Costa Rica!

After much anticipation / some anxiety, I arrived in Costa Rica on the Tuesday of Holy Week, only to find out that the guy I was supposed to be meeting from the Chinese embassy had just left town and would not be around until Thursday evening! I was pretty upset, considering that I had only arrived in San Jose 1.5 days early to take care of this errand stuff before Geoff would arrive, and now it looked like it was still going to trample our vacation plans anyway. Alas, it is Central America, so you have to be tranquilo and to just play it by ear.

Between Tuesday and Wednesday, I walked around San Jose (which is a bit of a dump during the day) and checked out their famous Museo del Oro (Museum of Gold). I also made some progress in my reading book and went on a crocodile safari tour. As it turned out, I got to see everything on the tour (monkeys, frogs, sloths, lizards, snakes...) EXCEPT for crocodiles. Ironic, but like I said, it's Central America. Apparently, some tour operators in a different part of Costa Rica would habitually throw chickens into the water to lure the crocs out of their lazy afternoon naps. Next time, mark my words, I will be bringing my own chicken. :) Anyway, the tour itself was kind of slow, but the people on the tour were really fun, so it made the time fly by!

Geoff arrived on Wednesday night. (He got to San Jose later than me, since he works for himself and therefore didn't want to take off quite so many days to go on this trip.) We met up, as originally planned, at the hostel. Our hostel is a beautiful place, by the way -- the Costa Rican Backpackers, located on the western tip of the capital city. I would highly recommend staying there if you had to pass through San Jose at some point. They have a pool and a lovely restaurant with good Jamaican food(!!) and lovely Belgian ales. After some catching up, Geoff and I and his dormmate Cody ended up heading down to Casino Del Ray (sp), which is a bit of a shady spot by reputation. It was the first brothel I had ever seen!! All around the bar are old men and young, boobilicious women. It was really interesting, except for the fact that the servers and bartenders were pretty rude to our group of 3, since it was pretty obvious that we were mostly sight-seeing. Eventually, we went across the street to a much quieter casino (no shady goings-on here, at least that we could see), and played a few rounds of blackjack. All in all, it was a fun and very educational night. :)

The next day, Cody, Geoff, and I took a bus and then a cab to La Paz Waterfall. I wish we had more time there, because there was a series of butterfly and bird conservatory places that we could check out, but by the time we had finally made our way there and had hung out a bit by the water, it was getting pretty late in the day, and we needed to start heading back to San Jose. (My priority for the day was to meet up with the embassy folks to get my Chinese tourist visa, so I needed to be back in San Jose by around 5:30pm.) Thankfully, the visa app went off without a hitch in the evening, and Geoff and I took -- wait for this -- a $200 cab ride from San Jose to La Fortuna late in the night, to arrive at our hotel in La Fortuna!!! Damn embassy people -- this is what happens when they flake out on you repeatedly and cause disruptions to your previously tight travel plans. At that hour of the night (it was about 8pm when we finally set out for La Fortuna, after taking care of the visa paperwork), we didn't really have many options left in terms of renting a car OR taking a bus.

Anyway, our next couple of days in La Fortuna made all of the hectic traveling worth it, however. We took our friends' advice and rented an SUV and drove up to Rio Celeste, which is a stunningly beautiful blue river that is created naturally as a result of chemical precipitation. We also took another friend's advice and did a day of whitewater-rafting down one of the many beautiful rivers of Costa Rica. And to top it all off, Geoff and I booked an evening of amazing getaway at the most famous of La Fortuna hotsprings -- Tabacon. For $70, you get a very delicious dinner buffet, plus you get to explore the extensive labyrinth of amazing hot springs at this extremely luxurious spa / resort. Ahhh. Neither Geoff nor I had ever seen anything like it before. The $70, which seemed like a lot of money when we first made our reservation, turned out to be worth every penny.



I loved Costa Rica. Most of all, I loved the rainforest and the plethora of wildlife. I hope that we get to go back at some point to explore more of the beautiful country!

The magic of teaching; El Trifinio

I've been cruising during the last couple of weeks at work. In between teaching increasingly difficult algebraic topics, I sprinkled in some fun Geometric activities, various pep-talking, and some small-group tutoring to help my 9th-graders get through this time. For Geometry, March and April are our last push of heavy algebra before we move on to hands-on 3-D geometry stuff, so at least I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. It helps that this period of heavy algebra coincides with kids working harder on their own to stay afloat during the second semester -- I cannot tell if this is a result of this being a private school or if my various pep talks throughout the year have finally started to pay off. But, the other day, when a kid had not completed his homework assignment, before I could say anything, another kid turned to him and said in an imitation of me, "Herbert, you're not making good choices." It cracked me up, and I think that it's a good sign that the kids are at least partially internalizing what I say to them...

Some of my Algebra 2 Honors kids are lobbying for me to move up with them to teach Pre-Calculus Honors. The word on the street is that I'll be teaching only Geometry (both regular and Honors) next year. I am excited about the prospect of teaching Geometry Honors, now that I have (close to) a year of experience under my belt in teaching regular Geometry. The second time around, I think I can make the Geometry topics a lot more fun than they had been the first time, because I have been collecting various teaching materials and ideas throughout the year. But, I will miss my older students. So, I am taking the stance of sitting back and seeing what comes out of their lobbying, even though I'm pretty sure they won't be able to influence the school's plan of letting me teach Geometry full-time. (I don't really know, but I would guess that there is probably some small bit of politics involved in moving "up" to teach Pre-Calculus and Calculus. Especially in a department like mine, where I am the only teacher under the age of 35, I try to stay under the drama radar.)

In other news, Geoff and I are going to Costa Rica soon! The Holy Week is coming up, which is a big deal here in Central America. We teachers actually get 10 days off -- weekend to weekend, plus the following Monday. Since I need to get a tourist visa to China before June, I had been on the phone with a guy from the nearest Chinese embassy, located in Costa Rica. He assured me that they will open their doors to allow me an appointment during Semana Santa, so I went ahead and purchased my tickets to go to Costa Rica. Geoff will join me and spend a few days there as well, so that we can look around. --I AM SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!! Costa Rica is supposed to be a lush tropical jungle, Jurassic Park-style. I cannot be more thrilled to go there. :)


By the way, our friend Colleen recently organized an amazing trip to the Montecristo National Park. We drove up there (Geoff and I drove in our sedan, which was not a pretty picture on those mountain roads), camped out on Saturday, and then did a day hike on Sunday to summit the point where Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala borders all meet at El Trifinio. It was a foggy day and the view wasn't great, but the hike was amazingly comfortable through the serene forest. I had missed being outdoors!

Visa!

Geoff's visa app finally got approved yesterday! yay! I cannot tell you how long and grueling this process has been. We had started it months before moving here, but he actually had to go back to the States to gather additional paperwork in September, because his lawyer had been unclear about which papers were needed the first time around. (It was v. fortunate that this trip coincided with M&M's wedding, so he could just extend the wedding trip to take care of the stuff instead of making a separate trip just for the sake of gathering papers...)

The problem is that he currently lives here on 90-day tourist visas only, and every time he exits the country (to go to even a neighboring country for a short trip), he would have to go back to the States to obtain all of those docs again; the docs required need to be date-stamped around his latest entry to El Salvador.

He and his lawyers had been down to the immigration offices several times, and each time they would ask him to obtain more paperwork, mostly from the States. It would take weeks to pull together and get mailed here, and the process would repeat itself. Finally, yesterday his stars were all aligned, and they accepted his application! yay! (It actually helped out that I am working for the American school, because apparently my work visa is issued by a higher authority -- something like the Ministry of Foreign Affairs -- and so it helped legitimize both his overall application and his particular reason to wish to stay in El Salvador.) It still was a pain and took a whole day, but at least for now they've accepted his money and taken his picture, so we think it's going to be all good. :)

So, in celebration, we took his lawyer's assistant out to dinner. It was good times, and the steaks we had were amazing... :) Afterwards, Geoff and I were both feeling serious food coma, so we called it a quiet Friday night. We watched "Changeling" at home, which is really intense! Much better than what we had expected based on its RottenTomatoes ratings. I would definitely recommend it.