Sunday 9/28/08

Today I learned patience. Patience is an extremely valuable thing to learn while in Latin America, but also can be very hard for the “satisfy me now American mindset”. Originally my family told me we were going to go to Orosi, a supposedly beautiful town away from the city. Therefore, I didn’t make any going away weekend plans (trips to the beach, volcanoes, ziplining, etc) because I wanted to join my family. Then, like typical Latin American plans, our plans fell apart and at the last minute I was advised we weren’t going to Orosi. I was a little bummed that I missed out on weekend trips, but I had plenty of fun Saturday here in San José so I simply accepted the shattered Sunday plans. Then I was told that we were going swimming in Heredia (another suburb) so I put on my suit and was ready to go. Fortunately we did go swimming, but I had to practice patience before going. It is extremely hard for me to get used the sitting around that goes on before things get going. I’m such a “go-go-go!” person that it is always hard for me to accept that fact of how long it takes for things here to get initiated (I have this same problem every time I go to Mexico). So, after a morning full of “learning patience” we finally headed out to the pool, where patience only came into play all the more. Before we got in the pool, I had to patiently wait for two extremely self-conscious pre-pubescent 10 year olds (I remember those days!) to come out of the changing room. Luckily I was the queen of 4th grade bathing suit self-consciousness so I think I handled the situation with love and understanding. I eventually had them laughing and making their way to the pool (again, this took plenty of patience. Once we jumped in the pool, it was freezing! We were the only ones in the pool (geez, I wonder why). Again, patience came into play. I was freezing (we’re talking hypothermia) the entire time so it was a bit difficult to patiently wait to get out of the pool until my sister and cousin were ready to stop swimming (as this is something they’ve been wanting to do with me since I got here). On the way home we got to see the Costa Rican contestant that is still currently in the running at becoming the first Latin American Idol (yes, the equivalent of American Idol). She was driving through her hometown in a parade-like event and we happened to accidently drive our car into the line of official Latin American idol cars. I was excited that we saw her because I knew I would get to brag about it to all my friends at school on Monday (since everyone watches the show with their families). After lunch, everyone was craving cake because there was a birthday party at the swimming pool so I decided baking would make a nice afternoon activity. We headed to the store, bought only the finest (Betty Crocker) and Pamela, Dayana and I made an amazing chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and M&Ms to top it off (mmmm…how I do love chocolate). My family was so impressed with the cake they told me I should start a business. We played games, ate Corn Flakes for dinner and watched part of a Jon and Kate Plus 8 marathon before lights out at the extremely late hour of 9 o’clock.