Hold on to your seats...

Get ready...here is the long post that you have been waiting for....

So I will start with the home I am staying in. There is a mom and dad, they are both REALLY nice! The mother is a great cook!!! She is very caring and attentive! She even re-made up my bed!!!! I had already made it up but she came in and did it again! The dad is ADORABLE!!!! He is 61. He does not speak very much English at all. He is trying to teach himself now. I really like to help him after dinner. He brings out his books and I quiz him! It is fun! And I do love helping people with English! They also have a son that is very nice. He is 23. He works during the day. We really only see him at dinner. But he is funny and speaks English well. It is really funny to watch how he interacts with his parents...it reminds me a lot of eating dinner with my folks.
There are also 2 other students staying in the house. One is from Lincolnton, NC!!! He is a student at UNC-Charlotte. His name is Ronald. He is A LOT older! I'm not sure how old...but he looks like he could have grandkids! But I think he just "looks" old. He is very shy and does not speak at all!!! I finally got him to talk about tobacco and cotton fields! He also makes honey. The other student is fabulous! He is a lawyer from Austria. His name is Gert. If you say like you are a Bulgarian you will have the pronunciation right! I'm not sure how old he is either but I think he is in his late 20s early 30s. He kind of looks like he could have been a model or actor in the 90s. He is very nice! And quite a gentleman...but awkward! It is really funny! His English is good but there are some words that he doesn't know. It is really fun to teach him new words! I also make him teach me German! I'm having a lot of fun learning fun, new, German words! He speaks 4 languages and is very intelligent! He speaks German, English, Spanish and French. He is very funny but awkward...in a European way.

And now for my adventures:
My first adventure took me to the Orosi Vally. If you look at the map below find the word central and look below it at Cartago. That is the area that I visited on Tuesday. There we went hiking up to a beautiful view of the valley. The valley is important because the people thought there was gold there (Oro, si=Gold, yes) and put a lot of hope in developing it. However there was no gold! So now it is just a little town. Here is a picture of the view:

We also went to one of the oldest churches in Costa Rica. Here is picture of one of the statues inside. In this picture is looks like a painting but it is actually a statue.
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Well the internet is messing up...so the pictures will have to wait. Today we went to a coffee plantation. It was located in Heredia...on the map that is directly above San Jose. It was really interesting! We saw coffee plants and learned about the process and the history of Costa Rican coffee. It was a lot of fun! And of course we got to taste GREAT coffee. I'm a firm believer that Costa Rican coffee is some of the best in the world! Its funny because the coffee you buy here in the grocery store is not of great quality because they export all the good stuff! But today I bought some of the good stuff!

I don't know what I am going to do this weekend I will do this weekend...but I will let you know as soon as I figure something out!

I MISS YOU ALL!!!!

Sorry the post was not as long as I had hoped...but I seriously have NO free time! Its crazy! Things will settle down soon!