Aero: Brittany Gleason – Costa Rica 2014 – City Life
Aero: Brittany Gleason – Costa Rica 2014 – City Life
Aero: Brittany Gleason – Costa Rica 2014 – City Life
Brittany Gleason
The city life for me was something very new because I live in the country where you have to drive everywhere to get to the place you need to be. In Alajuela there were mainly just one-way streets because everything was so narrow. All of the buildings were connected just like NYC, everything was close and you could walk to it. I lived only a block from school so I was able to walk there. That’s what most people did in Alajuela, unless they were going out of the city they would walk. I thought the cities were actually set up strategically because they usually had a big church, and a central park and that was the center of the city. Knowing this made it easy to navigate around because if you thought you were lost you could just look for the trees and the top of the church and walk towards it until you found where you were.
The central park was a big place with a beautiful fountain, giant mango trees and lots of benches. All day long the park was full of people sitting in the benches, walking through the park and relaxing. We learned that when the mangos get ripe people have to be careful because if they fall off the tree and hit a passerby they can be hurt or killed. They also have little vendors on each corner of the park during the day that make a Costa Rican version of the snow cone. They shave the ice in front of you, add the flavor you want, put a layer of condensed milk, more ice and flavor and then they put condensed sweet milk on top. I loved these; my favorite was the orange flavor.
Costa Rica 2014 Photo Gallery
I noticed that for transportation people do have cars but do not use them unless they actually need to. In America, we will get in our cars to go up the road for something quick at the store. In Costa Rica, the people just walk to the store. I am sure it has to do with how much it costs to own a car there. When we were down in Costa Rica gas was $7.00 a gallon, and an SUV costs $1000.00 a year just to register. It is expensive because it discourages people from driving and polluting the environment. Another inconvenience for my family was the parking situation. Paulo had to park his car about a block away in a parking garage area. The door wasn’t electric like we frequently see in the U.S, so he had to unlock the door get out the truck, and then lock it back up. This takes time, so really its reason to walk places instead of getting out the truck.
One day we took the public bus to the Zoo just outside of the city. The bus was pretty neat to me because I learned that they really do not have a bus schedule. They wait at the bus stops for the bus to come and it gets there when it gets there. The Costa Ricans don’t worry about time. The bus system also seems very cheap. It was less than a dollar to ride to the bus to the Zoo that was about ten minutes away. I am not familiar with the bus rates in the U.S., but I don’t think they are that cheap. When we took the bus back to the city the bus was full, more and more people kept getting on so it is a popular method of transportation down there. This is similar to the cities in the U.S. because people take the subway and the bus to get around.
Learn More: Study abroad with Modern Languages @ FLCC: Costa Rica!
– Brittany Gleason
The LEAF Project
www.leaflanguages.org
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike
