Midway Point Update

Hello Loyal Blog Fans!!!!

I promised updates before I realized how quaint and antequated Costa Rica really is! I have been having issues since day 1 with the internet and phone availabilities here. I am at a computer lab in the museum where we perform our opera, and even here the internet is cutting in and out. Such a pain! But definitely a lesson in what I take for granted at the same time!

Costa Rica is a very beautiful country. The people are warm and friendly and wonderful. But I hate it here and am miserable anyway! Isn´t that terrible? Well, we are staying in a very ugly, depressing city. Every building in San Jose is concrete with metal bars covering the windows, large metal gates surrounding the buildings, and barbed wire coils across the top for good measure. The roads are dirty and in very poor condition, and the city is very unsafe. One of our first evenings out we witnessed a 2 men in masks pull over a car, hold pistols with silencers up to the passengers` heads, and steal their car. The owners of the restaurant where we were when we saw this kept trying to keep us calm because witnesses to crimes often find themselves way more involved here than they would wish for. I know carjacking happens a lot in US cities as well, but we usually don´t see it or the signs of it in our little bubbles, and having to go home after that incident through the ever-present caged streets of San Jose really effected me. I can´t wait to leave this city behind me.

San Jose has been pretty exciting, though. I sprained my ankle on the opening night of our opera and had to go to the hospital for x-rays after the show. It was a very nice hospital, and I was very fortunate to be seen by an ankle-knee specialist who was trained in Canada (so he spoke excellent English.) I speak a few words of Spanish now, but am mostly getting by on tons of sign language and a little bit of Italian! Another singer here, our Pamina, also spent an evening in the ER, due to an allergic reaction to an anti-biotic she got at a pharmacy here. I think we are all pretty stressed out and there seems to be quite a bit of illness going around our little group of 11 singers.

But we have also had some fun excursions. We've been to 1 beach for a day trip, and will go to another for 3 days this coming weekend. We went on a guided tour and got to eat breakfast at a coffee plantation, see a volcano (I had just hurt my ankle the day before so I didn´t get to see the actual crater, but it was beautiful), see a couple very impressive waterfalls, the rainforest and cloud forest, as well as go on a jungle cruise. That was my favorite part. We rode a boat that looked just like the ones in Disneyland down a river, where we saw some iguanas, some lizards that walk on the water, some howling monkeys that actually howled at us, a 3-toed sloth, a gigantic crocodile, and some very beautiful birds- all 100% real!!! Very cool.

The opera is going pretty well despite illnesses and accidents. We have 2 more shows here in San Jose, and I only get to sing 1 more time as the 1st lady. I lost one of my performances of the Queen of the Night when Julie got sick and had to go to the ER. But I don´t mind too much since I get to sing it again in Mazatlan and Austin.

We have 16 days left, and the final 7 of those in Mexico. I am hoping I will enjoy that country more. I really enjoy traveling, and really enjoy beautiful places like the rainforest and cloud forests, and the beaches here are gorgeous, so I can´t fully explain why I am so depressed here. It is a very poor country, and that has a lot to do with it I suspect, but not all. I will try and see if I can verbalize it more in my next post.