Starting language school

We are in Orosi! We are going to be in Orosi for 3 weeks. Orosi is a smaller town in the mountains. My school is good! Our teacher’s name is Isabel. She is cool. We play games and we learn a lot of Spanish. Sometimes we go for walks over the suspension bridge across the river and pick flowers.

When we wake up every morning, the mountains look like a painting. They are all green, with forests and small houses and towns here and there. Usually, there are clouds really low in the sky, although I think it might be hard to touch them. If you look to the north, there are lots of mountains too, but they are a little different. They are not so green and one is Vulcan Irazu, the highest active volcano in Costa Rica!!! If the weather is clear, it looks like a big peak puffing out smoke. We have met a dog, we call Blackberry (or Mora in Spanish). She loves us and whenever she sees us she’ll follow us everywhere, even into stores and shops and buses. We thought of taking her home, but that would be too hard. There is a swimming pool right around the corner from our house. Some of the pools have warm water—it comes from a natural spring. The other day we met a couple of nice girls with their family. Their names were Michelle and Alexa. We played volleyball in the pool, even it started raining. It was really fun because we were in water and water was falling on our heads. The water in the pool was really warm, so we didn’t want to leave the pool when it was raining. We hope to meet some more friends over the next few weeks.

We found a great pizza place—it makes a great pizza and it reminds me of the United States. The food we have been eating is really good. The ketchup, mayo, and mustard is sold in little plastic bags. When you go into a supermarket it’s a little different. Everything is in Spanish and everyone speaks Spanish so it is difficult to communicate sometimes. But luckily we know some things, like all our foods and Dad knows how to communicate the most and we know how to get around town. There are lots of different foods, not just rice and beans. There are no Targets or Walmarts, just a lot of local stores. They do have Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut in the bigger cities. And once, I even saw a Burger King. We went to a big house on a hill over the town for a hike. We thought it was haunted cause the owner said there were a lot of spooky noises heard in the house and the house was bad luck they thought. But they moved out of it, so now it’s deserted. Then we made up a mystery about it, I’ve started reading it so maybe you can read it when we get home. I’m excited to get home to see my family and friends and tell them about my adventure. Of course we have another one and a half months to travel. I think you would have fun being here with us. I miss you all. Sometimes new places are fun and kinda lonely without my family and my friends.

Happy Fathers’ Day to all the daddies out there

Some New Poetry by Aislinn:

Small face

Climbs on trees

Monkeys in Costa Rica

Sunset beautiful

Volcano puffing smoke clouds

Green forest blanket

There are lots of cute dogs

One’s name is Blackberry

There are also lots of cute frogs

The color of raspberries

Sloths silently slumber

Singing sweet songs

Turtles try the triathlons

Talk to turtles trekking

Touch turtles’ tails

Snakes slide silently

Singing slick songs

Umbrellas under unicorns

Us under umbrellas

Everyone under umbrellas

Poetry from Ceallan

Bananas are green

Bananas are red

They turn yellow

Right by your head

The water is clear

The water is blue

It is cool

Just like you

Lemons are orange

The grass grows sweet and green

The dogs play tag

When the water flows

The green trees are growing

The butterflies fly

Birds sing a lovely song and a cool rain falls down

As the sun rises

Blinking stars above the moon

The moon shines big light