Sitting in on spanish class and downtown San Jose

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  San Jose, Costa Rica
Friday, December 15, 2006

So I had to get up early today to sit in on Rike's Spanish class.  Kind of weird since I haven't had to get up early for a class in a long time.  They have class for four hours which includes a 30 minute break and there are 6 people total in her class.  The class seemed to have a pretty chilled out atmosphere, almost a bit too chilled out if you were there to really learn Spanish.  My biggest decision these days is do I take classes at Silvia's University in San Jose and live for free or do I move to the coast and take Spanish classes there?  There are upsides and downsides to both places.  There is this dope town on the Pacific coast called Samara that I have been eying for some time now, I think it would be perfect.  Learning Spanish on the beach would be pretty pimp.  However, I do have a pretty sweet setup at Silvia's place in San Jose.  Decisions decisions.
After class, Rike and I grabbed some lunch and then went into downtown San Jose.  Before I left for Costa Rica, I heard a lot of crappy things about San Jose.  Mainly that it was dirty, ugly, and crawling with thieves.  I can vouch for the first two, and the third doesn't seem like a far toss.  San Jose is pretty much what I expected it would be, a spread out city, without many high rises or modern buildings, and without great road infrastructure.  At first glance its quite bland and kind of dirty.  But it seems like an interesting city and I can see it growing on me.  I'm just not entirely sure that there is tons of stuff to do here.
Rike shows me around the downtown a bit, we mainly just wander around.  I find the book 'The Alchemist' in Spanish which I buy because I have literally been looking for the Spanish version for ever.  I'm excited to read it in Spanish, hopefully it will help my Spanish out.  Its an excellent book by the way if you have never read it.
Silvia has a good friend that has a daughter thats in a group of dancers that is putting on a show.  Its a traditional Latin dance called the Flamenco (I think thats how its spelled).  They aren't professions, they do it just for fun and there are girls of all ages in the production.  So Silvia invites me to go and see the show.  It was quite interesting and pretty.  All the girls where dressed up in traditional garb which consisted of flowy skirts and various colored tops.  The were several dances with different kinds of music.  The dance involved lots of 'stomping to the beat' of the music which was pretty cool.  Afterward we all went out for dinner.  I sat pretty quiet at dinner since I didn't understand everything that was going on.
We got back kind of late which sucked because I had to get up at 5am the next day because I'm leaving on a jet plane for a week to a country that I won't specify because I'm not allowed there.  In fact lots of people aren't allowed there and they get in lots of trouble for going there, so sssshhhhh.
 

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