I have been here about a week and a half, and I'm getting used to the heat and having to wake up at 6:30 in the morning. However, my skin is still recovering from the excessive sun here. It still hasn't rained since I got here, and I've been told it probably won't rain until the end of the dry season in late April. However there is plenty of wind, and since it is a dry heat, it is bearable.

Last Saturday I went to a nearby beach called Playa Hermosa with the girl from the Bahamas who works here. This beach is one of the few calm beaches on the Pacific coast. Most of the other beaches have larger waves that are good for surfing. The beach was very scenic, but everything was so dry and brown. We met three girls there from Chicago who are doing a university language exchange program with a university in the capital, San Jose. We hung out on the beach for a while, where I managed to get a bad sunburn despite using lots of sunscreen, and we ate dinner together. In the evening I checked out the local disco in Bagaces.

On Sunday, my Costa Rican family had a barbeque and we played soccer and played with their dog. It's a cross between a Doberman and a Rottweiler, but it is still only 2 months old, so it's relatively harmless. I can communicate a little better with my family now, we even had a very slow and labored conversation about Costa Rica politics.

On Thursday night, the American intern that works here set up a birthday/St. Patrick's party for his girlfriend. I got to meet most of the "gringos" that live in the town. There's the four interns from where I work, three former programming interns that still live here, and a group of about 10 girls and 1 guy who follow monkeys around all day in a nearby nature preserve. They are here for about a year doing this. There were also a couple of native Costa Ricans I met as well.

When I get a chance, I'll try to find an internet cafe to post some more pictures on my photo site but I might not be able to this weekend