Recap! Done with school, on to traveling

A lot has happened in the last few days. I'm going for a quick recap, since Emily wants to head to the beach.

Thursday night

Every prefunked at Nicholas' house, who is our age and works at Intercultura. They hired a DJ, had a fire, and had a dog named Brownie which I of course loved. We all had a good time, and headed over to Le Bistro for Peter's birthday party. A great night for me. I dropped a glass on the dance floor though. One guy in our group drank over a fifth, passed out at Nicholas' house, woke up, and accused his friends of stealing his camera and Ipod. They kicked him out of the house after an argument apparently, the police came, and he found his camera in the gutter. He cried all night till 6 am. His host family kicked him out the next morning. Worst part is he doesnt really remember any of it. Pics later from the club.

Friday

Big Max our director took us out to a cool Lebanese restaurant as our final shabang. It was a surprise. We had some drinks before hand at Bolevar. Food was great, we sat on the floor and I had some white russians. Took a cab home early around 11 to rest up. Later found out that Jimmy, Eric, and Chiam (guy mentioned above) got robbed at gun point right by my house later that night. Chiam had a rough couple of days... Anyway they didnt get hurt and only lost a total of about $70. Lucky I guess.

Saturday

Rest day. Cleaned my room, packed up my stuff, and watched a couple movies. Manuel Antonio tomorrow. Convinced Megan, Peter, Morgan Carl, and Morgan Carl's buddy to go with us.

Sunday

Left my house at 445 am to go to the Coca Cola bus station. Caught the express bus at 600 to Manuel Antonio, slept the whole way, and got there around 930 am. Stayed at a hotel called the Banana Tree, which is apparently catered to gay people (who knew?). Taxis are expensive here, they don't use the meters ever, and there's nothing to do about it. Lots of Americans here. Very touristy. We saw a bunch of spider monkeys, another sloth, some white-faced monkeys, a weird badger thing with a long tail that I still don't know what it is, and lots of birds and butterflies at the National Park. They only let 600 people in a day which is sweet. We entered though the exit via some local's advice, and avoided the $7 entrance fee (Sweet!). There were a couple absolutely pristine beaches inside the park, and we took a swim. It was beautiful. Again, pics later. Drank on the beach with four others from our group we met up there, and got harassed by locals quite a bit. We were just on the beach because there is no night life there. At all. Lots of drugs though. Crack, coke, and tons of weed. This crackhead was asking me for 700 colones to pay his landlord for rent for over an hour. I got some great practice on my Spanish while refusing to pay him. Finally he told me he worked in the surf shop by us and he would give me free lessons all day if I gave him 700 colones (which obviously is ridiculous). I told him he didn't work there. Then he ran and got a surfboard and tried to get us to go surfing...drunk...at 100 am...with a broken surfboard...that didnt have any fins on it. We laughed at him and finally he said ¨This is bullsheet¨and left. Apologized later. Interesting night.

Monday

Went kayaking with snorkeling equipment out to a couple rocks about a kilometer away. Some some cool fish, but the waves were huge and the coral was shallow, and you got sucked into the rocks at certain points. Pretty dangerous, so we cut it short. I was getting sea sick from the waves. Headed over to a different part of the beach on our two kayaks that was deserted, and the huge waves knocked us out. We lost all four pairs of masks because of the strong undercurrent. Expensive mistake. We had to pay $16 for each. Did I mention we rented this stuff from a coke head? Didnt mean to directly support his drug habit, but he gave us a really good deal on the rental ($10 each). Gotta go to the beach! More later!