Becca Wood: El Caribe es bellisimo

Well, this weekend I headed to the Caribbean for the first time since I've been here!! My friend Kendra and I took a trip Friday afternoon to Puerto Viejo. It's about four hours from San Jose, so we got there late Friday night, found a place to stay, and crashed. Saturday morning we went to the beach, but it was so hot and humid that we ended up only being there for a few hours. That afternoon we walked around to some of the fun, unique stores and we napped. So relaxing!! That night, we randomly ran into some friends we had made in Manuel Antonio a few weeks earlier, so we hung out with them.
This morning we went white water rafting...SO much fun! I am definitely going to rate that among my favorite trips so far. We went on the Pacuare river with Class III and IV rapids. We had a great time!
Last weekend I stayed in San Jose for the first time since I've been here. It was really nice and relaxing...I got to sleep in, which was awesome! I haven't slept past 7:00 since I've been here. I also got to just rest, which was good because I had been pretty sick, and it definitely helped me recover.

I cannot even believe that I only have two weeks left...it's crazy! It flies by so fast. I only have one weekend left to travel!! Which I am taking full advantage of by going to Bocas del Torro, an island off the Caribbean cost in Panama. I won't get to see the Panama canal, but at least I will get to go to the country!!
I am getting excited about coming home and seeing people!! Up until a few weeks ago, I was really sad about leaving, but I can feel the excitement creeping in. I will definitely leave a part of my heart here, but I will be glad to come home!! I have learned a ton and my prayer now is that God will show me how to take what I've learned back to the States and use it...apply it to my life to glorify Him. I really pray that my transition back home is smooth...they say that reverse culture shock can hit hard sometimes especially when you've had such a good time and love the country so much.

School has been really busy lately...I have a presentation in my Spanish class each week that requires online research and a Powerpoint. I am also working on a 10-page final for my Communication class, which also requires online research and Word to type it out. Since my computer broke, I have really limited computer access (usually only 2-3 hours a day). It makes it hard to prioritize which project is more important, and I end up having a ton of work and no time to do it all!! Hopefully after this Wednesday that will calm down a little bit, but it's been kind of frustrating the past two weeks because this is my last month and I want to have a good time, but I spend all of my free time working like crazy in front of a computer.

Well, that's all for now...here are some pictures of the Caribbean!!

OK, I don't know why they came out small, but I've been trying to fix these for a while and it's not working. So...they're just going to have to be small. :-(