Rain Storms and Floods of People

So I now have a friend in this foreign land, Maya, she is the other student I mentioned in my last post. She is a sweet girl, also 24, from Switzerland. Her english is not bad at all and we were able to hold a decent conversation with only a few words needing to be pantomimed. I am very glad to have her for some interaction before and after school, she is not in my class because her level of spanish is a bit lower than mine.

San Jose is quite the spectacle, a dirty bustling city, that leaves much to be desired, but a very interesting place nonetheless. The bus ride into town was a whiplash inducing rollercoaster, I thought we were sure to hit a pedestrian, car, or other bus in the process. The constant riding of the horn is a nuisance to me, but a very common practice apparently. Every two seconds was a terrible meltingpot of horns from all directions, another thing to add to my list of Get Used to it. To top it off the motorcycles as I mentioned awhile ago are insane, weaving in and out of traffic like its the movie Fast and Furious. I will have to look into the number of motorcycle related fatalities in this city, I imagine its rather high.

Obviously I survived and made it to school and I really enjoyed my class which consisted of the teacher, Tatiana, a guy my age from Holland, Bran, a beautiful woman from South Africa, Leonora, and me. The class was fun, fast, and informative, I see myself learning alot in the next two weeks. After school Maya and I had a couple hours to explore the city before Liz came and showed us the bus route back home. We walked around Avenida Central in search of food and cervesa. It had begun to rain slightly and so I bought an Umbrella for less then $2 from one of the many, many people selling items on the street. We found a cafe shortly thereafter, just in time I might add, because right then the rain began to come down like a waterfall along with earthshattering thunder and blinding lightning which was quite the show from the balcony at which we sat. I had a delicious steak sandwich and she had some tasty looking pasta dish with redsauce and shredded beef. During the walk back I noticed the sychronized umbrella dance we were forced to become a part of, opening and closing, raising and lowering, to the left to the right, all to avoid colliding with the masses. I want to quickly point out that all the ticos I have talked to have found it very strange that we dont use umbrellas in Portland. We stayed dry until I managed to divert all the water from a torrential spill off from one of the roofs onto Maya, effectively soaking her from head to toe. She found this less amusing then I did and maybe was a bit unamused by my boisterous laughter, American humour I suppose, poor girl.

Well I believe that that rant was the longest thus far, I commend all who have stuck with it. I am now off to do homework and listen to the sound of the heavy rains abuse the tin roof outside of my bedroom window. Until next time...