Tuesday, May 25th

Time for a new post? I suppose I should. Finally found a pair of sunglasses on Friday, but they broke on Monday. Oh well, at least I know where to find them now.

Sunday afternoon we went out to the country house - beautiful place. Fruit trees everywhere, mangos, avacados. bananas, plantains, 2 different types of coconut, several that I'd never heard of & can't remember right now. The pic above is looking out from the edge of the yard.

Also needed laundry detergent on Friday, maybe not quite as exciting, well, maybe it isn't even a little exciting, but I had to do it anyway. I'm hoping to sneak in a bite to eat before class, so that's it for now. :)

Sat, May 22 (I think)

I haven't had much of a chance to post yet. This first week has been crazy, travelling, figuring out housing, figuring out schedules & transportation. I certainly haven't settled into any kind of a routine yet, but I generally know where I'm at & where I should be next (usually in class). This post will be brief as I'm still working on getting pics online - I'll probably be posting several times this coming week to get caught up on things, but in summary:

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  The trip here was uneventful (a good thing)
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  The housing situation was a little confusing at first. It's still a little confusing, but at least that much has been accepted. Mostly.
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  Classes are long & difficult. Three hours of biology (Tropical Ecology of the Rainforest), followed by a three hour lunch - everything in town, even the trolly system closes for 3 hours. Then six hours of Spanish.
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  Transportation and directions for getting around are simple - whatever it is, it's either uphill or downhill.
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  There is only one post office in town - and it is uphill from everything.
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  Internet connections, cell phones & electricity all seem to work most of the time. Not great, but good enough. They go in and out with no apparent rhyme or reason, but it keeps things interesting.

I'll try to fill in a few blanks later. It's mid afternoon & it sounds like the town is waking up again so I'm going to get moving.

Wednesday, May 12

Looks like it's been a few weeks again since my last post. I don't really have much time now - 2 papers to wrap up, a final in about 4 hours and one more tomorrow. The most hectic part of finals week is over, but this afternoon & tomorrow will be the most difficult.

I finally got the rest of my flight confirmations (at least for the way there - still a gap or two on getting home again). Homestay info hasn't been sent out yet, but it sounds like that should be Thursday or Friday. Had a few more snags in financial aid a couple weeks ago, I'm still not quite sure what's going on there, but everybody I've talked with has been very helpful, I think it'll work out fine.

I should get a few details worked out in one of these papers, so this post is just going to have to be short. I plan to post regularly beginning next week.

Hasta la próxima ...