Well the last couple of days have been great. I´ve been getting use to doing my Spanish classes in the morning, and giving the English classes in the afternoon. Now after 5 days of Spanish, English, English, Spanish...I can´t hardly speak either! :) I´m starting to slur the two together. My Spanish classes includes 3 other volunteers. A woman, Kelly, from Arizona (so of course, she has her spanish down), and two girls from Deleware, one of which also has spanish down who is Susan. So basically, me and this girl Leslie just laugh because we have NO idea what´s being talked about. The houses around Atenas love their pets...dogs, cats, hens/roosters, and parrots. And I´m not kidding, some of these PARROTS know more spanish then me. Damn it all.

A couple of days ago, I was walking back to my house and as usual, passed the volleyball sandpits where most of the local Ticos play at everyday (30 or so of them). I usually just watch, but on Thursday, one of the locals I met was playing and waved me down to join his team. It was crazy fun !! But I had kept in mind that Atenas is home to the back-to-back-to-maybe back national champions, so they takes their volleyball pretty seriously. And so of course I was a little shaky to start it off. But yea, I was able to hold my own...we ended up winning 2 or 3 in a row. I´m kinda hoping that might merit the right to return another time. Duh-dun!

Yesterday Susan, Leslie, and I took a bus into San Jose after our Spanish classes (because of some holiday I believe, we didn´t have any English classes). The city slightly had a feeling of D.C. or what I might image NYC to be...just not quite as many people. Tall buildings, a couple of parks, and of course some tourist spots. We ended up visiting what sounds to be their equivelent of a Central Park of NYC. Cool looking trees everywhere, a huge lake, playgrounds, soccer fields, picnic spots. What I really enjoyed was the Gold Museum, which included art work dating back to around 1100-1200, a history of their ONE war against William Walker and his little crusade from the north, and then in the basement with a huge vault...all the countries accumulated Pre-Columbian Gold. Artistic gold, decorative gold, gold nuggets, and burial gold pieces. It was very cool!

The bus systems here are the only way to travel. It´s basically a dollar (500 Colones) to go anywhere in the region. So I´m already thinking ahead to next weekends expedition, and the weekend after that, and yea. Something else that´s pretty cool is that Kelly (another volunteer here in Atenas) has her Divemaster certificate, so we´ve talked about taking a weekend together to hit some of the good dive spots! I guess a lot of the sites that are considered "better" generally have sharks though. Not quiiite sure if that´s such a good idea for a first dive or not! I´ll have to find out a little more information before I go swimming with the bigger fishies.

On a lighter note, yesterday in San Jose we stopped for a few drinks. I had 3 there, and another when we got back into Atenas...I think I had a headache this morning! Nooo!! The good ol´college days are clearly gone, along with my tolerance!!!

It sounds like I might start the Ambulance assistance on Monday, Tina the coordinator mentioned that whenever I feel comfortable with joining them, I can start. So this weekend I need to speak with my stomach, see if he´s ready to handle it or not. :)

Well...hope everythings good back in the Northwest.
Hasta Luego

--oh...and the guy passed out on the sidewalk I found as soon as I woke up and looked out my window. Thought it was a polaroid moment for sure!