Goodbye Costa Rica

This was written 2 hours before I left for the airport


In the past week I have been saying my goodbyes to Costa Rica. There was a goodbye party with all of the host families on Saturday in which we played families vs students soccer. I got elected goalie and am proud to say that only 14 goals were scored on me. This is a record usually the students lose by over 20. I was lifted onto everyones shoulders at the end of the game. It is probably the best sport moment I will ever have. On monday I went with two friends to Monteverde cloud forest. I can tell you very little about the cloud forest because we opted for an extreme canopy tour complete with tarzan swing, 100 ft repel, and 1 km superman cord. It was awesome and when I was flying horizontally and pretending to be superman 3 scarlet macaws pulled up near me. It was pretty incredible. On Wednesday we gave our final presentations and now my semester abroad is over. I leave for the airport in 2 hours. On our last day of class we went over how to adjust to being back in the US so we are not unbearable to everyone but it is expected that I will go into a semi-depression in which I hate on the US and everyone gets tired of hearing about Costa Rica. I find I am not excited for that. But I am now informed of it so hopefully I'll just be mopey and complain about the weather for a couple days and then get over myself. That is the plan going forward.

I really can't comprehend the concept of leaving. Four months was very very short and I still have so much I haven't seen here but looking back I've completed something pretty cool and I hope I can bring some of the things I learned here back to my life in the states. I'm going to miss my families here very much and I have to believe that someday I will be able to see them again. I've been trying to think about an answer to the question "how was study abroad?" I think its kind of a cop-out to say it was life changing or something that while true is also true of everyone's experience. It is impossible to come out of this unchanged (I have been informed that I am not yet aware of how I have changed but others will point it out to me upon my return). What I can say of my experience is that I got to watch the sunset on the beach for 60 nights, I know what it is like to wake up to chickens being obnoxiously loud, I am a professional bus rider, I became a part of two very different families and I got to be a part of a project that will attempt to better the lives of the people I have met here. I have no real regrets from my experience here which feels great and to some extent I am ready to come home. This was only part one (see blog title) I'll be back soon. Hasta pronto