Hola todos!  Last night a bunch of us went out to this street near a university that has a bunch of bars...it was fun but I was soo tired I just wanted to go to bed!  While we were walking to the bus stop something ran out in front of me and we didn't know what it was until we saw another one a second later...cockroaches. On the sidewalk. Needless to say I felt very vulnerable in my sandals.  The first bar we were at was this crazy techno place and we got this huge tower of beer.  Then we saw some white people across the street...yes, we're pretty easy to spot, we kinda stick out...and we waved to them so they came over and sure enough, they were volunteers too.  We went to one more bar after that then took a taxi home but we made someone who spoke Spanish come with us so we were sure we could make it home!

This morning I got to go to my volunteer placement for the first time.  It's pretty far away so I'll be racking up the bus fares for sure.  I have to take multiple buses to get there, so while the buses here are cheap, six buses a day is going to add up.  I take a bus to get to the Maximo Nivel office, then another bus to get to downtown San Jose, then I walk down the main street for a bit, then I take another bus out to the school I work at.  So lots of traveling!  The main street, called avenida central, is all pedestrian traffic so that's easy and there's lots of shops and things.  I have one other volunteer that is at my same placement so I have someone to travel with.  I think I will figure it out soon though...I looked for lots of landmarks today so I can remember where to get on and off the bus!

The school is a private religious school with uniforms and nuns and all...brings back the memories haha...called Carmelo.  While the area around the school looks a little sketch, the school inside is actually pretty nice and a decent size.  I haven't met the lady I'll be working with yet but the guy we talked to today was really nice...he said the kids get attached so I have a feeling by the end of this I'm gonna be really sad to leave!  Today they were in the middle of the school day so we'll start actually working in the classrooms and teaching tomorrow.  We work in the afternoons 2 to 5 and we'll be with the younger grades so lots of cute kids.  For today, we helped out in the preschool.  Lots of crazy kids running around!  We got a lot of stares haha, clearly we look like we don't belong.  Then we moved into even younger kids, like probably 2 to 4 year olds and they were soo cute.  And, the language barrier is a lot easier because you don't have to say much haha.  So I just played with the kids and gave them lunch and then they went to nap so we were there bout 2 hours.  While we were playing an alarm went off and at first I thought it was a lunch bell or something but everyone was running around like crazy and I didn't get why it was chaos...turns out, it was an earthquake drill!  So we all stood in this courtyard for a couple minutes and that was it.  There was a really sweet girl a little bit older, like second grade, who started talking to me and would ask me all these questions like she wanted to know the English names for things and stuff like that.  After we had cleaned up all the lunch stuff we headed back to Maximo.  I'm really tired but this is better than yesterday because I felt like I actually did something today so I feel a little more productive!  I'm excited for tomorrow because the Maximo person who took us to our placement today was saying that this school specifically asked for people who are staying here longer because they actually train us and stuff.  So it seems like it's not going to be as disorganized as I had anticipated.

As for Spanish, it's also not what I expected.  Contrary to popular belief, ie what I thought this whole time until yesterday, Spanish classes are extra money.  Soo instead of spending all the money on lessons, I chose instead to do a tandem conversation program where you get to sit down with a native speaker and they help you with your Spanish for a half hour, and you help them with their English for a half hour.  I don't know how the schedule for that works yet but hopefully it'll be cool.  And I always have my host family to practice speaking with too.  However, I'm also speaking lots more English than I thought I would because it's the only way to communicate with the other volunteers!  And, since my project is teaching English, I suspect I'll speak it then too.

Other random observations...although they told us to dress conservatively while we're volunteering, ie nothing above the knee, I've noticed hardly anyone here wears shorts, like even though it's hot and sunny, everyone still wears long pants.  So I guess dressing this way helps me blend in too.  And at all the bars, they play American music.  At the second bar they were playing like classic songs you'd hear on the radio, like the Beatles and 80s music. 

Now I'm waiting to go to a class here at Maximo that's a sort of teaching English crash course, and after that who knows!  I need a siesta.  Hasta luego!