Thankful :)

The holidays are here...and once again it leaves me with a bittersweet feeling. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I love waking up in the morning to the smell of the turkey baking in the oven. I love the crisp smell of fall, and the color of the leaves as they drift to the ground. My favorite part of course is getting together with my family. I loved how we used to make cds and soundtracks just for Thanksgiving dinner. We used to stuff our faces with shrimp (I always beat everyone...somehow I always ate more than everyone else) and then go up to my room or my brothers room and talk about everything and anything. We used to play ridiculous games and sometimes end up getting into a fight, but we would always manage to bring it together for dinner. I will never lose my memories of walking into a chaotic kitchen with food all over the counter and my dog pacing around waiting for a drop to fall on the floor. I could still hear my grandmother's loud voice, trying to help my mom, but she would always say "I'm fine". The sweetest part of all was the pumpkin pie, and homemade whipped cream by me and Alex. Then, to follow the tradition, Alex and I would go for a walk to burn off the bloated feeling of eating way too much at once. This year is quite different, as the last 3 years have been. I am still not used to the holidays here. I miss my family very much, and I wish there was a way that we could all be together again, just like it used to be, though I know it is not likely. I am trying my best to keep my head up, and learn to keep my memories, but also make new ones worth remembering many years down the road.
I am so thankful for everything and everyone in my life. I don't feel regret or have angry feelings toward the things and people that I used to. I am in a wonderful state of mind now, and I cannot ask for anything more. I wouldn't be where I am now if the events throughout my life were different, even by a little bit. I wouldn't change a thing. I am thankful for my parents always being by my side no matter what. They support me and most of my crazy dicisions, even the ones that I don't expect them to support. I am grateful to have a strong bond with my mother and my father. I have a unique relationship with each of them, and I wouldn't change it. I am thankful for all of my family, too. Everyone else is so far away, but it has made me realize how much more I love them. I am thankful for all of my memories that I can hold on to. I am thankful for my wonderful friends. I have met so many amazing people since moving to California, and it has really helped me grow and learn. Without their support, I would not have been able to thrive. I am thankful for my friends back East, and that they have remained in my life, even though the distance between us has changed. I am especially thankful for the handful of friends that know exactly where I am at this point in my life; it is nice to know that I am not alone. I am also thankful for what is to come. I have so many things to look forward to. This journey is just the beginning. There will be so much more, so many memories to create, so many things to laugh about, and so many more people to be a part of my life. So to sum all of this up, I guess I can say I am thankful for my past, my present, and my future. I feel like every year just gets better. The best has yet to come <3

The Power of Being Alone

I have come to realize that I am finally not afraid to just be with myself. I have spent a great deal of time by myself, but the difference now is that I am not by myself, I am with myself. It feels empowering and invigorating. I am not afraid of what is, and what will be. I am slowly coming to terms with all of the emotions that run through my body and mind, and one by one, I will eventually accept each one, and then let go. I feel this strong positive energy radiating through my body, and I want to share it with the world. It is like I have finally reached the summit of a mountain, after years of climbing and struggling. I am here, now, and I am embracing it. This is my life, and I love it.

"Yogic sages say that all the pain of a human life is caused by words, as is all the joy. We create words to define our experience and those words bring attendant emotions that jerk us around like dogs on a leash. We get seduced by our own mantras and we become monuments to them. To stop talking for a while, then, is to attempt to strip away the power of words, to stop choking ourselves with words, to liberate ourselves from our suffocating mantras."

- Elizabeth Gilbert

"It requires enormous intelligence to be alone, and you must be alone to find truth. It is nice to have a companion, a husband or a wife, and also to have babies; but you see, we get lost in all that, we get lost in the family, in the job, in the dull, monotonous routine of a decaying existence. We get used to it, and then the thought of living alone becomes dreadful, something to be afraid of. Most of us have put all our faith in one thing, all our eggs in one basket, and our lives have no richness apart from our companions, apart from our families and our jobs. But if there is richness in one's life - not the richness of money or knowledge, which anyone can acquire, but that richness which is the movement of reality with no beginning and no ending - then companionship becomes a secondary matter."

- Krishnamurti



The world is mine to embrace, to love, and to explore. This is my life, and I love it.

Broken Hearts

"And love is always complicated. But still humans must try to love each other, darling. We must get our hearts broken sometimes. This is a good sign, having a broken heart. It means we have tried for something."

-Eat Pray Love <3

Opportunity

"When we were in our youth, we had dreams that we could fly, we had friends that weren't visible, and love that never died. And as we grow old, and felt the pain that we always knew the truth, that love would heal, if we stayed true to the dreams of our youth" - Neon Trees

I never thought that I would come face to face with a crazy childhood dream again...until now. It's like a fairytale, but it's actually my reality. This evening I was reminded of one of my biggest dreams as a child, and I realized that I am indeed very close to actually making this dream come true. I actually almost completely gave up on this dream, and certainly forgot about it for quite some time. I had assumed, like the the majority of other people, that it was just a silly dream made by a naive little girl, and although nice to think about, could never actually happen. Well, believe it or not, it is actually happening to me, and I am embracing it. This is it. This is really it. There is no way in the world that I can ignore this. Everything around me-my friends, strangers, little coincidences- everything is telling me to go for it. I have waited for this dream for the majority of my life, and it is the perfect time to jump in with open arms, mind and heart. I am ready for this new chapter in my life. In fact, I have never been more ready. This is it.

KARMA

"The karmic philosophy appeals to me on a metaphorical level because even in one lifetime it's obvious how often we must repeat our same mistakes, banging our heads against the same old addictions and complusions, generating the same old miserable and often catastrophic consequences, until we can finally stop and fix it. This is the supreme lesson of karma (and also of Western psychology, by the way) - take care of the problems now, or else you'll just have to suffer again later when you screw everything up the next time. And that repetition of suffering - that's hell. Moving out of that endless repetition to a new level of understanding - there's where you'll find heaven."

The universe is a circle.

Eat, Pray, Love

What is the meaning of it all?

I've been doing some thinking about what some people say about me and my choices.

Within a little over a month, I have really recognized so much about myself and the people around me. Some of these people have really helped me through so much, while others have brought me down a little. I am so thankful for everyone though, because I am finally able to LOVE who I have become. Sometimes it is difficult because I don't exactly conform to society here, and I feel like an outcast. Actually, I have always felt that way. I am starting to realize that so many people just assume that the right choices in life are the ones that others think are right for us, the ones that society says is right. I get the idea behind it, you really can't get too far without a certain number of things (money, an education, etc.) but I just wonder why more people don't ever stop to consider if they are actually happy or not. Many people I know are "satisfied" with themselves and their lives, but I am not too sure if they are happy. I am pleased to say that I am genuinely happy. Of course I have my "down" days occasionally, but I am human. I am able to attach and detach myself in order to maintain a constant state of bliss. When I am sad or mad, I can acknowledge those emotions, care for them, and then move on. I do not let it effect my overall state of mind. I also choose to never be satisfied. I am happy, but never satisfied. I choose to be that way. I look at it as I want the most out of my life, and I will always try to challenge myself and others around me. In a biological perspective, humans have the ability to think logically, rationally, and morally. We have the ability to understand that death is our ultimate destiny, and that we have the power to manipulate our own lives. With this in mind, why the hell do so many of us just put ourselves on auto-pilot and just go through the motions? Why not give meaning to life? As my Mythology teacher said over and over again, "We are meaning-making animals". I have been on a search for a while now for this "meaning". I have studied so many different things, declaring and undeclaring majors, always changing my mind. I was looking for something to give me that meaning. I tried interior design, architecture, art, kinesiology, early childhood development, psychology, and more. All of these things are interesting to me. I still have a long list of things that I want to study. I still want to get into photography, I want to study Spanish more, I want to study wildlife, and I want to continue to grow on a spiritual level. I would love to learn about all of the different cultures out there, and indulge myself in new challenges. The route to a bachelor's degree doesn't exactly allow for all of these things. Sure there are "general ed" classes, but that is not what I want. I want to actually learn. I go to my classes every week and observe the people around me, and I wonder how many of them are actually there to learn. The majority of people out there are okay with just getting by, just enough to get a good grade. Well, I want more. I am not satisfied with just a grade. I want to learn. I am finding that I am actually learning more out of life experiences than anything, and to me, that is way more valuable than some piece of paper saying that I have completed 120 college units. I am young and have so much passion for life, and I want to take advantage of that. I have the rest of my life to figure out "a career". I know right now that I just want to live pure life. I don't want to just go through the motions. I want to love the people around me, love myself, and love what the earth has given us. I will cherish each day and each moment. That is what gives me meaning - compassion and awareness.

A State of Constant Bliss

"..the turiya state - the elusive fourth level of human consciousness. During the typical human experience, say the Yogis, most of us are always moving between three different levels of consciousness-waking, dreaming or deep dreamless sleep. But there is a fourth level, too. This fourth level is the witness of all the other states, the integral awareness that links the other three levels together. This is the pure consciousness, an intelligent awareness that can-for example- report your dreams back to you in the morning when you wake up. You were gone, you were sleeping, but somebody was watching over your dreams while you slept-who was that witness? And who is the one who is always standing outside the mind's activity, observing its thoughts?

...Here's how you can tell if you've reached the turiya state - if you're in a state of constant bliss. One who is living from within turiya is not affected by the swinging moods of the mind, nor fearful of time or harmed by loss. 'Pure, clean, void, tranquil, breathless, selfless, endless, undecaying, steadfast, eternal, unborn, independent, he abides in his own greatness' say the Upanishads, the ancient Yogic scriptures.."

- Eat, Pray, Love

We are what we choose to be

To anyone out there reading this....

"change and growth take place when a person has risked him or herself and dares to become involved with experimenting with his or her own life."

We only have one shot at this life. Live it up, regret nothing, and cherish everything.

.love.

Dominical y Costa del Pacifico

After Monteverde, we headed south to Quepos, a local town near the oh-so-touristy Manuel Antonio National Park. We spent some time along the beach, where we were told to watch our bags, theft was a big thing there. I was glad that I decided to cut out Manuel Antonio from the agenda at the last minute. The beach was beautiful though. We had about 3 hours to kill before our shuttle to Dominical, so we explored and got some cocktails.

Our aerial view of Manuel Antonio National Park



Our plane, even smaller than the first two planes!



The beach!



And of course, our delicious cocktails! Mine was called Monkey on the Beach. It was SO strong. The rum in Costa Rica is strooong haha



After our drinks, we got on the shuttle for a quick 45 minute drive to Dominical. We were pleasantly surprised by our hotel, the Roca Verde. I swear I would go back there just for the food! They had the BEST restaurant. Anyway, the next morning, we got up early for our tour to Nauyaca Falls. We waited for a while, and kept waiting, but they didn't show up to pick us up, so we got the owner of the hotel to drive us :) When we arrived, we were given our horses, and mine was named Teletubby. There were a good amount of people on the tour, so there were also a lot of horses. The horses seemed to be competitive with each other, always bumping into one another and trying to squeeze through other horses to get to the front. They would also just randomly start running, which I HATED!! I didn't mind the horseback riding until they started to run. My ass was sore for about 3 days after haha. We stopped at Don Lulo's house for breakfast, he was the owner of the tour. After breakfast, we only had a short ride to the falls, which I was thankful for. When we arrived, my breath was literally taken away. I cannot even describe this place well enough. By far, the most beautiful place I have ever seen so far. The falls were tiered, and they went up even further than what is pictured. I was too afraid to take my camera out on to the rocks to get a better picture, because the current was way too strong.

Here is the best that I could get :)



In the middle of the picture you will see the two ledges between the two large falls. The upper ledge was the one that we jumped off of! This was an experience that I would never forget. It was scary trying to climb up, because the water was pushing us down and we couldn't see a thing. Good thing there were guides to help us up.

My horse, Teletubby. I was not too thrilled with his urge to bump into other horse, my knees was so bruised afterward!



After jumping off of the ledge and swimming for a while, we got on our horses again and headed back to Don's for some yummy lunch. Once we returned back to the starting point, we were waiting for our ride and a woman who worked with the tour started to talk to me, in Spanish. The whole trip I tried so hard to use as much Spanish as I could, because I pretty much took my Spanish class just to use it in Costa Rica :) I was always nervous to use it around the locals, but I got by. This woman, however, only spoke a little bit of English, and she decided to test my Spanish. She spoke to me slowly, and asked me some simple questions, all of which I replied to, in Spanish! I was shocked at how much I understood and how much I could actually reply to. The woman told me (in Spanish) that my pronunciation was really good, and she was surprised that I had only studied it for 5 months in college. After our delightful conversation, I felt so good. I just had a leisure conversation with a local, in Spanish!!!! I was one step closer to my goal of becoming fluent. YEAHH!!! :)

We spent the rest of the day at the beach right by the hotel, and we played with the hundreds of hermit crabs that were there. We got lunch and dinner at the hotel, and like I mentioned before, the food was SO goooood! I also got the chance to play with the most adorable kitten that belonged to the family that owned the hotel. So cute!!

Look at her face!



We also tried to touch one of the hundreds of Geckos that were all over the walls of the hotel, but we were not successful haha.

The next day, we had a scheduled tour with Southern Expeditions to go to Cano Island and snorkel. I was SO excited for this, as I had never been snorkeling. The guides picked us up early, and told us that we were stopping for breakfast on the way, so everything seemed fine. Two minutes later, the guide says that he has bad news...our trip had to be canceled because the weather was too bad and it would be too dangerous to be in the water. My heart was crushed! This was the only point of the trip that was flawed. Everything had gone so smoothly, except for this. It took me the rest of the morning to absorb the bad news, and then we tried to make the best of it by going to the Hacienda Baru Wildlife Refuge and search for sloths. It started to pour, and we didn't even see one sloth! Everyone kept saying that sloths were everywhere around Dominical, and you basically just had to look up, and you would see one. Well, we didn't see anything! Besides that, we had a good hike in the pouring rain, even though we didn't see anything. We headed back to the hotel for dinner, which was my favorite part of the day haha. I had the BEST Mahi Mahi, I mean, the BEST.

Overall, Domincal was beautiful, and I would like to go back to Nauyaca Falls.

Inspired

"People universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you are fortunate enough. But that's not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it..."

Oh Elizabeth Gilbert, how I have fallen in love with your writing.

Quotes

Here are a few quotes about traveling that I enjoyed reading, maybe you will too.

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime." - Mark Twain



"To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted.” - Bill Bryson



“Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quiestest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey.” - Pat Conroy



and this one is perhaps my favorite.

“Adventure is a path. Real adventure – self-determined, self-motivated, often risky – forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind – and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black-and-white.” - Mark Jenkins

Tortuguero and Monteverde

Day 3, Tortuguero

We started the day early - a boat tour at 6 AM with Daryl Loth through Tortuguero National Park. (If you go to Tortuguero, definitely take a tour with him, so worth $20!!) Within a short period of 2 or so hours, we saw so many critters, but the highlight without a doubt was seeing a HARPY EAGLE. Many of the bird enthusiasts out there would know just how much of a treat it was to see this raptor. I couldn't even believe it.



Aside from that, we saw many other animals including Capuchin Monkeys, Spider Monkeys, a River Otter, baby Spectacled Caiman, Morpho Butterfly, Bare-throated Tiger Heron, Amazon Kingfisher, Parrots, a few other herons, a bunch of birds that I don't remember, and more.



Green Iguana, catching some rays high in the trees



Afterwards, we hung out around town and talked with Daryl about the Harpy Eagle. We ate dinner at the Buddha Cafe, with a beautiful view of the canals.

Our delicious pizzas at the Buddha Cafe in Tortuguero, accompanied by Sangria and Corona. Yumm!



We spent our evening going on a turtle tour, where we watched a Green Turtle dig a hole, lay her eggs, cover them up, and then return back to the ocean. We were not allowed to take photos because it would disturb the turtles. The turtles were SO much larger than I was expecting, and they weren't even the largest out there. It was an incredible experience watching one lay eggs. (About 100 eggs!!) The whole process took about an hour or so. We also got to see the most amazing view of the night sky while we were waiting for the turtles. It was so surreal.

Day 4: Headed to Monteverde

We took an early morning flight back to San Jose, and then jumped on the shuttle for a 4 hour adventure to Monteverde. The roads were horrid, probably the worst in the country. I guess it is better this way, to keep more people away :) On our way, we saw an IGUANA on the freeway!! (or whatever they call the main roads there) We pulled over and tried to steer it away from the road, but it panicked and ran, so we couldn't catch up to it. When we finally arrived at our hotel, Pension Monteverde Inn, we decided to stay in since it was POURING. After a few rounds of 13 and a long nap, we were starving, and it was still pouring, so, we headed out with our raincoats. This was an experience...we had to search for the Mercado..and this was not easy because everyone we asked gave us directions en espanol.



Enjoying our peanut butter sandwiches after a long walk in the pouring rain.


Day 5: Hanging Bridges

We had a full day to spend adventuring, and it was raining, again. We decided to tough it out and go on a tour in the Santa Elena Reserve. We walked across 8 hanging bridges in the forest, and saw a lot of strange bugs and a few birds. Overall, it was quite touristy, but we made the best of it and had a good time.






After our walk in the forest, we returned to our hotel and went on another hike, a trail that was right on the hotel premises, called the Hidden Valley Trail.

A Strangler Fig Tree, one of my favorite things in Costa Rica. So cool.



Later the same evening, we went on a third hike, but this time, with a guide. This was definitely one of the funnest hikes of the trip, our guide was very knowledgeable and we learned a lot of random fun facts. We saw the biggest ant hill (that I have ever seen, anyway) that was 10 YEARS OLD!!! It was SO big, it was hard to fathom the concept of it being made by ANTS. (Seriously, it was easily the size of a small bedroom.) Specifically, it was made and run by Leaf Cutter Ants. The workers live only for a short few weeks, while the queen can live up to 20 years or so. Crazy. Besides that, we saw a Porcupine!! It was sleeping in the Strangler Fig tree that I have pictured above, but we saw it later on at night. We saw some Wolf Spiders, Banana Plants, tons of moths, sleeping butterflies, stick bugs, grasshoppers, and so much more. To top it off, on the way back, we spotted a beautiful Blue-crowned Mot Mot, sleeping soundly, undisturbed by the many photos I took of it. Spectacular. Very high on my list of things to see in Costa Rica :)



Day 6: Zip Lining and an attempted Bird Tour

We headed out with the Original Canopy Tour for a morning of zip lining. We started our tour off with the Tarzan Swing, which is exactly what it sounds like. You climb to the top of a platform, hook your harness up to a rope, and step off! I was the first one to go, of course. (why am I always the guinea pig??!!) Needless to say, it took our fear of zip lining away! It was SO fun. Next, we began the zip lining. We were with another couple from the States, and we had two guides, one holding our cameras. He was the 'paparazzi'. I actually did not get any pictures because my camera was too big to bring, but Scott has some awesome pictures and a video of one of the zip lines. The highlight of this tour, for me, was definitely when we rappelled from a platform to the ground (from the forest canopy) and then climbed inside of a Strangler Fig tree (they are hollow inside). We climbed half way to the top inside the tree and then the rest of the way on a little wooden/rope ladder. (I was a little nervous!!!!) When we finally reached the top of the tree, we looked over and saw the elusive Resplendent Quetzal, just hanging out in the canopy. It was a female, and although the male was higher on my list of things to see, I was THRILLED to see one at all! Our luck was incredible, and seemed to just get better as the trip went on!

When we returned to our hotel, we booked a bird tour at the Monteverde Biological Cloud Forest Reserve, in hopes of seeing the male Quetzal. It ended up POURING, again, but we had a lot of fun anyway, and made friends with our awesome guide, Esteban. We did not see many birds at all due to the heavy rain, but we did see a Viper!! It was a really fun tour even though it was raining so hard. (We were used to it at that point haha)

Our stay at the Monteverde Inn was great. The receptionist, Anthony, was VERY helpful, and we were so grateful. We would definitely stay there again.

Happiness and Suffering

"In our real lives, we are constantly hopping around to adjust ourselves around discomfort - physical, emotional, and psychological - in order to evade the reality of grief and nuisance...grief and nuisance are inevitable in this life, but if you can plant yourself in stillness long enough, you will, in time, experience the truth that everything (both uncomfortable and lovely) does eventually pass" - Elizabeth Gilbert


Nothing is permanent.

The Experience of a Lifetime

I pretty much spent the majority of my down time this summer planning for the trip that I had anticipated for so long. I wanted everything to be perfect (no surprise if you know me well) and I wanted to get the most out of my time in Costa Rica. So I looked at all of my options, and decided to plan everything independently. It worked out better than I expected. Actually, it was just about flawless :)

Day 1: We arrived in San Jose, Costa Rica at around 1PM. Customs and Immigration were a breeze, and getting to our hotel was even easier. We spent pretty much the rest of the day recovering from the exhausting two red-eye flights.
Day 2: Early morning flight out of Pavas to Tortuguero via Nature Air. These little planes are so much fun!



What an amazing view of an active volcano!



When we arrived in Tortuguero after a 25 minute plane ride, we were greeted by our water taxi driver. Water taxis are the main source of transportation there besides foot :)



Once we arrived in town, we got a delicious breakfast at the Casa Marbella, where we would be staying the following night. We straightened out our tours for the next day, got to hang out with an awesome cat, and walked around for a while until our room at the Rana Roja was ready. We were delighted when we reached the hotel grounds, a very good choice :) We also got to kayak (for free!) in the canals.



Within a few short hours, we spotted some fancy critters such as the Chestnut Mandibled Toucan, Spectacled Caiman, and Collared Aracari just to name a few.

I even got to touch this cutie when it flew into the restaurant because of a bad eye.



All in all our first actual day in Costa Rica went wonderfully smooth. We had no problems and I would definitely go back to the Rana Roja.

Pura Vida

My Dream

Pura Vida is the saying all throughout Costa Rica, and it is no mystery why. It is a country of Pure Life.

I had dreams to go to Costa Rica for about 5 years. I don't know why, but my heart told me to go. So after some intense planning and convincing, Scott decided to come with me. It turned out to blow my expectations away.

Upon returning, I have done so much contemplating. Am I really living pure life? Do I do the things I want to do, or the things others expect me to do? Lately, I've been feeling the latter. Society (in the US at least) puts an unbelievable amount of pressure on people to go to school and graduate with at least a Bachelor's degree and then spend the remainder of their lives making money. Well, I am on my way to my Bachelor's degree and I have a full time job, but I don't feel like it's pure life. I feel like it's pressured life! I have too many interests to figure out one thing to do. I love what I am studying, but I always get side tracked and want to study other things at the same time. Recently, I have become fascinated with photography and languages. So, I will propose a goal -
I will push my self to become fluent in another language. FLUENT. I want to be able to have a conversation and express all of my thoughts in another language without having to use a translator or dictionary. This language will be Spanish, because I already took one college class, and I have a large interest in Spanish-speaking countries. Why not?

On to the next thing: Back up plan.

I will be applying to San Jose State University this fall, attempting to get in for Fall 2011. If I do get in, I will buckle down and put my studies first. If I don't get in, I will travel. I will make plans to get out of the country for at least 1 year. Why the hell not? What should be stopping me from living pure life? I will make plans to quit my job and try to work in another country (ies?).

Yeah, this sounds pretty good to me.