Dia de la Madre

It’s mother’s day in Costa Rica, and so revered are the mother’s of the nation that it’s a bank holiday and we have a long weekend.

Back to class
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Monday was the first day of the new semester, so it was back to class, and back to reality big time. I’ve got a full schedule this semester, with 4 group classes twice a week and a number of private students to complete the schedule.

Our first visitor
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My friend Mike, who’s from Kerry but lives in Los Angeles has arrived down to Costa Rica for a holiday. He stayed with us on Thursday and Friday. On Thursday we went to a couple of the local bars. We ended up in Miraflores, the late night Karaoke bar. On Friday we went, along with Joaquín, a colleague from Intercultura, into a few of the clubs in San José. Another very late night. Mike had an early start on Saturday and is now in Manuel Antonio.

English Horizons
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I had my second class with English Horizons on the internet on Thursday. It really is the easiest class to teach. It was a conversation class on the subject of music. So I was basically entertained for the 45 minutes, as the students talked about the music of their various countries. I had 4 students, mostly the same ones that I had on Monday. I felt like I didn’t have to do anything during the class, yet I got an email from the school director afterwards to say that a student had given him a glowing report on me, and that I’d made a very good start with the school!

This afternoon, another teacher at Intercultura, Laura, popped around to the apartment to observe some classes, so she’ll probably be teaching on the net soon too, and may sub for my classes when I’m back in Ireland at the end of the month.

A wee bit chilly
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I reckon it’s at about mid-winter here now. There is a chill in the air at night, and we’re not using the fan as much. This weekend it’s rained A LOT. Today it was almost non-stop. So I’m really looking forward to the lovely summer weather of Ireland in a couple of weeks. Actually, one thing that we really are looking forward to is the long stretch in the evenings. We’ve missed them more than anything since we’ve been here. It’s dark every day at 6pm!

Looking forward to seeing as many of you as can make it on the 1st September. We’re thinking of the Forum on Dame St (part of the Parliament Hotel) because it’s never too crowded. Is it still there and open? It’s centrally located and we have Isolde’s around the corner for late drinks.