Exploring San Jose

Teatro Nacional

Since I arrived in Costa Rica I've spent the majority of my free time traveling to far of beaches and volcanoes of the country. Now as I coast through my last week I find myself with an abundance of free time. The Spanish course I took for 4 hours every morning was done last Friday. This means that I don't have to be to school until 6pm at night. With all this free time I've found myself getting out to explore the city of San Jose.

National Park of Costa Rica

The capitol of Costa Rica is an interesting place full of history, culture and some cool places hidden away. On Monday I found myself sitting at home with nothing to do so when it was time to pick Indiana up from Kinder I asked Claudia if I could come along. This was my first opportunity to see a public school in Costa Rica. Now public schools here are not like public schools at home. They receive insufficient funding and lack the security of private schools here. Kids and teachers need to be extra careful because drug dealers hang around outside the gates and hand drugs in for innocent children to try getting them hooked early. Because its so unsafe most families choose to send their children to private school but in order to get into private school here the students must pass an entrance exam no matter how much money the family has. So the public schools end up having low achieving and poor students. Andres goes to a private school and hopefully I'll get to come with to pick him up later this week. On Monday I also found the coolest little cafe called Musa Confusa 2 blocks away from campus. I never knew it existed and I'm so sad I just found it.

National Cathedral

Tuesday was a day for exploring Downtown. I went with a few people from my night class. We took the public bus for the first time. Imagine this giant school bus painted Blue, Yellow and Orange pulling up on the side of the road. Everyone shuffles on paying 150 colones (about 20 cents) and scoots into these plastic old fashion bus seats (and not school bus seats). We were dropped off a few blocks from out destination, el Teatro Nacional (the national theatre). This theatre was built in 1897 and is a replica of the National Theatre in France. The entire interior was hand painted and is absolutely gorgeous. For me the pinnacle of the Theatre was the Chandelier, hundreds of tiny lights make up this gigantic beacon and it looks so cool when all the lights go out. The afternoon show was a selection of Arias from various Operas. The performers were Costa Rican students trying to get a head start before studying in Europe or the US and hopefully having a career. It was an amazing show, especially since it was only 1000 colones ($2). After the show we stopped by this little cafe for lunch. It was kind of spendy but I had a delicious Montecristo sandwich, two cups of coffee and for dessert Tres Leches (3 milks). This dessert has become very popular in Costa Rica but infact it is a Nicaraguan dessert. My host family is actually originally from Nicaragua, my host mom and all her kids were born there but moved here when the youngest was 3. I think its funny that Costa Ricans love tres leches so much because most Costa Ricans strongly dislike Nicaragua (the two countries have had a tense history). Tres leches is a very sweet cake with a light frosting and the whole thing is doused in milk. It is so good but very rich. I want to learn how to make it.




Later today I am going to the Gold Museum and National Museum. More updates on that later.