arco iris means rainbow

I apologize for the serious lack of information put on this blog. And I am probably going to continue with this lack of information for a little while longer. Writing a large research paper while spending the my last couple weeks in a country leaves little time for many things except stat analysis and living up life. However, I will include alot of pictures so you guys can get a brief idea of what I have been up to.


These are all pictures from a trip to Punta Leona, a resort-ish sort of location on the Pacific Coast that the director of my program worked at a while back. Needless to say it was a breathtaking day and a night and a day, and included one of the most beautiful sun sets of my life AND a double rainbow.

Little do we know the beauty we are going to see soon.

The beach during the day.

The sunset begins over the beach skyline. 

Waves. A necessary component of any beach sunset. 

Perfect shells everywhere. 

The rainbow begins.

The rainbow DOUBLES.

Then the sky exploded with beauty.

And the rainbow faded a little (but was still fantastic)

And the sun set got to a whole other level

And then I couldn't help myself and I went swimming. 

boda means wedding

It has still yet to be decided if children are fat here, or what the heck causes it. Though it is nice to be back in San Jose I fight a daily battle between my desire to work and desire to enjoy my last month here. So far I have usually been able to accomplish a little bit of both, but working on a large project while abroad is definitely a different process than when I am on a college campus.

I won’t bore you with stories (let alone pictures) of my statistical analysis process. Mostly it includes a lot of reading articles, writing words, and putting numbers in excel, then do that again, and again and again.

A more interesting story is our adventure to a volcano last weekend. We went with our program to Volcan Irazu, which was really beautiful. We lucked out with the weather, which I learned was a rarity. It was a breath taking drive to the volcano itself, and we were eventually at about 11,000 ft. It reminded me of the lovely thin air and on top of the world feeling that I had been missing in Colorado.

The land is in the clouds. Magical.

Another Volcano off in the distance. Notice the small smoke plume coming out of the top of it.

Like we were in an airplane. 

When we got to the volcano itself we first saw an old crater or a previous explosion. This volcano is still sometimes active though, so there was no swimming to be had. However, the water in the old crater was an amazing aqua marine color. Also beside us was a desolate are where the plants were just beginning to grow back. Comically enough this place is called “Playa Hermosa” or beautiful beach.  It was beautiful, but not really like any beach I had ever seen.

Playa Hermosa.

Look at the color.

Another shot of Playa Hermosa. Over the edge is the view down into the crater.

Afterwards we visited a church nearby that is of Saint Los Angeles. It is probably the most famous church in Costa Rica, and has a spring of blessed water that I drank out of.  On the day of the Saint of L.A, almost a half of the country makes the pilgrimage to the church to give thanks to the saint and leave gifts of gratitude and appreciation.

Inside the church.

Tokens of thanks. 

As a doe longs for streams so my soul longs for you god.

Greenery.

The following day, Friday, was the Royal Wedding. Obviously this has everything to do with my research on childhood obesity in Costa Rica so I spent the whole day cooking British related food with the two girls who are working on my project with me. We made tea flavored cake, pound cake and jam, strawberries and cream, iced tea, tea sandwiches, and listened to the Beatles during the whole process. Little head way was made in my statistical analysis, but it was a simply lovely afternoon, darling.

The batter for our tea flavored cake with lemon butter cream frosting. 

I don't really like cake. I loved this cake. 

Cooking. You have to wear dresses and skirts when there is a royal wedding. 

The final products and spread for royal wedding tea time. 

royalTEA. hah.

A rose from our garden at ACM and the crystal tea cups for iced tea. 

Watching the full day coverage of wedding events. 

My tea time plate. Some vegetables to counteract the large amount of cake. 

Bundt pount cake. 

All in all the day was quite posh. 

naranja means orange

So continues the stories of Semana Santa.

After returning home for a brief bit to my Venecia house it was time to head out to Guanacaste (the Northwestern section of Costa Rica, only a few kilometers from the Nicaraguan border). However, in the brief time I was home I had to pack up all my things for my return to San Jose post Semana Santa. You can all guess how that went with my delightful talent to avoid packing to the very last millisecond.

We headed out Wedneday afternoon for my host brother’s house (one of four who are all older than me and live in their own houses around Costa Rica). The car carried me, Angelina, my host mom and dad, and my host sister Maria Mercedes (the youngest of my host siblings besides Angelina, Maria is the same age as me but attends the U of Costa Rica and is only home occasional weekends). We made our way across the country. Let me tell you, driving is a whole lot more timely than taking public transportation in this country. However, I lack a car so I’ve never really had the option.

We then proceeded to pass four wonderful days at the beach, cooking food, going to a lot of Mass and just hanging out. Thursday was a beach day (for us, and all of Costa Rica). The beach was pretty packed, but pretty beautiful as well.

What a view. The mountainish landscape leading to the beach was a new look I hadn't previously seen in Costa Rica.

Angelina photos are always necessary.

Friday was a more holy day, so we never went to the beach. However, my host brother does work on an organe/pineapple/passion fruit juice factory (he is some sort of supervisor, I couldn’t teally tell you exactly what he does). Our first night we had gotten a tour of all the machineary and the plant itselt. However, on Friday we headed out to the orange orchards that surrouneded the house we were staying in. Now, I have been a little upset with Colorado’s lack of apple orchards in the fall in comparison to good ole New England. But this was a whole new experience to go orange picking. There was also a beautiful view of Lake Nicaragua across the border, and of a nearby (no longer active) volcano. It was great.

It was beautiful. I love fruit. And the places where it grows. 

Flowers. Bumble bee. 

The volcano

I take alot of pictures of the fruit I am eating. This day was no different. 

Pretty dang beautiful view. 

Dad, Brother, Brother, Sister in Law, Mom, Angelina 

Orange orchard for your strolling pleasure

Yum yum.

Its like a real live minute maid commercial. 

Saturday we returned to the beach (a different one so I could get a better sampling of the variety offered in the area). Again it was beautiful and wonderful.

The water is really that color.

This is not a postcard.

Beach rocks. Little barnacles. Cool. 

Cactuses growing right next to the beach. The usual. 

Buena Vista!

Fruit. Beach. Perfection. 

This is a churchill. It is a desert of shaved iced, dried powdered sweet milk and red syrup flavor (previously mentioned in an earlier post). It tastes like heaven when you're at the beach. 

Sunday was our day to journey back so we never made it to the beach. However, we spent the morning visiting, and had Easter lunch at Pizza Hut. During lunch I tried to explain an easter egg hunt. When you think about it, they are extremely weird. Also on the way home I got to take pictures of the scenery. I had not previously visited a place in Costa Rica that was not overwhelmingly green. However, Guanacaste looked a whole awful lot like Colorado. I’ll show you what I mean: 

Colorado?

Slowly transforming back to the green Costa Rica I know. (Note the windmills in the background)

Still trying to figure out how the heck the GPS works here since there aren't any street names here....

Tomorrow we have a field trip. That means there is soon more to come!