El Museo de Oro! (The Gold Museum)

Yesterday, another girl and I went to the Museo de Oro! It was absolutely beautiful. It tells about the history of Costa Rica from the pre-columbian times (before Columbus sailed to the Americas) - and shows lots of artifacts that have been found - made out of lots and lots of gold. There are animal figurines of all shapes and sizes that they made by melting the gold and making molds out of wood or just by hammering it into shapes. They are beautiful and intricate - I don't think a machine could make a better image. Here are a few of the figurines. I have about 50 pictures of them.

Like I said before, my Spanish class seemed really easy, so today I got moved up to Advanced II and I think this is the first Spanish class that I have not known every single thing already. It is going to be a lot harder. I have to write a paper by next Wednesday, but I think I am going to write it about Social Revolutions in Latin America, and she said if I wanted I could focus on the Sandinista Revolution, since I will be studying in Nicaragua in the fall. It is going to be much more interesting than writing about cloning, which is what I was going to have to present on in Advanced 1. Also, I have to do a 15 minute presentation in Spanish, and by two weeks from now I need to have read an entire book in Spanish - that is 90 pages long... it is going to be crazy. I very much more like the class, and it will be challenging. The class is totally about Costa Rican culture with some grammer brought into it. I had to catch up on the two days that I missed though, so my brain is fried from all of the reading that I missed - over 20 pages and many new vocabulary words. Also, there is a girl from Canada in the class - Vanessa - and she is a Christian and we had lunch together today after class before "conversation club".

Everything is getting better. I've learned that I don't like going to clubs, but I like the dancing, so I only go to the class but not the club... I am learning a lot, but at times I feel totally lost because all of the other students have been here for awhile and I don't know the culture yet. It is crazy. Voy a aprender mucho!