Day 43.

Observations:

-Yesterday, I went downtown to run some errands with my tica mom before I went into Carpio. One of which was the purchase of a new umbrella (my two-dollar one has long since lost some spindles). Anyways, I felt like I was car shopping or something. The walls were lined with all sorts of umbrellas and the woman had me try out many styles and shapes. In the end, my tica mom persuaded me into getting a large, very sturdy one and she garunteed that I will never need another umbrella. Nor a billy club for that matter.
-The other day Sarita (a tica missionary who is fluent in Spanish and English) asked me to look at a math test she was giving her class. She couldn't figure out why her answers didn't match the book's. I showed her the few places early one where she mixed things up, and all was settled quickly. That's right though. I tought the teacher. Go ahead, call me Alex Dunlap.
-Mercado Central in downtown is essentially Pike Place Market, except with a lot more cockroaches.
-My host family and I watched "The Proposal" today in theaters. My ticket cost 1200 colones, or $2.03.
-I saw entire cow feet being sold. And a certain meat called "mondungo" (Sounds like a Harry Potter character, no?), which, my tica mom informed me, was cut up cow stomach. She assured me that she didn't eat it and advised me to not try it should the opportunity arise. I headed out to Carpio shortly after, and guess what they were serving at lunch?! I didn't eat it.
-This city is just that -- a city. On my bus ride to Carpio, I pass a block with a belly dancing parlor on one side and a Western themed store on the other. I love it here.
-Deep thought of the day: there is an incredible difference between confidence and pride. Pride is that thing you mount in your living room, the name you drop when you meet some one new, the way you hold your head. Confidence is none of those things. Confidence is the day you know another prize will be greater still, the opportunity you give to some one to prove who they are (including yourself), and the way you hold your heart in your hands. Pride is what you have done; confidence is what you can do. Pride is concrete, it is fact while confidence contains a hint of doubt -- a possibility that some thing can still go askew, but that chance is worth taking. Confidence needs faith.

-Hannah