Costa Rica Out

Our time in Costa Rica is almost up. We finished the TEFL course this past week. We taught one hour of class and then had 3 hours of  TEFL per day. It was a bit rough with the lesson planning and work we had to do. We had to put together a portfolio with everything we’ve done, all our lessons and essays and so forth. It was great to get the teaching experience, to have kids in front of us for that hour every day. The teaching went pretty well for both of us. Neither of us is a huge fan of the teaching method they taught us, but there was definitely a lot of useful stuff to be gleaned from the class. We hung out with our class the last couple nights, and it was a lot of fun. We became pretty good friends with a few of the people. Definitely some nice, fun folk.

Leaving tomorrow  feels like a mixed bag. On the one hand, it’s great to be somewhere new, with new people, semi independent, with a steady schedule. Being in class by 9:00 every morning until 4, 5, or 6 has felt good. It’s been good to be busy. On the other hand, neither of us is in love with San Jose. It’s not a great city. It’s small and run down and underdeveloped. The surrounding areas are a lot nicer. The two weekend trips we made were both great, and today we made a short day trip to Cartago, a small town right outside San Jose. We were hoping to go see a volcano, but got there too late to take a bus. It was still a nice trip, and the town is much nicer than San Jose. Now we’re looking at jobs. We’ve sent a couple resumes out, but nothing yet. Right now it’s looking like maybe Asia, since that’s where they pay best and where there seem to be more jobs. We shall see.