San Jose, Late Night Hair Cuts, and Costarican Malls

So not much happens around here, except fun field trips to downtown San Jose, late nights, and trips to the mall!! Last Friday my Spanish class went to San Jose to practice our Spanish with the Ticos! Apparently it was Costarican National Day of Peace, so there was a lot going on which meant lots of Ticos to help practice Spanish! While we were there my friends, Dallas and Josh, and I talked with an older lady when we were there. She was really nice and helped with our Spanish by asking simple questions and answered our simple questions. One other guy, Luke, lost a bet and had to get his face painted. (The boys 'round here have a real gambling problem, ha!)

 Luke's half cat half Spider-Man face paint job

Starbucks Te de Verde!!!! <3

The Weekends are super busy with ministry, youth group, and church most of the day on Sunday. Mondays are our favorites though because those are our days off! Here we love Mondays and dread Tuesdays. This last Monday consisted of sleeping in, tanning, and a trip to the mall! We were supposed to go to the beach, but this is tropical storm season, so it rained on the coast all day :( SO we ended up not going... BUT going to the mall was quite the trip. My friend Amy and I danced in the middle of the mall, got Starbucks and took fun pictures!

Also, that night one of the most fun things happened. While some of us were talking in one of the rooms, Juan, and something asked Geneva what the odds were of her cutting all her hair off. So that turned into Mary Ellen, Sarah (one of my roommates), and myself getting our hair cut (or for myself just getting bangs) by Savanna. It was quite the adventure that started around midnight and ended around 1:45 in the morning. Basically I didn't go running that next morning. HOWEVER. It was a great bonding time for us girls and I wouldn't have done it any different(:



So this was last weekend, I'll have something up about this weekend that's starting around Wednesday!

Peace and Hearts,
Allysa

Friday Nights

So basically weekends here are pretty crazy, except Friday nights. We are all so excited to be done with classes and boring routine that now it’s time for crazy fun! Except one problem. We are in a foreign country and at this point we don’t have any close friends outside of the house. So the interns try to get soccer fields reserved for us to play, but for those of us who are getting over being sick or are organized sport challenged, it still leaves our night open. So now everyone is just hanging out, with talk of ice cream and chick flicks floating in the air… I found out tonight that someone had the impression (before meeting me and by facebook picture alone) thought I was going to be short. Oh goodness.. I wish! Oh well, I had a good laugh. The staff bought us ice cream and we're sitting down to watch Pride and Prejudice, in English. So I guess I'll close my laptop for now.

Hugs && Kisses,
Allysa

19th Birthday-Second Full Week

We have reached our second week mark! Everything is going well, except lots of sickness. However, everyone's getting along great! We had a Bible Class about Conflict/Resolution so when conflict arises we can *hopefully* deal with it like Christians... Bible Class is going fantastic, it's my favorite. We have a fantastic teacher who is also the pastor at the English church we go to, Guadalupe Gathering Place (GGP). I have three wonderful roommates who were so sweet and helped me be a little less homesick by leaving me sweet notes and cards for my birthday! The two guy interns, Garrett and Ben led all the students in singing Happy Birthday to me. To top it all off, my church youth group gave me a cupcake and sang Happy Birthday to me in Spanish! I felt so super loved and getting to call home and Skype in the morning helped a lot too(: Spanish classes have been pretty fun, lots of review but they speak Spanish a little differently than what they teach in the States. I'm hoping to maybe be able to understand the Tico Church I go to soon. Oh, Ticos are the Costa Ricans, we Americans are the Gringos... But don't call yourself an American around them, they think they are Americans too... Anyway, the fruit here is FANTASTIC! I love the bananas. I think I eat about 5 a day... Speaking of food, I am gonna get so fat here. The cooks here are fantastic! I love the food... Except something has made about half our group sick. I'm hoping it's not a parasite, that would be rather unfortunate. I'm really excited to go to the orphanage this week! I can't wait to get to know the kids and love on them! Last week a guy lost a bet and had to shave his head and last night a guy decided to shave his head except a cross of hair on the top of his head.. Being here is like the Christian version of an MTV show or something. We feel like we have known each other for forever! I love being here and cannot wait to see what else God is gonna do!

Over and Out
Allysa

Days 3-5

Hey everyone! So not much has changed since the last blog, EXCEPT I am in Spanish 2 and my ministry is going to be at the orphanage! I am so super excited to see what God is going to do! We also found out who our church groups are and I am at a church called Camino. Yesterday (Saturday) we had our first youth group gathering. That was a humbling experience and slightly scary, no one in my group (besides our leader Garrett) had a clue as to what was happening. It was super fun though because some people there know about as much English as we know Spanish. Today we went to someone’s house with the rest of the youth group and had pizza! That was a really great way to start learning some Spanish. Friday evening we had the first annual GAP Olympics. My country, Atlantis, won second place. In the relay race I drank some sort of bubblegum flavored Tang concoction… I don’t think I can drink any kind of fruit punch ever again… But it was totally worth it! Saturday we went to the open air market and got so much fresh fruit and veggies!!!
Well, that’s kinda it for now.

Love&Rockets,
Allysa

Flying to Costy/First and Second Days

The flight went really well with a little bit of turbulence, and going through customs wasn’t too hard considering I had two other GAP students on the plane with me!  Making friends is not hard when you all have the same mind set.  I have three awesome roommates, Sarah, Paige, and LeAnn.  The hardest thing about being here is the language barrier!  Yesterday we went to downtown San Jose and the interns showed everyone around the shops and good places to eat.  Being down there was more on the confusing side because of the language barrier.  However, that will soon be changing because Spanish Class starts next week!  Last night we had a time of prayer and music, it’s so wonderful to not just connect with everyone on an emotional or physical level, but on a deep spiritual level.  We went around telling the story of how we heard about the GAP Program and how God got us here.  Apparently I’m not the only one God worked a total miracle to get here.  Some here didn’t even know they were coming until two weeks ago!  Getting to hear everyone’s stories of praise was so exciting and makes me eager to see what other miracles He has up His sleeves for this year!  This is a shorter update because nothing has really happened except orientation and Spanish placement testing.  I’m thinking that when I go home I’ll be a pro at board, card, and other down time games!  Ha, not to worry though, as soon as we get our schedules and assigned ministries we will be busy… At least more busy than right now… ;)