The one where we reversed on the on ramp..

First before I start here is my mail address:
669-1250 Escazu
San Jose, Costa Rica

This past weekend the OSU crew took a trip to Arenal. Arenal consists of an active volcano that is surrounded by a chilly rainforest! My favorite thing we did this weekend was going to the hot springs. Basically, it comes down to this: the most beautiful swimming pools and scenery that you could ever imagine is this but instead of chlorine and tap water this is natural springs! There is different temperatures in each pool surrounded by waterfalls. The highest degree was 153 F! The one we loved that felt like perfect bathwater was 95 F.

I also got a 70 minute antistress AMAZING massage for $30...beat that U.S!

We went on a lava tour that night, but the volcano was covered in clouds so we didn't get to see any red hot goo.

Um, STILL sick with throat infection..think this is week 4. Pray for healing, this is frustrating.

I posted the pictures! Gosh, I wish they did anything I saw justice. I love it here!

Oh, about the title. On our way home we are in San Jose and our van driver is merging on the highway and decides half way on the highway lane he doesn't want to get on this highway. Of course the logical, safest and easiest way is to reverse.. (hmmm) So we did. We reversed very far back and got honked at the entire way down. I turned around to watch just in case we got hit, at least I could brace myself. We made it thankfully. I wonder how much a ticket would cost in the States if someone did that?

Oh! One of my favorite parts of the weekend.. I met this adorable old couple from Montreal at the springs and they spoke french and english. I practiced my french and they basically adopted me as their daughter. I loved being able to speak and somewhat understand a different language.
Thank you for reading and pura vida
Trish

The one with the changes

All my teachers and professors have told us, "Don't hang out in the teachers lounge, too much gossip, negativity.." My question is: Does this apply when I don't understand a word they are saying, because its in Spanish?

Somethings I have been thinking about:
-When I come home, I will either a) forget how to drive b) be a crazy lunatic driver like the people here c) be extra careful
-I graduate the week I come back
-I am wanting to sleep in a bed that I cant feel wooden planks on my back :)
-I wonder if my guard is being let down or if I was over cautious at first, because I am feeling comfortable here, even though I still stick out
-I am not in the bible belt, I am in the Catholic belt now.
-Blue Valley is unlike any school I have ever seen, its so different than anything I was taught.. I can't say much about this environment on my blog though.
-My teacher and I are so much alike, she is so amazing and I am learning ALOT from her
-I have 19 students..12 of them have learning disabilities..talk about frustration to extra patience, God is good.
-The Lord is showing me how to rely on his STRENGTH and not my own. I have been praying that my heart breaks when His does, that I see the world through His eyes, and that He uses me to spread His light with my actions and words.
-I love Costa Rican Coffee.
-Everyone has maids here. Its common for everyone to have one that: cooks for them, cleans their dishes, cleans their house, and even watches their kids. Its sad to me, because I see how lazy people can get and have less connection with their kids because instead of the mom or dad carrying their baby around, the maid does...any thoughts??
-Throwing your toliet paper in the trash can is one of the nastiest things, the pipes in CR are too little for toliet paper
-We are not the only Americans, we are from the States, people are Americans here too!
-My blonde hair and green eyes is obvious to the world down here. Our taxi cab guy looked at me and goes "Oh your beautiful hair and light green eyes, you must have a boyfriend.." all in spanish and then I said What?! and He goes "I am crazy, Crazy Carlos" wow.

-Well thats all, I hope everyone is doing well, thank you for reading if anybody is haha.
-Mr. and Mrs. Armour I am praying for you today and I love you both so much as my other family.

Tricia

Picture Post!

Not in Order:
Carley and I at Manuel Antonio

My kids on our field trip!!

Carley and I's beautiful handstands on beautiful Manuel Antonio

This is the COSTA RICA NEW PRESIDENT!! Laura!! We met her at the game, it was so awesome!!!!

The coconut, this guy was selling them on the beach for a dollar. you stick a straw through the thin layer and drink the milk! So good, refreshing!

The one where I am never going back to San Jose

If you really want to insult someone say "You smell like San Jose". That cannot be topped.

This weekend, the OSU crew is going to Manuel Antonio or Capos. It supposedly is this beautiful beach that everyone talks about. To get our tickets on the public transportation bus, some of us needed to go down to San Jose to get tickets. The others took care of the hotel. Vanessa, Carley and I were the ones that had to go get the tickets.

The place where we needed to go in San Jose was called the Coca Cola area. All day, we heard people say "Why are you going there? That is so dangerous! I don't even go down there in my car!" Great.. we were so scared out of our minds. We did everything possible to prevent being mugged or getting lost. We didn't carrying anything with us and stuck our money in our clothes. We walked fast, kept our heads up, no smiles, looked around and acted like we belonged there. We got called "beautifuls, hot girls, prettys, and some guy said he loved us" We also go spit at.. that was uncalled for. It smelled awful downtown and there were so many homeless people there. We stuck out cause we were gringos for sure. We got the tickets and got on the bus and made it. Thank God for His protection.

I am so excited about this Wednesday! Gigo, our home stay brother, his girlfriend got us 5 box seats for the professional soccer game!!! I have been wanting to go so bad and they surprised us with tickets!

Travis gave me a verse that I want to share! "...Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?" In all this Job did not sin with his lips." Job 2:10

In everything, we should give glory and thanks to God! We are not supposed to have an easy life, Christ told us it would be hard to follow Him.

Que te vaya bien!
Tricia

The one where I flew over a rain forest..

MounteVerde:
Absolutely beautiful! This place is like colorado mixed with austin, texas. Definitely our favorite place so far! It took us 3-4 hours to get there and half that time we are on a rocky dirt road which gave us stomach aches (thank God for pepto) and headaches (thank God for Iby). Saturday morning we woke up and supported a local school by being a walker in the 5K or a runner in the 10K. Those of us who walked got to enjoy the beautiful scenery and take a wonderful morning walk!!

Next we went Ziplining through the rainforest! This was definitely one of the top5 things I have done in my life!! We got this great deal with a company and went through a series of 15 ziplines over and through the rainforest. The first one that went OVER the mountains of rainforest I literally lost my breath cause I was shocked/scared/amazed how incredibly high I was!! There was this one called Superman.. it was 1km long and they hook up (shown in pictures of my friend) and you soar over it without a brake. I literally yelled "God you are so awesome!" as I flew over. The pictures cannot due the view justice at all, but it was incredible.

We ate at this awesome restaurant called Tree House. It was literally in a tree. We ate there for dinner and breakfast it was so good.

Funny Story: In the middle of the night both nights we woke up to an animal scratching and panting on our wall which was on the roof! No idea what it was but it was relentless in trying to get in!!


That was our trip! I will update another post soon to tell about our trip to San Jose!
Pura Vida
Tricia

The one where ticos talk alot!

I have never heard so many people talking at once, and everyone seems okay with it. My 1st grade classroom is chaos compared to the classroom I was in last semester. Its funny when I think about the boys laying on the floor on top of each other screaming at the top of their lungs and my teacher just going on with her lesson. Its definitely different! The way they teach is definitely different too...All the kids with problems sit at one table. They are all frustrated with double digit addition and I think I taught 6 ADD boys how to add double digits today. Very exhausting..

Side note: Its funny when the kids come up to me and start speaking Spanish, and of course I act like I know what they are saying but then smugly say "Nope, tell me in English". I act like I know what they are saying so that they don't whisper behind my back thinking they can get away with saying things and me not understanding :) I almost got caught today when several kids asked me how to say the english word for _____. I just told them to ask their neighbor..heck I don't know!

We have a big weekend coming up! The OSU crew is going to Mount Verde. Its a pretty touristy spot. We are running a 10K Saturday morning and ziplining through the canopys on Saturday! We come back Sunday!

Thank you for reading and keeping up with me! I appreciate you all and send my love from Costa Rica.

Tricia

The one when the earth quaked..

Hola,
Yesterday I figured out from the Spanish speaking doctor with a translator by me that I have a throat infection. Lovely. I have an allergy to smoke and the bacteria got a hold of that. I can barely swallow and had to stay home from the first day of school today. :(

Last night we were sitting in the living room watching Greys Anatomy and there was a sound and Nikki goes "ok, don't be alarmed but this is a Costa Rica earthquake." Two seconds later the whole room shook for about 3 seconds. Things were rattling and Elza came in to check on us. It was so weird! I was on my feet ready to run and Nikki told me to settle down and it would be ok. My first earthquake!

I love my first grade cooperating teacher! Mrs. Pacheco is taking good care of me and I absolutely love working with her. Yesterday was rough after the doctor and she told me "I will help you, consider me a friend and nothing else. You can come to me for anything." The Lord has blessed me tremendously with her.

These pictures were taken after our OSU beach adventure to Hermosa. The crocodiles were underneath a bridge that we crossed!! There were so many on both sides!

Picture Post

The picture of 4 of us up close looking away:
Vanessa Voth, Christa Camp, Carley Harrison, Me!
Vanessa, Carley and I are living in the same house. Christa is nearby living with the Gambinos.

The picture of us running towards the beach:
Vanessa, Carley, Me and Colby Pruitt (theta actually, secondary edu. at Pan American)
This was the black sand beach Hermosa. Pura Vida means Pure Life or its just a saying in Costa Rica.

The one with the blonde gringo and the bus..

This picture is Blue Valley!! Its such a beautiful nice school, we look around and are surrounded by mountains.
A story before I start:
Gigo, is the brother in the family, he walked me out to the car from a restaurant to get flowers that we bought for Elsa to bring back inside. We go out to the car and I get the flowers and then shut the door and turn around to walk back. All of a sudden, Gigo pushes my back and I go against the car and a bus flys by us and is centimeters from hitting him and I am in front of him. Almost got hit by a bus..sorry mom and dad. He literally saved my life and I was wide eyed and so grateful to him. He said, "Youre my sister, I have to protect you". Good guy.

We had a wonderful day at the beach. All the OSU students took a trip to a beach called Hermosa. The sand was black and very hot. We got there and it was not a touristy spot so we got to relax completely. We stayed out for about 5 hours and had such a fun time.

I am sick with a fever already.. I am allergic to cigarette smoke apparently cause I immediately reacted to it when we were around it. My throat is swollen and my head constantly hurts and a fever. So thats why I am sick..love that Oklahoma kinda smoke free environment. Thats something I took for granted. Mom, come take care of me!


I asked Nikki if I could ever pass as a Tica (costa rican) she said no and laughed. She said even if I darkened my hair it wouldn't work. She said you can tell who the gringos are (people from outside costa rica).. and Americans, its all in the eyes apparently. I was disappointed, I want to fit in :) She said Ticos have a lighter skin color than any other central american country because its started mostly european.

Tomorrow is Election Day! Its so cool here! All week people have been supporting their colors of their party and raising flags! Here are some details:
-People make their own flags and hang them everywhere, hold them outside their cars as they are driving, wave them on the street.
-We are doing what our family is doing and going green and white which is for Laura. The first woman to possibly be president.
-People honk the syllables for the name of the person they are voting for..Laura is 2 honks!
-Tonight is a crazy night, everyone is outside celebrating the election and going absolutely crazy.
-Usually people are not supposed to drink on election day, all the liquor stores shut down, but this year they changed it. Liquor stores are still down but people are allowed to drink. (that is going to be crazy..enough said)

Thank you for reading, it means alot!! Oh, I got to share my faith today, which was so stinkin awesome. I love it when the Holy Spirit intervenes and speaks for me. All glory to God.

Trish

Hogar Dulce Hogar -Home Sweet Home

"Come out from among them and be separate says the Lord...and I will receive you"

Yesterday, was amazing! Met my Costa Rican teacher! Her name is Mrs. Pacheco. She has almost the same color of skin as my mom (along with the rest of the Lipperts, the beautiful darker skin tone) and light brown hair. Its interesting, sometimes they look like Americans but they are not! She welcomed me with a great big smile and so much joy! Made me feel so blessed.

After we got out, we went to Christa Camps pool (secondary education OSU student who is also at Blue Valley). Read by the pool for about an hour and then we went to the Multi Plaza. This is a HUGE mall that has over 300 stores. This mall is nicer than woodland hills or the galleria. It was shocking. And we indulged ourselves in American food, quiznos was calling my name..but not the weird tasting meat that came on it!

We got to go work out at Elzas gym which happened to be Curves. We then went to Hipper Mas, which is owned by wal-mart but so much nicer! There were employees standing by aisles for assistance. Example: There was a lady standing at the make up aisle (just like wal-mart aisles) and you would ask her about products and she would tell you what you would want. My favorite part about Hipper Mas was the escalators. The don't have steps, its flat and the cart can go down and up with you without sliding everywhere!

Funny Story: Elza was driving and there was a car in the middle of the street backing up and she swerved (not unusual) to miss it, honked loudly and has her phone still in her hand dialing and says "Drive carefully.." and kept looking down. I thought we were going to wreck..It was so funny though.

Back at school today, living a pura vida.
Tricia

Primera Dia!!

"Be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility for Fod resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God that He may exalt you in due time."

People in Oklahoma are going to hate me once they read what I got to do my first day here. We were at a hotel called Casa Alegre. We layed out by the pool the entire day and got tan in the perfect weather. It was such a vacation paradise day.

At four o'clock that day we went to Blue Valley to meet our host mom: Elza (pronounced Elsa). She greeted us with a kiss on the cheek and said my new daughters!! Costa Ricans are very welcoming.

Our school is the nicest school I have ever seen. Seriously, its a private school and many diplomats send their kids to here. Its mostly outdoors, there are three stories some buildings, tan stone walls, marble floors, smaller classrooms and mac computers. The view from the school is the mountains and I kept saying "this is absolutely beautiful, I could be looking at theta pond in stillwater instead right now..wow"

Elza's house is a light orange in color and it is considered a very nice house in Costa Rica. We are very blessed to live in such a nice place. Every place is surrounded by iron gates that lock. Her house is towards the mountains more, therefore cooler in the night and morning. She has a son and a daughter. The daughter-Nicole or Nikki- is 25 and loves having us here. She is so nice and their whole family speaks English fluently.

Most people know a little bit of english, the people we are mostly around speak it fluently. In our school, all the classes are taught in english and they have one spanish class. Ordering at restaurants is a completely different world though.

Nikki and one of her friends took us to the Costa Rica Country Club-cost 35,000 dollars just to get the membership! We already got the hook ups :) They asked us about our pre-conceived ideas about CR. They were cracking up at what we thought they lived like.
Some Ideas I had before:
-I would sleep on a stone bed with a wide open window with a knife under my pillow ready to attack anyone wanting to kill me
-I would be looked down upon for being an American
-I would keep my laptop with me at all times so that I wouldn't get it stolen at home
-there wouldn't be alot of cars or buildings
-I would be robbed every 5 seconds
-we had to eat everything on our plates because it would be considered rude if we didn't finish
After talking to Nikki and her friend:
-we North Americans are stupid and have weird ideas about other places
-we aren't taught alot of geography and culture in our schools

Random Facts about CR:
* They have earthquakes! They told us the first night not to freak out if we had one in the middle of the night cause its common but still not an every day thing. All their buildings are built to be kinda elastic and moveable -unlike Hati- and also the earthquakes are less magnitude so its not a big deal.
*The peoples skin is lighter than I thought, sometimes you think you are looking at an American but then they start spittin out spanish and it shocks me.
* There are a ton of different ethnicities here, I still stick out though
*Note to anyone coming here!! Don't drive anywhere. They are crazy. Sometimes I just close my eyes in a taxi hoping we made it through the "suggested" stop signs.
*People start drinking here alot earlier, around 14..its a cultural thing.

Funny story:
-Carley was trying to say in Spanish "I was scared" at the dinner table and ended up switching two spanish words and saying "I sh*t" One of the friends on Nikki spit her wine out and cracked up laughing.

Thanks for tuning in!!
TriCia