JUNE in a nutshell

Alright so last time i posted was a while ago and I am sorry for that. I have been pretty dang busy. So canopy weekend was amazing. It wasnt so much zipline as aerial stunts, one might say. We climbed this one tree about maybe 60 or 70 feet and jumped off. It was hybrid rope that mixed regular with bungee rope so it was like a nice pleasant swing. Then there was a little zipline and tightrope walk. Then there was the rocketman which was pretty cool. One person is in harness on a platform,the rope loops around a branch maybe 50 feet high and everyone else holds the other end of the rope. On the count of three we all ran the opposite direction and the person in harness SHOT into the air. But by far the coolest one was where there was this tree that looked like a bunch of skinny trees woven together into the form of a big tree. and it was hollow with many many holes. We got to climb up the inside of this tree and all we could use were the natural holes the tree had! It was absolutely amazing. The climb was maybe 70 0r 80 feet and then we repelled down the outside. It was crazy. After canopy we all returned to my town of San Marcos and rented a few hotel rooms for the night and went to the dance. It was a great weekend.

The weekend after that was....oh ya! I went into cartago cuz i had a date with a girl named Daniella. It is about time yall know about her. I met her in May at one of the dances and we have seen eachother a few times and weve been talking but im only here for 3 weeks so like, it sucks. anyways so we went on a date then i went to pizza hut with a bunch of other AFSers and then we went out on the town for a lil. Saturday i went to a store with Alicia (mom) and my sister and her boyfriend. it was actually a house that sold to stores so everything was like warehouse price. I bought some good stuff. Then we went to our house in San Jose for the night. Sunday i went home. THen this last weekend was pretty cool too. (If you havent noticed i skip weeks cuz they are just boring) Friday i went camping with my class. It was great because it was the first time where i felt like one of them. I finally shattered the language barrier. Ive been chipping at it for a while, little by little ive gone pretty far, but friday was like taking down the berlin wall. We went to a beautiful place and it was a hilarious group. Then in the morning we took a walk and saw the tourism aspect and then bird watching. Then we went horsebackriding which was crazy. Since i have been horsebacking my fair share in my life so far i was comfortable on a horse, but i was in my hiking boots so the stirrups fit about an inch and a half of my boot. It was fine when i was trotting and walking, but then my horse starts cantering and my boots just flewww out of the stirrups so i had to straddle the horse using just pressure from my thighs. it was scary and crazy, but also kinda exhilarating not gonna lie. Got home saturday in time to get dressed and ready for the dance and went to Santa Maria and met up with Fausto and Koyak who are my two best friends here i can say with confidence. Met up with daniella and my other AFS friends at the dance. Sunday was a lazy sunday but Monday was Alicias birthday and she was in San Jose so I left for there with my sister arround 1 and missed school. We went out to dinner and stuff which was fun. TOday we missed the 930 bus so i ddint go to school again. haha Alicia and I just chilled at the bus station for like 3 hours. Mostly bagging on AFS. it is a pastime with us here.

Thank You!

So some of them came after my birthday, but every single card from friends and family meant so much! Thank you all for sending me cards! I still have all of em and I am bringing them all back with me! Next weekend is our canopy tour. It is going to be such a great weekend!

Awesome.

Life is Sweet!

Last weekend I left school early on friday and took a bus to san jose. i had to get myself to our San Jose Apartment alone which was quite the adventure but as most of you know, that was just exciting for me. I got to our home there and crashed and at 5 in the morning i left to go meet my friends Zach and Gunnar Downtown in order to take a bus to Jacó, a beach town about 2 hours away. We met up, went to the bus stop, ate some food, and were on our way. We got to Jacó and hung out for 5 hours jus swimming and chilling and then we took a cab back to San Jose. (Cabs here are super cheap) Me and Gunnar went back to my town for a dance so we got home at about 7 (in San Marcos) and went to the dance at 9 and didnt get home til a little before 2. One of the best, most busy days in my life. Today I am skipping some school and my school friends and I are taking a mini bus to san jose for a concert. They are called Los Fabulosos Cadillacs and they are really good.

I forgot to mention my birthday! It was yesterday and Alicia invited Erla, Ingrid, and Tessi over (the other exchange students) and some other family friends came and we had great food, funny conversations, and an all around good time. It was a small party but it was with a lot of cariño y amor.

Today marks exactly 7 more weeks here. 49 days is not enough time. But i am excited for Hawaii and the Lair when i get back!

Weekends

Last weekend my friend Gunnar came to San Marcos for Saturday and Sunday. He´s from Oregon and speaks perfect spanish. We went to the dance with Ingrid and Erla and it was SO much fun. It was cool to chill with him and this next weekend Im headin over to his town to go to a dance there. I dont have school today because all the teachers have a training day. I want to get to the beach soon, maybe we will for my birthday weekend because SO many of us have a birthday that weekend.
May19-Gunnar turns 18
May23-Helen (Iceland) turns 18
May 25- My birthday
May 27- Magdelena (Austria)

Also, the weekend after my birthday, everyone is coming to our area and we are all doing a canopy/ adventure course near my house and after we are all (about 13 people) going to a dance and most of them will crash at a hotel in Santa Maria.

the weekends are the best here.

Pura Vida

May

So I know I have been slacking a little with the blog entries and I am sorry. I didnt really think anyone read this thing, but my dad recently informed me that there are people who try to keep up with my life here. So lemme give you some recent news. This past friday we didnt have school so thursday afternoon Alicia and I left for San Jose. We stayed at their house there and it was a blast! Alicia, Laura (my older sister), and her boyfriend all went to Volcan Irazú. It was so much fun. Afterwards we went to the biggest mall in Costa Rica called Terramall. I bought some stuff and then we went to Alicias sisters house for coffee. When we got there we did the usual pleasantries of first meetings, and then we all sat down and had coffee and bread with natilla. I didnt understand a some of it because her sister talks at a latin 18 year old woman´s speed with a mountanous accent, but it was all about their teenage years and stories about how their life was back then. They could not stop laughing the entire time. The stories were really funny and it was cool seeing them remember the same stories at the same time. Then we went to ANOTHER mall because Laura needed to find shoes for a wedding. Saturday we hung out for a while at the house then we went home.

My (Our) birthday is in 22 days and I realized that however weird it is that I wont have my birthday at home, it wont actually be my first birthday in Costa Rica. When my family and I came here to visit my dads old host family and such I turned 5 and all i remember of it was dalmations decorations.

Please if you have questions just email me. gabriel.kahn@yahoo.com

i check that a lot more than my blog

San Marcos

So I changed families on Tuesday. It is so much better now. I live with Alicia, who was my liason and now is my mom. Here are some new points I would like to share with you...

I am hopefully gonna start playin handball this tuesday with the team here in my new town of San Marcos.

I still go to the same school in Santa Maria. I jus take a bus in the morning.

There is a ping pong table in the gymnasium that is 100 meters from my house.

I got my haircut really short, people say it looks good.

I went to Monster Jam yesterday with
Erla-iceland
Helen-Iceland
Zach-US
Gunnar-US
Mitch-New Zealand
Erika-US
Magdelena-Austria

and it was so much fun. It wasnt so much the actual trucks and car-crushing that was fun, it was more the great, hilarious, company and dialogue.

Next weekend is the second orientation and that will be AMAZING! im looking forward to it so much.

School...Again

So today marks the first day of school after Holy Week. My week off was absolutely fantastic and it felt SO long. I dont remember school. I went to San Jose for two days, San Isidro de General for two days (INCREDIBLY hot) and I stayed with my liason in the next town over, San Marcos, for 3 days. She hosted an American girl two years ago from Vermont and she was here visiting when I was there. I spent a lot of time with her and it turns out she is JEWISH! Her mom also sent her matzah so we made matzah pizza and it made my day. When I got home on Saturday, Carmen and the boys arrived and i played with David for a while. Sunday, me and Erla went to Cartago and visited our friends there, two americans and an Icelandic. Thats always a good time.

Next saturday I am going to San Jose with them and we are going to Monster Jam which is a Monster Truck rally. I find it ironic that the first time I will see monster trucks is OUT of the states. There are about 10 of us AFSers all goin together so it should be a blast.

San jose

today i took the bus to san jose with my AFS liason Alicia and Erla. we went to the Teatro Nacional, Museo Nacional, and the Museo de Oro. It had to be above 102 degrees all day so i didnt really enjoy it as much as i probably should/could have. We are spending the night at our Liasons other house here in San Jose. It is a good house; comfortable, nice, has internet, and i dont have to buy my own juice and milk. haha. Actually, I might be living with her permanantly. She is a tad on the older side. She has two kids that live half at her home in San Marcos (the town near my school) and half in San Jose where they go to university. I wouldnt have any brothers or sisters in my house, it would be kinda like being an only child, another experience I have never experienced. Also, she travels to San Jose a lot so i have more travel time myself. She has had more than 5 exchange students in her house. I think it would be a great move. I will know before the end of spring break.

Tonight we are going to dinner and a movie. Itll be us three, and Alicia´s daughter and son. We will stay the night tonight, go to mass in the morning (yup, im going to a mass at the san jose cathedral), and get back to Los Santos by 5 on sunday.

PICTURES

My Mom

Another Angle

Another Angle

My Room

David (with my notebook)

Jeaustin

Erla the Icelandic with Hannah and...I dont know

Artur and Colin, a Brazilian and an Argentinian

THE AMERICANS

Waitin at San Jose International

Guns, Jessica, and Hannah on the Plane

Erika, Hannah, and Jessica in the miami airport

Erika would kill me if she saw this... (oh p.s. her last name is Bro!)

Elizabeth, Jessica, and Hannah in Miami hanging out in Me and Zach´s Room

20%

Well, yesterday marked my one month anniversary away from home. Cuz I am constantly doing stupid mental math in my head i am done with 20% of my Foreign Exchange experience. I cant decide if that is a lot or a little because I mean, when you are waiting for something to load on the computer and you see it says 20% done you are like "shit this is gonna take a while..." but if you are at the hospital and the doctor says you are gonna lose function in 20% of your brain you are like " shit, thats a lot." I guess its all perpective. Things are a lott better than when I posted last time. I am over the whole depression thing. I know you are all thinking " No, this is impossible, gabe can´t ever be depressed, hes just too awesome!" but I was a little. If you read the last one then this one though you will see I am back to being my smartass self.

I signed up for the gym here in town. I went there on monday for the first time. Then again on tuesday. I skipped yesterday because I was incredibly sore. But im gonna go back today. It really helps to keep myself in check.


More Later. I will try to get the photos up. Its a pain with the whole not havin internet in house.

Struggling a Little

So I guess nothing is perfect forever. I was in class yesterday, estudios sociales to be precise, when I stumbled upon a revelation. The way the teachers at my school spend their time is dictating us lines from their notes and having us jot them down in our notebooks word for word. An example, We spent the 80 minutes of social studies just writing down what she said and by the end we had a copy of her notes. Now i get the fact that making us write it for ourselves might let us get some of the information, but i really havent heard of that tactic being used since my parents were in school, inscribing on tablets under stonehenge (sorry ma and pops, I had to (: ). It is especially difficult for me cuz I only get about 75 percent down on my paper and understand significantly less. But its the weekend now. Im gonna try to have a lot of fun and have a fresh start on monday.

Coffee

So today at about 11 AM my uncle comes over to our house (he lives next door) and asks me if i want to see the coffee fields. Oh keep in mind these fields arent really fields, they are hills. They grow the coffee on the sides of hills. So we take his 1970-something toyota 4x4 up to the hills. On the way, we run across a couple hitchhiking. He pulls over and asks me to ask them where they are going. They are from france, it was easier for them to talk in english so we did. We ended up giving them a ride for a little but they were goin a lot further than we were so we dropped em of where the road split. Then my uncle turns on the extreme 4 wheel drive. We drive up a slope about 75 degrees. Not an exageration. The first one was the steepest but noy by much. We drove for 10 minutes before we stopped at a shack where a kid hopped in the back. He couldnt have been older than 16 or 17. We then slow down in front of a creek. I thought we were turning around but in fact he was adjusting my mirror before we plow STRAIGHT through the creek. In 10 minutes we reach a couple of guys who had sacks of what i thoguht must be coffee. Did you guys know that when coffee is freshly picked, it looks like berries? they arent beans they look like fruit. This was new to me. There were shades of yellow, red, and purple. It was kinda beautiful. We take all the coffee back with us to the factory in town which is a couple blocks from my house. THey measure it and dump in onto a MOUNTAIN of coffee. It must have been 30 feeet high. Just from today i think and it was midday.

Next time i go up I will brign my camera because that area is the most beautiful area i have seen thusfar.

I just finished a book titled PEAK (i think)
that brings my total for my trip up to a whopping 3 books and I have officially emptied the Mother-Librarian Bank. But the three books I brought are the three best books I have read in a really long time.
Watchmen- Its a graphic novel. It was really good but I think Cole and Marcus raised my expectations a little too much. :) thats not to say I didnt like it. I loved it!
People of the Book- All about a haggadah in Eastern Europe. SOOOO intriguing!
Peak (i think thats the title)- all about a boy has been raised climbing mountains and his trip to everest. also amazing!

I had school today. the days here are soooo long and it takes all my energy to keep up with the teachers. there is an upside to this whole "emersion(sp?)" thing though and that is i can tell that i am understanding more every class period.

im gonna go get something to eat i think.

Wow. Well I have gone to school. They are very long days. With the help of my two mothers, I have decided to make my specialty Tourism. It was between that and agriculture. I spent the morning with agrocultura and the afternoon with Turismo. The morning was quite....eyeopening. I dont feel comfortable posting in in a public space, but if you want to know more about it I am sure Marcus and Sasha and my mom would be happy to fill you in in between their fits of laughter.

It is saturday! I went to the Icelandics house but she wasnt there.

I now realize why they say Pura Vida, it seems like the only way to properly explain life here. Everyone is warm, people stop by our house all the time jus to talk and hang out. Also, i sometimes feel a tad homesick (never for more than a second or two mind you). As soon as i look around though, i reember how lucky i am. i should really post pictures for yuou guys, but it truely wouldnt do this place justice.

SANTA MARÍA DE DOTA

Hey Everyone!

I have met my family! Yesterday I arrived in Santa María de Dota with an Icelandic girl who is in the same town as me. It is good to have someone near you to be able to talk to because I am not going to lie, it´s really tough. I am getting my point across to my family, Carmen (my mom) says I speak very well but I know she´s just being nice. Jeaustin just walked into the internetcafe. He is my 7 year old brother. Our other brother, David, might be the cutest thing Ihave ever seen. He is three years old reminds me quite a bit of Hank except maybe a few less tantrums. :) Though it was a little surprising. A month ago my dad got in an accident at the coffee factory and they had to amputate almost to the knee! He is now staying with his mother about 2 blocks away, But I have already seen him twice.

I am in almost a center of town and I am 5 minutes away from the school. On the way to school is the house of the icelandic girl. She doesnt speak quite well, but she is already bilingual as Icelandic is her native language and English is taught to 5 year olds. I visited the school today but I did not attend. I saw my class and gave a little presentation upon the profesor´s request, but I left after because I do not have a uniform or supplies. I am not gonna lie to you guys, the school kids are crazy disrespectful to the teacher. They do not give a shittt. Well, most of them.

I gotta go. Jeaustin wants to play with me.

¡Adios!

Gabriel

Estoy en la ciudad de Tres Rios. Just Kidding. I will do this in english. I have been in Costa Rica for about 5 hours and am now at a camp with all the AFS Kids from around the world. Already, my thoughts have changed. One of the reasons I went on foreign exchange is because I feel like the rest of the world stoops to our language when in reality we should be able to speak in their native tongue as well. Already, here at camp the AFSers from around the world are speaking english. They know AT LEAST their own language, english, and now working on spanish. I feel so guilty even though us Americans can speak spanish, everyone decides to speak english. I now need to become multilingual but I for now I will just work on my spanish.

The flights from LA to miami were amazing. I met the most amazing woman in the world. A fifty year old with such a youthful perspective on life, but in a philosophical way because of an accident she had 18 years ago that comepletely wiped her memory. We talked allll the way from Kansas City to Miami, nonstop for 3 and a half hours. In miami, I met up with the rest of the AFS USA-ers. It is an amazing group and we have really become close and I now know them as well as one could possiibly know anyone after only a day and a half with them. I really wish I could share with all of you, what it is like here but it is IMPOSSIBLE to put into words. Trust that I am having an amazing time and am so excited to meet my family. I really want to tell you every detail that has occured so far because i havent stopped laughing since I met the guys I am hanging with. The girls are funny, kinda but the guys are f-ing crazyy.

I have to go because people want to use the computer!

Adios!

Sponsor Letter

Dear Sponsor,

I am proud that you have chosen me to represent AFS as a "Global Leaders Scholar." It gives me great pleasure to accept your scholarship and use it to help finance my life-changing experience in Costa Rica. 

I have always strove for exceptional grades in order to keep my options open while I try to find what I want to do with my life. Specifically, I set my standards high in order to get into a good college. When I applied for this scholarship and got accepted, I realized that my grades and labor paid off earlier than expected. The idea that my hard work has helped me earn something now, two and a half years before college applications, is revitalizing.

In addition to the obvious academic advancement that is associated with a foreign exchange program, I look forward to immersing myself in one of the most beautiful countries with some of the most friendly, easygoing people in the world. I have no doubt that I will learn from them, as they will from me.  I hope that the five months that I will spend there will bring me new lifelong friendships, a vast knowledge of the spanish language, and amazing stories to tell my friends and family at home. I want to thank you again for making all of this possible.

Sincerely,

Gabriel Kahn

Leaving

Today I went downtown on the bus to get gifts for my host family. I got my parents a couple of Los Angeles t-shirts. I got my 7 year old brother a lakers outfit and a superman doll for the 3-year old. I leave in six days for Miami. I am SO excited!