I´ve been warned about being mugged by a transvestite with a knife

I´m writing this from an internet cafe because the internet in my house isn´t working. After I begin school next week, I will post more consistently. To catch up with my trip so far:

Tuesday was my birthday and I spent the day getting to know San Pêdro which is the area outside of San Jose where I am near. I technically live in the barrio of Vargas Araya and since they don´t have addresses in Costa Rica, my house is described as being one block down from Bar Acapulco, a very sketchy bar. My host mother is best friends with the host mother of Vicky (another Elon student) so they showed us around the town. It was a bit confusing at first, but the University is only a bus ride or short walk downhill. In the afternoon my host mother went to work and Vicky´s host mother took us to Parque Nacional Braullio Carillo, a huge rainforest in the mountains just north of San Jose where she had to take care of some business, from what we were able to understand, she is a agronomist. When we got up in the mountains, we were driving through a cloud and it was drizzling on us. Vicky and I were both ready to go into the rainforest, but for some reason, maybe because she wasn´t dressed for it or because it was drizzling her host mother didn´t take us in and all we got to see was the forest from the road and since it was so cloudy we really didn´t see anything. It was quite a disappointment but it was nice having another student around to talk to.
Back in San Pedro, host siblings went to their Mormon youth group and I just sort of sat around. At dinner my host family gave me a cake for my birthday which was really nice of them. I figured I´d just read or watch Alonzo play Resident Evil, but out of the blue Alex, another Elon student called the house and said she and Brendan (the other Elon student here) wanted to go out for my birthday to some jazz place. Vicky and I weren´t able to meet up with them but we eventually found them at a place called Jazz Cafe and it was great. It was jam night and so the stage was full of jazz musicians who didn´t know each other but were just jamming out together playing covers of Herbie Hancock and overall just improvisational jazz. The cafe was really cool and Vicky, Alex, and Brendan each bought me shots for my birthday which was nice. I tried Imperial, a Costa Rican beer which is huge down here, you see the sign all over and a Padrino, which was some cocktail with whiskey which was quite tasty. It was a great birthday. We all walked back and when Vicky tried to get into her place her key broke in the gate lock so we lifted her over the gate but then her door key broke in the door lock so she had to come back over and ended up spending the night with Alex. It was pretty funny.

All of the students in the two programs (17 of us total) met in front of the school to take a bus to La Catalina, a sort of resort in the mountains where we would have orientation. Other than the four of us from Elon, there are students from Villanova, Suffolk, one from Indiana, and several from George Washington. The afternoon was long and tiring going through orientation (hearing about being safe and learning about one group of students that was mugged by a transvestite with a knife) and playing icebreakers to get to know one another. The view from La Catalina was impressive and when orientation finally ended the girls took a Salsa class while the 6 of us guys opted out. That night was seriously the coolest time I´ve had in a long time, although there was nothing to do. We discovered a huge highway of thousands of ants carrying leaves probably 50 yards to their huge ant colony. I know it sounds lame cuz their ants but it was easily one of the coolest things I´ve ever seen. We followed their path, which began 20 feet up a tree. Some of the ants were bigger than the others and they would direct the smaller ants that carried the leaves. If an ant dropped their leaf a large ant would force them to turn around and get another one. The Queen ant must really be something to see. Watching the ants provided lots of conversation and we ended up talking about all sorts of crazy stuff. I seriously don´t think I´ve talked so much about politics in my life, but we were all pretty much on the same page. Basically all the people in the program are really cool.
The next morning we went to La Paz waterfalls and saw all sorts of crazy birds, butterflys monkeys, frogs and snakes. One extremely venomous snake is called the Bushmaster and its Costa Rican nickname is ox killer which is pretty sweet. A parrot landed on one of the girls and cleaned her hair before biting her in the cheek, we told her being bit by a parrot was pretty badass. Then we hiked into the rainforest and saw a series of five waterfalls, a couple of them were over a hundred feet high, it was really really cool. The waterfalls are a pretty big tourist attraction and the park has the coolest bathrooms I´ve ever been in. Anyways I´ll stop rambling about the cool scenery. Some people went out when we got back but I was so tired I went to bed at 7.
It´s really hot here and this morning we toured the school. I´m trying to find out about doing volunteer work sometime and apparently there are alots of opportunities. Everyone has been talking about all the places they want to go and at the top of my list is going some place to SCUBA with hammerheads, visiting Parque Nacional Corcovado which the National Geographic described as ¨the most biologically intense place on earth¨and is where I hope to see a jaguar. I really hope to get to the Carribean coast. The Carribean coast is much different than the rest of Costa Rica, it´s less developed than the Pacific and has a Afro-Costa Rican culture, composed of Jamiacans and creole speaking peoples. The spot I´m hoping to get to is Chaquita which is a where I can find a lot of Rastafarians and reggae. I just think it would be sick to sit on the beach around a campfire with a lot of Rastafarians and listen to reggae. Oh well, there´s so much I want to do and we´ll see if I get the chance to do it. I´ll put up some pictures when I get the chance/figure out how.
Tonight all 17 of us are planning to meet at some bar which should be crazy.
Anyways, I´m not all sure what else to say other than it´s been better than I could have imagined and I´m sure things will only get better.