast with one of my friends. We got these massive plates of gallo pinto and huevos (eggs) and some really good juice for like, $4 each or something. I suppose that's expensive for beans, rice, and eggs, but it was totally worth it. After that, we all went to the parque nacional. The enterance was literally 100 meters away from where we were staying. There was a trail through jungle-ish/mangrove-ish forest that skirted the beach. I wasn't up for much walking that day, so I got maybe 1/3 or 1/2 the way along the trail and plunked myself down on the beach. Even so, I still saw some really cool plants and a sloth. The beach kind of turned out to be a bust though. Every time me and the other girl who stayed on the beach thought we'd found a dry spot, there would be one wave that would come out of nowhere and almost swamp us. We'd pick up all our stuff just in time, until one particularly big wave caught us completely uprepared. After that, we moved down the beach to a little sand platform, figuring that the ocean couldn't get us there. That theory worked for maybe 45 minutes, when a huge wave came and completely soaked anything we had left that had been dry. Well, if I couldn't beat the system, I decided to join it by going for a swim. Except that the waves were not exactly these little gentle waves. Some of these were probably 5 or even 6 feet tall, although you had to hit it at the exact right point before it crested to experience the full height and power of the wave.
How do I know this, you ask? Because I hit a wave at the exact right point before it crested, and I experienced the full height and power of the wave. I saw it coming, but it hadn't crested yet, so I thought I could just float over the top and be fine. Well, I must have been about 3 inches away from being safe on the other side of thee wave when it crested ... with me in it. It was what I like to call a "don't panic" wave because you just have to let it do it's thing and spit you out. Panicing is not only pointless because there's nothing you can do, it's also likely to make you get even more salt water and sand stuffed down your facial orifices. So, the wave caught me. And it tossed me around like a rag doll. The ocean does not play nicely. When I finally surfaced (a good 20+ feet from where I'd started) my friend bust out laughing, "Linda, you have SO much sand in your hair!" Yes, even from 20 feet away, the amount of sand I had in my hair as a result of the wave jamming my head into the bottom of the ocean was apparent. I was done with the ocean for the day after that experience. I'm still finding sand in my ears a week after this happened.
So, returning to a more chronological timeline, back to classes. Tuesday was pretty normal. I finished the work in Cartography so I didn't have to come back to the lab some other time to finish, and that was good.
I asked my Geography of Costa Rica teacher when I should do my paper/presentation, and we decided on the 18th. This is very good, because it gives me more time to finish. However, I'm still totally freaking out about this because I have no idea what I'm going to write about. It has to be something about urbanization in Costa Rica. In the U.S., a project like this wouldn't be a problem. I know the newspapers to check, the magazines to look at, the books to read, the government sites to search, or if all that fails, I have a whole bank of keywords I can use to search. Here, though, I have limited knowledge of all of those things. I already tried searching their libraries, and I came up with very little. Some of that was that I kept getting server errors in my searches, and some of it was that there weren't that many useful books, and some of it was that a lot of the stuff was old theis papers from students that they'd bound and put in the library. And by old, I mean like, 60's. 70's. 80's... not stuff that's super useful for discussing the current situation. It was really frustrating. KU's databases don't have much for Costa Rica either. So now I have a lot of internet searching to do, although one of my friends from the grupo lent me a book that I'm pretty sure is going to be my best source.
On top of that paper and presentation, I have two more presentations (one group, one indiviudal), a reflexion, and a last project. The last project kind of scares me because I have no idea what we're doing. It's something about mapping and discussing the neighborhoods that the Periferica bus route goes through (it goes around the edge of the city). Only thing is, I'm not sure if we're actually supposed to take the bus. And then if we are, how are we going to know anything about the neighborhoods without getting off? But if we get off, how is that going to take 1.5 hours (I think she said that)? And if we aren't supposed to take the bus, where should we get our info? She also wants us to do it with a partner, and I'm considering just doing it on my own since I don't think it's fair to make a Tico do it with me. Bah, too much work. I just want this semester to be over so I can get my 13 days of travelling in (Panama and Nicaragua, baby!) and return to the wonderful land of home.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
*gloat gloat gloat*
I need to take a moment to gloat.
Today, we got back the draft of our group project in World Geography. This was our paper about petroleum. My part was to do the beginning -- basic stuff, and maybe add in some info about the U.S. and petroleum or something like that. Well, I did my part, and, not surprisingly, I wrote more than the 5 pages I had to write. I had it done like two weeks early, and I gave it to my group. The one guy compiled the three parts and we turned in our draft. Today we got it back with corrections. My part needed very little editing.*gloat gloat gloat*
The professor didn't like the way the guy had formatted it, and honestly, I can't blame him. Not to be arrogant, but I probably could have formatted it better. The professor also said we should have edited better. Well, I'm a gringa. I'm not supposed to have perfect grammar, so I'm off the hook as far as I'm concerned on that point. Yeah, my part had more grammatical errors than theirs, but not by as much as I would have thought. Then the professor had a lot of things that my group-mates could add more to or fix or clean up. My part basically only had word or language errors. WHO'S STUCK WITH THE STUPID GRINGA NOW, HUH PUNKS? HUH?
Okay, okay, that was really unfair. My groupmates are really nice, and they've done a good job explaining things to me when I don't understand. But boy oh boy does it feel good to prove that perhaps I'm not as stupid as I seem. Remember when I said that it's bad when you have to correct all the stupid errors your group makes, but it's worse when you're the one making those mistakes? Here's an addition to that: It's FANTASTIC when you can prove that even though you're making those mistakes, you're really not a complete and total idiot.
After we all looked through the paper in class, we talked about how we wanted to do corrections. We dithered about it for a while, and then we decided to go downstairs to the photocopier and make copies. Then we were standing in line, and my group mates were dithering about it because it might just be better to divide it, and because it was "expensive" to copy it. Expensive? Really? It's like, 2o pages. I bet that's like, $1.50 to copy. If that. I really wanted a copy, (a) so that I could see where I messed up, and (b) admire all the things I DIDN'T have to fix, but I didn't want to come of as the rich American by buying an "expensive" copy, so I kept my mouth shut. I offered to scan it, but eventually we decided not to do that. In the end, the guy kept the paper and the girl went off with him (I guess they'll figure it out) and they told me not to worry about it because it would be easy for them to fix my grammatical errors. I still want a copy, but I guess I can't argue with that.
Karma, I am sure, will soon be making its rounds, and it will thoroughly punish me for my complete lack of humility. As such, I'm going to gloat my pants off while I still can.
So, where could Karma possibly rear its ugly head? Well, any one of the tests I haven't gotten back yet is a good place to start. Today we had our Cartography test. I am amazed at how much work my teacher managed to squeeze into two measly pages. That really takes skill. I don't think I did great on the test, but I probably did well enough to get ... maybe a B? B-? That's good enough for me at this point. Some of my definitions were pretty weak (for "vector" I think I seriously wrote "a type of line") and some I probably invented, but other parts of the test I thought I did well on. The most notable part of the test was the last part. She had copied a little square off the Poas topographical map and wanted us to locate 10 things on it. I actually knew what about 6 of them were. Of those, I could locate maybe 3 or 4 on the map. Everything else I just guessed on, with the guesses becoming less and less educated the further down the list I got. I have excuses for myself, though. I'm from Kansas. Kansas is a flat state. At least two of the items I'm supposed to find were some sort of "pendiente." Now, I'm pretty sure that "pendiente" is some sort of slope. We don't have slopes in Kansas. I should not be required to know this question. Second, the hoja Poas (map sheet) is utterly ridiculous. I'm sure some of you have seen my pictures from Poas. Do you have any idea what a topographical map of that looks like? It looks like someone spilled their coffee on a sheet of paper and decided to call it a map. The lines are so close together and all jumbled up that you have to get about an inch away from the paper before you can see that they're not just one giant brown stain. I repeat: ridiculous. All I'm gonna say is thank goodness those last questions were only worth one point each.
Today, we got back the draft of our group project in World Geography. This was our paper about petroleum. My part was to do the beginning -- basic stuff, and maybe add in some info about the U.S. and petroleum or something like that. Well, I did my part, and, not surprisingly, I wrote more than the 5 pages I had to write. I had it done like two weeks early, and I gave it to my group. The one guy compiled the three parts and we turned in our draft. Today we got it back with corrections. My part needed very little editing.*gloat gloat gloat*
The professor didn't like the way the guy had formatted it, and honestly, I can't blame him. Not to be arrogant, but I probably could have formatted it better. The professor also said we should have edited better. Well, I'm a gringa. I'm not supposed to have perfect grammar, so I'm off the hook as far as I'm concerned on that point. Yeah, my part had more grammatical errors than theirs, but not by as much as I would have thought. Then the professor had a lot of things that my group-mates could add more to or fix or clean up. My part basically only had word or language errors. WHO'S STUCK WITH THE STUPID GRINGA NOW, HUH PUNKS? HUH?
Okay, okay, that was really unfair. My groupmates are really nice, and they've done a good job explaining things to me when I don't understand. But boy oh boy does it feel good to prove that perhaps I'm not as stupid as I seem. Remember when I said that it's bad when you have to correct all the stupid errors your group makes, but it's worse when you're the one making those mistakes? Here's an addition to that: It's FANTASTIC when you can prove that even though you're making those mistakes, you're really not a complete and total idiot.
After we all looked through the paper in class, we talked about how we wanted to do corrections. We dithered about it for a while, and then we decided to go downstairs to the photocopier and make copies. Then we were standing in line, and my group mates were dithering about it because it might just be better to divide it, and because it was "expensive" to copy it. Expensive? Really? It's like, 2o pages. I bet that's like, $1.50 to copy. If that. I really wanted a copy, (a) so that I could see where I messed up, and (b) admire all the things I DIDN'T have to fix, but I didn't want to come of as the rich American by buying an "expensive" copy, so I kept my mouth shut. I offered to scan it, but eventually we decided not to do that. In the end, the guy kept the paper and the girl went off with him (I guess they'll figure it out) and they told me not to worry about it because it would be easy for them to fix my grammatical errors. I still want a copy, but I guess I can't argue with that.
Karma, I am sure, will soon be making its rounds, and it will thoroughly punish me for my complete lack of humility. As such, I'm going to gloat my pants off while I still can.
So, where could Karma possibly rear its ugly head? Well, any one of the tests I haven't gotten back yet is a good place to start. Today we had our Cartography test. I am amazed at how much work my teacher managed to squeeze into two measly pages. That really takes skill. I don't think I did great on the test, but I probably did well enough to get ... maybe a B? B-? That's good enough for me at this point. Some of my definitions were pretty weak (for "vector" I think I seriously wrote "a type of line") and some I probably invented, but other parts of the test I thought I did well on. The most notable part of the test was the last part. She had copied a little square off the Poas topographical map and wanted us to locate 10 things on it. I actually knew what about 6 of them were. Of those, I could locate maybe 3 or 4 on the map. Everything else I just guessed on, with the guesses becoming less and less educated the further down the list I got. I have excuses for myself, though. I'm from Kansas. Kansas is a flat state. At least two of the items I'm supposed to find were some sort of "pendiente." Now, I'm pretty sure that "pendiente" is some sort of slope. We don't have slopes in Kansas. I should not be required to know this question. Second, the hoja Poas (map sheet) is utterly ridiculous. I'm sure some of you have seen my pictures from Poas. Do you have any idea what a topographical map of that looks like? It looks like someone spilled their coffee on a sheet of paper and decided to call it a map. The lines are so close together and all jumbled up that you have to get about an inch away from the paper before you can see that they're not just one giant brown stain. I repeat: ridiculous. All I'm gonna say is thank goodness those last questions were only worth one point each.
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