Hola,
Alison here! As always I have been very busy and apologise for the lack of posts in the recent months. But I promise you this post will be full to the brim of my adventures. I write this having done all course work and orals and mocks and all there is left to do is exams, which is daunting. However I am much more relaxed right now, but knowing that I will leave this place so soon is emotional. I have a good idea of what I want to do before I leave so now I must work on squeezing all these things in. I don't want to write too much as this will be long so, as always, here are pictures of what I have been up to since my last post in December.
Last time I wrote I was in Barbados. It is incredible there, everybody go! I had Christmas and New Years there and my Brazilian friend, Pietro, joined me there. Funny story: Me, Pietro and Kayleigh were walking along a broken pier, dodging the waves crashing over. Pietro got caught by a wave and hurled down into the pier, but as he fell he grabbed my hand and I fell down with him as Kayleigh looked on hysterically laughing. A second wave came as I was getting up and hurled me across the broken rocky pier, cutting all of my body. I still have the scars to tell the story which was crazy to be a part of and extremely funny to watch. Anyway, here are some more pictures of my December break there.
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| BAJAN FOOD! This was the amazing feast we had on Christmas day. Thank you very much to Kayleigh's parents, Indi and Roger, for letting me stay during the festive season. |
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| I saw Santa Claus on the beach! |
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| New Years fireworks on the beach, here with Pietro. We managed to sneak into the Hilton beach New Years party. |
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| The UWCCR family in Barbados. From left to right: Blake (Barbados), Me, Maia (Barbados), Pietro (Brazil) and Kayleigh (Barbados). Here we were on a catamaran (type of boat) all day. On which you drive around the coast with food and beverages. You also snorkel the corals and shipwrecks and swim with turtles. An incredible experience all round. |
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| Me swimming with a turtle again. |
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| Found a starfish! |
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| I went for an overnight with some friends to Sebas' house in Palmares.We went there because every year there is a large festival on there which we wanted to go to. Here we are being amazing musicians at the festival! |
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| North American week came and as the tradition goes there is always a prom! Here I am with my co-year Zara <3 Although I asked Daniel to be my date (girls ask boys) <3 |
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| We made a Lipdub to the song Wavin' Flag! Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVTR4bo-hr4. Spot me in a UK flag at 1.06 and 4.17! This was also the same day as Guy's (South Africa) birthday so we went out for lovely breakfast and made lemonade from the lemons on campus! |
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| I helped in the logistics team for TEDx UWCCR which was held at Universidad Veritas.. This included many previous meetings getting everything sorted from seats to materials to food. I also had to help out on the day, directing people, checking tickets and helping with workshops. Here is Dilly and I having some fun during a break. Here is the link to the Facebook page where you can find all of the AMAZING talks from many of the students and others, GO WATCH THEM NOW THEY ARE INCREDIBLE! https://www.facebook.com/TEDxUWCCR?fref=ts |
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| My tutor group finally had our 'Conociendo Costa Rica'. For this we went to an eco-farm in Limon. We tasted many different weird and wonderful plants, fruits and vegetables. Including this one leaf that made you overproduce saliva and made your tongue tingle, which was a very funny site. Here is an excited bunch squeezing sugar cane to produce juice. |
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| Here I am attempting to eat a snake held by the farm owner. |
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| Here we collected the cocoa pods, got the seeds then cooked, crushed, sieved and ground them. We all got out own bag of cocao, and with the rest we boiled in milk and vanilla from the pods to make hot chocolate! |
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| Amiya's dad, Joyti, or as I like to call him, Dadiya, came to visit. Thanks to him and his hospitality! Here we are showing him around San Jose. |
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| Bald for a Cause made its return this year with an incredible amount raised. I had the great pleasure of cutting off my crazy roommate, Squier (Charlotte)'s, hair. |
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For my final service week here I went to Hitoy Cerere Biological Reserve in the south of Costa Rica. I helped make paths, move big rocks and repair the grounds. I nice experience was when the 'rockitas' drove down to the river in the back of a truck overlooking the incredible natural view. At the river we collected rocks to help strengthen the roads. We learnt that the land has no monkeys or sloths because the indigenous people that live by the river eat them. How tasty!
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| We also had some downtime which we used to explore the area. This is the beautiful waterfall we hiked up the river too! |
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| Directly after service week I went to Puerto Viejo to Rocking J's. This is a must experience in Costa Rica. You sleep in hammocks, tents or dorms (I recommend the hammocks for the experience) right next to the beach. I got awoken very early by the howler monkeys and enjoyed fireshows at night. Rocking J's is completely covered in incredible mosaic, we even made a UWC one! |
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| After service week was Women's Week! At the end of the week we preformed vagina monologues (a collection of monologues by many different women, originally created by Eve Ensler). Last year I was chosen to perform My Short Skirt, this year my own monologue was chosen. It was nerve racking but relieving and exhilarating to perform something so personal that I had wrote myself. |
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| My residence, Cahuita, went on a outing to the hot springs. It was so relaxing and refreshing in a time of lots of stress. Here is Clara and I fresh from the springs. |
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| On the way to the hot springs we stopped at a strange park. All of the hedges were cut into weird shapes, many animals. Here I am among the weirdness. |
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| Here is my smiling art class because.... we are done with HL Arts!!! This is us at our exhibition. |
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| Me with some of my work. |
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| The poster made my Khaled (Syria) for the exhibition. I am very proud with how much I have developed in art from whimsey sketches to finding my own style. I developed my technique and fell in love with water colour. Also, a big well done to everyone else! |
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| CHICAGO!! We did it! After months of meetings and rehearsals and running around the performance night came. I was the costume, hair and make-up director. I had a great time directing this musical and I am very proud of the outcome and everyone involved. The show was a success and was watched by many both in present and live stream. |
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| And all that jazz... |
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| The sassy seven! Such a talented and funny group of directors to work with. |
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| I went to Life in Colour, a seven hour concert of dj's and soo muchhh paint! Obviously, this is us before we went in, dry and clean. This is a picture of the people who went last year and this year. |
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| SEMANA SANTA! This is holy (Easter) week in Costa Rica and everyone gets a holiday, thankfully including us. I went with a group to Rio Claro Reserve which is situated in the south west of Costa Rica in Osa Peninsula. It is one of the most bio-diverse areas and is filled with beauty. To get there we had to take a 5 hour bus to Palmar Norte from San Jose down the pacific coast. We then got a taxi to Rio Sierpe which is where we got the 1 hour boat ride. Then we walked half an hour to reach our destination. Here is a picture of where we got the boat. My friend Sam McAllister (Ireland), whom I know from the UWC Short Course both Sarah and I attended in Germany in 2012, came to travel around Costa Rica. He came on Semana Santa with us and describes the experience perfectly on his blog: http://sammcallister.com/posts/ , so go ahead and read it!! It was so refreshing hearing him take in the country, as it reminded me on when I first came. |
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| On the boat we sailed along the river staring at the greenery around us. We then battled the waves when we reached the ocean and sailed parallel to the amazing coast line. |
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| So we did not rent a house or hostel, but camped on the beach and used a nearby water supply. This was the view from our overly cramped and sweaty tents. We saw the sunrise and set and adjusted our sleeping patterns to fit. |
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| Me on the beach we camped on! |
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| Rolling down the river with Guy, Joe and Eva. |
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| Going..... going.... |
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| GONE. |
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| We experienced many animals on our travels. Monkeys came in packs to mess with our things and steal our food. Here is a picture I took of a monkey. |
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| Macaws roamed the air, constantly squawking... and kissing! Oh and yes, I got sunburnt!! |
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| Then came the 4th of April, the anniversary of my co-years (Lucas) passing. On the 4th I went into San Jose and had a fun day and met a very spiritual man who told us a lot about the world. At school we had a bonfire, wore white and had a ceremony for Lucas, remembering all the fun memories with him. We also decorated a tree with wind chimes, which we did last year but sadly the tree fell. Here is my wind chime, made from many shells and driftwood collected from the beach. |
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| On Tuesday we had Gender Bender Day! I stayed classy with a Charlie Chaplin-esc look. |
So if you have made it to the end, that is my past few months in brief. I have also finished mock exams and getting grades back currently. Regarding university, I have offers from UK uni's but I have unconditional offer and scholarship to a uni in Spain which is most likely where I will go.Only two more weeks of classes left!!!! In my next few weeks I plan to study and explore as much as possible. I am also staying two weeks after graduation in order to see more of the country and neighboring countries.
Until next time,
Alison :) xxx
