yo quiero taco Vera

Today I went to the Catholic church down the street with Hannah and our host mother, Vera. We were surprised that the whole family didn't go, and apparently it was the same for the other EWHers as well - only the mother goes to church. It was Corpus Christi today, so there was this formal procession out and into the church. Lots of tradition and kneeling seriousness, different from what I'm used to. Afterwards, we went grocery shopping with Vera - she got so much that we couldn't bring it all back ourselves! So we just called a taxi cab to take us the 3-4 blocks home haha. When we got back, I called around the other houses to see what people were up to this afternoon, but everyone was already out - I did get a clue from another host mother though, something about the internet cafe and the mall. So off we went to the mall.. other than the American stores I saw, I noticed that urban Costa Rican fashion is very flashy and not afraid to be sexy, and advertisements the most liberal I've seen anywhere. We wandered around and felt lost in the mass of commercialism and people until not long after we got there, we actually did run into a group of ten or so other EWHers at the food court! It's kind of sad how hard I had to look to find a more traditional-style food place 'cause everything is so Americanized - KFC, Taco Bell, Wendy's, Subway, Quiznos, etc. I was tempted to get Taco Bell 'cause I just love that stuff, but Vera had said we would have tacos for dinner so I held off (they ended up being infinitely better than any other taco I've ever had, besides the fact that we watched a slightly disturbing movie called Fire Serpent at the dinner table - we do have dinner conversations, but I think it's still kind of a shame that the tv is inevitably always on). We wanted to go see Up! afterwards (I wanted to see it again, with the additional bonus of getting some Spanish practice), but the line was sooo ridiculously long to get a ticket, like it stretched from one end of the mall to the other almost. Apparently the big thing to do on Sundays after church is go to the movies with your family. So Hannah and I just followed the rest of them back to their homestays to figure out where people live and chill for a bit. Shannon, Julie, Allie, and Jane are living where Dr. Malkin had stayed years earlier.. it was kind of cramped but quaint there. The household has a sad story - the university student girl had explained that her mother is divorced, but her dad lives just next door... with her mom's ex-best friend and their family together. It's common to have children before marriage here: according to Gladys the stat is something like 1 out of every 3 mothers is single, mostly because sex ed is really bad here but also partially because it's socially acceptable for men to like many women at once, to not be completely monogamous.

Later we visited the "frat house," where 8 of our boys are staying haha, and saw that it was expansive as expected (the mother cooks and cares for about 25 people now!). The cool thing about that place was that the architecture wasn't as airtight like Americans like to keep it, like the home had ups and downs and indiscreetly let open air into the kitchen. On the way there we passed by a basketball court, so we now know where to go to challenge the boys/local kids muaha. The walk back to our place wasn't bad, just about 20 minutes... we played with the dog and talked to Sharon when we got back. She had visited a family friend over the weekend instead of rafting etc. with us, and had hiked a volcano, crashed a village wedding, seen men ride fullspeed on horseback trying to pin and pull knobs with a tiny needle (some cool but dated local custom), looked at different kinds of wood and carts etc. seemed like a cool weekend for her too. Now I should be doing my Spanish homework and studying for the quiz on lab 3.. haha I think this is basically the study abroad experience I didn't think I'd ever have, but here I am!