#5 with a little clarification for #4

Ok, so first things first: the guy at the bus stop was not a creepy guy trying to pick us up. I've been told that I worded it horribly, so I'm sorry. But here's the deal. We (being us three girls) were waiting at the bus stop with like ten women, five other students, and this one other guy. He only asked us what we were doing in Costa Rica because obviously, we're foreigners, and then he asked us if we knew when the last bus had been there. That was it, the first time. Then, we saw him and initiated the conversation. And by conversation, I should actually say it was like two sentences about how he was born in California but didn't really know any English and we asked if he wanted to practice and he was like sure, but then we didn't say anything else. Anyway, I'm sorry it came across different, but really, that guy is the least dangerous thing. I'm not going to lie, we're in a big city. It'd be like living in Chicago or New York, maybe not that big, but that's the idea. So we're being really careful and the people at LASP are making us aware of all the ways we can be as safe as possible. Moving on...
We did go to the soccer game, I didn't go to the protest march, but it was completely safe. I just wanted to sleep in. :) The soccer games, honestly, are probably the most dangerous things we could do. We went to a cup game between the two huge rivals of San Jose: Saprissa and la Liga. This is how intense they are: they have their own gangs. Not even kidding, I'm talking gangs like, hard core gangs from New York or something. They have songs, drums, colors of course, everything. It's fine as long as you don't wear any of the teams' colors and get out of the stadium before both sides have a chance to egg each other on enough to start the fighting. And actually, our game was really mellow in comparison because it ended in a tie, so no one was really pumped up. The coolest part was at the beginning when both teams came out on the field right before the game. I tried to post a few videos but the internet's bad right now, so I'll try later.
Then, we've had a pretty normal week. We discovered a kind of Goodwill here, with a different name, of course, but I was pretty excited. This is our last week of classes at ILE which is good and bad. I'm excited to not have to come out here and to have less classes, but at the same time, this was my best source of internet access and I LOVE the people in my class! After this week, we'll have two weeks all together in Nicaragua, then two weeks of more basic seminar classes at LASP, but then we all split into our concentrations for the last six weeks. At least we'll all be in San Jose except for one girl from our class who's in the Culture concentration. They're moving into different families all over Costa Rica. But the rest of us will maybe be able to get together for movies or something.
Tonight, the 10 men of our group are going deep sea fishing and didn't invite us (darn). So the 41 women are having our revenge by throwing a big party tonight. We're ordering pizza, watching movies, playing games, talking, making some crafts I guess, I don't know. A bunch of stuff. I think some girls are bringing stuff to bake cookies, too. Either way, I'm pumped. Then, as far as the rest of the weekend goes, I have no plans so far. I'll get to meet my older host sister's fiancee sometime this weekend. He's coming for the vote on TLC Sunday. I'll be packing for Nicaragua and doing some reading for that, too. Which brings me to Nicaragua!
We leave on Monday morning. We'll drive for 8 to 10 hours depending on...stuff, I guess. Then, we have a few days all together in...I think Managua, Nicaragua. Then, we all get sent to our own host families on our own all over the country for six days to just live with them. I'll be in a fairly modern home in a city; they posted the list last night. Then, the group meets back up for a few more days in Granada, Nicaragua. I might have those two cities switched, but you get the idea. I'm excited though to be able to just live with the family. In San Jose, we live with our host family, but we're also really busy with homework and trips, I feel like I don't get to just be with them very often. I did invite my sister/roommate and one of her friends that I've gotten to know a little to our woman party tonight, but they can only come for a couple hours. Anyway, I'm pumped to experience a different part of Central America. They're telling us that it's very different from Costa Rica. Of course, there are a lot of similarities as far as the landscape and look of things go, but the people and their way of life is supposedly very different. I don't want to bore you all with the academic stuff that we've been learning, but the histories of these two countries plays a big part in their differences. It's so interesting to make connections from all the different areas we're studying. (Dad you'll be happy to read that they do actually teach us things, too.) :)
I guess that's all for now. The LASP people tell us we'll have one chance to use internet or phones in Nicaragua, but I don't know what the means exactly, so I might not update until we get back, Friday, October 19th.