Nirvana Semana!

Semana = "week" in Spanish. Nirvana = "the perfect peace of the mind." Nirvana Semana = GLORIOUS.

For our week-long midterm break, fourteen of us rented a beach house on Playa Flamingo on the Pacific coast. Including an adjoining apartment, our house sleeps 18 and has a nice kitchen, TV, big boom box, hammocks, beautiful porch, pool, etc. A flight of stairs leads down to the beach, which is mostly deserted because it's the off-season. Other than dealing with scheduling classes for next semester and registration, we spent the week chilling on the beach, going deep-sea fishing and snorkeling, kayaking, swimming in the pool, playing the guitar, watching movies, and generally enjoying ourselves to the max. Most of us bought food on a group basis and we cooked a delicious dinner in-house every single night. The sunsets over the beach were absolutely gorgeous, and one night we cooked hot dogs and roasted marshmallows out on the beach. Tomorrow, we'll take the return 6-hour bus ride back to San Jose, and on Monday morning we're off to Monteverde and then Nicaragua. We won't have internet at either site, so I'll be out of touch until about November 17. ¡Hasta luego!

^Kiva, Tim, Whitney, and a random dog watching the sun set on the beach.

^On our second-to-last night, we were visited by an unusually bold anteater.

^In honor of Halloween, Courtney carved a watermelon. Fabulous.

^Deep-sea fishing! Unfortunately, Whitney caught the only fish of the entire day.

^View of the sunset from our porch.

^Billy decided to catch a giant iguana we found. He's probably going to have scars from its claws... no, seriously.

^Campfire on the beach! Tim is for some reason eating ketchup in this picture...

^Our house, Villa Martita. Wonderful :)