Semana Santa!

Tuesday we had a birthday party for my Spanish teacher, Karina, during class, and she gave us our first official Tico dance lesson. She kept it simple so we could all actually do the steps, but for some reason she just makes it look a whole lot better than we do. Fortunately it's much harder for the guys, who actually have to lead, the girls just need to know how to take directions, so if we find good dance partners we're safe. After class, we went back to the meat restaurant, Donde Alcides, to meet Maritza, who had offered to take us to explore her finca. She was all decked out in a matching grey and pink spandex exercise top and capris, think LuluLemon except her brand had a cross on it. She took us through a private gate and on this beautiful hiking trail that only she and her family and special guests have access to. She was in GREAT shape and gave us a workout, and then on our way back up to the restaurant we stopped by the pig sty, where there were some pretty cute pigs being fattened up for you know what. I considered becoming a vegetarian for about five minutes, until she invited us back into the restaurant for a "cafecito," which this time included Smirnoff ices, coffee, tea, Coke, a GIANT plate of pork and beef, baked potatoes, sweet plantains stuffed with cheese, cabbage salad, and grilled pineapple for dessert. When we paused to take a break from eating, she asked us if we wanted more!

Wednesday was our last day of class before Semana Santa, and my family has been off of school/work all week so they have been staying up CRAZY late, like I'm talking pushing 11pm here...My host mom's brother and his wife and baby are in from Buenos Aires (CR, not Argentina), and he brought his guitar so I got a little impromptu performance after dinner. My host mom and her brother played guitar and she and her daughter harmonized and they could WAIL. It was amazing, like they had a whole routine down. From what I could understand, all the songs were about Jesus, but beautiful nonetheless. I guess it was the closest to a seder I'm going to get.

Thursday morning I was awoken by Mark, Jake, and crazy Geraldo outside my window, on their way to hike up a mountain. I decided to join them, somehow blocking out the vow I made Sunday never to go anywhere with Geraldo again. It was a beautiful day and he pointed to an antenna on a mountain waaaaaaaay in the distance and said we were going to the top of it, and we smiled and nodded to humor him as we have learned to do. But two hours later, we were indeed hiking straight up a mud path through a jungle to reach said antenna, which he promised was the best view in Costa Rica. After getting over the fact that my knees would never be clean again and that I might die on the antenna, it was pretty beautiful. Fortunately we made it back in time for lunch, and my host mom had been making bread all day, so it was straight out of the oven and delicious. In the afternoon I went to mass with my host sister and cousin. The church is small and all the doors were and windows were left open so there was lots of natural light and fresh air, and it was a very nice, simple service. Again, I understood little except the name Jesus Christ being said repeatedly. Last night we had movie night at Brigette's house and watched Slumdog Millionaire with Spanish subtitles, which was confusing when they spoke in Hindi because then there were English subtitles too.  Today I am planning to take it easy and help my family cook lunch, and tomorrow I am going camping for the weekend with Brigette and her family, which should be a little more tame than last weekend...