More about surfing....

Surfing was seriously my favorite part of this trip. One of our classes got cancelled, but later they let us go out by ourselves. There was once I really got beat up by a wave, and was a little scared but it was okay. I had to learn which areas were rocky and which ones were really good. 

Right at sunset, Kris and I were both surfing and I asked her if she was about ready to go inside. 

She was like, "One more wave?" 

"Sure!"

So we waited for the next good wave and both jumped on and rode it awesome. It was such a sweet way to end the day. 

The last day, I did really good with my instructor and then stayed by myself for about 15 minutes. I just couldn't believe this was all over. And in the next 5 minutes I rode all 3 waves I tried to surf and I was like, "I'M A SURFER!!!!" Just an amazing feeling. So so cool. 

So. Our instructors told us that it wasn't safe to bring our cameras and that they would get stolen so we left them at the hotel. But they promised us there would be pictures (and I thought they said video) of us. There are only like 4 pictures of me, which was really irritating to me when I realized it. But then I told myself- it's the experience. And well, there's always California :-) 

But here's the few. 

 Oh, and this is me and my new friend Ali petting a javelina. Who thinks she's a dog. Her name is Philamina.

Ali is vegan. We made a lot of trips to the grocery store for chocolate runs . Like cocoa coconut cookies. 

My surf shop

Hasta Luego, Costa Rica. (Chillin' at the airport. Writin' all this down. )

Danny's Abs

You're welcome. This is one of the instructors putting the surfboards on the top of the van. We all agreed this was one of the highlights of our trip.

Oh, and there was also this beautiful thing called the ocean. And amazing food. So here's some great pictures of that.

I went exploring here by myself and found a lot of little crabs. 

Let's see, I also had 2 massages, one of which I walked to 25 minutes in the muddy rain, but I still managed to fall asleep listening to the rain, so it was more than worth it. My massage therapist was so cool and we practiced speaking back and forth in each other's languages. She's also 33 so that was fun. And we had one other yoga class by a girl from Argentina who was just awesome and told us to "make 10 breathings" and I loved that (it was at a different studio- not as pretty but still outside and awesome.) And we went clubbing once. And well, that was clubbing in Costa Rica.

Massage View

Adjireal (?)

The muddy road I got to know all too well. 

Black Eye

My second day of surfing my surfboard busted my face. As in, it hit my eye and I got the sweetest black eye ever. There are actually more pictures of my black eye than any other thing on this trip. But it was cool. And everyone else had to monitor it, too. (The first day, my roommate Katie got busted in the chin and got 8 stitches. But they were little and easy to miss. So we mostly all talked about my eye.:-) )

Best Yoga Ever & Learning to Surf

Our second day, we started our day with yoga at Pranamar. If I can ever afford it, that's where I'll be staying next time. For now, I'll settle with the most amazing yoga of my life. You can't really see it (the sun is too bright), but the ocean was right in front of us. I felt so zenned out when we were done. Like I finally was able to leave life behind and just BE there. ahhh....

Pranamar

After lunch, we had our first surfing lesson. I didn't think I'd be nervous at all, but I totally was! My instructor's name was Esther and she is adorable. She's from Liverpool and has the absolute best accent ever. As in, "Christin, that pop-up was amaaaaaaaaazing. It's like the fastest pop-up I've ever seeeeen." I could have listened to her talk all day. Just like it was almost every day, the ocean was a little choppy due to a "swell." But I still got up pretty easily and rode one wave really good. They were such little waves all week long- I was kind of like, "Shouldn't I be riding something bigger than this?" But I tend to think I'm pretty tough, even when I don't know what I'm doing. 

The next day was Ziplining, which was just fun because so many girls were scared, but overcame it anyways. (I'm still waiting on the pictures of this.)

My friend Kris, me, and Mel (my roommate- the craziest girl ever!)

Looking closely at my face in this picture can provide hours of entertainment...

At the end of our ziplining was a waterfall jump, which was kind of the same thing. The water wasn't like "oh my gosh" amazing, but it was warm and just so fun. I met a girl named Kris who is a vet in Sedona. We became friends fast- she's just so cool. She wasn't technically with our group but was staying at the same hotel. Oh! Our hotel. It was called The Funky Monkey. It had 75 stairs going up to my room. And I loved it. It was hot. It was crazy humid. But so cool.

Bathroom- Some day I will pick a country with hot water I swear. 

Roommates

Stairs to the Room 

My room!

Costa Rica

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 So May 19th I went to Costa Rica. Such a very cool experience. It was with a group called "Chica Surf Adventures" which is just a group of girls getting together to learn how to surf and do yoga. It was amazing. I didn't know any of these girls beforehand, but met most of them in a 5 hour layover at the little airport.
Most of the girls were medical. There was a pharmacist, 2 surgeons, a dietician, 3 nurses, a sign language interpreter, a sushi chef from Manhattan, 2 coast guard girls, and 2 waitresses and a bartender.
I met a really nice guy at the airport who watched my stuff while I slept, which made life better.
After we arrived, I ordered the best fish sandwich of my life. Like they ground the fish and grated the carrots and cucumbers for some tartar sauce right in front of me. Amazing. We mostly just hung our the first day. And got our schedule. Which looked like this.

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Girlfriend Got Herself a Truck!

A few weeks before I went to Costa Rica, I started to have a bad feeling about the Altima. It was a little bit more shaky. It idled just a little bit lower. I had a feeling that one day it would just be barely idling at a stoplight, and then, well, stop idling. I told Bridget this one day. A week later that's exactly what happened. I had just bought a new battery and got a new tire. But I am so grateful I was blessed enough to make it 40 of my 50 miles to work, all freeway, before, 1/2 mile from an auto repair shop, it died. They said it was probably the oil pan. They said that was about $1000 repair total. In essence, they said, girlfriend 220,000 miles is enough. Say good-bye to your Altima. I went to work, a little stressed out. I called Jonmark- and he was nice enough to come help me car shop after work. 

The request was a little bit unexpected....he usually dresses up better than this.. :-)

And I was looking a little tired. 

The Accord I almost went home with .....

I almost bought an Accord. I tried and tried to be excited about buying such a pretty car that drove so well and I was just bored. Bored and not excited. I tried to be. These nice guys helped me for like 3 hours. We even had dinner at Chipotle.


But I couldn't do it. Jonmark drove me home. Then he drove me to work the next day and hung out with his sister while I was at work. Then I asked him to just drive me by the Toyota dealership. I had a feeling. That's where I saw this truck. It's a 2012. It had 19,000 miles on it. It makes me smile constantly, and I feel like I have adventures just waiting to happen. The stickers are gone. And the little bitty seats in the back have car seat adapters just in case one of these days :-)
It's even better when you play Zac Brown Band in it.