The not-so-dead language

I'm up to my eyeballs in readings about treaties and the Geneva Convention and lots and lots of Latin terms. (You'd think my four years of Latin would kick in right now, but the only thing I remember from Latin is the Our Father, and I haven't run across that in the readings yet.) But I'm learning a ton and trying to keep up with all the legal jargon. Apparently the vice president of the International Criminal Court (in The Hague) is going to be in Costa Rica next week, and he's friends with our professor, so our professor is trying to get him to come in and talk to us on Monday, which would be awesome!

This weekend was fairly low key, although we had a gathering for the International Law department at one of the professor's houses. She has this gorgeous home with a huge front porch. One student's boyfriend is a cook, so he made all the food for us, and it was the best food I've had since I've been here. Just because I like posting pictures, here are a couple from the party:

That's a cactus leaf.

Chelsea, Jill, and me

On campus -- finally!

We finally made it to campus! Our first day there was Friday, and it was as beautiful as they described. Here are a few pics of campus I took today:

The cafeteria

One of the hallways (it's an open-air campus)

A classroom

On Friday evening some of us went to a party hosted by the African students. There are probably about 15 or 20 students from Africa, and they cooked TONS of African food, which was really good. They also dressed up in their traditional African garb and played their favorite music from Africa. It was a lot of fun.

On Saturday I left for the beach with Michelle (another student in the Media program). We went to Samara, which is a really beautiful beach. It was pretty deserted. We went to a couple bars and we were pretty much the only ones there. We thought maybe there was a hurricane evacuation and no one told us, but I guess that's just what it's like in the off season. A few beach shots:





We didn't have class on Monday because this weekend was Costa Rica's Independence Day. But I had my first class in International Law today. We got to meet all of the faculty, and everyone seems great. They gave us their cell phone numbers, and two of the professors are having everyone over to their houses for dinner. The head of the department (and our professor for the first course) was a judge on an international court of the sea, and worked at the UN for ages. It sounds like I have a lot to learn from all of them!

Speaking of, I better do some more reading.

Not your typical alarm clock

This morning I was awoken at 6 a.m. by an earthquake. That was a first for me. There was a tiny little tremor first, and I think it kind of half woke me up, and then there was a bigger one, and the whole room shook and you could hear the earth rumbling, kind of like thunder. I jumped out bed and just kind of stood there, but it was over before I even stood up. I'm sure it was a pretty small earthquake, but it still kind of freaked me out. Tornadoes -- those I can handle. But earthquakes?

I heard my neighbor open up his front door, so I went outside, too, and he was like "wow, earthquake." And then the neighbor on my other side opened up her door, and it turns out the earthquake woke her up, too.

Today is supposed to be the first day that we can go to UPeace on the new road. If that earthquake did anything to ruin the road, I'm REALLY going to think Mother Nature is trying to tell me something.

The sunset today...

... taken from the balcony of my apartment.

Counting down

It seems like I just got here, yet I'm nearly done with my first class. We only have two more days of lectures, and then on Friday we give group presentations. And then we have Monday off (it's a Costa Rican holiday), so a bunch of people are already planning a beach weekend (myself included).

We're still not on the UPeace campus yet. Apparently they built a whole new road (using gravel) and the rains have kept it pretty muddy, and since its on a significant incline, this is considered unsafe. Yet they say it's been improving (we've heard that before), and supposedly we'll be on campus on Friday. I'll believe it when I see it.

I'm adjusting pretty well to Costa Rican life. The coffee is stupendous, and I have a daily fix of rice and beans. The school gave us the contact info for a local woman who teaches Spanish lessons, and I plan on setting that up soon (only $5 for an hour if you're in a group, and you choose your own group and your own meeting times). Speaking of good deals (you all know how I love a good deal), I heard (from my classmate's host mom) about a hairdresser who charges $5 for haircuts and something like $15 or $20 for highlights. And the same host mom told us about a masseuse who comes to your house and does hour-long massages for $20. So I'm all about those! I wandered around Ciudad Colon Saturday afternoon looking for a watch shop because my battery died, and I found this tiny little closet-sized shop, and the guy changed my battery in about 10 seconds and only charged me 700 colones (about $1.40). I paid $7 for the same watch battery in the States.

Well, enough about that. Back to paper writing for me...

Happily reunited

I have my luggage back! Yeah! It was quite a debacle. The American Airlines woman on the phone said they could deliver my luggage, but she needed an address. And I was like "What do you mean? There's no such thing as addresses here, but I could give you directions." And she was a Tica (local lingo for Costa Ricans), so I was confused why she was asking. Then I called my landlord, and he was like, "Sure, we have an address. It's '100 meters from the grotto in the neighborhood La Trinidad.'" Of course, I'd been giving these same instructions to cab drivers and the like, but I didn't realize it was an "address." So I called the woman back, and this apparent "address" was acceptable to her.

Of course, the driver got lost, as is prone to happen when you don't have street names or house numbers and when the grotto in question is not easily found. So the driver calls me on his cell and is speaking in Spanish, and I understand about one in ten words he's saying. Then he has the dispatcher who speaks English call me and relay what I'm saying to the driver. But this was apparently still not clearing up matters, so I got the driver's phone number and had my landlord talk to the driver and give turn-by-turn directions. That was apparently the magic ticket, because the driver pulled into the apartment complex about three seconds later.

Phew. But at least all my belongings were accounted for and not damaged. There was a little slip in one of the bags that said it had been inspected, so I wonder if that caused the delay.

As for other news, the hole in the road to the university is apparently fixed (and has had a few cars drive over it and withstood the heavy rains of the past few days, which is apparently encouraging, although the fact that they were holding their breaths to see what the rain would do to it isn't very encouraging to me. What happens when our 2-ton bus drives over it? )

We'll save that adventure for Monday. We finish this week's classes at LaSalle (the university-on-loan).

The case of the missing suitcases

I had a wonderful time at home this weekend, and I was really glad I was able to make it to my friend's wedding. I got to see some old college friends and spent a whopping eight hours (four each way) driving through the vast cornfields of Central Illinois -- that's one thing I don't miss in Costa Rica.

I also took the opportunity to bring back two full suitcases of goodies -- I was so ecstatic to bring back my printer, which will be a huge help. And my parents and my sister were my saviors because while I was at the wedding Saturday, they went shopping and picked me up a toaster oven to bring back and some non-perishable food and school supplies. It was all the "luxury" stuff I couldn't bring with my on first trip to Costa Rica. I couldn't wait to get home and unpack all my stuff.

And then the airline lost my luggage.

I still don't know where it is. And, even worse, the airline doesn't know where it is. They told me it might come in on a flight today, except the two flights from Miami (my layover city) that were supposed to come in today were both canceled. That pesky Hurricane Felix is right in the flight path. The flights may or may not arrive tomorrow, and my luggage may or may not be on them. Sigh.

In the meantime, I'm in full-swing paper-writing mode. I have an 8-page paper due Wednesday that maps a conflict (triggers of escalation, parties and attitudes involved, sources of stalemate and de-escalation). You could pick any conflict, and I chose to write about the Chief Illiniwek debate (for all you fellow U of I alumns). I figured I spent half my time at U of I writing about it for the student newspaper, and I know it inside and out, so it would be the easiest one to do.

Anyway, I'm exhausted, and it's time for bed. If you happen to cross paths with a couple of navy blue rollerboard suitcases with my name on them, can you let me know? Thanks.