Day 16- Introspection

Finally, I am getting caught up on posting :)  It is Sunday night as I am writing this, and this weekend was amazing.  This morning, I got up and had a morning exploring by myself.  I had a quick breakfast in the hotel restaurant and then headed down to the beach.  I walked a ways before I found a spot to set up camp for the morning.  It is very hard not to think big thoughts when staring out into the ocean.  It is also hard not to feel insignificant next to the vastness of the water.  Going on this trip, cutting loose from the network of friends and family that I have had surrounding me for the past 22 years of my life, is a strange sensation.  Here, in this place of great beauty, I am alone.  There are new friends to be made, and there are always people around me, but I am alone.  I don't know if I have ever taken the amount of time that I did this morning to simply sit quietly and.....be.  It seems that in the states that there is always something that needs to be done, someone who needs me to do something, or a pressing concern that has to be considered.  And I know that all those things still apply even though I am still in a foreign country, but here I can let the sounds of the waves wash away those thoughts.  And better yet, I didn't feel guilty for not being busy with something.  The cure to those thoughts must be a combination of sand between your toes and the sound of waves crashing on the shore.  

I grabbed some lunch with a few of the program members and wandered around the small town, checking out shops, for the rest of our time there.  We loaded back onto the bus, headed for San Jose, around 2 pm.  We would have gotten back to our homestay around 5:30, but the bus broke down right as we were getting into the city.  So 15 minutes later tico time (which equals about 1 hour) we were finally home for the night.  A fantastic supper was waiting for us, and I have been blogging and uploading pictures ever since.  Sorry for not getting anything posted, but I should be able to keep up now that I am back in San Jose once again.