michelle rivers - my adventure blog

This month has flown by. I've been catching up with friends, hiking, attending psychology conferences, shopping, and babysitting. Last week I went hiking with a few friends from Costa Rica. We went right around sunset and caught a ton of animals: hawks, owls, a rattlesnake, a tarantula, frogs, lizards, and more. Don't try this at home... my friend caught cute little green snake. You may be happy to know I didn't take this picture, but I did get pretty close. We also found a swing someone had attached to a tree, and had a good bit of fun on that. After the hike we went out for some delicious sushi nearby. Yesterday we went hiking in Lakeside and caught another beautiful sunset and some extraordinary views. I leave for Santa Cruz on September 14th. I'll be taking 3 classes:(15 units) : Intro to Education, Developmental Psychopathology, and Child Psychopathology. I'll be living in the dorms with a roommate. I've never met her but she seems like a ni...

Country, city, mountains, sky I've been home for a couple days now. It's been interesting, trying to re-adjust to the American lifestyle. I've been feeling some of the symptoms of reverse culture shock: restlessness, confusion, sadness, and even reverse homesickness. Although I'm excited to be back, there's so much to miss. I miss having my laundry done by my host mothers and waking up to fresh fruit and bread each morning. I miss being able to hear the beautiful mumurs of Spanish everywhere I go. I miss having to think before I speak and making silly mistakes. I miss the beautiful countryside and the smell of the rainforest. I miss the exotic wildlife only inches away from my camera lens. I miss swimming in the warm, Carribbean ocean. I miss looking down the long, empty beach, knowing that turtle eggs lie beneath the sand. I miss hopelessly trying to keep up with the locals with salsa and meringue music. I miss walking to school and running into trees covered in...

This last week went by faster than any other week on this trip. It's been a whirlwind. If there's one word to describe Monteverde, it's GREEN: The drive to Monteverde was long, hot, and windy. Although I took Dramamine and drank lots of water, I still ended up very nauseous and overheated. I figured after a good night's rest at my new host family I would be feeling better, but that wasn't the case. Unfortunately my host family was not great. The host mother was a very sweet lady but worked long hours (very busy) and didn't take very good care of her 4 year old son, who was always misbehaving. She also had a 14 year old daughter who was fun but also very rebellious. It made for a loud household and I felt uncomfortable eating the food she made (they would let it sit out on the stove.) Since I was already having problems, I decided to buy my own water and food. After day 3 of being sick to my stomach and feeling very weak, I went to the clinic in town. I was put o...

Today was packed with activities! At the last minute, I signed up for a "combo tour" offered by the school, and I'm SO GLAD I decided to do it. Nobody else in my main group from the school went, so I was able to meet some people from around the world and some other Americans, including a very nice well-experienced traveler and a Spanish professor. We started by going on a coffee plantation tour about an hour outside of town. I learned a lot about coffee, and I have a new appreciation for it! I understand why really good bags of coffee cost so much- there really is a lot of work involved. To the righ t is a picture of a coffee plant when it's first sprouting. They're called "soldiers" because the y look like they're wearing the helmet (these ar e the only soldiers you'll find in Costa R ic a!) Once the plant grows bigger, it pro duces tons of little red berry looking things that are picked by hand. Then they are washed in a huge tub of water, ...

Friday morning I went rappeling... do wn a waterfall! Once again, I had to face my fear of heights (t he waterfall was 60 meters t all), and I had a lot of fun. (After bungee jumping, it really wasn't that scary) I didn't reall y know what to expect, but it sounded fun so I signed up and volunt eered to go first from my group. As you can see f ro m t he p icture, it was extremely beautiful. Operating the rope to descend was a little unnatural, but I m ade it down with no problem. After desce nding, we had to take a short hike up the mountain to get back to our car. I ran into some interesting butterflies and crazy looking caterpillars on a tree. This weekend I went to Tortuguero , a beautiful National Park located on the Carribb ean side of the country. Getting to Tortuguero took a while because we had to take 2 buses and a boat through the canal, but the ride was relaxing and we caught some animals on the way. We also stopped at a banana plantation to learn a little ...

Today was another great day! Some friends and I went to Inbioparque (kind of by accident, we thought it was a place to hike), which was a place to wal k around and see animals - kind of like a zoo except more natural, because not everything was in cages. We saw TONS of aw esome animals and plants: snakes, lizards, sloths, giant iguanas, crazy looking insects, frogs, bunnies, baby cows and go ats, beautiful birds, etc. I even saw a GLASSWING BUTTERFLY, which just amazed me because they're rare and I've always thought they were extremely beautif ul in pictures I've seen online. Now I have my own! I'm not a botanist, so I'll just call this "spiny tree." Huge iguana just chillin' on a branch. Holding a soft baby bunny. Creepy spider! School is still going well. My Spanish is definitely improving because I've been practicing as much as possible and hassling everyone to correct me when I make mistakes. I actually prefer speaking in Spanish because it...