Hey, long time no write, my bad. I've been keeping pretty busy lately. Last week was Santa Semana, basically their form of Easter. So everyone had most of the week off of work. We got a good sized group of friends together and went to a beach called Mal Pais. It takes about 6-7 hours to get there because you have to switch buses and take a ferry across a small bay. It's pretty cool though, really good views. Extremely hot though. We stayed in Tranquilo Backpackers hostel. It pretty similar to all the other ones we're be staying in. Most of the people there are college aged or 20 somethings. Everyone from some somewhere else around the world and usually has an interesting story about themselves or their travels. The place itself was great for relaxin. Hammocks everywhere. We tried to all cook together for dinner to save some money. Worked out pretty good usually. The beach was literally 5 minutes away. Sooooo great. We spent pretty much every day just chillin on the beach. The waves were really good for surfing there. So me and nick tried again. He's pretty good and was able to have a good time, but I couldn't even paddle out past the breakers cause they were too strong and I had a longboard. I was able to practice on some smaller ones though so that was pretty cool. Hopefully after a few more trips I'll get decent. Mal Pais is a really nice town, its all surfers. I'd say its an even amount of tourist and locals but I doesn't feel like the touristy places that we've been to before. There were a few clubs and the typicaly beach bars. I kinda wish we explored the area a lil bit more. There are some really nice waterfalls nearbye but its hard to leave a hammock on a gorgeous beach. Speaking of which, someone stole my hammock after the second day. I left it hanging up overnight, my fault. That brings the count of stolen items to 3 so far. Hammock, sunglasses, and VT shorts. Okay, it's very likely that I lost the shades and shorts, but still very sad.

Work is still good. I love going there and playing with the kids. Wednesdays are soup kitchen days so I always leave feeling good after those. As far as construction goes though, I not really feeling like we're getting too much done lately. It's usually just little random fixes on Phillipe's house/church. Which is fine, its needs it, but I was hoping to help with a new project from the start.

A lot of the friends I've made have been leaving lately. Headed back to jobs or school. So thats kind of sad, but there are new people coming in so its all good. We usually all go out on Monday nights to welcome the new people and start the week off right, haha. I'm really glad that I'm staying for so long. Everyone I've talked to says that 3 months is about the perfect amount of time. Just long enough to meet a lot of people, learn the language and get some work done. I've been wondering what it would be like to actually live here. Don't worry I plan on coming back to the states, haha, just thinking. The city is alright there are some nice parts and there are a lot of not so nice parts. Last week was the first time it actually got to me. Walking to the bus I passed about 3 people passed out on the side walk. I don't mean sitting down and taking a little nap. These people were sprawled out, comotuse halfway in the gutter. It's kind of a downer seeing that everyday. They're so messed up everyday that I don't even know what anyone could do for them. Pretty depressing. But on a brighter note, the weather is almost perfect everyday, we're surrounded by rain forests and mountains, and the local people have all been super nice to me. I would say San Jose is a great base point for seeing the county, not really somewhere I would want to live long term though. K I'm out. Hope everyone is doing well back home. Laters.