Señor y Señora Root en Costa Rica & Nicaragua

Back to School...

2009-03-01T15:07:00.001-08:00

Hello Everyone,

As our Central America adventure nears its end, we are experiencing a string of awesome trips with friends and family. Last week we returned to Costa Rica after over two months of adventure in Nicaragua, and met my mom at the airport the next day. We then drove to Monteverde, Costa Rica, where mom took spanish classes for the week, and the three of us had a great time.

The main joke of the week was "Nina and Paul practicing their parenting on mom." The night before the first day of school, mom pointed out that she didn't know how she would get to the school since it is out of walking distance. We chimed in, "We'll drive you, of course!" We were amused by the concept of the two of us taking my mom to school and picking her up everyday. On the first day of school, we made sure to leave the house with time to spare, and we documented the occasion thoroughly (see picture below). All week long we practiced our parenting on mom, and now feel adequately prepared to take our own kids to school someday.

With mom in classes every morning, we saved all our exciting activities for the afternoons. The first day, we visited the Monteverde cheese factory, which was founded by quakers and is the longest running business in Monteverde. We learned the entire process that they go through to make their cheese (which is not entirely appetizing) and at the end we were able to sample various cheeses produced at the factory. Our tour guide was a friendly guy named Ronald who moved from Wisconsin, and is now giving cheese tours in Cosa Rica. Needless to say, he likes cheese and knows more about it than anyone we've ever met.

Tuesday, we went on a nature hike over beautiful hanging bridges in the Monteverde cloud forest. However, we saved the most extreme activity for last. Wednesday afternoon, Nina and I were somehow able to talk mom into going on the "Extremo Canopy Tour." There is something in the Banks family genes that is immediately skeptical of anything with the word "extremo" in it, but luckliy mom is very open-minded and adventurous, so it didn't take much convincing at all. The canopy tour has fifteen ziplines, ranging in length and height. The longest runs nearly a kilometer, and is really, really high off the ground. I'm not sure how high you are precisely, but it feels like you are an eagle soaring over a huge valley. Cows, farms, and trees look like little dots below you, and it is probably the closest you will ever feel to flying. I am happy to report that mom was able to overcome all her initial anxiety and take flight. I'm not sure how much she "enjoyed" it at the time, but she has since reported that her appreciation of the experience grows with each passing day!

Other than mom's spanish school and our awesome afternoon activities, we mostly relaxed and enjoyed amazing food. Mom also quickly reverted back to her type-A student ways, and studied her spanish lessons vigorously in the afternoons and evenings. I think that she might have become slightly addicted to Costa Rica, and I would not be surprised if she comes down for another round of classes at some point in the future.

The day that we dropped her off at the airport, we immediately picked up our friend, Paige Blake. The next day, Kathy Rowings flew in, and I am happy to report that we are successfully into the last leg of our trip, which I like to call, "Paul and the girls," or "Paul listens to much giggling," or possibly, "Paul in danger of growing a uterus." Stay tuned folks, as our next post is bound to be interesting...

Now, pictures!

Dropping Mom off on the first day of school. She's not even crying!:

Silliness at the cheese factory:
Watching the cheese process:

Showing our dignified side as we sample cheeses:
Mom and me:
Looking at wildlife from the swinging bridges:

Sunset from our beautiful cabin:

Nina ziplining:

Me ziplining:

Mom after the last zipline, very happy that she made it through alive:

Mom and her spanish teacher:

A pretty hummingbird:

Thanks for checking in! We will be back in the USA soon!

Paul and Nina

Pictures from my parents' trip

2009-02-23T09:16:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Becca, my parents' pictures are online. Here are a few for you to enjoy!

In Matagalpa, Nicaragua on the Selva Negra Coffee Farm (available at Whole Foods!)

Horseback riding on the farm:

The workers sorting the coffee:

One of our many meals on the farm:

The children collecting mud from the boiling pits:

Fresh fish on the beach:

Fresh fish (see the pattern?) in Granada:

Lucy, the monkey, stealing our nuts!:

Nina with Lucy on her lap:

Paul and Nina with Whitman and Junior:

Out to dinner at Rodney's wonderful restaurant on my parents' last night:

´´Human beings are the only creatures on earth that allow their children to come back home´´ - Bill Cosby

2009-02-21T08:11:00.000-08:00

My parents (Nina is writing) could not wait the 3 more weeks until we come back home, so they came to travel around with us during our last week in Nicaragua. Where to begin...

Unfortunately, I can´t post any pictures because a.) our camera was stolen, b.) our borrowed camera doesn´t have a connector cord and c.) we will be home before my dad learns how to post his pictures online. So therefore, just imagine ¨Chevy Chase goes to Nicaragua¨ when you read the following stories. We will get pictures up at some point!

My parents flew in on February 12th to Managua and Paul and I had our rental car and sanity ready to go. Whenever my dad sees anything remotely dangerous back home, his famous line is, ¨that guy has a death wish.¨ Needless to say, we heard that line several times on the first ride from the airport to the hotel as they witnessed 5 people on 1 bicylce, men sitting on top of cargo on a truck, children inbetween street lanes, and so on.

We spent our first day touring around Granada. My parents got to meet Junior and Whitman, and even see their new school. Even after several reminders, my parents kept speaking English to them and other children thinking they would understand. After blank stares, they would continue trying to ask in a slower, louder voice, as if that would help. Luckily, our spanish is now up to a decent level where we could translate for my parents all week so we wouldn´t have to witness these painful encounters. We have a basic vocabulary and can get by, but when my dad insisted on me asking people about their water pipelines and electrical meters, I struggled a bit.

We took a boat ride to little islands off of Granada. When our boat reached Monkey Island, our guide asked if we were scared of monkeys. When we said that we were not, he started calling, ¨Lucy¨ and the next thing we knew, a monkey came swinging from the trees and landed in our boat. She immediately walked down the aisle and climbed into my lap! Everyone knows I am a germ freak, so I was trying to enjoy the moment and not think of the countless diseases or necessity for an immediate shower. The guide asked if we had any food for Lucy. Paul took out our salted almonds, kindly brought to us from Becca a few weeks ago. Lucy wasn´t satisfied with a handful, and next thing we knew, she swiped the bag! My mom did not like how greedy Lucy was acting and started pulling the bag out of her hands. Once she was holding the bag and Lucy´s entire body weight on the other end, my mom won! Well, Lucy began hitting my mom and screeching. We all saw her teeth and were yelling at my mom to just give Lucy the bag. Luckily, she listened and we escaped any monkey bites. Lucy left our boat and swung through the trees with her imported almonds from the good ol´USA to show her friends and family what the stupid tourists brought this time.

We laughed about Lucy as we ate whole, fresh fish (we´re talking head, eyes, teeth, tail, and fins on our plates) from Lake Nicaragua at a restaurant nearby. This is my dad´s favorite type of thing. He loves to eat the most local and/or strangest food he can find. This means that we had to request plantains (pronounced as plantin´ by my father) in all fashions for every meal at every restaurant on the trip. He even made us ask a local guy at the market if he could chop a coconut with a machete. The guy looked at us like we were crazy, but he performed this tropical trick, which pleased my father. Don´t worry, my dad was also able to find cow tongue later in the trip. He wanted to find iguana soup after seeing countless iguanas being sold along the highway, but luckily, we never found it. Otherwise, he would have made us try it, too!

The next day, we went to the market in Masaya, where you can find all sorts of handicrafts. My dad was in his element...HAGGLING. My mom wanted to buy a cute dress for my niece and the lady wanted seven dollars. After my dad suggested four dollars, the lady just laughed. He put five dollars on the counter and they lady still was not interested. He told us all to walk away because this lady was clearly being ridiculous. Next thing we knew, the lady was calling us back! We thought, wow, it worked. We walked back to the counter and she said, ¨you left your five dollars on the counter¨ with a snide grin. Next, my dad was very interested in finding a painting for Lake Barkley. Unfortunately, he loved all the ugliest, tackiest, paintings involving parrots, and my mom could not agree on one she liked. Finally, he settled for a coffee painting my mom enjoyed and thought was more appropriate, considering Paul and I worked on a coffee farm. Paul and I found a painting we liked, owned by the same guy. My dad and this guy began the fun sport of haggling. My mom, Paul, and I were not helping the situation by laughing. Paul and I were selectively translating in laughter, as my dad and this guy were both frustrated. We walked away once again, this time with our money in hand. Over an hour later, as we started the engine of our car, the guy knocked on our window and was ready for my dad´s offer. Looks like we got the last laugh! As we purchased the painting, the guy rolled his eyes and told us our dad was ¨muy duro¨ (very tough), which was a great ending to our day in the market.

The rest of our trip involved driving to Leon, the pacific beach, and to a coffee farm in Matagalpa. While on the drive, we stopped by boiling mud pits, where we were lead along this unofficial, dangerous park by five kids 12 years-old and younger. We cringed as they reached down to scoop up some extremely hot mud with a spoon, to give us a closer look. My dad felt the urge to express his admiration and said, ¨mucho _(made up spanish word)___¨ to one of the boys. Of course, the boy didn´t understand. When we asked what he was trying to say, he said ¨I don´t know, it just sounded right.¨ Of course, we all couldn´t stop laughing.

We had a great time and were sad to say goodbye to them on the 19th! Man, we hadn´t laughed that hard, so often, in a while. It was great comic relief! We spent our last night in Nicaragua, being spoiled once again by Rodney. He dropped us off yesterday morning at 6:30 am for our bus to Costa Rica. We arrived in San Jose around 5:30 last night. We barely slept and instead watched the Disney movie ¨college road trip,¨ which the bus driver put on repeat. Finally, he stopped the movie and we were then entertained by MTV music videos from the 80´s and we were surprised when the Nicaraguans and Costa Ricans knew the words! We were relieved to get to our hotel after a long day. The guy at the hotel informed us they no longer had a room for us because their door fell off our room. So much for a reservation! Luckily, we found a new hotel and slept like rocks last night.

We´re off to the airport right now to pick up Bobbie Wrenn. We´ll post about our trip with her next week!

See you soon,
Nina and Paul

Update...Oh So Belated!

2009-02-16T14:36:00.000-08:00

Beautiful food at Sally's 70th birthday:

Dear Faithful Blog Followers,

We would like to first apologize for the extreme delay in updating the blog. A few weeks ago, we were finally the victims of crime down here (we got robbed...blind), and that took some of the wind out of our blogging sails. Don't worry, there was nothing traumatic involved like knives or guns. We just let our guard down for a few minutes and left our backpack unattended in a car in Managua. Somebody broke in and took our backpack, complete with laptop (with many important files, including all pictures from the trip!), digital camera, iPod, Nina's glasses, and other valuable stuff. It was bad, but we're over it. We would like to give a shout out to our Nicaraguan "Tio," Rodney, who spent days investigating the matter, shaking down police and security companies, offering rewards, and literally doing everything humanly possible to help us get our valuables back. He is the best.

Anyway, without the camera and computer, we have been slightly blogging impaired. Therefore, there's way too much information for one post. I'll give some highlights, and we'll save the next post for info on the trip with Nina's parents (in progress, and hilarious).

We had a great visit with Sally and Manny Debono, and their daughter, Becca (Our sis-in-law). Sally was born in Nicaragua, and came to visit for her 70th birthday. Sally and Manny stayed at Rodney's house (her first cousin, thus our excellent connection) and we stayed nearby with Becca. We had a birthday party for her with her Central American family, toured a volcano, went to the beach, went to more parties, hung around Granada, hung out at Rodney's place, ate Rodney's food, slept in Rodney's hammocks, mooched off of Rodney, and tons more! We all had a great time, and as usual, Rodney was the perfect host. It will be very sad when we have to say goodbye to him next Thursday!

The past month in Granada has consisted of finishing our volunteer work with La Esperanza. We finally finished our somewhat cumbersome uniform and school supply project, and after that we began teaching art and PE in a local school. However, the biggest thing that we accomplished had to do with Nina's little buddy, Junior. As we approached the end of our stay there, Nina became more and more frustrated with the fact that Junior would not get the services that he needs after she leaves. School started at the beginning of February, and after we saw his school in action, it became clear that we wanted to send Junior and Whitman somewhere else. Nina spent many hours online looking at schools, and found a great one in Managua. However, moving to Managua was going to be very difficult for the family, so we started looking for new schools in Granada. Nina finally found a place that is a dramatic improvement over their current school. We paid their tuition for the year (a pittance compared to US private schools) and got them ready to go for the year. We plan to stay in touch with La Esperanza in the coming years so that they can continue to go there for school. We hope that they will both be able to focus and learn at the new school, since it was clear that these things were very difficult at their old school.

Currently, I am writing from a beautiful mountain lodge in Matagalpa, Nicaragua. We are having a ball with Nina's parents, and cannot wait to give you all an update about this adventure! Thank you all for continuing to check the blog, even though we stopped updating. We'll get better, so stay with us for the next month! Here are a few more pictures from the Debono's visit, and around Granada:

The Debonos at Masaya Volcano:

Pictures from the culmination of our uniform and school supply project in Granada:

We miss all of you and can't wait to see folks back in the US in less than a month!

Love,

Nina and Paul

Good Times in Granada

2009-01-22T11:30:00.000-08:00

Hey Folks,

Sorry it's been a little while since we updated this thing. We've had a nice few weeks in Granada after my parents' visit. Most of the time we've been enjoying our volunteer work with La Esperanza, but we've also found some time to get away from Granada and chill.

Our uniform/school supply project is coming along nicely, and we should have all school necessities distributed to La Esperanza children by the end of next week. After that, we'll begin spending our mornings in a local school tutoring and helping out.

We've continued to spend our afternoons working with Junior and Whitman. Nina's speech therapy with Junior is coming along really well! He is saying words and making sounds that he never made before, and because of a very comprehensive picture book that Nina made for him, he is learning how to communicate his thoughts and wants with less and less frustration. I am still tagging along to play with/distract Whitman during Junior's therapy with Nina. Luckily, Whitman has not attempted to murder any more birds. He has, however, discovered my iPod, and I'm afraid he's hooked. I think he's approaching his thousandth time having listened to Shakira's "Hips Don't Lie" (see the funny video below). Anyway, I have started to read a chapter book with him by bribing him with iPod use after each chapter. The book is in Spanish, so it's probably like being read to by a third grader for him, but at least it's something!

This past weekend, we got away for a few days to nearby Laguna de Apoyo, a beautiful lagoon less than 30 minutes from Granada. For two days we did nothing but lounge around, swim, read, enjoy free internet, and eat great food.

Back in Granada, we joined much of the world on Tuesday in watching the inauguration of our 44th president. It was great fun watching the event, especially since it took place just steps from our old neighborhood. We know every crack in the sidewalk around the Capitol and the mall, and it was frustrating having to watch it on TV and not be there. In order to support the new President, we cracked open a bottle of Champagne with our roommates and baked a great big chocolate chip cookie, which we dubbed "La Galleta de Esperanza" (in English, "the hope cookie"). In spite of our silliness, we enjoyed the historic event from afar, and sent our best wishes to the new guy. He needs them.

Other than that, not a whole lot going on. We're really, really excited about a slew of visitors over the next month! Tomorrow, we are headed to Rodney's house where we'll spend the weekend with Sally and Manny Debono, and their daughter (our sis-in-law) Becca. Sally is celebrating her 70th birthday by returning to the country of her birth, and we are excited to share that special experience with her. Expect a blog post next week with fun photos! Also, Nina's parents have booked tickets and will visit for a week in February! It's likely that the blog post following their visit holds unprecedented comic potential, so be sure to stay tuned. And just when you think it can't get any better, my mom is coming back down to visit us when we return to Costa Rica! Oh! And Kathy and Paige after that! We are so well-loved!

Before I break down in tears, fun pictures and video:

We went out with the roommates for karaoke. Here, the boys butcher "Bohemian Rhapsody:"
Together at karaoke:

Relaxing at Laguna de Apoyo:

Nice view at Laguna de Apoyo:

Junior working with the wonderful book that Nina made for him:

During a therapy session:

Funny haircut story #2! For my second cut here, Nina accompanied me to make sure there was no funny business. Things went great until the very end, when the guy suddenly dumped half a gallon of gel in my hair to give me some style. Apparently, the porcupine look is in style here. Nina, of course, couldn't help but laugh in the guy's face, even though he was very serious about this:
Finally, some cute video of Junior and Whitman. Junior is riding me like a horse and saying "Va!" (a new word for him), and Whitman is dancing to (and trying to sing) "Hips Don't Lie:"

That's all for now! We'll post next week after fun with the Debonos!

Love,
Paul and Nina

Nothing like family visiting!

2009-01-06T17:42:00.000-08:00

Hello Friends and Family!

Bobbie Wrenn and Dave, Paul´s parents, flew in on Dec. 30th for a fun-filled five days of traveling. We greeted them at the airport in Managua where we picked up our mode of transportation for the week, a red pick-up truck. Apparently, car reservations in Nicaragua do not mean you actually recieve the type of car you reserved, but instead insure you will get some sort of vehicle. We needed a 4X4 and the truck ended up being our only option. Luckily, it never rained and our bags weren´t stolen while we drove through the country, which were our initial fears with the truck.

The first day we showed off Granada to Paul´s parents. We climbed to the steeple of a local church where we had a beautiful view of the city. We enjoyed showing them our house, the market, Junior´s neighborhood, and our favorite gringo hang-outs. Later that afternoon, we set off on the road for a quick drive to San Jorge, where we could board a ferry to take us to Ometepe Island in Lake Nicaragua. We thought our only challenge would be the lack of road signs in Nicaragua, but it turned out the police were our biggest challenge! A policeman asked us to stop and proceeded to ask us for our car registration and Paul´s license. As they were checking things over, the policeman asked us where our fire extinguisher and hazard triangle were. We all looked at each other with total confusion as we searched the car for these items, knowing very well this was just a scheme to get our money. We tried our hardest not to laugh during this awkward exchange with the police in fear of making the situation worse, but of course I (Nina) failed at this attempt and couldn´t hold in my laughter. Paul told his parents afterwards, "if you want Nina to stop laughing, NEVER tell her to stop or it will just make her laugh harder." Lesson learned! Anyway, the policeman told us we could either pay $25 in Managua and he would keep Paul´s license OR he could be very sweet and have us pay $45 and he would kindly return Paul´s license, which he reminded us was very important to have when driving. Well, that was the first hit to Dave´s wallet, which we brushed off our shoulders as only an expensive toll road.

We made it to San Jorge only to find mass confusion as cars and people tried to load the ferry. It was new year´s eve afterall, so everyone was drunk and insisted on telling Paul where to park and drive. We decided it was best to listen to the people who actually worked for the ferry when one local man kept yelling at Paul to pull up and the lonely worker kept yelling at Paul to not move. Needless to say, we eventually made it on the ferry and had a pleasant 1 hour boat ride to the island while we watched a beautiful sunset. Shockingly, the adventure for the day wasn´t over! We had to navigate ourselves to our hotel without sunlight as Paul dodged fireworks, small children, old people, drunks, bicycles, oxen and carts, horses, and dogs in the road. He decided that the experience would make a perfect virtual reality driving course for 16 year-olds.

We made it to our hotel safely but unfortunately the kitchen had closed at 7 and were served the one dish remaining, spaghetti. The four of us enjoyed a few drinks and decided it was way too long until midnight and after our long, adventurous day, we headed to bed. Paul and I are officially an old married couple as we slept through the new year. I thought we would be at least 50 before that happened!

We had a good few days on the island reading our books and taking mini-hikes. After another disorganized ferry docking experience, we successfully left the island and made our way to San Juan del Sur. We stayed in a condo overlooking the beach and enjoyed finding hidden beaches nearby where we read, body surfed, and took another stab with the surf board. During our last dinner in San Juan, I (Nina) abruptly ran out and lost my lunch right in front of a lovely restaurant. I was bound to have my first travelers sickness after 2.5 months in Central America, but who knew it would hit that fast! I´m sure the restuarant enjoyed their nice, free advertising. Luckily, similar to Paul´s sickness a few weeks ago, it only lasted throughout the night and I was good to go in the morning when we had to make our way to Managua.

We successfully turned the car back in to the airport and took a taxi for the rest of the evening. After picking up Rodney, we headed to one of his restaurants, which was a real treat. We ate the best food we´ve had in Nicaragua, besides, of course, the food we´ve had at his home, and were treated like queens and kings with 3 waiters for our table. Bobbie Wrenn and Dave enjoyed getting to know the man who has taken such good care of us in Nicaragua. It couldn´t have been a better way to end our trip.

We were sad to say goodbye the following morning, and a big part of us wanted to hop on that plane with them! Of course, we resisted the urge and are still happily enjoying our life in Granada. Thanks for being patient...on to the pictures!

Bobbie Wrenn and Dave taking a stroll on the beach:

Paul and his dad, Dave, walking back from a swim:

Paul and his parents on the Mirador de Diablo (Devil´s look-out) on Ometepe Island:
Bobbie Wrenn sharing the front seat with a stranger in a taxi in Granada. A taxi is never full:
Our cute bungalow on the island overlooking the lake:
Nina with the new in-laws on New Year´s eve:
Paul and his Dad pretending to have celebrated New Year´s the old-fashioned way, prior to being old and married:
Dave navigating his way through ticket payment on the ferry:

Our view from our condo in San Juan del Sur:

That´s all for now. By the way, we never did get stopped again from the police due to our clever efforts to not look like a car full of gringos with Dave´s hat down low and others ducking. We DID find it interesting to learn that it wasn´t a true scam afterall. Apparently, every car must have a fire extinguisher and hazard triangle, but of course seatbelts and carseats in the cars are optional.

The old-married couple,
Nina and Paul

Feliz Navidad a Todos!

2008-12-24T09:25:00.000-08:00

Greetings and Merry Christmas!

It's been an eventful week and a half in Granada! I'll try to keep it to the point, but there's been quite a bit going on.

Overall, we are off to a good start with our work as volunteers in Granada. Our organization, La Esperanza, works with local schools and communities to fill educational needs. On our first day in the office, we were immediately given the job of outfitting 80 kids before school starts (it's their summer break now). Quite literally, that's all they told us. "We would like you to find uniforms, shoes, backpacks, and supplies for the kids in this school." We were given minimal information about where to go, what exactly to buy, what specific kids to outfit, etc. We quickly learned that La Esperanza is very disorganized.

So, our mornings have been spent trying to organize this project. We found a tailor and seamstress in the village to make the clothes, a guy to sell us shoes, got most of the kids measured, and have learned various ways to track down kids who are not at summer school. None of them have phone numbers or addresses, so it's tricky.

Little by little, we're making progress on our morning project. There is another volunteer from North Dakota named Nick who is working with us on it, so we've made a good friend in the process. We hope that we can track down the remainder of the kids and get them all what they need before the start of school.

The afternoons are a bit different. Much to our amusement, Nina is once again working as a speech pathologist, only now in Spanish! There is a six-year-old boy in the village who can't speak, and because of Nina's expertise, La Esperanza has sent her to work with him in the afternoons. His name is Junior, and he is extremely cute and smart. Upon hearing a description of his problems, Nina thought he might be autistic. However, after meeting him, it was clear that he is not. He definitely understands what's going on around him, and understands spoken language easily. Nina thinks that he probably has Apraxia of Speech, which I think means the connection between his brain and his speaking muscles doesn't function properly. That is my very amateurish explanation, but you get the idea. Ask Nina for scientific details.

I have been assigned to a soccer program in the afternoons, which has been a lot of fun. However, there are lots of volunteers who play soccer, so the past few days I've gone with Nina to Junior's house. He has an eight year-old brother named Whitman, and I have been playing soccer and hanging out with him while Nina works with Junior. We are thinking about making this a permanent arrangement since Whitman wants to play during the therapy sessions, but Nina really needs one-on-one time with Junior. I've enjoyed creating a diversion for the last few days, so we might keep it up.

Yesterday was wonderful. We started the day by visiting a local orphanage for girls and delivering homemade cookies and toys. The girls were tons of fun! We sang Christmas carols in Spanish and English, and of course got into some camp songs, which was bound to happen. We really loved this orphanage, the girls in it, and the Nuns who run it. They expressed interest in some extra help in the afternoons with English instruction, so we're hoping to do that as well.

After the orphanage, we went to Junior's house so that Nina could do her afternoon speech therapy. While they worked, I experienced a funny cultural clash with Whitman. We were playing soccer, when Whitman suddenly told me to stop and be quiet. Very slowly, he took a sling shot out of one pocket and a rock out of the other. He started creeping toward a tree, and carefully took aim at an innocent little bird on a branch. Let me tell you, this was no Fischer Price slingshot, and he came within inches of cutting that little bird in half! The bird, of course, flew away fast. Whitman then went over to its nest, looking for something. In Spanish, I asked him what he was doing. "Looking for eggs," he said. Then I asked if he's ever killed a bird with his slingshot, and he said, "Of course! 140 so far!" He then started creeping through the woods, telling me to follow him. He repeated the shooting/egg search ritual about four times, while questions danced through my head. Should I be stopping this kid from killing innocent animals? It doesn't seem like he has any adult supervision anyway, so will he even listen to me?

After about the fifth attempted murder, he went over to a tree and got really excited. "Look, Look!," he said to me. He came down from the tree and I saw that he was carrying a nest with two baby birds! He was really excited and ran off, shouting about how he wanted to show it to Nina! On the one hand, I knew I should stop him and tell him to put the nest back, but on the other hand, I really wanted to see Nina's reaction. So I followed the kid, laughing quietly to myself. He wouldn't have listened to me anyway.

Nina's face did not let me down. Whitman was so proud, and Nina had a look of utter disgust. After the initial shock wore off, we both started telling Whitman that the fun was over, and that he had to put the baby birds back. "They need their mother or they'll die," we said. "If they stayed in the tree, snakes will eat them," he said. We went back and forth for a long time, until finally Whitman let out a loud sigh, rolled his eyes, and said under his breath in Spanish, "how can I explain this to this guy?" Once again, he told us emphatically that the babies would be eaten if they stayed in the tree. He then ran to his grandmother and gave her the baby birds. None of this seemed strange to anyone but us. Nina just looked at me and said, "we're in a different culture." Toto, I don't think we're in Indiana anymore.

Anyway, all is well with our adventure. I am writing this blog from the comfort of Rodney's Managua home. We arrived here this morning to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas with him. Tomorrow he has lots of family coming in for a huge dinner, and we are so grateful to have a family for Christmas! As always, Rodney is being way too good to us.

We hope that everyone has a very merry Christmas! And now, some pictures/videos:

A street in Granada, looking toward the volcano:

The girls of our house:
Junior!:
Junior practicing his signs/talking with Nina:
Whitman with the cussed bird nest:
With Junior:
At the girls' orphanage:
Leading a camp song at the girls' orphanage:Today (Christmas Eve) at Rodney's house:

Rodney, in the Christmas spirit!:

And now, a video of some fun songs at the girls' orphanage:

And a video of a random Christmas parade that happened by our house the other day:

That's all for now! Feliz Navidad!

Love,
Nina and Paul

Spoiled rotten in Nicaragua

2008-12-17T16:32:00.000-08:00

Hola friends and family. Sorry for the delay in updating our blog, but here goes...

We left Costa Rica on a 7:30 a.m. bus last week and didn´t arrive in Managua, Nicaragua until 5:30 that evening. The actual ride wasn´t bad since we had asked for the front row with ample leg room! We enjoyed the scenery, movies on our laptop, and fellow passengers. The border was an interesting experience to say the least! Before officially leaving Costa Rica, we all had to exit the bus, where we were greeted by 30 men who all had a variety of currencies and were competing for currency exchanges. After getting exit stamps on our visas and passports, we all got back on the bus. We drove literally 10 feet over the border and were asked to get off another time to enter Nicaraguan customs. We had to gather all of our luggage (we quickly regretted packing so many bags) from under the bus and line up. Once it was our turn, we were asked to press a button. Paul and I couldn´t fathom what was going to happen, but we pressed the button and got a green light on the street light, which apparently meant we were free to go. It was great lugging those 4 huge bags for nothing!

We were greeted at the bus station in Managua by our now dear friend, Rodney. My sister-in-law´s (Becca) mom (Sally) was born in Managua. Rodney is her cousin. We were very thankful she helped us get in contact with him because we had our best week of our trip with him! We were spoiled rotten, although it was easy after roughing it on the farm for 3 weeks. We were driven around by his chauffeur, Juan Ramon, and were served coffee (on a silver platter), breakfast, lunch, and dinner by his maids/cooks. One of his maids has a 9 month-old son, Rodrigo, who also lived in the house. We loved playing with him since we had been too deprived of children. We enjoyed learning and eating the typical, home-cooked Nicaraguan food at his house, which was easily the best food we have had during this trip. We FINALLY had hot showers. Not only were they hot, but there was so much pressure that it felt like a massage. Either we truly haven´t had a good shower in a long time or this was the best shower head in the world.

Rodney served as a great historian and entertainer. He caught us up on Nicaraguan history and culture. We also enjoyed watching movies with him in the evening. Luckily for us, he speaks fluent English, since he has lived over 15 years in the states throughout his life. We loved getting to know this amazing guy, who is now who we call our Nicaraguan grandpa. He took us with him to donate Christmas money to old friends of his who are less fortunate. He told us that he wanted us to see how some people live in this world so we can appreciate everything we have. Everywhere we went, it seemed as though everyone knew and loved Rodney.

He even took us to his beach house twice during our 5 day stay. On our second trip to the beach, I got locked inside the bathroom! This was a new house that Rodney looked after as it was built for his friends, so it was a good thing I tested it out. We now know the bathroom door definitely does not work. I had to climb up to the window and yell for help to everyone. Finally, Rodney´s friend heard me and came over to see where I was. Apparently, Paul didn´t move from his hammock when Rodney told him I was stuck in the bathroom because he thought it was a joke! They got a ladder and helped me climb out from the window. It was nice to be saved by others and not my husband. Just kidding, he eventually showed up and pitched in!

Rodney drove us 45 minutes to Granada on Sunday and helped us move into our volunteer house. It would have been an easier transition if we had gone straight from the farm to this house. Instead, we were spoiled rotten by Rodney and have found ourselves wondering where the hot showers, hot meals, and personal driver were all this week! Honestly, the place is not bad at all. We have our own room and bathroom with, yet again, cold showers. We felt a little like we were on the Real World show when we met all these young people from all over the world who are now our roommates. There is an American guy from North Dakota, 3 girls from Holland, and 2 girls from Chile. They are all very easy to get along with, so we lucked out.

I won´t go into too much detail about our volunteer work quite yet. We´ll save that for another blog since it has only been 3 days. We are enjoying the children and Spanish practice greatly! We like Granada a lot. It is a beautiful town with colorful colonial buildings. The guidebook insisted the best hair cuts are in the barber shops in Granada. Paul was surprised to see nothing was correctly written in the guidebook when he tested it out. I don´t think the lady quite understood his English requests. She brought out the clippers before he knew what was going on, so he politely just walked out bald. I still haven´t been able to stop laughing everytime I look at him, which isn´t too nice of me! It has been a great source of entertainment over the past few days.

Thanks for following our blog. We´ll update again shortly with more pictures and info on the volunteering. Here are some pictures for now:

Rodney's house:
One of our many wonderful, Nicaraguan meals. Sorry it is sideways. This internet is too slow to wait for it to re-load the right way:
The house where I got stuck in the bathroom! That roof apparently took the local guys 1 day to build:
Paul relaxing at the beach:
Look, Dad - I'm wearing one of Rodney's hats to protect me from the sun. Evidence:
Rodney relaxing in a hammock:
Check out this beautiful beach sunset:
Paul at sunset:

Nina with Rodrigo and Irania at Rodney's beach:
Our bedroom/bathroom:

Our garden and drying lines:
Some of our roommates in our kitchen:
Our TV room (you can't sit on the furniture without a sheet because the bats like to use the bathroom on them. I was surprised to hear we are living with mice and bats):
Paul's haircut. By the way, this was taken today...2 days after the damage had been done. Imagine what it had looked like fresh!:

Love,
Nina and Paul

Endless Muscle Pain

2008-12-08T19:45:00.000-08:00

Greetings blog enthusiasts!

It's been an awesome week with lots to report, although it was our last week in Costa Rica for a few months! Tomorrow we are leaving by bus for Nicaragua, where we'll be working with kids in a school program. We're very excited about this next stage of our journey.

This was our last week on Frank's coffee farm, and we did everything from processing coffee to pulling weeds. Nina also cleaned and carefully organized Frank's tool shed/coffee processing area. Frank has many redeeming qualities, but organization is not among them. Nina, who is meticulously organized, became determined to help him out. By the end of the day on Saturday she had his place sparkling clean and seemed to have set up a really nice organizational system that he will almost certainly squander. It's his loss, I suppose. Also, we were finally able to roast coffee with him last Tuesday, which means that we have now done every step in the process, from picking to drinking!

However, the main highlight of this week was our hike up Cerro Chirripo, the highest mountain in Costa Rica and the second highest in Central America. I (Paul) have done a lot of hiking in the eastern United States, and the climb up Chirripo is as strenuous as anything that the Appalachians have to offer. At 12,533 feet, it is way taller than anything in the USA east of the Mississippi, and it's strait up. We started in a little town called San Gerardo, which is under 5,000 feet elevation. From there to the summit is 13 miles of continuous climbing in which you gain nearly 8,000 feet. The hikers in the crowd should appreciate these numbers (the highest mountain on the Appalachian Trail is a mere 6,643 feet by comparison).

It took us two days to conquer Chirripo. Thursday we left at around 5:30 AM from San Gerardo and started climbing. We were mentally prepared for the ascent, but not for the mud, and the combination of a steep climbing and slick trail would have made for good entries on "Costa Rica's Funniest Home Videos." After the first mile or so, the mud let up, but the climb seemed almost endless. We reached the Chirripo lodge after 10 miles and 6,000 feet of elevation gain, with plans to reach the summit early the next morning.

Friday morning we woke up at 3:00 AM, something I hope that I never have to do again. The idea was that we would try to make it to the summit (3 more miles of trail and almost 2,000 feet up) before sunrise. By 3:30, we were hiking by headlamp. Things were looking good until about a mile before the summit, when we started to feel light rain. Luckily, the rain never got too hard, but our hopes for a beautiful view at sunrise were unfortunately dashed. We did make it to the top, though, and can now add Chirripo to our bag of mighty peaks!

I will begrudgingly admit that as a veteran of the Appalachian Trail, I was spouting off some cocky talk about Chirripo before we left. According to Nina, I said that since I was able to hike the AT, this would be "a piece of cake" (although I can't imagine myself capable of such arrogance). Suffice it to say, it was no walk in the park. We really had to work to make it to the top, particularly with the high elevation and reduction in oxygen. However, it was the descent that really left its mark on us. We climbed the last three miles and descended the entire 13 all on Friday, which left our knees, calves, and quads feeling like raw meat. It's three days later, and we're both still limping.

We left Frank's farm this morning for good, bidding them a fond farewell. We enjoyed our experience there overall, but we're really glad to be heading to a place where we can work with kids and practice our spanish. We'll be sure to update again when we're settled in Nicaragua. And now, pictures!

A view of the mountains from the farm:

Frank at the coffee roaster:Nina enjoying a typical Costa Rican breakfast of eggs, plantains, and gallo pinto (rice and beans):

Paul hiking up Chirripo:Nina bundled up in the Chirripo Lodge just hours before we woke up to hike to the summit. The temperature dropped into the 40's in the lodge:
Nina hiking by headlamp toward Chirripo's summit at around 4 AM:

Wet and cold at the summit, sadly with no view at all:
A beautiful view of the cloud tops as we descended and the weather finally broke:Finally, a video of Paul that Nina secretly took using our still camera right after the hike. Apologies for the sideways view and shaky camera work (Nina was laughing at the way Paul was walking around sore...ha ha):

As usual, thanks for reading! We love you all,

Nina and Paul

Life on the Farm!

2008-11-29T11:48:00.000-08:00

We have had a good two weeks on the farm. Coffee season is coming to an end as we enter the dry season, which has shifted our roles on the farm a bit. We spent this past week building a stone/cement wheelchair ramp and patio at Sue's house, pulling more weeds than you can imagine, and planting new crops in Farmer Frank's garden.

Stone/cement project: Paul and I are not exactly what you would call "handy", but we are learning fast. We were put to work with their local garden guy, Christian. We thought we were lucky to be able to practice our Spanish since opportunities are limited on the farm. Well, we ended up not doing much talking and instead following Christian's lead and trying to look like we knew what we were doing. It was similar to a team-building experience, completing a task with no language whatsoever. We collected stones and sand from the river, mixed cement, and quickly set it while I tried to give it finishing touches with pretty stones on the surface, which the boys cared less about.

Pulling weeds: Neither of us get too excited when this is the activity of the day. Farmer Frank isn't the most organized man and you can hardly tell what is a garden vs. overgrown land. Since the farm is organic, herbicides are not allowed, which apparently makes weed control difficult. We helped Frank make his natural herbicide, which he admitted he drank (although it isn't recommended for humans) and it remarkably helped his memory but had the opposite effect on his bowels. Needless to say, we didn't drink any.

Planting crops: We had finished preparing a bed by turning and adding nutrients to the soil when Farmer Frank asked us to plant garlic, onion, and tomato plants. He taught us the handy phrase "what cooks well together - grows well together." Anyway, prior to handing us our first crop, he asked us if we had ever heard the theory that plants are concious beings. He told us about studies where the plants reacted to people's thoughts. He was telling us this theory because he wanted us to have "happy thoughts" while planting, so his crops grew well. I couldn't look at Paul because I knew I would crack up and I didn't want to hurt Farmer Frank's feelings. We eventually told him we didn't quite believe that theory (he claims he doesn't either completely) but that yes, we had positive thoughts about the crops as we planted. I hope mine grow as well as Paul's, because I honestly was thinking how ridiculous the theory was while I was planting! I hope I'm not caught when the garlic dies and onion grows wild!

Our life at the farm has been very simple and peaceful. We nap almost everyday and are asleep by 8:30 most nights. Paul reminds me of my nephews (they have an excuse because they're children) daily as he pees freely from the cabin porch instead of using our private bathroom around the corner. He says he's a man and wants to urinate outside as much as possible. I don't exactly get it, but whatever!

We have two more weeks of farm life before heading to Granada, Nicaragua on Dec. 13th. We will be volunteering for La Esperanza, which will give us the opportunity to work with children and improve our Spanish! We'll be living with other volunteers in a house. We can't wait!

Enjoy our pictures:

Nina with "Vita" who keeps reminding us of Paul's dog, "Sister." I think we call her "Sister" more than "Vita."
Paul making fresh squeezed orange juice with oranges right off the tree!:
Nina boiled a pot of hot water in order to shave and just to remember what hot water felt like:Nina writing never-ending wedding thank-you notes:
Paul enjoying a cheeseburger on Thanksgiving day:Nina enjoying a chocolate milk shake on Thanksgiving day. We were surprised to see how much Nina resembled the framed photo of her Uncle David, which is in Nina's parents' basement:
We have to cross this stream to and from our walk to the nearest town. The difficulty in the dark combined with Nina's clumsiness is always a disaster waiting to happen:A huge, stupid bug (you can't see its wingspan) who landed and was stuck on its back:
Paul sneaking the trash from our cabin to town. We were lectured at the beginning of our stay on the farm to limit the amount of trash we make. We truly are trying, but occasionally sneak a bag of trash out before we're caught:
Paul and Nina drinking a cup of coffee before beginning a hard day's work. If you can't tell, we wear the same work clothes almost daily:Thanks again for following our blog. We'll be in touch.

Love,
Nina and Paul

The Java Jive!

2008-11-20T13:42:00.000-08:00

Hola Familia y Amigos!

It's been a very eventful week! We have been away from internet for most of it, so we're excited to finally have a chance to share stories and pictures!

Last week we finished up our Spanish classes and said goodbye to our wonderful host family. We cooked Elaine Klein's famous chili, which most of them had never heard of, but they all really enjoyed. It was a nice way to end our stay with them, gorging ourselves on delicious food and exchanging pleasantries that we only half understood.

On Sunday at about 5:00 AM we left Tamarindo and the pacific coast and headed for San Isidro del General. The route by bus is rather tricky, which, combined with the fact that we are traveling with nearly everything we own, meant that renting a car made the most sense. Of course, it also meant that we had to brave insane Costa Rican drivers as well as an entire country devoid of road signs. Fortunately, most of the drive went pretty well, with the exception of a particularly stressful two hours when we were lost in San Jose. Between our sub par Budget Rental Car map and the fact that not a single road in the city is marked, it's a wonder we ever found our way out. However, we made it to San Isidro before dark, where we met up with Frank in a small bar and began the next chapter of our adventure.

For those of you that may not know, we decided to head to San Isidro to work on an organic coffee farm. We found the opportunity through an organization called WWOOF (shout out to Peter Richards for putting us onto it!), which I think stands for World Wide Opportunities in Organic Farming. The organization matches local farmers with people looking for free (or cheap) places to stay and work. Frank and Sue are from Canada, but have been here in Costa Rica for the past 14 years living a very simply, off-the-grid life. They were looking for a couple willing to work by day and live for free on their property. We were a good fit.

When we got to the farm Sunday night, Frank showed us around the place and introduced us to our home for the next while. Our cabin was the first structure they built after purchasing the property. It's one large room with a separate small structure for a bathroom outside. However, it does have electricity, running water, and a fulling functional kitchen, so I suppose we're not entirely roughing it. Still, we do have a fair number of bugs, as well as nightly visitors in the form of rodents, lizards, and large cane toads.

We work in the morning from 6:45 to about 12:00, although most days it's been a bit later than that. We've had various jobs, but the main one has been processing coffee. We did a little bit of picking the first day, but we're not nearly as fast as the two local guys who Frank hires for 10 bucks a day, so our main job has been to do everything that comes after the picking. The coffee goes through multiple steps that are way too boring to relate here, but it mainly has to do with extracting the beans from their shells, washing off sugars, and picking out beans that are not ready or have been infested by bugs. It's tedious work, but we have both found it strangely satisfying. Four days ago we didn't have the slightest idea about what goes into a cup of coffee, and we will certainly never look at one the same way again. Appreciate every sip you take and think of us!

Our afternoons are pretty laid back. After work we fix lunch, read, nap, and try to figure out how to get a hot shower. Frank has a coiled hose system on the roof which uses the sun to heat water. However, between a lack of sun and our general ineptitude, we can't get it to work right. There was no hot water in Tamarindo either, so it's been about a month since our last hot shower. In the evenings we cook dinner, read, and occasionally watch DVDs (borrowed from Frank) on our laptop . Because the sun goes down at 5:00, we're asleep nice and early, ready for the next day of coffee processing.

We're planning to stay here for the next few months to help Frank and Sue through the holidays. Upon our arrival, we were very sad to learn that Sue is terminally ill with breast cancer that has since spread to her ribs and brain. They don't know how much longer she has to live, and her kids and grandkids are all coming down from Canada in December. We will look after the farm while they all travel, assuming she is feeling up to it at that point.

Other than that, not a whole lot to report! The pace of our life has shifted dramatically from what we were up to back in surf city, but we are enjoying it a lot. The only thing we don't like so much is how out of touch we are with everyone, so thanks again to you all for taking the time to read! We promise that we'll make our way into town every now and then to get some internet and stay in touch!

Ok, without further ado, some pictures of the last week:

Scarfing chili with our host family:

Playa Conchal, near Tamarindo:
In a cloud going over Cerro De Muerte, or the hill of death (0ver 10,000 ft!) on our drive south:

Nina fixing a plumbing problem in our bathroom on our first day of work at the farm:
Our cabin:
Our kitchen:

Washer for our clothes:

Nina sorting recently picked coffee:
Frank in the drying room, looking at some coffee:
Paul in the drying room, examining a coffee grain:
Nina with a basket full of recently processed coffee grains:

Paul working the machine that separates the coffee beans from the shell:
We love you and miss you! Thanks for checking the blog!

Nina and Paul

No pipa para nosotros

2008-11-09T10:17:00.000-08:00

We have had a great two weeks of classes and look forward to our last week ahead. We both have learned an incredible amount of spanish which makes me think I probably could have learned a lot more in high school language classes if I had only payed attention. Oh well, that was French and wouldn't have helped me now anyway.

Over these two weeks, we have had fun hanging out with the other students and enjoying Tamarindo. It is a very small surf town, so we pretty much saw it all in the first two days. We haven't surfed much this past week because we had our classes from 1-5 in the afternoon, which cramped our lounging on the beach lifestyle. We hope to return to the surfboards this week since our classes will return to the 8-12 hours.

The biggest events during the last two weeks have been Halloween and the election, as you all know. Nobody celebrates Halloween in Costa Rica, and the teachers and other students find it very amusing that we have children dress up in costumes and knock on strangers' doors for candy. Since we are in a touristy town, the local bars tried to celebrate Halloween but it appears they didn't quite understand the holiday and instead got it confused with Mardi Gras. We walked into the first bar and were handed Mardi Gras masks and beads. Oh well, I guess the effort was there!

Here we are on Halloween night:

Later in the week, we had the wonderful election. I know there is a mixed crowd following this blog, so we won't gloat but we had a good night. We went to the only bar in town that had American channels and watched the results with one other American student and several Europeans, who were just as interested. We sat down at a table and the TV was on mute, but was at least showing the results. We asked the waiter if he could turn up the TV, but he said no because the band needed to play. We were a little nervous we were going to miss the whole thing but as soon as the band began to play, I think they realized everybody's backs were to them and focused on the TV behind the bar. Needless to say, the band quit early and the volume on the TV was turned up. Anyway, here are some pictures from election night:

Jamey (an American) and two Europeans watching the results:Our english tv:
Nina and Jamey watching the election:
Our host family continues to be interesting. Luckily we can now speak a little bit better with them but some things continue to be lost in translation. One morning, Roni (the shirtless father who struts around in "tighty-whities") asked us if we would like "agua de pipa". We explained we didn't know what that was but we were up for the experience. Roni seemed excited and walked on back behind the house, grabbed a large green fruit from a tree, and chopped it right in half. He held two large glasses underneath and they quickly filled with what looked like water. Our house mom, Lucia, is very used to hosting foreign students and always reassures us we don't need to eat or drink anything we don't like. We took our first sips of the "agua de pipa" as they stared at us. Paul enjoyed it but I found it disgusting so I told Paul he could drink mine, too. Next, they let us eat some of the insides of the fruit which looked very similar to coconut . Again, Paul enjoyed it while I tried to disguise my grossed out facial expression. Afterwards while we were still at the table enjoying our breakfast, Lucia told us in Spanish that when people eat or drink too much pipa, they get ______. We understood everything but that last word. We looked at each other and repeated it and realized we both didn't understand that word. We told Lucia we didn't understand and she and Roni were shocked we didn't know that word. So, Lucia begins to act it out. She was telling us as she began to squat, "you know in the bathroom" and she began to make unpleasant sounds from her mouth and motioned stuff coming from her rear. We both immediately laughed and said "diarrhea!" which we felt stupid for not understanding the exact same word, just pronounced differently in Spanish. We were quite disgusted with the charades episode while we were sipping our coffee and finishing our breakfast. Needless to say, Paul was worried the rest of the day since he ate and drank two servings!

Roni serving us Pipa:
Paul after trying the Pipa...he looks like he could already be feeling it:

Here are some shots of our house. I feel like I am roughing it with cold showers and ants all over our bed, but Paul's idea of roughing it has greatly changed since hiking the trail. I'm apparently just high maintenance. It really isn't bad and we are enjoying our time there greatly.

From the front door to the back door (These doors are always open to help circulate the air):

The living room:
Our bedroom:

Cooking soup over an open fire:Paul in our bedroom:

Nina playing with the dog, Toti:
This last shot of the dog reminds me of last night. Paul and I were walking in town after dinner with leftover pizza in our hands. Out of nowhere, two large dogs came charging at us growling and barking. Paul just started taking off running and dropped the pizza. I immediately had a flash back to being in the travel clinic getting necessary shots for when we thought we were going to Bolivia and kindly turning down the rabies shot, saying we wouldn't be around any dogs. Anyway, after growing up with big dogs who love chasing a running object, I yelled to Paul to stop running and sure enough, the dogs left us alone. Paul said running is the logical, instinctive thing to do in that situation, so I think we'll continue to be chased. There seems to be lots of wandering dogs around here.

Anyway, that is a long enough post. Thanks again for following our adventures. We plan on cooking my mom's famous chili for the family this week, so we'll let you know how that and the rest of our last week here goes.

Adios,
Nina and Paul

Surf City, Here We Come!

2008-10-30T12:39:00.001-07:00

Greetings all from Tamarindo!

We arrived here on Sunday and moved in with our new family in the neighboring town of Villareal. We immediately met our host parents, Lucia and Roni, and their son, Micha. They live right on the square in the small town of Villareal, so we got to enjoy watching an afternoon soccer game with what seemed to be everyone in town.

Our family is very nice, and certainly interesting! They don't speak any English, which is good for practice. Lucia cooks us two meals a day, cleans our room, does our laundry, and basically spoils us rotten. Roni is a construction worker, or so we think. A lot of things seem to be getting lost in translation during our conversations (we think that Lucia said that Roni doesn't ever get to eat dinner because his belly is too big, but we might have misunderstood) . One funny thing about Roni is that he never, ever has a shirt on. Ever. When we asked them to take a picture with us, Lucia told him forcefully to go put a shirt on. He went to the bedroom and returned shirtless, like he didn't own any! We have also had a few sightings of Roni in "whitey-tighties," seemingly with no shame whatsoever. Anyway, here we are with our Costa Rican parents:

On Monday morning we took the shuttle to the Wayra school and started our Spanish classes. The school is located about 100 yards from the Tamarindo beach, and has students from lots of different countries (mostly Europeans who smoke unfiltered cigarettes while they badmouth the French). Hanging around them, we feel a bit inadequate because we are only working on our second language. Most of them are on their fourth, fifth or sixth!

Wayra actually looks more like a tropical paradise than it does a school. The inner courtyard is filled with palm trees, ivy, hanging vines, flowers, and colorful birds. Many of the classes are held in open air shelters so that we can enjoy the perfect climate while we talk. The weather is warming up every day here, while I can only assume it's getting colder and colder in the states (we're going to start losing readership if I keep that stuff up!)

Upon arrival at the school, we took a diagnostic test and immediately jumped into our classes. I am in a higher level than Nina, but only slightly higher. This is actually a bit sad on my part since I took many years of Spanish in school, and Nina took zero. Anyway, we both really like our classes and our teachers. There is some formal instruction over vocabulary and grammar, but the bulk of class is spent practicing the language through guided conversations. We both find this extremely helpful, and we both feel that we were placed in the perfect level for us. Here are a few pictures from around school:

Our walk to the bus stop:

Our bus ride to school:

The sign in front:
The inner courtyard:
A classroom visitor:
Paul's class:
Nina's class (without Nina):
The cafeteria:

This is school like we have never experienced it before. We have homework, but there are no grades, no tests, no pressure of any kind! The best part of all is that when classes end at around noon, we all eat a quick lunch and then head to the beach! Nina and I have taken up surfing in the afternoons, which I must say is a bit harder than Brian Wilson might have you believe. Not only is it extremely tiring, but you also end the day with horrible chafing over all exposed skin. Much like Spanish, surfing seems to be something that comes naturally to Nina and not to me. Of course, I was super pumped about it the first day, singing the beach boys greatest hits in my head, absolutely sure that I would be riding giants within a few short minutes. The reality was very different, and I lost function in my biceps pretty fast. Nina, on the other hand, was standing up on one of the first waves that came by. She makes it look way, way easier than it is. Over the three days of surfing I improved very slightly, but I'm a long way off from making it onto a Tamarindo postcard.

That's all the news that's fit to print now! Awesome classes in the morning, catchin' waves in the afternoon, sleeping like rocks at night. Not a bad life, I must say.

We will update in a few days with more pictures, more adventures, etc. Thanks for following our awesome travels!

Sincerely,

Paul and Nina

Adios luna de miel

2008-10-26T06:42:00.000-07:00

Well, the honeymoon is sadly over but we have much more to look forward to. This post is short and sweet because we are being picked up very shortly.

Let me catch you up to what we have been doing since the last post. Our last day on the beach was spent kayaking and snorkeling. Like the horseback riding, there was very little instruction. Our guide basically said "here's your boat, now go" which could possibly be due to the language barrier. We paddled for about 20 minutes until we got to the reef, which was beautiful. Unfortunately, we don't have any pictures!

We left the following day for the Arenal volcano. This spot was the grand finale of the honeymoon. We have been living in luxury the past 4 days with our balcony overlooking the volcano. On our first day, we went zip lining. When booking all these adventures, we had asked for the most challenging and thrilling zip line in Costa Rica since you can find them pretty much anywhere. Our bravery and toughness was quickly diminished when we hopped on the sky tram and noticed 3 elderly couples in our group. When I say old, I mean old. Almost all of them had gray hair and one was recovering from a hip replacement! They were all from Chicago and were hilarious to be around. We weren't quite bickering or correcting each other's forms on the zip quite like they were after only a week of marriage. Needless to say, the zip lining was still thrilling. We were 600 feet up and completed 8 zip lines down the mountain with longest zip being 2000 feet long!

Okay our ride will be here any second so I'll wrap this up. We also went to the Tabacon natural hot springs. We ended our honeymoon right last night by having a hot stone couples massage which left us both looking pathetically relaxed.

This has truly been a honeymoon from our dreams. We are going to Tamarindo today where we will meet our host family. All we know is that the father works in construction, the mother is a housewife, they have a 16 year-old son and a dog, and they like to play poker on the weekends. We're a little anxious!

We'll be attending Spanish school for 4 hours Monday-Friday for the next 3 weeks. I'm sure we will have internet at the school so we will keep in touch.

Love to all,

Nina and Paul

PICTURES!! (finally free internet...)

2008-10-23T17:05:00.001-07:00

Pictures from Left to Right (sorry it won't let us write below each one!)

Row 1: Breakfast on our first day/In front of the Pacuare River
Row 2: Our bungalow along the river/A lizard under our bed!
Row 3: Enjoying coffee on our porch/ Our candlelight - no electricity in the bungalow
Row 4: Our outdoor shower
Row 5: Nina outside of Mr. Big J's shop/Mr. Big J - our lives were in his hands
Row 6: Paul riding his horse/ Nina riding her horse
Row 7: Paul on his horse
Row 8: Paul in the ocean on our private beach/ Nina reading in the hammock
Row 9: Our jacuzzi overlooking the volcano / In front of Arenal volcano on our porch
Row 10: The maids' towel designs - they are new everyday!

Enjoy! We will post again soon.

Love, Nina and Paul

Our Adventure Begins!

2008-10-20T16:33:00.000-07:00

Hola Familia y Amigos!

A week ago yesterday, we celebrated our wedding with all of you and had an unbelievable time. Now, we´re well into our Costa Rican adventure and doing great! This is truly a dream honeymoon. For the sake of your reading time and our internet charges, I´ll try to summarize some of the high points.

We got into Costa Rica Wednesday night, and nearly slept through our hotel pick up at 6:20 (we woke up at 6:12). We were then taken to the Pacuare River where we rafted down and spent two nights in what can only be described as paradise. In order to picture the Pacuare lodge, simply imagine that the Ritz Carleton opened a hotel in the middle of the jungle, and to top it all off, hired the best chef in New York City to cook guests three meals a day. It was wonderful. We relaxed, went on hikes and swims, and napped to the sound of the river running in front of our bungalow. I could go on and on, but don´t want to make those of you in the working world too jealous.

The only way to get out was also by raft, and we enjoyed a much longer trip out. Our 15 miles on the Pacuare River was filled with class four rapìds (class five in the US) and was by far the most intense whitewater experience of our lives. To top it off, we had a great guide who, among other feats of daring, made us stand up and for a "circle of trust" where we did an entire rapid standing up and holding each other. Somehow, we survived the river.

We are now just south of the town of Puerto Viejo, on the Carribean coast. Today we have basically been relaxing on the hotel´s beach. It has almost no other people around, and looks exactly like the beach in Corona Beer ads. Our hotel is located where the rainforest meets the beach, so we have the best of both worlds.

Yesterday, however, was quite eventful. It started at 5:30 when we were abruptly awakened (this is no small feat, as we are not an easily awakened couple). Monkeys were suddenly screaming and roaring outside our bungalow, and Nina was able to spot one in a tree. In fact, we have seen a lot of interesting wildlife in addition to monkeys. There have been lots of lizards. iguanas, gigantic toads, crabs, toucans, hummingbirds, and a sloth!

We then spent most of the day on a horseback riding tour of the area with our new friend, Joseph. Joseph, or "Mister Big J" as he is called by everyone, owns and operates a tour business. We went on a three hour tour with him, and because it is the low season, it was just the three of us. It was one of the best tours of our lives, and something that could only occur without the burden of law suits. Mr. Big J gave us no training, no safety talk. and no helmets. We basically just hopped on horses and started trotting through town. Riding through town was great because Joseph was a genuine celebrity. Literally everyone that we passed knew him and greeted him with a hearty "hola, Mister Big J!" Once we got out of town, we did miles and miles through the beach and jungle, mostly at a steady trot. If you have ever hear the song lyric "where have all the cowboys gone," I think I have an answer. Riding all day everyday, they were simply unable to reproduce! Now remember, Nina and I have basically no experience at all with horses. Mister Big J simply didn´t care, and most of our tour was done at a trot. A few times on the beach, we rode at a full gallop! Nina´s horse would occasionally take off at full speed, and my horse was a complete follower.

Tomorrow, we will go kayaking and snorkeling at a nearby reef, and then the next day we are off to Arenal Volcano, which will be the last stop of our dream honeymoon. We really miss everyone, and hope that we will have frequent internet so that we can update often!

Love,

Paul and Nina

P.S. Our one picture in this post took a really long time to load, so when we get a faster connection we´ll post pictures of all of this...and more!

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2008-08-04T19:14:00.000-07:00

We would like to use this site to communicate with everyone about our adventures in Bolivia. Please check it frequently for updates! Here are our upcoming plans:

10/11/08 GET MARRIED!
10/15/08 Leave for Costa Rica (1 week honeymoon/3 week language school)
11/15/08 Head for Bolivia
5/13/09 Return back to the USA