friends are people that believe in you even if youve given up all hope

A couple of days ago I received the following, and its so sweet i have to publish it, instead of having it rotting in my inbox to be forgotten soon:

"Sus viajes son interesantes, y definitivamente en la Universidad vas a estar muy bien y pronto serás la mejor doctora, de eso estoy seguro, difinitivamente el cambio que tienes que hacer es mucho pero te vas a adaptar facilmente, tu energia me lo dice."

summer's end

the countdown to uni, that means work, commitment, getting up early, studying and all that stress is on. 4 more days at home, and Im down with a cold. super, yippie yeay. -.-

but looking back. I have not wasted a second of my off time. Ive been to berlin, and the netherlands, costa rica, paris, bonn and zürich. what a nice travel list. I have met many people, I have learned spanish (which I hope to intensify at uni; they offer language courses, even though my mum wants me to take mandarin). I have my driver's liscence. I went snorkelling, surfing, and swinging through trees. and I have, I hope, the self confidence that I know I can get things done by myself.

but most of all I have gotten IB shit out of my system, starting with my general mental state, to (hopefully not too much) my brain. I have had plenty of time off, and whilst wanting more and more of it, I actually think I am quite ready for new brain food.

aaaaaaah london im coming!!!!

ps.

Jürgen and Me in Paris :) for the sake of having the photo somewhere I wont misplace it ;)

...y los momentos hay que vivirlos hay que vivirlos...

one week to go. one week left till uni. One week left till new life, new friends, new place. new everything. Im worried, Im scared. Costa rica seems so far away-as does india. the two places I now would like to be.

but I have one more week to go. Instead of blogging about Stuttgart 21, the unbelievable sums of money and the complete trashing of one of the few last good buildings in this place to be replaced by some underground ugly with a lot more overground ugly, I am ranting about uni. Instead of wallowing in the sounds of the accordeon player in Zürich, who played organ and orchestra pieces on one instrument, or Xavier Naidoo whom I was lucky enough to experience live, with no more than a microphone and a friend with a guitar in front of maybe 70 people, I am going on about how I will miss everything and everyone- or even better, not blogging at all.

And again this blog entry is accompanied by a song: yo no sé mañana by Luis Enrique. Right, salsa. It means as much as "I dont know tomorrow" and is one of those curious songs, that taken out the sexual subtext connotation goes for pretty much everything in life: on the one hand a perfect description of what I am anticipating in London: I have got no clue whatsoever. On the otherhand a life philosophy I try being a scolar of: whatever happens, happens. So instead of worrying, just do it and enjoy doing it, cuz everything will work out differently to what was expected and everything will work out well in its own way, even if it sucks at the first throught.

but thats what I am doing right now. I am worrying about the unknown ghost. I am scared of nothing and everything, of hating uni or my roommate, of being homesick, of loosing my boyfriend, even though deep inside I know I should stop worrying cuz Ill be way to busy to hate it, and london is so big im bound to find people I like. and Jürgen just rocks so much im sure it will work out even if a 400km distance is existant for an unknown amount of time.

...and the moments, you have to live them, you have to live them...

so what am I fussing about?

The island of the men and milking cows

The last two weeks in CR I spent doing voluntary work. First on the isla tortuga, a very touristy place, at least between 0900 and 1700 when the tourists are there and then in el silcencio, an eco friendly cooperative, where I saw and learned lots about the countryside of costa rica.

Ill put up some pictures:

The Island...a dream

The people I worked with. a total of around 11 people were on the Island. 2 volunteers, a cook, a woman working in the giftshop and a lot of guys. all people from nicaragua and good workers. the only problem: I was hit on 24/7. I'll write up the "names" so I wont forget them: I had cone names in german for talking behing their bck in german with Julia so they wouldnt notice:

left to right: der vati; Noel, der böse; der neue (just came on our last day); Ernesto, der kleine süße; Leister (the only one without a nickname) this guy hit on me sooo much; der Doktor. missing is "der fette" who hit on the other julia.

The last two days I woke up at 4:30 to go cow milking. work started at 5 am, just after the sun rose. fresh milk does taste really good though, and the experience was worth it...the experience of watching pigs being slaughtered is rather questionable though...

Tico encounters

Randall is a spanish teacher at the school I was at in San José. He tought two swiss friends of mine. Hence I knew how he looked like and who he was. The last night at school for Muriel and Nina, we, the group of girls, went to Castro's, a disco, as every thursday night. Randall, Giovanni (another teacher) and Kevin, a guy from near Frankfurt were there as well. we met them, talked, had a drink together, danced.

During the next week I would spend half my breaks chatting to Randall. the practical aspect was that he was tico-I had to speak spanish and thus improve it. The other aspect was that he is simply an interresting, and really nice guy. Friday afternoon at 3pm I then decided I would go to montezuma with him and the Chaosfuhre Kevin for the weekend. An amazing weekend, with alcohol and smoking (not for me though), big waves of the pacific, hermit crabs, a beautiful sunset and thunderstorm watching on the beach.

Randall and Kevin

In the busstation I parted to Paquera, Randall to San José and Kevin stayed in Montezuma another day. I received a telephone card with his number. His snake necklace as I am studying medicine and the snake was the greek symbol for it, and the promise that Id either stay at his place the last day, or that wed go have breakfast together my last morning.

The phone card saved so much trouble, the snake necklace is one of the best cures against feeling bad, and the phone number was used to organise my last day. a 3 hour maze through his barrio: vargas araya followed by cooking spaghetti and later pancakes (the german version hehe), talking, playing around on musical instruments, talking more, teaching each other our respective mothertounges and late at night the cartoon "spirited away". a wonderful way to end my 6 week endeavour to Costa Rica.

Randall has all the potential to become a really close friend. He is really interresting, amazingly nice, and cool in his own way, and in ways you would never expect. I really miss hanging out with him, and often form spanish phrases in my head of how I could explain my german life in costa rican terms. But I am quite sure I will return someday not allto far away in the future, I still need to visit nicaragua after all. We parted with the words "hasta luego"...see you later.