pink

This would be so much more interesting if I had brought my camera cords with me. One overarching complaint is that I am bored, and that my mom's packing list was very very misleading. At least the hotel has internet where I will be glued to the computer until the hotel receptionist comes to pry me off. No really, we haven't done anything with the tour group yet, and I'm not joking.

First off the flight was all night and even though I had my new skullcandy headphones, I couldn't sleep. I think I broke my ipod, have to look up how to reset it. Anyways, the flight was from 8 to 5, meaning we started at night and ended up in Costa Rica early in the morning. We got to the hotel and I crashed for the next 12 hours until we had orientation meeting at 6.

I think my little brother is a monster, like seriously. He slept 2-3 hours on the plane (max.) and stayed up the entire time I was asleep watching TV. And I think he's still watching now. My mom on the other hand is obsessed with spraying clothes we're wearing in the rainforest with bug repellant. She also has been doing laundry in the sink. How do they have the energy? I'm still tired even after napping the entire day.

Anyways, Costa Rica is beautiful, its very green and even along the highways, you can see buildings then a HUGE blotch of greenness. I think the tour guide told us that the country is 25% rainforest or something like that. Another thing I happened to pick up was that some time ago the government here dissolved the military and used the budget for other things, like healthcare. :D Anything further then that I have nothing to say because I don't know enough to type up a big political and/or social commentary. But you have to admit, it does sound nice.

Everyone here speaks Spanish (lol duh.) which I speak none of. My little brother has taken 2 years of Spanish and is far from fluent, and my mom knows enough to examine her patients. Between the three of us and the hotel staff, we've had some pretty funny conversations. All I've managed to pick up (besides the obvious greetings) is el bano means bathroom. So if I get lost, I'll starve and/or be abducted, but I'll e able to direct myself to the nearest bathroom with ease. Just kidding. Its actually pretty easy to make myself understood, I just feel pretty silly pantomining and trying to find my brother to interpret.

Okay, then moving onto what I'm most famous for, complaining! Seriously, for my entertainment only!
My mom is driving me crazy. Duude its not like a hole in the mud where its over 100 degrees all the time. Its actually pretty nice and I should have brought more normal (meaning not "summery" clothing).
There aren't enough people for me to harass online right now!
We haven't seen anything interesting yet, we have bus rides ahead of us and my brother will not give me back my DS (too busy playing kingdom hearts/fire emblem), and my ipod is out of battery from the plane ride. I want my DS back :(
The hotel computer only has IE. The search bar is yahoo search. Enough said.
$10 for 24 hours of internet when it could have been free if we brought a laptop.
I could be online ALL THE TIME if my mom would get me an iphone. My bother would be entertained by my DS and I would have something to do too! Meh. Either way I'm the older sibling, he can have his way..for now.
I can't upload any photos until I get home and I didnt bring the spare memory card or the camera charger.
I have photos from my cell phone I want to upload, but there isn't a way to do that :(
Bobo still smells like the plane :(

And lastly. I actually miss home. I mean drooling all over 4 hotel pillows on my bed is fun, but its hot and humid here, my allergies are killing me. And most selfishly, I can't stand the idea of people having fun without me! I'm so jealous. Yes I know it should be the other way around and I'm lucky to be here, but my brother and mommy are going at it. He feels that he's inferior and she has too high expectations of him, blah blah blah and he gets really angry/upset. And then refuses to do anything. Mommy gets pissed off, SHORT temper and its hard to deal with her and her OCD habits. Umm right. If I go crazy by the end of this trip it'll be because of prolonged exposure.

Its only an hour time difference (1+ from California), but it feels like a world away. Kind of lonely, mom is making plans, packing, repacking, bothering hotel staff about something, rinse repeat. Little brother hasn't moved from the bed where he's been watching TV, playing my DS and trying to abduct my teddybear.

Before I start feeling sorry for myself I should go hunt up some postcards. And do some shopping :) It might entertain some people to know that I had hair in two braids on the plane. When I put on the hood of my hoodie (TIC hoodie!) I almost looked like Allison-bear. Just not quite. I don't have anything else to complain about right now, so Buenos Noches!

Apparently IE crashes if you open more then four tabs, or you sign into gaiaonline for extended peeriods of time (5 minutes). Oops. Anyways, 20 more minutes of internet according to the sheet of paper I got yesterday.

Today I saw an active volcano! Unfortunately (at least unfortunately for everyone else), I'm still alive and kicking. We were somewhere called Paos, where there is the cloud forest, or forest that exists at high altitudes. The name sounds so pretty, reminds me of castles in the sky or some equally romantic idea. The weather here actually is pretty cold, the fog rolled in while we were looking at the volcano crater, and I went back to the visitor's center to huddle with other unprepared tourists.

I bought some postcards, wrote some and didn't see much wildlife. The bus ride up and down the mountain was really killing my stomach, so I took some motion sickness pills. A side effect of these pills is drowsiness, so I kind of walked around half asleep for the rest of the afternoon. We visited a museum and I passed out at the wrong moment. So I ended up banging my head against this metal grille on the door. Needless to say, I sat down the rest of the time and tried to stay awake using other methods. Ow. I think a hug bruise is forming on the side of my head, but I don't feel like checking a mirror.

Anyways, I managed to pick up a little history before I almost killed myself. Turns out that the Spanish conquistadors (sp?) wiped out most of the indigenous peoples in Costa Rica with smallpox, so other then what they can glean from archaelogical digs, the people here really know very little about the ancestors. But what they do know is facinating. For some reason, these people made huge spheres out of volcanic rock. No one knows why or exactly how they did this, but I saw one today which was more then 5 feet in diameter. These spheres are almost perfectly round, and seem to serve no practical purpose, which makes their existence all the more fascinating.

In other news, I'm not sure when I'll have internet next. I mean the next hotel might have internet, and it might not. It probably won't kill me to be without internet for 8 days..right? Anyways, if I haven't gotten your address by now, you probably aren't going to get a postcard D: Duuude, why isn't everyone online all the time so I can get addresses?!

So I've been thinking about people back home (haha that sounds so funny), and I don't think I know even 50% of whats going on. I mean there is no reason to be worried, but I do it anyways. I like to think that everything is happy, but I know its not that way. I just don't know how to broach the subject and would you look at that I have 4 minutes left maybe I should pay attention to Cindy/people instead of ranting.

Ummm theres a limit on how long i can use the internet, and this keyboard is really strange, so I´ll keep this short.

Basically I´m miserable here. I´ve seen some beautiful things, but mainly its going around in really hot weather slathered in sunscreen and bug off lotion. So you´re always sticky whether you´re sweaty or not. The schedule makes you spend a lot of time on the bus, which makes me sick. So I take pills which make me sleepy and them I´m cranky the rest of the day.

It´s super hot and humid here, and Í cant wait to get home and take a real shower. I really miss home. so scared of the bugs here, its like they´re mutant beasties that grow up to 5x their normal size. But I have kept promises, wrote postcards and done a little shopping. Either way there are multiple people looking over my should waiting to use the computer. I¨ll be home in 5 days. ;__; Not sure if I¨ll last until then.

I'm going to minimize complaints and just bombard with images. I'm a terrible photographer, so its very lucky that I forgot my charger at home and ran out of batteries really fast.

Tortuguero: Land of the Turtles (The Amazon of Costa Rica)

Cappuccino monkey (or something like that)

More of the same monkey, I think he was mad at our boatman who was making monkey noises. I call them Brandie and Frankie.

I think this is a slated tail trogan. The guide had a heavy accent and my handwriting is mediocre.

green emerald basilisk. I thought he was a leaf for the longest time before I realized that he had a tail.

Thats a toucan. I think its a colored arcari, but then again its such a terrible picture that I can't tell. At least you can see colors on this one :D

Its a laughing falcon. I think. We plowed into some weeds and stayed for nearly 10 minutes taking pictures of this guy.

I'm not even gonna pretend to know what that bird is. Yes it is a bird, I do know that much.

Some kind of quail. There were a lot running around and you could hear them cheeping, but I didn't see any babies.

They aren't flamingos! Unfortunately I have no idea as to what kind of bird they are. Still the pink feathers are cute, no?

Uhh.. Yay pretty birdies!

More pink birdies! The less pink looking on in the left with duller looking feathers is an adolescent.

The Rainforest: Where its very very green and wet.

Dude I'm so proud of this picture. The reason why I ran out of battery so fast is because I spent so much time chasing around this hummingbird and his buddies. This was the one clear picture I got about 30 minutes after I gave up, and then saw him sitting still on a branch. For once I win!

Omitted are the pictures I took of bugs on the walk, and the pictures where I got smacked by a stray leaf on the aerial tram.

Active Volcanoes: Not to be confused with dormant, extinct or moody volcanoes.

This is an active volcano. Apparently it spews stuff from time to time, but the smokey stuff is just fog. Or so they say. Won't even pretend to know which one or where this is.