Water water everywhere

Here's the waterfall - the spray at the bottom is about 7 feet tall.
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Well, week two is already done. So, here's what happened.

Class was .. well, how class usually is. It's four hours, which is definitely a long time. We did watch a movie - Valentin. Valentin is a feel good movie that also has a message, an interesting concept. It was entirely in Spanish, of course, so if you don't speak it, I wouldn't recommend it. If you do, though, it's quite worthwhile. We also had the midterm test. It went quite well - a written part, then an oral interview.

I spotted a hammock shop

Iguanas. A bunch of them.
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So, onto the exciting part of the week. Well, Monday night was a bit of a fiasco - I hit the bars with a couple friends, too early and too hard. It wasn't a bad night; just a bad morning after. There's a saying here "Estoy de goma", literally, I am made of rubber. It's a reference to how your mouth feels after a morning of drinking, and also implies a hangover. I found it quite appropriate. (It was quite fun and completely safe, as we never went in groups of less than four.)

Then, Tuesday and Thursday I went to a dance class. We worked on the Salsa and Merengue, two traditional dances. Dance class is becoming one of the things I look forward to most during the week. I think that I might find a dance class for the next month that I'm down here, as I'll have more free time.

Wet bar at the hot springs
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Now, the weekend. The ISA group (that's the company I'm here with) went to Arenal volcano. This trip was only two days, as compared to Monteverde, which was three. The first day may have been my favorite day so far. We started out by visiting a random restaurant that had iguanas. Lots of iguanas.

Following this, we went to a Catarata, or waterfall. Huge, glorious, thunderous - these are all words that don't quite live up to the waterfall. We spent some time swimming in the waters at its base, then moved on.

The volcan Arenal
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As we piled onto the bus to return, I spotted a hammock shop. There was clearly only one option - I asked the bus to stop so I could buy a hammock. About five of us went out to buy them, and I believe we all found one.

Next, we dropped our stuff of at our hotel, and we returned to an amazing resort, which was built around the hot springs in the area. The springs had been diverted into an enormous series of pools that varied both in depth and temperature. To the delight of many, several of the pools had wet bars. Things eventually got a little crazy.

After the hot springs, we ate, then returned to the hotel. Most people went to bed, but about five of us pushed bravely onward into the night at the hotel pool. This particular pool had a very different waterslide. Apparently there aren't any insurance liabilities on waterslides here, because that slide was stupendously, completely insane. It was entirely too fast, with walls too low, and it ended in a six foot drop into the pool. Amazing.

The next day I spent some time looking at the volcano and poking around. The volcano at Arenal is active, so I was able to grab a few rocks that it spit out toward me. A few hours later, we went home.