The Wonders of Traveling...

Well, thanks to our lovely Presidents, I had a three day weekend! Translation: beach time! Some of the girls had family in town so Jen and I decided to head to Nosara, a beach town on the Nicoya Peninsula. I was excited because, with the exception of my trip last year with the kiddos, I had never been to the Nicoya. Since this was a 5 hours excursion, we decided to leave right from school on Friday. We got held up slightly at the car rental place because neither of us had brought a credit card, only a debit. (They put a $1000 hold on your card, so it's much better to have a credit card.) As we are pulling out of the rental lot, Jen asks, "Did you tell the hotel that we'd be getting in late?" "Oh. Nope." And we were off.

10:00pm rolls around and we pull up to the Nosara B&B. It is dark. Really dark. Except for this little lamp left on in the main room. "Look Jen, I can see our two little towels sitting on the table, waiting for us!" Problem, there was no one there to give us said towels. After about 30 minutes of honking, yelling, and looking at each other, we decided to head out and find another place to stay. Now, Nosara isn't really set up with a row of hotels so we took a lot of random turns down the crazy dirt road looking for hotels. Each one we found was dark. At one point, one of us said, "These roads are actually pretty creepy. I hope the car doesn't break down."

We had no other choice...back to the hotel. Jen had been calling the place nonstop since we left, but there was still no one there. So, we kicked back our seats and settled into the car to sleep! "So Jen, it's going to get pretty hot in here. Do you think it's ok to leave the air on?" We eventually decided to start with the car on and to turn it off sporadically. After we finally stopped laughing at our crazy predicament, we "went to sleep." I awoke to this, "AHHHHHAHAAAAAAHAHAHAHHHHHH" Oh how I wish you could hear this noise as I did! I, of course, started screaming in response. I thought a possum or something had gotten into the car. Then, I turn my head to the left and notice a man with a flashlight standing next to the car. Luckily, I did not have to go to the bathroom at this time, or I probably would have soiled myself. I slowly open the door and was like, "Hi! Umm, we have reservations." So, we got into our room sometime after 1am. The next morning we had a lovely time at the beach, doing nothing.

We went to sign in like they asked us to and the woman changed the date from Friday to Saturday. "Oh, how nice, she's giving us last night for free," we both thought. We come back to pay and the man is there. "You guys owe for three nights, not two." "Well, she changed the dates and had us sign the form for two nights." After a bit of arguing, he went to go get the lady. She comes up. "So sorry, it was a mistake. You only owe for two nights." So we pay and start our way back to the beach. "Have a nice journey," she says.

"Ummm, Jen, I think she thinks we're leaving today. She just told us to 'Have a nice journey.'" We just shrugged it off and headed to the beach. We decided it made more sense for us to drive home on Sunday, today, instead of the next day so, at 11:30, we went back to the room to pack up. We were meet with the owner woman putting our stuff into bags. "Umm, girls, check out was 11:00." "Yeah, but we have this room for 3 nights."

After about 15 minutes of mass confusion, the lady finally got it straight in her head. "Oh my goodness! I want to give you girls a free night! Please, let me give you a free night!" "Actually, we're leaving. Maybe if we ever come back..."

So we quickly packed up, showered, and hit the road. We had to get gas, so we pulled into a station. The attendant guys comes up and says, "You ladies have something stuck in your wheel." Of course we do. Turns out, I ran over a rather large nail and it lodged itself into our wheel. An hour later, our wheel was patched and we were back on the road! We managed to make it home in one piece, with a great story to tell!

Now, some wise words from the boy I tutor:
"Ms. K, I get up at 5am each morning."
"Why do you get up so early?"
"To milk my goat!"
"You honestly expect me to believe you get up at 5am to milk your goat?"
"It's true. My grandpa comes and gets me on his moto and we go to my farm. I eat my cereal with the milk I get."

"Oh my gosh, I have a beard, right?!?!"
"Ummm, yeah....I see one hair."
"YEAH, this is awesome! It must be because my birthday was yesterday and I'm so manly now."
5 minutes later:
"Stop trying to see your "beard" in the reflection of your computer and get back to work!"

The Bird is the Word...

Ok peps, time to get serious. I am being driven insane...by a bird. It all began around the first week of school, so a month ago. Molly, my roommate, mentioned this annoying sound coming from outside. Low and behold, I am awoken to this mystery sound the next day...at 4:30 AM people! Then it stopped, until 5:30. The preciseness of this "bird" led me to believe that perhaps someone received the most annoying alarm clock possible for Christmas. It is also suck a strange sound, we couldn't place it. Well, after many investigations (Molly has actually gone out to the pool at 4:30 to track down the sound, twice.) we have come to the conclusion that it is, in fact, a bird. This is the most annoying bird I have never seen. I have also been wondering: If I shoot a BB gun randomly into the unknown, it wouldn't actually cause too serious of harm to whatever it hit, would it?

On top of the crazy bird, we also have our bathroom fan. Now, this fan has been running since we moved in. It doesn't seem to be attached to any switch and it just always makes noise. Day by day, I noticed it had been getting louder. In my room, it sounded like a washing machine off track. Then, one night I wake to what sounds like a Mac truck about to plow through my bedroom door. The fan is out of control. When I get up for the day Molly goes, "I almost woke you up. I thought we were going to have to evacuate before our place blew up." We talked to Tio, our handyman, and he "fixed" it...it has been getting louder each day...

Sorry, I have no pics for you, just a nice venting session! I shall leave you with my wise words from the classroom:

(We have been graphing quadratic equations-they are parabolas with vertexes.)
"Ms. K, I think I graphed this quadratic wrong. I can't seem to find the climax."
"Yeah, that happens sometimes."

One boy, who has broken English, was drawing on my board while his friends kept trying to erase it:
"HEY, don't touch my thing!"
Took about 5 minutes for my boys to stop laughing...