Rafting, Escuela, y Cervezas

Hola!

So this weekend, I was able to go white water rafting. It was an amazing time. The rapids began at class 2, but went up to class 4 for most of the trip (which lasted for about 4 hours). It was indescribable. Rafting through the jungle, with cliffs going up hundreds of feet, the rain pouring down, seeing mountains poke through the clouds above, absolutely incredible. At one point, we were even able to swim in the river while it rained, it was very serene, an incredible experience.

Besides the gorgeous scenery, rafting was a lot of fun. The trip was on a river somewhere near the city of Turrialba, (I can't remember the actual name of the river). We had these commands from our guide to let us know what to do while on the river. My favorite one was the "oh s***!" command, which meant sit in the boat so no one falls out. These guides were absolutely amazing, they knew exactly where the best rapids were, positioned the boat perfect, and made the trip amazing. We bought an album of pictures of the trip so I hope you get a sense of how great this trip was.

After the trip was over, we were able to drive through one of the national parks of Costa Rica, which so happened to be the rain forest where they are filming "I'm a celebrity, get me out of here." Once back, some of us decided to try out the nightlife (of course we asked where the safest place was for a bunch of gringos to hang out). We went to La Calle Almarguro, it had a couple of spots for us to get some cervezas and relax.

Sunday was a day to catch up on schoolwork. I finished my homework and kept studying spanish (my spanish instructor told us that even though we were in the advanced class, the liklihood of us becoming fluent was slim to none). I've been improving on the language, mostly with being able to understand with what others are saying and I hope to increase my engineering vocabulary mostly.

Overall, class has been going well but it tends to be a very long day. We've learned about ECG, pulse oximeters, defibrilators, and batteries. It's definately a lot of information, but it will definatelly be useful once were on our own in the hospital. On Friday, we are going to a local hospital in San Jose to get an idea of what we will encounter. It will be nice to get out of the classroom and be able to apply what we know in a real life setting.

This weekend, most of us are going to La Tortugero. It's a big nature spot in the east coast of Costa Rica. There are a lot of animals; birds, monkeys, reptiles, and of course turtles. We are leaving on Saturday morning at 6am, going on a bunch of hikes and seeing the sea turtles at night. This should be a lot of fun. I should be uploading more pictures shortly so check back often!

Hasta luego!