Home Sweet USA!

So I've come to conclude that my life here in the States just isn't as funny as it is in Costa Rica... I actually know how to do things here, and I'm rarely confused throughout the day. It's great really. Everything about being home in the last week has been so so wonderful, well, except for that time I got pulled over.

Welcome back to America Lis.

Here's the sitch.
A couple nights ago I met up with two of my favorite people, Sami and Cori. Later that night when I was leaving the brewery I pull up to a red light. I was turning right, and mind you there were absolutely no cars in sight. None. Zero. Nada. Zip. I stop at the light and then turn. There was a cop up ahead that I saw after I turned. Totally saw him and totally had this thought run through my head..."I wasn't speeding, and I don't have any headlight/break lights out... he's not gonna pull me over." Wrong-O. Homeslice, was hanging out in the median, and as I pass by he flips a U, and there go his lights. Son of a B!

I roll my window down and he goes "Mam (which is kinda annoying that he called me mam because he was maybe 3 years older then me), I pulled you over because when you turned at the light back there, you pulled into the farthest lane of traffic. Is there a reason why you did that?" I wanted to cuss-are you freaking kidding me? Is there a reason why I did that? Ummm yeah. There were absolutely NO cars in sight and the "farthest" lane that I turned into was the second lane over. Come on dude, who doesn't do that? I was just annoyed at this point that this was really going on right now?

Oh wait, it gets better. He asks for my license and registration and mind you I haven't driven this car, or at all for that matter in 4 months. I was rummaging through every paper in my glove box, which there happened to be an excessive amount of expired registrations, but no current registration. How freaking convenient. He tells me to keep looking, takes my license and says he's going to "get started." Crap, get started-that totally means I'm getting a ticket. Oh and...I don't have current insurance on me either and my license plate tags are expired too. Awesome. At this point I don't have a whole lot going for me...other than some charisma.

I've never pulled the whole crying thing to get out of a ticket before, but I was so flustered and kept thinking I was gonna get slammed with a $300 ticket, and next thing you know tears are coming down. Five minutes later the cop comes back to my car and says "Mam, do you know there's a warrant out for your arrest?" I instantaneously reply "A WARRANT???" He then says, "Oh, I guess that isn't a funny joke!" Oh. My. Goodness. I almost punched him in the face. No dude, that joke isn't funny. Nice try though. After he made that joke I thought immediately to myself, wait a second, since Mr. funny guy is crackin' jokes does that mean I'm not gonna get a ticket? I was so right...thank you Jesus! He told me that there's no reason he should be letting me go free with out a ticket, and that he could literally impound my car and take me to jail due to the fact I was missing current registration, license plate tags, and insurance. Ooops...yeah, my bad. But he let me go... with out a ticket, and he just told me to take care of it ASAP.

I drove home listening to Miley Cyrus's "Party in the USA" on repeat. It's good to be home!

EMMMERICA!

I'M HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mal Pais with lots of Coloradans...and John who secretly wishes he was from Colorado.

Oh man. Ok, so we just got back from Mal Pais yesterday. Kate had 6 (yes 6!) friends fly in from Colorado, and we went to the beach with them for a couple days! The Colorado crew consisted of Kathleen, Chambless, Harpel, Hoover, Bella, and Thomas. The beach was so great. It's always nice to get out of San Jose, but it was such a refreshing couple of days being around people who had a fresh excitement about Costa Rica. They appreciate the smells, the food, the culture...they loved everything really, and it was so good to be around them. And...they are freaking hilarious.

We stayed in rancho's at a surf hostel. Oh you aren't sure what a rancho is? Well...it's a room with a straw ceiling and ONLY 3 walls. Not 4 walls, 3. There are really great things about having only 3 walls-like being able to watch the sun rise over the ocean. And then there are some not really great things about having only 3 walls-like having intruders in the middle of the night. Yes, intruders. Don't be alarmed, it wasn't a person....it was a CAT! A freaking cat! So, the second night we were there Kathleen woke our room up in the middle of the night with a loud horrifying scream. She flew into Kate's bed frantically, and said "There was a cat it my bed, and it was like spooning with me." A freaking cat...in her bed...spooning with her! What? She scared the cat with her scream, and it left the same way it came in...threw the open section of the room where there typically would be the 4th wall.

Then about an hour later we hear the girls in the next rancho over (the rest of the crew) scream! Little Oreo (that's what I named the cat) found it's way into their room, and woke Hoover up by licking her face. They literally threw it out of the room, no mercy with stray cats, but it kept coming back....and licking the other girls faces. Oreo came back into their room like 5 times before it finally stayed out. And then... the next day we got back from the beach and guess who it is taking a little nap on one of their beds....Oreo. Little punk! Seriously, the nerve that cat had. The nerve!

Other highlights of the trip...

-We all crammed into "Large Marge" (John's car). There were nine of us in a 7 passenger car, and then the whole ENTIRE roof was filled with a surfboard and backpacking backs! It was legit.

-I had maracuya cheesecake! Maracuya is passion fruit and I'm kiiiinda obsessed with it, and determined to try it in every form possible. So far I've covered juice, smoothie, pie, ice cream, margarita and cheesecake. Holy crap, I love that stuff!

-We played lots of ping pong, and I almost peed my pants like 12 times.

-I learned how much tooth paste to use while brushing my teeth. Yeah, turns out I've been doing it wrong the whole time, and would always have a foamy beard coming from my mouth. The amount of tooth paste the show on tooth brushes in commercials is really deceiving. You really only need a little. Who knew?

-Our hostel had a sweet pool, and we played lots of pool games which Kathleen always won.

-Oh and we totally got a coconut down from a tree and drank the coconut water! We saw some local do it after he got done surfing and then Kathleen was all "Hey, I wanna coconut!" The whole endeavour was pretty hilarious!