Violin kids from La Carpio

Incredibly sweet and cute and also very, very, very poor. :/

Nuestros animales

We have a lot of animals around here. Some we love, others not so much. Here are some of them:

Una mariposa del Museo Nacional

Otra mariposa. Está comiendo el néctar de la flor

Una de las mariposas azules. Arriba tienen el color azul hermíssima y abajo este color.

Me encanta este foto. Que bonita!

La mariposa está saliendo su crisálida

Un loro en el camino del finc de café en Heredia

All of the butterfly pictures were taken at Museo Nacional in San José, but I've seen them fly around here, too. Not the beautiful blue ones though. I took the picture of the parrot, when I went to see a coffee farm in Heredia with some other spanish students from Intensa (my school). There, we spent most of the day walking and eating the different fruits we found.

Now to the animals who we actually live with every day:

Hormigas. El foto es del calle de Eureka pero también están aquí. Son GRANDES!

These pictures are pretty blurry, but you get the idea.

Ants are pretty much everywhere here and it's impossible to live without them. Not because we don't want to, they're simply just impossible to get rid of. Fortunately, this type of ant doesn't live very near the houses, because as Jorge said: "They will cut up a tree in a weak" These critters are HUGE.In my casita, I have counted three types of ants so far. Red ones, black ones (both bigger than at home!) and tiny black ones. The tiny ones won't bite but they WILL eat your candy/fruit/anything sweet.

Una mariposa nocturnal en la casa

It seems the (huge) moth randomly decided to die on the wall.

Un de los dos perros. Se llama Becky. Me encanta!!

They (we!) have dogs here! They live outside the house, which is great. I walk by them every morning (and several times a day) and they are soo sweet! These are pictures of the female Becky.

Say hello to my little friend!

This bug woke me from my sleep and freaked me out by sounding like a helicopter (more or less) and bumping into everything. I ended up hiding under my blanket while it hid in my closet.

The next day Maris showed one of the same kind, just smaller (seems like mine was a biiig guy) and told me they are harmless.

As you can see, everything is just a "little bit" bigger here. Except for the dogs. They're pretty normal-sized. ;)

Fencing!

I spent most of my second day in Costa Rica (Sunday) watching Tomás in a fencing competition. It was very interesting as I have never seen fencing for real before. It's SUCH a hard sport to understand! To me, it seemed pretty random who got points for touching the other.

Rooting for Cornick

Tomás with friends - trying to remove the smell of queso

Tomás -" hermano" :)

Getting ready!

Fighting - Tomás to the right

Fighting - Tomás to the right

Unfortunately, Tomás didn't win the competition, but I had a good day anyway. 


In the evening, I went with Maris, her mother, Jorge´s mother and the kids to church. An interesting experience, peaceful, even though the church was  s t u f f e d  with people! I don't think I'll join them every Sunday though.
 It's a little funny because Maris is VERY religious and Jorge doesn't believe at all. I guess it makes for some kind of balance. Also, it gives me the freedom to do either, which suits me well.

The First Day

After a loooong journey, I finally arrived in Costa Rica.

I got to Costa Rica very late because the flight Miami-San Jose kept on getting delayed and when we finally boarded, they had to exchange the flight crew because they had been on duty for too long. So I waited. And waited. Aaaaand waited. But finally we went into the air (around 19 or so, Miami time). When I arrived in San José, my suitcase had gone missing. This was the closest I got to having a meltdown, but fortunately it arrived the next day, so no harm done.

The first day I went with Maris to a very poor barrio, which name I have forgotten. She´s teaching the local kids to play guitar, her mother draws with them, Gretchen (Maris' niece) teaches them to play the violin and another kid teaches them drumming. Of course I was matched up with Gretchen, because we both play violin and are around the same age. I couldn't play however, because my fingernails are too long, and also, it was a bit hard to communicate as I hardly know any Spanish and the people there knows absolutely no English. 

Fortunately I didn't miss my chance, because they do this every Saturday! The project has been running for around 7 months.

When we got home, I took a (much needed) one-hour nap. It's really hard coping with the eight-hour difference between Costa Rica and Denmark!

Afterwards I went with Maris to "Tips and Fun," which is held at her mother's house right beside her and Jorge's. "Tips and Fun" consists of kids from around this neighbourhood and Tomás and Manuelas friends from school and is run by Maris, her mother and her sister. They make all different kinds of activities. Today Gretchen was ‘visiting’ to teach the kids how to make collages (I did the top of a box - very neat!)

Afterwards we had a little snack break and one of the kids, Victor, showed off his guitar playing skills. Quite impressive!

Later, we tried to play Cranium, but it didn't work out so well as the kids didn't know the game and I didn't know much Spanish. It didn't last long before one of the kids suggested a game of hide and seek instead. I was getting really tired at that point so I didn't join in. Instead I talked with some of the others at the table.

I have no pictures from my first day as I didn't take any.

The break

Having to take a break on the whole living-in-Denmark-thing got me thinking about breaks. How long can a break last before it's forgotten in time and just ends up being a plain stop?

You can take a break in your relationship, a full break where you go out and meet others. But for how long can this break last before it's just a break-up. Since both things are considered break-ups, many people might be indifferent to the distinction between those two. I might be an old romantic at this point (or just desperately clinging to the past, your call), but I believe in break-break-ups, which is a break-up with the possibility of relationship resumption. I'm just not sure how long this "right to withdraw the break-up" is valid. Couple of months? A year? Two, three, five, ten?

My granddad took a smoking break when he and my grandmother got kids. That break lasted for more than 40 years, and I'm quite sure it's no longer a break but just a plain stop. If he ever starts smoking again, it would be rather unexpected.

I'm going to Costa Rica in a year, which means I have to take some breaks. With friends, family, places, language. In the break I'm replacing those with new friends, 'family', places and a new language. When the break is over, I'll go back to my old habits, but it'll have changed, because I have. And because now I need room for the new experiences and friends. Shouldn't be a problem. But along the way, some of the breaks will probably turn into stops. Most likely without me wanting to, maybe even knowing about it. They might just fade.

I hope they don't.

Of the incredible amount of time and money you have to spend on getting a Visa

Today I went on a one-day trip to Copenhagen to get my papers legalized and get my Visa for Costa Rica (which I'm leaving for in 16 days!!) - and yes, as always I was late, which is the reason I didn't just send the paperwork.

From the moment I got out of bed, my stomach started to squirm, which is quite natural but incredibly annoying since it takes all of my worries and excitement, squish them together, whirl them around until it feels like flustered butterflies and I feel like puking. Just the thought of all the things that could go wrong...

Fortunately they didn't, but I ended up spending 1210 kr. (around $234) on paper-legalizing and Visa-getting + the 328 kr. I spent on the train.
That's an incredible amount of 1538 kr!! OMG! Oh well, just another one of those unsuspected expenses I just never saw coming!

Except for all the money I had to let go, I had a great day and I really saw a lot of Copenhagen since I chose to walk from the CPH central station to Asiatisk Plads to Landemærket. All in all it's about 45 minutes of walking (according to the yellow pages). But for someone like me, who can easily get lost in my own city if I go down the wrong street, it took around 3 hours.

That said, I wasn't in a hurry and therefore enjoyed the walking and sights even though I felt really touristy in a dumb way while looking at the GIANT map I got in a store - I hate looking like a tourist, especially in my own country.


I spent the afternoon with my good friend Olivia and it was really great to see her again and say goodbye before I'm leaving.

Here's a great song just to break off the wall of text:

The song is called "You make me"

The (re)falling in love with Paris

Paris! Everyone who has ever been there must have been at least temporarily infatuated by it. The impressive view from the top of the Eiffel tower, the little green bookshops along the Seine, the impressive Notre Dame, the beautiful bridges, the chic boutiques, fine foods, Louvre and I could go on.

Personally my favourite parts of Paris are none of the above mentioned. Even though I love all of the touristy stuff, what I loved the most was the beautiful historical streets and little cosy cafés of the Latin Quarter and the laid-back feeling and the great number of artists in Montmartre.

I fell in love! I wanted to stay so badly. Not just for the beautiful Montmartre and Latin Quarter but also for the exotic food markets (I’m a sucker for that kind of stuff) – but home we went, and in spite of the gazillions of pictures we took, my great crush slowly faded.

… And then I went to the movies with my mom.

For her birthday, I gave her a dine-out with me. She then suggested that we went to watch a movie before the dinner and since Woody Allens “Midnight in Paris” were playing, we should go see that.

The movie is said to be a declaration of love to Paris. It was. And it worked. I couldn’t help falling right back in love with the city and its history. All of the great artists who were inspired by the city (which is another part of my Paris love story) were also in the movie and with just a little knowledge of Hemingway, Dalí, the Fitzgeralds, Picasso and the other great men (and women) of the period, the movie were taken to new heights.

Definitely on to watch! The same goes for Paris (ma chérie)