New York, New York

Today is my last day and I'm finally heading to the US open!
Saturday night I went to a show called "Promises, Promises" and it was really good. It's a musical remake of The Apartment, with Sean Hayes from Will and Grace and Kristin Chenowith. The show was funny, but I forgot that the movie had a lot of dark undertones with adultery and suicide. Kind of like Cabaret Not usually the types of show I pick. The one guy who was in it played the killer in Kiss the Girls! And I think he played a murderer in something else so it was weird to see him in a musical role.
Sunday morning I got up and headed out to Queens again to go to the Open. I waited in line for about an hour and met a really nice guy and his dad, with whom I waited. It was fun and he even invited me to hang out with them for the day...he wanted to know what was wrong with me since no one wanted to come to NY with me! (I wasn't sure what to tell him.) We were about 10 people away from the ticket office when the lady on the mike announced that they were sold-out!! I couldn't believe it. The people around me were pissed! AND they weren't selling advance tickets for Monday--only Tuesday thru Friday! I left while the others stewed, and tried to get on ticketmaster to buy a ticket for Monday. It wasn't working, so I called my excellent sis, Mary, who ordered my ticket and I headed directly over to will call to pick it up.
Now I had to decided what to do for the day. I was going to do the sex and the city tour, but it was totally sold out for the weekend. I decided to take in another show. Waited in line at TKTS booth with some very nice New Jersey guys and their wives- had the heavy accents an everything- and ended up buying a ticket for Memphis. It won the Tony for best musical last year, so I figured it couldn't be that bad. It was outstanding...I bought the cd. It was about a white dj in the 50s/60s Memphis who plays black music on the radio. Then he falls in love with the black singer and all hell breaks loose in the town. The music was great- it was written by one of the guys from Bon Jovi.
After the matinee, I wandered around brazilfest. Some guys were performing and in sure they're a big deal but I didn't know who they were. Went for a walk in Central Park...I love the park! Chilled in Times Square for a bit; watching all the interesting people that are there then went to bed.
Today I'm on the train to the open and then this evening I'll be home. I don't even know the schedule of play yet, so who knows who I'll see today. Maybe my boy Andre will be there...

Another one bites the dust

I'm in New York for the weekend, and I must say it is working out better than I had hoped. I originally thought it was going to be depressing since I'm here alone, but it turns out I am excellent company! I know what I like and I don't complain about walking instead of taking a taxi or bus!
I was supposed to attend the US open today, but I didn't realize that they no longer allow backpacks in the park. My plan was to go right there when my plane landed and I did, but then I found out that I couldn't take in my backpack. Then I was going to check in to my hotel and go back out to Queens, but I decided to go tomorrow instead.
So. I checked into my hotel; which kinda makes the Y in Queens look like the Taj Majal, but I'm not planning on spending a lot of time there. Then I wandered around a street fair on 47th street; found a bag I really like, but due to the unfortunate break-in last week, I am unable to attain any cash. I have about $25 with me, and no way to get cash. It reminds me of the first time Katie and I came to NY and had to decide if we wanted spend our money on the food or the drink. This probably seems like a theme with me...I guess it kinda is.
After wandering around the street fair and walking up and down 5th Avenue, ("on the avenue, 5th avenue") I decided that I was going to walk across the Brooklyn bridge. In all the times I've been to New York, I've never crossed it and gone into Brooklyn. Well, today I did it! It's an amazing piece of civil engineering, and the views were unbelievable. I tried calling everyone because I wanted to share with someone where I was, and fortunately Julie answered her phone! She probably thought I was drunk the way I was babbling! Then I did get hold of my mom, who said it was very windy and she could barely hear me! I took lots of photos and video and unfortunately that will be all I have because I think my battery is dead and I forgot the charger. It was a great walk, and I've now stepped foot in Brooklyn, so I only have one more borrough to go to touch all five that make up this great city.

Monteverde Institute Day 2

We headed back to Monteverde Institute for a full day of activities; we were going to learn how to make guides to different flora. Willow Zucholski (I'm not sure if I spelled that right, but she was little, probably Polish lady who has done research in Costa Rica for a looong time) was our lecturer, and she has published guides to Costa Rican flora. Jeanne and Kathryn brought their books to get them autographed by her. With a name like Willow, I thought she'd be tall and long and 'willowy', but she wasn't. Just goes to show that names can be deceiving. She showed us, along with Rafa, our facilitator, how to take pictures of flora and create field guides that others can use! I really like this idea...I wish we had an environmental class at North, so I could take the kids out into the prairie and we could make our own guides...it would be so cool. We went on a fun hike...I love the hikes...then took our pictures back to the Institute to make our guides. In the real world, we would have actually found the names of the flora we took pictures of, but since we were on vacation, having a good time, we made up names...my flower had berries and was called "Julianna berrius"! :)
We had the opportunity to go to the Monteverde Cheese factory and actually ended up having ice cream! Very good and very satisfying after having fruit and rice and beans for the past few days! Later that evening, we had our final lecture from Korey about the data we'd been collecting all over the country dealing with water quality, sound quality, light quality, and soil quality, and then we had a nice discussion about the NSTA trip and what we all thought of it. I'm really looking forward to getting more involved in the International Committee which I have been appointed to. Hopefully, we'll be able to continue trips like this.
Had some good conversations after dinner with our drinks, and learned from Mike that "too much sex can make you deaf!" Huh?

Partying in Monteverde

We had an awesome time...Paulo took us out to a local establishment for some refreshment and dancing! I'm not so sure about "local"; there were almost only travelers there with us, but we had a fun time. We met some other Americans, some Dutch guys--one who had hips that could do things I had never imagined--, and the place was owned by an American from Texas. Not exactly what I'd call local, but whatever. It was a great time to be social!
The goal was to get everyone up to dance and have a good time. Tried some salsa and merengue; wasn't very good, but I had a good time dancing with Mike; then trying some of it with Paulo as well. Al even got out and danced with Jeanne, and we even got Korey and Kirk out on the floor as well! Kirk was doing some imitations of his students, and was freaking hilarious! I really want to take some Latin dance classes now that I'm home.

Leaving Arenal

After the excitment with all the monkeys and the volcanoes, I was pretty sure the rest of the trip was going to be a let down. But I'm happy to say that I was wrong. Monteverde was beautiful. It's located at a higher altitude and the weather cooled off a little! The ride to get there was interesting...we took a boat, then a 2 hour van drive on a road that's not paved for about an hour and a half. It was a little bumpy, but beautiful! We saw a ton of coffee plantations and a school that was raising money by having 2 kids hold a rope across the road and not let the vehicle pass until they donate some money! Hilarious! Must give them credit; they probably raise some money that way form all the tourists that pass through!
The town is quaint; it was founded by a bunch of Quakers ( I think) from Pennsylvania, so it has a very American connection. We arrived and relaxed for a bit. Our time in Monteverde was going to be spent at the Monteverde Institute which does research with the local environment, etc. We went to the institute to sit for our first talk, from Justin Welch who is in charge of water quality, and he was going to show us how they test if the water has little pollution or a lot. I guess it's okay to say that we didn't know we'd be performing the tests that day.
I'm not sure what possessed me to raise my hand, but when Justin asked, "Who wants to be the agitator?" I volunteered. Agitating something sounded like a good thing at the time. I wasn't aware that I'd be putting on waders and heading directly into the river! Walking in those waders was hard and I had to be very careful or my sized-too-big feet were going to send me tumbling. My job was to "agitate" any sort of living macro-organisms, and my partners were going to catch them in a net and we were going to see what they were. It was a bit gross at first, standing and reaching into the unknown water, and scraping rocks with moss all over them, but I bucked up and did what needed to be done. After all, it's in the name of science!

Holy crap!

Oh my god! Oh my god! I went for a hike today with some members of the group and we had a face off with some howler monkeys! And arenal erupted this morning when we were on it's slope! This is probably the greatest day ever!

We were walking over a suspension bridge and Mike was leading the way. He stopped us to show us that there was a monkey on the bridge. Well, it turns out there was a family of howlers that were crossing the bridge and coming right at us! Kathryn and Michelle were taking photos, I was, too, and I was trying to take video as well. They walked over the bridge and right overhead! I almost wet myself! There were 5 of them plus a baby! I wish I could post pictures right now! I got a video of the last monkey of the group coming over. Josephine kept saying, "keep your mouth closed!". It was amazing. We had a standoff with the monkeys and I think they respect us more now for holding our ground!

Arenal

Oh my goodness! We hiked up the arenal volcano today and it actually exploded when we were up there!! It was amazing to hear and see. We saw boulders falling to the side of the mountain (thank god!) and heard lots of rumbling.

I forgot to mention the other night how I got to catch and count turtle eggs falling into a nest. I gotta say, it was interesting. I had a glove on one hand and an egg counter in the other hand. As cool as it was, it felt a little...invasive, for the turtle. I could feel the chloaca opening and closing as the eggs were being dropped. I counted 102 eggs. As soon as Phoebe (we named her) started filling in sand we were up and away from her asap so we wouldn't get sand thrown at us! That night we also had encounters with Emily, Abby, and Annie ... I named them. We measured and tagged them as well.

We're just sitting down to lunch after our encounter with arenal and may go on a hike over a bunch of suspended bridges.

Arrival in Arenal

I'm sitting on the porch of our little cabin and watching Arenal, one of Costa Rica's most active volcanoes, and the coolest thing happened: I saw it light up and heard it rumble! So awesome! But I digress.
Torteguero was a ton of fun! I'm super exhausted today because I stayed up last night to do the last shift of tagging turtles. We had the option to go for a third day, an I figured I should do it since I'm here and may never get the opportunity again. I'm so hard core I volunteered for the 12-4am shift with Jeanne and Sandy. I knew I could sleep all day today because it was a travel day to get to Arenal.
Tagging turtles was a great experience. Every night I went out it rained! Crazy! It's hot so it sometimes feels good. My raincoat held up pretty good besides the amount of sand that is present. The pants too! However I'm still trying to get them dry. I hope it doesn't take the rest of the trip. I was covered in sand nearly every night but I really enjoyed my time on the beach. Did you know that where there are sea turtles there are sharks so none of the locals go swimming in the sea? It must be awful to live on a beach and not be able to go swimming! It's just too dangerous.

So after a day of travel and me being pretty crabby due to lack of sleep, we're finally at Arenal. And now I'm about ready to pass out while I'm watching the volcano from my front porch!

Arrival in San Jose and torteguero

It's already been fun! Arrived in San Jose with minimal trouble, and met most of the people that we're traveling with. A few from last years group are with us again. Me, Karla, Susie...then there's Kathryn, Dorothy, and Sharon. Everyone else is new. There is Mike from North Carolina, Allie from Florida, Kirk, Michelle from Texas, Tammy, Sandy, Paulo our guide, Josephine, Al from NSTA, Jeanne from New Hampshire. The group is comprised of mostly older people. The first day of a new trip is always fun; meeting new people and catching up with the ones you know.

We had a lecture the first night from Paulo about Costa Rican biodiversity and the history of science. It was interesting but after being up since 430am, I just wasn't into it.

We left yesterday morning to head to Torteguero, which is where the sea turtles nest. It's a very long drive. We were on the west side of the continental divide and had to go to the east side of the country on the Caribbean. We had two choices: we could drive and hour and a half and then get on a boat for 5 hours OR we could drive for 4 hours (half of which was on a gravel road) and get on a boat for 2 hours. Somehow we elected to drive for 4 hours! It was a long bumpy drive. I took a nap and took in the scenery on the trip. We arrived at torteguero national park by about 3 o'clock. We had left at 9!! It was a long day. Then we had to get trained on sea turtle tagging.

There were two shifts; the first was from 8-12am and the 2nd was from 12-4am. Kathryn and I were on the first shift last night. We went out with mike and Dorothy in our group and Kasia was our liaison. It was sooo dark when we first when onto the beach. We couldn't see a thing. It was crazy. We can't use flashlights because it scares the turtles, the only light we had was from little red lights on head lamps. So off we walked up the beach trying to avoid driftwood and tourists hopin to get a glance of a sea turtle so we could do our tagging.

It was pitch-black with no moon because there was a storm coming. Much lightning and some thunder so we were nervous it would rain. We finally started to see some tracks and finally got to see a green turtle. I can't believe how big they are! They're about 3 feet long! So we went to measure it and there were a ton of tourists around and their guide was nice enough to let us do our work. It was our first one! Mike and I got down ready to measure and I turned on my headlamp, then the turtle started flapping and when that happens you want to get out of the way because sand flies everywhere! So I backed off and tried to turn off my headlamp, but I ended up turning the white light on! Yikes, this was bad, so I turned away from the turtle, but it had already started to leave! Then the tour guide yelled at our guide for scaring her off, but they said it happens all the time. I felt horrible.

Throughout the night we saw many more turtles and as we continued, it got much easier...until the rain came! I was recording this time, Kathryn was measuring, and it started raining hard. So we all got wet, thenvthe turtle started flapping and we got sand everywhere. It was in hair, face, eyes, etc. We got dirty! Mike got flipper burn while he was trying to measure and the rest of us were just soaked and sandy! What a great night!

We tagged and measured about 6 turtles and at midnight we headed back to the station for a much needed shower and passed the info we had learned onto the next group.

I really wish one of the pictures of me with all my sand everywhere would've turned out. I hope tonight is just as exciting.

This morning we went to visit the primary school in Torteguero. It's so basic but the kids were so cute. They were 1st graders and I actually understood a lot of their science lesson. I could understand that they were learning the 3 states of matter; solido, liquido...it was great. There are no computers; no technology at all!

When we exited the school, we walked about 10 steps to the beach; YES, it's that close! So cool. Now we could actually see what the beach looked like in the sun. The sand was black! Coastline is absolutely beautiful but no one was swimming! Paulo said that there are sharks in the water that could actually bite humans so we elected to just walk on the beach.

At lunch there was an encounter with some white faced monkeys. If they show their teeth, you'd better watch out; that means it's preparing to jump at you!

Prepping for departure

I think I'm all packed, and now I'm too wired to sleep! Flight leaves at 7:40am which doesn't sound bad, but I have to be at the airport at 6, so sleeping in is not an option! Thank goodness I have a wonderful sister who will wake up early to take me to the airport.
Can't wait to see the turtles, and be back in Costa Rica. Should be hot and humid in the rainforest, but it may be cooler in the mountains. I'll keep updating as much as possible...Pura Vida!

REUNION...partially

I'm at the NSTA conference this weekend, and I've met up with a bunch of people for our Costa Rica trip...I met up with Kelly, Paulo, Marylin, and Dorothy was there at the end! It was great to talk to everyone, and to try to encourage others to take part in another NSTA Costa Rica trip. I loved meeting with them, and reliving the fabulous and life-changing trip we had!