San Jose Grindin'

Well, the magic splendor and euphoria of being in a warm place in January has worn off and I've started to see San Jose in a more realistic light: a pretty damn gritty city. It has its sights, some nice neighborhoods to be sure, good food, and great people...but despite that, I feel pretty unsafe walking around once it gets dark and I've kind of exhausted its obvious offerings in three days. Based on the fact that (almost) everyone in the hostel is only staying a night in the city before moving on, San Jose is certainly not the jewel of Central America. Obviously if my Spanish were better or I had someone to show me around, I think I'd be enjoying another side to San Jose much more, but unfortunately neither of those two things have panned out as planned. But not to worry! I'm still enjoying myself and my day today was strongly colored by the fact that I woke up at 6 AM to go to a volcano only to be greeted by a suddenly unfamiliar sight: clouds. Clouds?? Yeah, lots of them. So many that they would have rendered going to the volcano pointless. Well so it goes, probably an unfair reason to criticize a city. I did have a relaxing day around the neighborhood, in the park, around the hostel etc. Once I start working at the school tomorrow, I'll really start having fun again.
Oh yeah, I never explained what I'm doing in Costa Rica. At Amherst, I work at Reader to Reader, an online mentoring program. In tenuous connection to that, (which is not really worth explaining in this space but ask me if you're curious,) I secured some funding to teach at some schools in Costa Rica, one in the outskirts of San Jose, and one in the beach town of Playa Potrero. Links to the two programs, respectively, http://sites.google.com/site/laescuelitadeesperanza/, and http://mozillaservice.org/activity/story/313/en_US. The first one promises to be the much more challenging and more taxing on my Spanish...and unfortunately I start there tomorrow, my Spanish nary a lick better than it was when I got here. Well, I'll figure it out, it'll certainly be an experience one way or another. Anyways, some more pictures from San Jose (which upon further reflection/rereading the positive side I described at the beginning of this post, I still like as a city. It just has its rough patches. Also the mosquitoes are killing me and no one sells bugspray. Ok fine, can't condemn two cities in a row, San Jose's more than alright.

The outskirts

This was on the campus of the University of Costa Rica. And I mean smack in the middle of it.


A vibrant nativity scene on someone's lawn.

Really enjoying the graffiti in general. (More later)

Downtown again

A cool game I witnessed downtown where one pushes a tennis ball into some pins, trying to knock off the screws perched atop the pins (without knocking the pins over)

I legitimately think the sign is trying to convey MacDonald's tyranical rule over the world's food scene. Bold marketing I suppose. McD's, BK, Subway, and Pizza Hut blanket the city.

More things I liked

More cool graffiti, the city's full of it!

A big menorah in the park next to my house? Couldn't figure out whether or not it had Jewish significance, there was no plaque in sight.

Hola gallo!

Starting tomorrow about to get much more busy. Hopefully, I'll have time to post at some point during this week. Hasta luego til then.