I'll bet you 5 dollars...

After we left San Jose, we boarded a bus to head off to the beautiful city of Tammarindo that is located on the Pacific side of Costa Rica.  Just like every other time we boarded a bus we were prepared for the winding curves, but this time we weren't prepared for our air conditioner to break.  About an hour into our trip, the AC decided to give us trouble, but after not having AC for a couple of nights we were able to tough it out.  After a while longer, it was just way too hot.  We were able to have another bus sent to meet us so that we wouldn't melt before we got to the resort.  Once we got our bus, it was smooth sailing.  We made it to the beach around the same time that we had originally planned, but we weren't able to make as many stops.  Our first afternoon at the resort was spent sipping on caprinahs,  swimming, and checking out the beach.  We spent the next day hanging out by the pool, playing volleyball, and even did a little bit of shopping in town.  Tammarindo is a pretty cool little town.  It isn't like the Caribbean side of Costa Rica.  Many Americans have come into Tammarindo and it has become somewhat of a tourist destination now.   Later that night, we were able to watch the two main Costa Rican soccer teams play against each other.  This was practically the Costa Rican Superbowl.  I was shocked to see how into this game people got, especially Chris.  Before the end of the night Chris had made 5 dollar bets on who would win this game with multiple people, including Fernando (even though he knew nothing about either team).  I have to admit, it was a very close soccer game and people were getting excited.  Needless to say, Chris ended up having to stay in his "safe space," according to Dr. Lanier, and even managed to lose 10 dollars.  On Sunday, we went on an excursion where we could go ziplining, white water tubing, horseback riding, and even relax in some hot springs.  The excursion was just as good as I remembered it being the last time I went.  Our bus ride to the Adventure Tours center was kind of long, so to pass the time we decided to sing songs.  We sang some of Fernando's favorite Garth Brooks songs.  I think we made a few people at the back of the bus angry because they were definitely trying to sleep.  Once we got back to the resort, things "got weird" as Sonny would say.  Even though no one was quite sure what "getting weird" meant, we certainly figured out a way to define it.  We ended up playing a trivia game at the amphitheater.  This game proved to be very competitive.  Pants were ripped and dance moves were interesting!  The winners ended up getting hats, so I guess it was worth it! Haha!  After the trivia game, we headed to the little club at the resort.  We begged the DJ to play American music and once that happened, the dance moves continued!  We had SO much fun!  The next day was our last full day at the resort.  We ended up being lazy by the pool and even got caught in the middle of a rain storm.  Even though it rained for a good bit of the afternoon, Rebecca had packed games so we were able to continue with our fun!  We woke up Tuesday morning and packed up our things to leave the resort, then head to the Liberia airport.  Once we got to the airport, we had to tell Fernando and Gabby bye.  I must admit I was pretty sad about saying goodbye.  I was so lucky to have Fernando as a tour guide for both of my trips to Costa Rica and to have Gabby organize both trips.  This trip was definitely one that I will never forget.  I learned so much and appreciate what I have that much more.  

I'll bet you 5 dollars that I'm missing Costa Rica already...

I'll bet you 5 dollars that I'll have dreams about that amazing French toast...

I'll bet you 5 dollars that I'll never be able to watch a Costa Rican soccer game without laughing...

I'll bet you 5 dollars that I'll have to "get weird" again with my new friends...

I'll bet you 5 dollars that I've made friendships that will last a lifetime...

I'll bet you 5 dollars that this trip has forever changed my life...

Our friend at the hotel made this awesome coffee!

Sonny was getting serenaded even though he didn't like it!

Sonny was just beginning to "get weird."

Our jail bird.

Barcelo Resort :)

So sad to say bye to Fernando!

Going to miss Gabby too!

Corbett was trying to be cute.

Adios San Jose!

Hola señors and señoritas!  Today was our last day in San Jose.  We were able to go and visit two businesses.  They were both located in free trade areas located just outside of San Jose. The first business that we went visit was Boston Scientific.  We were greeted by their HR person named Bernard. We were then all brought into a large meeting to hear a presentation about the chain of their Costa Rica plant. This plant was opened about ten years ago and has grown significantly.  They produce many products that are used in the United States and around the globe.  We were also able to tour their facility. It was definitely one of the nicest businesses that I have seen.  It was also very cool to see all of their company objective, mission statement, and other business principles presented in posters on walls across the facility.  This tour was probably one of my favorite parts of this whole trip.  After this tour, we headed to a souvenir shop that was in this area. Most of these souvenirs are made from wood that is grown in Costa Rica and the jewelry that is sold here is also made in their shop.  This souvenir shop was very unique and had some pretty cool things.  After shopping for a little while, we went eat lunch at their restaurant.  Once we finished eating, we headed off to our next business tour at Samtec.  This business creates many products that are used for communications in a wide variety of products.  How these people created these products is very impressive.  The have also grown significantly since they first opened a few years ago.  Like Boston Scientific, Samtec is also located in a free trade area.  Overall, the tour was very interesting even though I didn't completely understand how their products were created (Just being honest).  After touring Samtec, we headed to downtown San Jose to walk around the streets.  It was really cool to see all of the locals walking around the city.  We were also able to walk around he central market.  They had a bunch of shops with different foods, clothing items, and many different other items. After touring San Jose, we headed back to the hotel to pack up and head to the beach in Tammarindo! Way too excited!!

Dr. Lanier asked us to discuss some of the pros and cons for Costa Rica in offering these free trade zones to foreign companies and why foreign companies want to locate in these free zones. These free trade zones have many pros. One pro would be that the companies within this area do not have to pay any tariffs or taxes on goods that are shipped from this area.  These areas could be a con because it doesn't allow for products to be directly transported to Costa Rica.  For example, let's say that a Costa Rican company would like to purchase some items from Boston Scientific, they wouldn't be able to unless they were shipped to the United States before being sold to Costa Rican stores.  Many companies would want to relocate their companies to Costa Rica because the cost of labor is much cheaper than other countries, such as the United States.  

Sweet like sugaaaaaa....

After waking up to the sound of rain minus the angry birds this morning, I can officially say that I survived our last night with no air conditioning. I must admit it wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been, but it definitely makes me appreciate air conditioning that much more.  We packed up our stuff and headed over to the main campus for breakfast.  Yes, I got some more of that delicious yogurt.  Thanks to Sonny we also got to try a banana that came straight from their banana farms.  After breakfast we left EARTH and headed to a house where sugar cane, coffee, and macadamia nuts use to be produced.  This house was on our way back to San Jose.  We were able to see a beautiful church that was also located on the property.  The view from the house was also amazing.  It was overlooking the city below it and was filled with trees and a river.  We were also able to see how macadamia nuts were harvested.  They no longer produce coffee or macadamia nuts because it was no longer cost effective for them to continue producing those crops.  They even let us taste some fresh macadamia nuts.  After viewing how the macadamia nuts were harvested, we were shown a presentation on the sugar cane that they harvest at their various farms.  This company has several farms around their local community and they produce sugar cane that is shipped to various countries across the world.  They even told us that we could find their products in our local Whole Foods store.  However, we will pay a pretty penny for their sugar cane.  If we would purchase their sugar cane from Whole Foods, it would cost us between 8-9 dollars for around a pound of sugar.  The reason the price is so high is because they sell their sugar cane to a manufacture that packages and sells the sugar to local stores.  They typically sell their sugar to the manufacture for about 1.50-2 dollars per pound.  That is a serious mark up.  However, there is a serious demand for this product because this sugar cane producer is one of a couple of sugar cane producers that produces organic sugar cane in the world.  Considering organic products have become very popular in recent years. After we went to lunch at a very local place.  When I say very local, I mean that it was basically in a house, but they had a nice deck that overlooked the valley and they served food there.  The view was beautiful as well even though we were stuck in the middle of a cloud...that proves how high up we were!  After lunch, we were headed to Cartago to tour a company called Vitec.  This company produces camera products for photography and broadcasting companies.  Companies like National Geographic and even ESPN use their products. We were shown a presentation from the president of the company for the Costa Rica location. He explained to us how their company operates and the many different locations that they have across the globe.  Their factory mainly produce two different types of products for cameras that were used in broadcasting.  They did produce some products that were used in photography, but most of their products were produced for broadcasting purposes.  The thing that I found so impressive about that his company was how incredibly efficient they were.  They had boards at every station of their plant that allowed all team members to know what problems they may have incurred and the progress that they were making.  They also have meetings on a regular basis to make sure that all members know exactly what is going on.  I think that these two specific actions benefit their company in many ways. After the tour we stopped at the church that is located in Cartago.  This church is probably the largest church that I have seen in my life.  Even though I saw this church the last time that I was in Costa Rica, it was still extremely beautiful.  Every year millions of people make a pilgrimage to this church on August 2nd.  Fernando told us that usually if it falls on a weekend that people will walk to this church from all over Costa Rica.  After this stop, we were headed back to San Jose.  It was so nice to be headed back to the Tryp Sabana Hotel.  I am pretty excited to be back in San Jose.  Tomorrow we will be touring two different businesses in San Jose.

Side note... Chris just broke him and Bennett's toilet... Poor Bennett :(

Dr. Lanier asked us today to explain some of the concepts of supply and demand after visiting the sugar plantation, Assukar, and Vitech, the video product manufacturer.  In regards to Assukar, the demand for organic sugar cane is constantly growing, but the supply is limited because there are very few suppliers.  Assukar has the ability to raise their prices if they would feel the need to because the demand is so high.  In regards to Vitech, most of their higher priced items are top of the line and typically there is usually a demand for those specific products.  However, their smaller products are typically do not have as much of a demand.  This is why the company makes sure that they constantly have their smaller products in stock because if they aren't in stock then consumers will use similar products from other sellers.  That means that Vitec would lose the sale because they worked purchase a similar product from one of their competitors. 

My Nicholls girls!

I even found a kitty cat!

Fresh macadamia nuts!

Vitec's organization boards.

Cartago's church!

We're so sassy!

That yogurt though...

I woke up this morning to the sound of rain and birds chirping.  The rain was great, but I think some birds were having a heated debate from the sounds of the chirps that they were making.  I have to say one thing, when you don't have air conditioning, rain is your best friend.  It cools everything off so much and definitely makes things better.  After getting dressed and reminding myself that birds are beautiful creatures in nature, we headed to EARTH University.  This university has students from over 30 countries in the world.  The degree that students earn from this university is a bachelors on agronomy.  After getting to EARTH, we went to their cafeteria for breakfast.  We were served fresh fruit, eggs, beans, rice (obviously, you knew that one was coming), and also yogurt.  Most of the foods that we ate are produced on the campus grounds.  The yogurt was so good.  I can't wait to eat more for breakfast tomorrow.  After breakfast, we viewed a video about the university.  EARTH receives about 1,200 applications from students every year and they usually accept around 100 students per year.  The interesting thing about this university is that they only accept students that are leaders.  They also refer to them as "agents for change."  The goal at EARTH is that after graduating these students can go back to their home countries and  use the knowledge they obtained to help their communities grow.  After watching the video, we toured the banana plantations. It was so cool to see all of the banana trees lined up.  Each tree with banana plants had a blue plastic bag wrapped around the plant.  These bags helped to create microclimates for these plants.  After seeing the banana plants , we went to the banana processing plant.  This was by far one of the coolest parts of the day.  We were able to see how the bananas were packaged to be shipped out to Whole Foods in the U.S. and to other countries around the world.  The ship about 940 boxes of bananas everyday.  That is a lot of bananas.  The blue bags that were wrapped around the bananas were also turned into plastic pieces to support the boxes that are shipped.  After watching the workers place the stickers on each individual banana, my mind was blown (not to mention they were incredibly fast).  I don't think I will ever be able to look at bananas the same way again.  After the processing plant, we went to another area of gardens that are on the property.  These gardens had unique ways of making the most out of the area that they had.  We also got attacked by killer ants.  Those things were no joke.  Our last stop was at the farm.  They had cows, horses, pigs, and a few rabbits.  At the farm they take manure and send it through a process to create methane gas.  This has helped many businesses and individuals to conserve energy and save money.  Along with the farm came some wonderful smells (I'll leave those up to your imagination).  That was the end of our tour and then we went eat lunch.  we spent the afternoon hanging out at the university.  Most of our afternoon was spent hanging out by the pool.  We watched some Costa Rican swimming lessons and also got to watch Chris play soccer with a little kid named Alejandro.  Alejandro was pretty good even though Chris believed he represented the United States well.  EARTH University is definitely a unique university that provides many opportunities for their students.  Dr. mike gave us another phenomenonal question to answer today. :) He asked us, 

"As a student or employee  are there any principles or concepts that you take with you from EARTH to benefit your organization or other businesses in the U.S.?"  I believe that the main concept that I would take back with me from EARTH to benefit organizations and businesses in the U.S. would be to understand the true importance of ethics.  The video for EARTH stressed and made clear just how important it is for their potential students to be very ethical individuals.  As an accounting major, I learned quite a bit about the importance of ethics.  The topic of ethics has proven itself to be a very important concept of accounting due to scandals that have happened, such as Enron.  I believe that having a strong foundation in ethics would help to make businesses better in the United States.  Don't get me wrong, some professions do have a focus on ethical behaviors, but I believe that if more companies would take ethical behavior more seriously businesses could improve.  A step that businesses could take is to begin implementing ethical behavior programs for their employees.  I also believe that if the top management shows that they care about being an ethical business, then that would trickle down to all employees.  In my eyes, having ethical awareness could be a step in the right direction for U.S. businesses and organizations. Today was really a great day.  It was so cool to see how universities in other countries operate.  Tomorrow we are headed back to San Jose!  The Costa Rican 500 will probably continue. Until next time, adios muchachos! 

Oh and Mason switched to Geico last week so he got a magnet with a gecko! He was so proud!

The Costa Rican 500

Starting my day with a three hour hike has taught me one thing.  Hiking is not my forte.  It also made me realize that eating homemade bread for breakfast was a good idea because we definitely burned a couple calories.  However, Cahuita National Park was absolutely beautiful.  This park is along the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica and is filled with quite a bit of wildlife.  On our walk I saw some lizards, a toucan, and a bunch of sand crabs.  Our group ended up splitting in half  during the walk and the other group ended up seeing a sloth and a couple of other animals.  After visiting the park we checked out of our bed and breakfast and headed to a local restaurant to eat lunch.  I ordered.... You guessed it! Beans and rice! After lunch, we hopped back on our bus and continued tha Costa Rican 500.  These curves have a special way of making you never want to eat food and then get on a bus for a few hours ever again.  Thankfully, about an hour and a half into the trip, we stopped in Limon.  This city has a boat dock that ships out a majority of the produce and products (bananas, pineapples, and other fresh fruits) that Costa Rica produces.  I have never seen so many Chiquita, Del Monte, and Dole cargo boxes in my life.  We also walked through the city and stopped to get ice cream at a local store. I got a cup of cake batter flavored ice cream and it was pretty good!  After that we boarded the bus and continued on to EARTH University.  This university has about 400 students from all over the world.  Dr. Lanier is so lucky she gets to spend the night in our dorm with us for the next couple of nights! Haha.  We are all waiting to go eat supper at another local restaurant.  I'm going to guess I'll eat some more beans... Second night of no air conditioning is going better than the first.  The rain just finished and has cooled everything off. Thank you Jesus!

When nature calls....

I'm a little late post it this blog, but I'm going to tell you about what we did on Sunday... Yesterday, we had a long day of bus rides.  We left San Jose to head to the Caribbean coast.  After a great breakfast with the typical "beans and rice," I was ready to take on the day.  I have to say there are many great things about Costa Rica, but the best would be the fruit.  On our way to the providence of Limon, we stopped at a fruit stand and tried some great fruit.  After trying the fruit, we got back on the bus.  Jorge was our first our driver.  He must've been in the Costa Rican 500.  Those curvy roads stood no chance.  After our long bus ride, we finally made it to the Sloth Sanctuary.  This was so interesting.  We learned to much about sloths and just how unique they are compared to other animals.  After the sloth sanctuary, we went and had lunch at a local restaurant.  Then we were headed to the bed and breakfast that we were spending the night at.  It was right near the coast and right near the national forest that we are going to hike through this morning.  Last night we were also able to go swimming in the pool.  Because this bed and breakfast doesn't have air conditioning, that pool felt like heaven. Dr. Lanier and Dr. Mike asked us why it was economically important for Costa Rica to protect their wildlife?  It's so important for Costa Rica to protect their wildlife because of the tourism that it brings to their country.  Now we are eating breakfast and headed to the national park!  

That moment when you can't Google something...

After starting my morning at 3:30 this morning, it is safe to say that I am officially whooped.  Two flights and eight hours of travel later, we finally made it to Costa Rica.  Even though this is my second time coming to Costa Rica for Study Abroad, I am still SO EXCITED to be here again.  After going through customs, we went to meet our tour guide, Fernando.  The last time I came to Costa Rica Fernando was our tour guide.  It was safe to say that we were both excited to see each other!  After leaving the airport, we went straight to our hotel.  By the time we got to the hotel, we decided to go eat at a local restaurant called Soda Tapia. We were all so hungry and would eat anything that was put in front of us.  After spending twenty minutes just trying to read the menu, I decided to order a Tapia Burger.  At one point while we were waiting for our food, all of us were trying to figure something out and we all went to Google the information, then we realized that we weren't connected to wifi and had turned all of our data off. Dr. Lanier was proud that we actually had to use our brain to figure something out!  After getting our burgers, I learned that real ham comes on their hamburgers and black beans are also included on this burger.  This proves that "beans and rice are a part of every meal."  It also explains why there was an interesting texture on the burger.... It was definitely the beans.  Must admit the burger was good.  After eating we decided to go grab a couple of Costa Rican snacks at a local grocery store.  When I was trying to pay, I handed the cashier a five dollar bill.  She wouldn't accept the five dollar bill because it looked battered then I offered her a second one but shouldn't accept that one either because it had a small tear in it... I was so confused.  I ended up paying with a crisp twenty dollar bill and she accepted it.  I explained to Fernando what happened and he told me that the bank in Costa Rica will not accept the dollars if they appeared to be damaged because they wouldn't be able to confirm the true value of the dollar.  Long story short, I got my snacks and I can't wait to eat them! Hahaha. At 5:30 we had our orientation with Fernando.  He went over the itinerary and told us about what we would be doing for the next ten days.  I can't wait to see what these next tens days hold!

4:00 wake up call for Costa Rica! 

Flying into San Jose!