Sustainability and the Environment: "The Adventurers Go to the Market"

 On Wednesday morning, the 10th of February, the adventurers woke up, rubbed their eyes, and remembered they were in Costa Rica. At first they thought they were dreaming, but then they realised they weren't dreaming, duh, they were just on their study abroad program for Sustainability and the Environment! It was only the day after most of them arrived, so they were staying at a little nice hotel in Alajuela where the owners tell you lots of riddles. The adventurers woke up and had a nice breakfast, and then got ready for their big full day in the big city. 

Erica, Meg, and Leah like having their picture taken. They'll get sick of it soon. 

 Well the adventurers started their day with some orientation talks from their cool professors Adam, Karen, and Hector. After they finished getting all the intro stuff taken care of, they took a little walk to the cool Museum in Alajuela, where they could spread out and take in some lectures in good sty. 

Eilish and Chandler are stoked to be in the Museum. Meg looks maybe too excited?

Here's Leah and Morgan watching Karen teach about why reusable water bottles are good and plastic bottles are not so good 

After a pair of lectures in the morning, the instructors set the adventurers free to go check out the market to practice their Spanish skills and learn a little bit about the Costa Rican people who seem to be everywhere in this country. All the Ticos were super happy to answer the questions that the students had for them. 

This guy used to live in North Carolina and he and the photographer bonded over their shared heritage. Here's Morgan quizzing him about what he had for breakfast. 

 The adventurers all had to ask a bunch of the cool Costa Ricans about what they ate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, so that they could try to get their heads around the culture of these folks. 

This chica turned out to be too shy to answer Eilish's question. Maybe she just couldn't remember what she ate that day 

Sadia and her group are trying to work up the courage to go and ask this guy on the stool 

Lookit, Aislyn's doing it!! His face makes it seem like he's not psyched but he is

A glimpse into the culinary lives of the Costa Ricans 

The adventurers had to scavenge for their own food at the market; luckily, the instructors gave them 3000 colones each and the market has lots of nice little restaurants. Guess what the photographer got? A burger, it was good. 

Julia, Dan, Ian, Meg, Amanda, and Hannah are bonding over a meal 

After they finished their assignment at the market, the students had some free time to check out the rest of the city and buy whatever they forgot to bring from home. Sunglasses were a must-have for Hannah, Leah, and Morgan.

I think this little shop was built for shorter people

Well the adventurers ran all around the city learning things and teaching one another things they knew and trying to speak Spanish and all that good stuff. A few of them even took a picture on the giant Alajuela sign, see:

Here they are taking a picture on the giant Alajuela sign

In the afternoon, the students reconvened at the cool Museum to listen to a presentation on the state of the nation from some cool super-knowledgable folks from the Estado de la Nacion (see how that works?)

Here's a nice lady from Estado de la Nacion talking to the students about the poverty level and other interesting things

According to these guys, Costa Rica has had the same poverty level for 20 years, historical inequality remains, the main challenge to improve equality is reducing unemployment, the territory increasingly supports less consumption, and there have been more political protests recently. But don't get all bummed out yet, because there are bases in which to boost new advances! Exports of services like tourism are growing, conservation efforts are maintained, and there is a strong respect toward basic rights. 

That was a lot of information, wasn't it? But you're welcome, I condensed it for you, so quit complaining. 

See? Proof that I was telling the truth 

Well it may be too early to say but I think this should be a pretty good group of adventurers to have for a semester abroad in Costa Rica. Stay tuned for more updates on their antics, and you can grow and change and learn with them. Let's go on an adventure. 

Starting at the back, it's Sam (TA), Ian, Morgan, Dan, Chandler, Emily, Eilish, Tessa, Sadia, Amanda... then on the second row it's Angela, Hannah, Erica, Aislyn, and then on the first row it's Rachel, Leah, Adam (instructor), Karen (instructor), Julia, Meg, Mabel (TA), and Hector (instructor).