Well anywho... I have been here for three weeks but I feel like I need to separate these blogs because, basically a lot has been going on! It wasn't too long ago that I was sitting in the Syracuse house, sweating profusely either from just the hotness of Syracuse or the incredible dance party our last night there. I think I am still hearing a little T-Swizzle and MGMT ringing in my ears. It wasn't too much longer after, that we were saying our goodbye to those 6 wonderful people that would remain in Cuse and boarding the plane to our far away destination...
After a safe and smooth ride we finally arrived in Costa Rica... the place I will call home for the next year.... not too shabby eh? Myself, the 4 other volunteers and Bro. Jim walked out of the airport being aware that the taxi drivers could smell the Gringo blood from a mile away with the attempt to get our business.... Roy, a close friend of the program, was there to rescue us and take us to our home. A home, that as soon as we all walked in, our jaws dropped to the ground. It is absolutely gorgeous... close to the nicest thing I have ever seen in my life. Check out the pictures and see for yourself... your a little jealous... I know!!
The View of our house from the front. A typical Ranch house and no Jelly there are no horses to be found here...
Another view of the front yard... that is our non-functioning fountain of a boy peeing through a vase or something?The view of our front living room...that's right we have two.
Next we have our cocina.. or kitchen. We have a great view there of one of my rooomates, Mateo!
This is the second living room... after a giant slumber party all five of us had on our first night while watching Glee!
This is the kitchen table... where many delicious meals have been prepared and many are soon to come!
The view of our front living room...that's right we have two. 
Next we have our cocina.. or kitchen. We have a great view there of one of my rooomates, Mateo!
This is the second living room... after a giant slumber party all five of us had on our first night while watching Glee!
This is the kitchen table... where many delicious meals have been prepared and many are soon to come!
This is the laundry room... yes one of the rooms I have already flooded in my three weeks here. The floor looks pretty clean though right?!?!?!
The view of our backyard. That is our open garage where our clothes lines hang. As well as our Hammock which makes for great rainy day naps!
The view of our backyard. That is our open garage where our clothes lines hang. As well as our Hammock which makes for great rainy day naps! 
We arrived Friday and started getting settled into our house which soon enough started feeling like a home. One of the best feelings in the whole world was FINALLY not having to live out of our suitcases. Three weeks doing that was a complete misery... the joys of traveling though eh?
That night we hit up the Friary for the first time to have a little meet and greet, as well as dinner with the Friars. The Friary is another extraordinary looking place. The food was nothing less then excellent and the company of all the Friars: Victor, Jorge, Walter, Maury, Francisco (aka. Chico), and Nader, was great! It was a awesome first night in Costa Rica... one of many to come!
The start of my very first full day in CR started off with a pretty interesting experience. I was in my normal routine of getting out of bed and headed to the bathroom to do my usual and jump in the shower. The shower was amazingly warm which is hard to come by in Central America but we have all had pretty good luck with temperature. After I finished I see the toilet hadn't gone down and try to flush it again... but soon realize the water is raising a little to far than I would ever wish...the only thing that comes to my mind is oh DIOS MIO! I run to get some towels to clean it up with. I start to clean it up but notice the small puddle was turning into one of the Great Lakes. I then notice water is still spilling over the over toilet due to the fact the stopper in the tank had not closed...I quickly fix that and it finally stops while standing knee deep in toilet water and maybe more but I will leave that up to your imagination. I run to get the mop and more towels to finish cleaning the bathroom up. Great start... but wait it gets better!
So I then take the towels and go to our laundry room where we have a Pila... or cement sink. I begin to wring out the towels and rinse them off with water...soon to be feeling something cool running across my feet. I look down and see a nice stream of water coming from under the Pila starting to create another lake from under my feet... I am actually starting to feel like I am back in Minnesota.... only 9,998 more to go! I look under the sink to two holes in the pipe greeting me with spewing water...how I greeted back is probably not appropriate for the reading eyes. Once again I grab my towels and mop to clean up the mess I have waiting at my feet... what a great way to start my first full day in Costa Rica!
The rest of the day goes pretty well and pretty entertaining. Had fun sharing the morning story with Bro. Jim...in which he had to have his hand at trying to conquer the throne... let's just say.. Throne 2: FrancisCorps 0! See pic below!
Bro. Jim wanted a go at it too!We then headed out to have our first CR grocery experience. I would say it was a success mainly because the people were of great service and there were samples in every aisle. I think, hands down our favorite aisle was the one shown below...
We soon checked out and headed home because we couldn't be late for the Notre Dame football game. Tom is trying to convert me to the dark side and become a fan...it might be working but I can't give him too much credit! Soon after the game we cooked our first meal together which was chicken sauteed in red wine and mushrooms... it was pretty delicious. We ended the night with a gathering on Brittany's bed laughing histerically at pictures from the previous night's dance party as well as confessing that no matter how much we say "si" and nod our heads... we have no clue what people are saying in Spanish. Oh the joy of a second language!
Free Samples of Captain Morgan... that's right.. in the Grocery Store. Sunday we headed to mass for the first time. Beautiful church, great homily... for what we could understand..., not so great of music. First of all, it is played off of a CD, second of all it has the beat of Disney music, but is 1000 times worse! We had lunch with the Friars like we will most Sundays. Fri. Victor made some delicious beef, sausages and Potatoes. Do delicious it turned our vegetarian into a carnivore! We bummed around for the rest of the day and probably had another Glee marathon. (I am having a brain fart on the rest of the day actually so I am assuming that is what we did... the problem with not keeping up... sorry!) The picture below is of the group in the garden of the Friary after Sunday mass. Good Looking group!
Overall the first weekend was pretty great as well as pretty chill. It was great to be able to slowly get settled in without it being super overwhelming. Even the plumbing issues weren't the worst thing in the world. Hey... let's look at it in a positive light... if the whole Med School things doesn't work out... I might have a pretty good start with a plumbing career. More stories about that to come as well... so be ready.
I am a little behind so I will try and get the next one up a little quicker... be patient with me... porfa!
