BENGARLAND!com

I’ve only 6 more weeks here in Costa Rica. Three in class and three traveling. In a way, I’m glad that my time overseas is almost over. It’s been hard to be away from my friends and family. Seven months is a long time, but that’s not really it. When I lived in Vermont I was away from my friends and family for 6 months before I saw them again… it was different though, because I was in the same culture, the same language, and I could make new friends. Here though, I see the same 12 Americans day in and day out. We all get a little tired of each other.

Despite my monumental progress in the Spanish language, going from zero Spanish in June to being able to carry on a decent dialogue these days, I’ve found it difficult to meet people and have meaningful conversations. I don’t know what it is… I try to talk to people here and we have conversations, but they seem to be about nothing. If you ask someone “How was your weekend?” or “How are you?” they will usually respond with “good”. No detail like “I played soccer on Saturday, then went to my friend’s house where we played video games all night.” Maybe life around here is really boring and there is nothing to report, I don’t know. It’s just really frustrating to want to talk to people and have them respond in vague generalizations.

I don’t think I could ever live in Costa Rica. I’m pretty sure I would be bored off my ass. The culture seems so monotonous. For instance, there are three 18-year-old girls who are interning at the ecolodge right now. I ask them what they do for fun, or at night when they are home, or on the weekends and the response is “nothing” or “watch TV”. These are very attractive girls who usually dress like they are ready to go dancing, but apparently they rarely do. It’s very strange. San Jose, the “big city” here, is just as lame. The population is only 300k (I think), so it’s not that big. Most of the clubs I have seen look like a variation of all the same thing: Dancing and drinking to really bad Reggaeton music. Sometimes I wonder, Is there even a punk band in this country?

Yes, I thought I would never say it: I miss America. December 29th couldn’t come any sooner.