23:00
The students had their proper individual homestay (host family) briefings after
breakfast, where we explained who they would be staying with, if the family had
children or pets, their level of English and what their routine was e.g. if the
host parents were farmers. It was nice
to hear their excitement when DL filled them in on their individual host
families. I made up an 'English English'
versus 'American English' piece which was a paragraph that we used to
demonstrate subtle language differences and the students found it incredibly
funny i.e. using trousers (pants), trainers (sneakers) and mentioning rubbers
(erasers) which Americans took as condoms.
Just
after I had read my part I scooted into San Jose to grab a couple of items and
collect my machete finally off a friend of my good German friend. It only took 3 or 4 months but I finally have
my machete back!!! I also used the time to send some more postcards off before
heading back to the hotel where the students were paired up practising
Spanish.
During this time I managed to get some shots of the birds around the hotel:
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| Costa Rican Clay-Coloured Thrush (D.Philpot) |
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| Mr Yiguirro (D.Philpot) |
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| Bird In The Breakfast Room (D.Philpot) |
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| Blue-Grey Tanager (D.Philpot) |
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| Perched Over The Capital (D.Philpot) |
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| Blue-Grey Tanager Perched For Snacks (D.Philpot) |
We
then let them loose into the big city to find lunch by themselves with a small
amount of money, whilst we (the staff) stayed behind on the roof to make up
some cheese and salami sandwiches. Us
TA's then played some hacky sack up on the roof which was fairly new to me and
I managed to kick it all the way down 4 flights of stairs a couple of times
before SL kicked it onto a nearby roof, just out of reach of course, which
ended the game and reverted us to learn about Membracid bugs!
.JPG) |
| Colourful Lizard On A Tree (D.Philpot) |
.JPG) |
| Membracid Bugs (D.Philpot) |
We
had a second statistics refresher lesson, refreshing for me at least, then
afterwards SL and I went to Machu Pichu (a restaurant not the place
unfortunately) for dinner with Na, Ar, Am and Kar. We shared and tried some octopus which was
fairly plain and I had beef wrapped in bacon with mushroom sauce - which was lovely
even though I don't really like mushrooms.
.JPG) |
| Delicious Dinner (D.Philpot) |
Once
we returned we witnessed DL get a roll of duct tape stuck on her arm and ML had
to help whilst we all laughed hysterically. The rest of the night was then
spent packing and organising for our relocation to San Luis of the Monte Verde
valley in the morning.