"Just Embrace It"

"Just Embrace It"

That has been the catchphrase for the whole weekend for me. We left School Friday afternoon and headed to Puerto Viejo in the province of Limon, Costa Rica, on the Atlantic/Caribbean side of the country. The bus was fun, Kelsey (OFFICIAL BUS BUDDY) and I, got seat in front of two lovely guy friends, Ben and Joey, with some other great girls next door. :)

Well, the busy ride was supposed to last about 4-5 hours. We left at 120ish...but didnt get there til 930. yep thats right folks, we were in the bus 8 hours!! WHY???? There was tons of rain on the winding roads and everyone drives like maniacs, so there was some sort of wreck. At one point, we literally moved about 10 feet, in 2.5 hours. But, we made due. Some people (the ones with alcohol) had a dance party in the front. Some others played games,etc. But we finally made it. First look at the town kinda scared me. There was just a bunch of like Rasta(as in like Jamaican/Rastafarian) places to eat and it was all rainy and dark and I didn't know my way around the town. I always get a little disoriented in the dark, so I would've LOVED to have arrived earlier but Oh well!

Our hotel room (Oh all the hotels have 3 people in them and not 4....sublte difference from the U.S) looked like a 4 year old campground room. The walls were lime green and turquoise with pink accents. I secretly loved it because it looked happy. But I was scared of the bed that it might not be clean. oh well, JUST EMBRACE IT!

The next morning we woke up and thought that someone was in our shower, turns out it was just rain! RAIN RAIN RAIN! And yep, I did leave my rain jacket in GA. Oh well, JUST EMBRACE IT! It was ok though. We got to puddle jump and such, which is always fun for kids of any age.

The main highlight of Saturday was the trip to the chocoloate factory. I say factory, but that is not what I mean. It is a house with open windows in which a old woman and her daughter make chocolote. FROM the cocoa shrub/tree all the way into a chocolate bar, she showed us the entire process and it was fascinating! AHHH. It was all done without machines, well except the grinder used to grind the cocoa beans- but that was turned  by hand so it doesn't really count. Did you know that cocoa comes from a big orange fruit!? SO COOL. I just loved it because I felt like we were in a hut. And the lady was so funny. She would tell us in SPanish and then our translator, a local names fernando, would tell us what she said. (but, I am happy to say that I understood most of it without the translator!)

Then the rest of the day it finally stopped raining and we walked around the town (which was way better in the day time). Then-- BEACH TIME! The people called the place "Playa Negra" or black beach.Well, there really was black sand! It was the weirdest thing but I loved it!!! I heard that the sand was black because it was volcanic, but not sure.

This town had stray dogs EVERYWHERE. So, since like Christmas break Ive had this fear of dogs biting me, and this town definately helped me to get over that. They were just everywhere but were all super sweet

Saturday night we went out to dinner with a bunch of friends. There were liek 14 of us, so we sat at two different tables. I really feel like we have been narrowing down our friend groups. Not that we are not friendly to everyone, but it is just so nice to get a core group :) Love it.  Oh- but after dinner we went to the beach and such. And then got CREPES! IT was the first time I'd had it and it was amazing. Mine had ice cream on top ---chocolate, nutella, and banannas inside. De-Lish.

hotel room that looked liek kids' camp

Just Embrace it--rain

finding, cracking, and drinking coconuts--CHEERS!

Playa Negra- Black Beach- with black sand!

Sunday was actually sunny and super nice! We rode the bus to another beach, but there wasnt much of a beach; the water just came up so much. The current was crazy strong too! We only went about waist deep and it was pulling us everywhere! The boys tried to surf, but this beach was more for professionals. There were tons of local guys out and wow, they were GOOOOOODDD surfers! I feel like it could've been on t.v.

Bus ride back was way shorter compared to the one there :P It was nice. Pretty much everyone on the bus fell asleep for the first hour-hour and a half. Then I got to hear testimonies from two friends. Ahh. There is just something so encouraging about hearing about people's lives; where they have come from and how God plays a part in it. I hope I never lose that joy.

Girls' Bible Study will start tomorrow at lunch! Pray it's a time of blessing!