Yesterday was my last night at my host family. It was a tough decision since many of the students from the school were going out to dinner with the professors after some salsa lessons, but I decided I wanted to spend one last night with Susanna and besides I needed to pack. Anne and I came home to some new family members in the house - a cousin or niece or something. We had soup something similar to split-pea but with hot dogs for dinner. It's actually quite good. We also have more tamarindo juice. Tamarindo is a very interesting fruit. I guess it grows on the trees (from the little Spanish I can speak with my host, that's what I gathered). She brought out the fruit for me to try - it was really just a big block of what looked something like mashed up raisins. It is actually quite tart. At first I did not like the juice at all, but after awhile it started to taste better and better. It's kind of like drinking lemonade.
So, Anne and I studied outside a little, where I think I obtained several mosquito bites on my foot. Becasue of the mosquitos, we decided to move inside and so we talked on our bed until I saw a large spider crawling on the floor. I, of course, wanted to make sure it was found and killed, only after I could take a picture of it. I haven't seen a spider this big in the US - close, but not quite (not as big as a tarantula, but then I've never seen a tarantula in a house lurking around). It looked pretty nasty so I cautiously searched for it under Anne's bed, where she was somewhat frozen on top. I told her that usually I have someone else kill the spiders for me (like Kat with the black widow on the bbq) because I hate them! Still, there was no way I was going to stay in the room with that spider not knowing where it was.
I took my flashlight and looked under the bed with no luck and then Susanna came by and saw what I was doing, so I explained brokenly, "mas grande" "ocho piernas", tried to make spider motions up my arms until finally she got it and said "araña". She looked all around until I saw it in the corner on the floor behind the legpost of Anne's bed. I moved the bed some and shined my light. Susanna had her sister bring the bug spray and she killed the spider. Then, she and her sister let us know that it was not a spider that bites and was not poisonous - no big deal at all. Okay, maybe it's not dangerous, but I would NOT be okay with that thing crawling on me! Susanna sprayed the doorways a bit and filled the air with bug spray - which was probably more dangerous for me to be breathing in than actually have the bugs around! Then she kicked the spider across the floor in her flip-flops - something I would not do either.
I packed up all my belongings last night, read a little of Eclipse - number 3 in the Twilight series that I borrowed from the school activities office here. I wanted something to read on the plane, so I stopped reading the book I brought with me to save it for the plane and airports, and instead am enjoying my second round with Eclipse (Brenda, I still like Edward more than Jacob).
This morning came bright and early as always and I sadly said goodbye to Susanna and gave her the two books that I brought with me to give her as a host gift. I brought both the Purpose Driven Life and The Purpose of Christmas in Spanish. I figured it was a good representation of me since the author is my pastor and she might enjoy reading them. She was happy to get them especially after I tried to explain that the author was my pastor and my friends' boss. I really don't know what kinds of things I am really saying sometime - I hope it's nothing bad!
I brought my huge suitcase (actually Kat's - thanks again for letting me borrow it) with me to school today since the plan is to stay here overnight after our New Year's fiesta and then the shuttle to La Fortuna will pick me up tomorrow morning at 8:10. The school shuttle that came this morning to pick me up was a bit surprised at my huge luggage - and not prepared to have room I think for it and the students to be picked up. The suitcase has plenty of room for gifts and souveniers, but when I have to move that thing around over rocks and dirt, I regret not just packing everything in my backpack. I definitely think that for international travel, a travel pack is the way to go - unless maybe you are just going to stay at a resort and have bellhops and door-to-door shuttles. It's hard to lug that thing around otherwise!
This morning was my last Spanish class. I have really enjoyed the classes here. Grieven, our teacher, is great at explaining things to us in a usually humourous way. There are a lot of charades involved in teaching a beginning Spanish class all in Spanish. Yesterday for our last class we had down to Mandarin for some fresh fruit smoothies as a class field trip since we are lucky enough to have only five people in the class. He patiently puts up with all of our questions we shoot his way constantly. Anyway, I will really miss the classes.
In a few we are going to the automercado to shop for our bbq tonight. Mucho fiesta!
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