Did the Earth move for you too?

One of the things about living in an earthquake zone is that you expect to feel the odd rumble. Unlike Jack, I’ve been looking forward to experiencing it, so you can imagine my disappointment that I missed the first one because I dozed off on the couch!

Earthquake!!
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We were out with the teachers on Thursday night for end of term (see below), and on Friday we were going out for a meal to celebrate my birthday. I was so tired that I dozed off on the couch before going for the meal. The following day I read that there had been an earthquake in Nicaragua and northern Costa Rica measuring 6.7 on the Richter scale. When I said this to Jack, he asked if it was at the time that I was asleep on the couch. It was. It turns out that the earthquake was quite far away, and out in the Pacific, so Jack just felt a rumble through the building, and had been unsure if it was a truck passing. So there you are. My first earthquake and I missed it.

School’s out
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Well, we got our holidays from school on Thursday. We went out for drinks with the teachers after. We started off in Cantina Mulo, which is the bar opposite the school. It’s regarded as ‘a typical Tico cantina’. Which basically means it’s a dive with a toilet that you avoid for as long as you possibly can. Anyway, after that it was off for karaoke to Nuevo Heidelburg, and finishing the night up, as ever in Miraflores, the nearest late night club. It was a great laugh.

English Horizons
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One of the teachers in the school was contacted by a new website called English Horizons. It’s in a pilot project at the moment, but the idea is that you teach English classes over the internet. Apparently they’re expecting a big market in Japan. There are only a few teachers so far, and he’s looking to Costa Rica (because we’re so badly paid!) for some more. So I think I’m going to be starting with them in August, for a few hours a week in addition to the school work. The rate of pay is over three times our hourly rate!

Birthday celebrations
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We ended up celebrating my birthday a few times, so it’s been quite a busy week. On Friday night, the two of us went to a pizza restaurant up in the mountains, which had been recommended by a student. We were really impressed. The pizza was so gorgeous, that after we finished we turned around and ordered another! It was our first time in the mountains, and we realised that it’s quite a bit colder up there. We had worn t-shirts (the only thing we’ve ever needed to wear since we arrived), and were distinctly chilly.

Getting ready for travel
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We’ve worked out a rough plan for our travels this month. We’re starting tomorrow, getting the bus to Sámara, which is a beach town on the north-western Pacific coast. We’ll be there for a week, and probably coming back here for a night or two, before heading to the Caribbean coast, and hopefully then to explore the Central Valley (where we live!).

Tom and Elena
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One of the guys I work with is called Tom Todd, and he’s Canadian. He’s here with his Czech wife. He met her when he taught in Prague. They’re a really nice couple and we’ve met them a few times. They’re kind of stuck at the moment, because their application for a visa for Elena has run into problems. While they’re waiting, they also decided to head up to Sámara, so we’ll meet up with them when we’re there. They will have to move out of their accommodation before the visas are due to come through. We offered that they could stay here (we’ll probably be travelling) for the few days. They said they’d call around to discuss it. We were quite surprised when they arrived at 11.30 on Saturday with beers! So Saturday turned out to be another boozy day.

Six months
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I’ve been mentioning in a couple of emails to people recently that I often look back on the first six months of the year, around my birthday, and wonder where the time had flown. I never seem to have achieved anything. However, this year I’m looking back and I can’t believe how much we’ve achieved. December seems such a long time ago.

Anyway, that’s it for another week. We’ll keep you posted on our travels.

Hasta luego