Twin Travel: Comida y Viajar y Inglaterra

Holaaaa,

I am currently stuck in Heathrow after finding out my flight to Newcastle has been cancelled, this is after the last two planes were also late! But hope is not lost because I given a £10 voucher to get anything I wanted. It didn't take me long before I knew exactly what I wanted after being away from England for such a long time. I searched the terminal for the biggest portion and the best prices and finally I was reunited again with the biggest and baddest ENGLISH BREAKFAST EVERRR!!! I can't even describe how I felt eating proper bacon, egg, beans, sausages, tomatoes and hash browns! It was truly amazing. I am now taking a later flight to Newcastle and thank god I got the last ticket on that flight otherwise I would have been flying tomorrow. However I have been travelling since early Saturday morning and stuck in Heathrow for 9 hours and it is starting to take its toll. So I will tell you about my last few weeks in Costa Rica before December break. And in the famous words of Tumisang 'areee youuu readdyyyyyy for Decemberr break babyyy!!' https://soundcloud.com/tumisang-ramarea/are-you-ready-for-december

I have been having dinners with groups of people before we all split up. My residence, Cahuita, had a pot luck dinner in which Amiya and I made chocolate cake with extra chocolate topping, you can never have enough chocolate (I say that now before I devour chocolate at Christmas)! Cahuita also went to a beautiful restaurant on the top of the mountain. Despite the long drive it was so worth it, the view was incredible and the food was just iosafjiufhhiugbwown* (*a bash on the keyboard to represent the incredibleness of the food that left me so speechless). There was also two famous Costa Rican presenters there recording what was supposedly the New Year's Celebration that will be aired nationally....muyyyy fabulouss!! The Brits also had a dinner however we failed to clear up who was making what so, stereotypically, we ended up with chips, mash, roasties, sweet potato soup, scones and welsh cakes... oh the platter was extremely colourful and healthy! It was really nice to meet up and spend a bit of time with the people from your own culture whilst booging along to British music.

I had my last La Carpio session in 2013 in which we went to a place called La Finca which was really nice because it meant both we all got to get out of the places we live and be in a different environment. We focused it around cultures and traditions by having stations explaining different traditions with accompanying activities. We then gave the presents of cake, sweets and individual presents and cards for Christmas which they really enjoyed! It was such a lovely last session of the year and I hope my Spanish improves further so that I can talk to them more.

I take Environmental Systems and Societies and we went on a field trip to the beachh wooo!! We went to two beaches to compare organisms in a tourist beach and non-tourist beach, Jaco was our tourist beach and Esterillos was our non-tourist beach, both on the pacific side. My group was me, Margot, Pietro and Vitoria and we used quadrants to measure species abundance after collecting shells and seeds and we also measured the oxygen in the water. In Jaco we even found garlic cloves and dead fish... which shows the affect tourism has on such beautiful beaches! It was an amazing outing apart from me and most of the Brits getting heat exhaustion and my already bad burn getting worse.. #britproblems!

The first years put on a Firstie show for our amazing second years. It took a long time planning and organising but it finally came together after a lot of work and practising. The acts ranged from dancing, singing to Eurovision the completely weird unnameable acts! I participated in a Bollywood/run the world dance routine courtesy of Amiya, my Indian friend, and Peppi, who choreographed it so well! We also had imitations of the second years, second year awards, the whole first year had a dance together and we had videos such has 'what do uwcr people say' and 'first year boys'. It was such an unforgettable and funny night :)

We had a health fair day in which there were many activities and talks related to health. I went to yoga, various talks, zumba, dodge ball, frisbee and there was also a rally between residences. It was a nice day to just go out and be happy and healthy :)

Our school are trying to raise funds for the current devastation in the Philippines. To help me, Julia, Carla and Becca organised a bake sale. We got a budget and bought and made delicious food to sell all day Sunday. We made scrummy brownies, banana bread and rice krispy squares. It was nice to help raise a bit of money for a good cause and have fun doing it!

On the last Thursday we had an open mic which was really nice, people played, sang, improvised, acted..everything!! It was awesome and nice to be with most of the school before we all part.

On the last Friday before everyone left to go home for Christmas or elsewhere we had a lovely meal to celebrate Pietro's birthday! We made lots of yummy food and got together with close friends. It was a nice meal for the end of 2013 at uwccr and I hope P had an amazing birthday!

So by the time of writing this I am home and well-ish (major jet lag). After hours of travelling I finally arrived back in Newcastle airport to be greeted by my amazing friends and family :D It is so weird but nice to be home, the food is amazing and I have enjoyed seeing my friends and looking forward to seeing more of them and to having a great Christmas. Coming back home makes the last few months feel as if I have been in a dream and that they have gone so quickly. But a dream I am glad I am having, I am already itching to be back in Costa Rica but I'm also making the most of being in cold cold England!!

Well this has been a very unexpectedly food based post, I guess all of us UWC students begin rave over good food after being away from home so long. But overall I am well and really enjoying my experiences. I hope everyone ready has an amazing Christmas and New Year and I will tell you all about what has been happening once I am back in Costa Rica.

Pura vida mae

Alison :)