I which I enjoy pina coladas (read as tequila) and getting caught in the rain, learn from the spy-school of law and get itchy, wet feet.

Haven’t written anything for a while because in a lot of ways it has been a calmer couple of weeks, in that I haven’t traversed the globe in an obscenely short time. This is largely due to the fact that my mum and my body ganged up against me and told me I had better just sit still for a bit and recover (I got a gruesome cold). Then Mother nature intervened and sent an ocean’s worth of water down as rain prompting the government to call a national emergency and many roads to be shut for fear of landslides. Didn’t stop us going to uni though, oh no, just caused a lot of wet feet. (I have been constantly singing 'If you like pina coladas, and getting caught in the rain' but I don't know how it ends so it just morphs into 'there's lots of tiny little people, they're called the Poddington peas...etc' Is it just me or are those two the same song?)

So to make up for the claustrophobia of the rain’s constant curfew we have had quite a few parties this week. The first was at the Head of International Law’s house as a welcome to the department. Unfortunately the whole Costa Rica not having road names or house numbers caused its usual havoc so by the time we arrived we had been chased by dogs, I had fallen up to my shins in a bog and we had, in our desperation, called the uni’s emergency help line to ask where the party was.  Was a lot of fun when we finally got there though and later moved on to Ciudad Colon only to find Oskar’s is shut!!! Obviously I had a major panic but it turns out that this is a one horse, two bar town so we went to dance at this other place, where they serve tequila far too readily.

Other parties included going out in San Jose, a poker night at our house (when the one guy who knew how to play came back from the bathroom to find us all super impressed Allison had gotten three pairs and beaten us all. We are pretty amateur). We also had a brilliant one at some of the students’ house, which is essentially a mansion! It has a huge living space, a mezzanine and the trunk of a tree as a central pillar. Anyone that knows me around trees can imagine what I attempted after a beer or two. The house has all this ‘jungle’ around it and is just completely stunning (plus they have a puppy), I am jealous. Mine just has a jungle of industrial ants and Diego who is as energetic as a puppy. It is not the same.

So since I have been forced to stay still maybe it is time to say more about Ciudad Colon. We’re a tiny little town with a surprisingly large number of shoe shops (think mobile phone places in Northwich). It is pretty quiet and the most dangerous things, (other than my nemesis dog, who despite being 20cm high still manages to scare the life out of me when I walk home), are the pot holes. The roads get fairly dark at night and there are whole chunks of some of the roads missing. If you don’t watch your step you could end up in some toasty magma.

We have a cool farmers’ market on Saturdays so when I am not too lazy (most weekends) I can go and haggle for misshapen tubers.

School has gotten really interesting even though I am having to force myself to get through the tons of reading we have- I may be an intellectual narcoleptic, I generally fall asleep after every paragraph. We get picked up by a big, yellow, American style school bus from our house each morning. Our professor is clearly very smart but has started to adjust his analogies in an attempt to engage us. So we keep talking about ‘say everyone had the right to play poker’, or ‘what if you had a Porsche but you weren’t allowed to drive it, despite it being your right’. I think he may be confusing us with James Bond.

Speaking of which it appears me and the other guy from the UK can say anything and people think it’s hilarious because of our British accents! I think when I talk people just think I sound like Mr Bean or someone from Monty Python so they assume what I am saying is humorous.  This is nice for the ego but makes talking about genocide and human rights abuse an oddly comic affair.

Am also writing my article and introducing people to all the UK comedy DVDs I have brought. Boosh and Father Ted going down well, putting in the ground work to introduce the genius of Iannuchi. Have an exam this week and then a 3 day break so we’re all making crazy plans and hoping the rain doesn’t ruin them.

That’s all for now. Must get back to reading, I need a doze.

Lessons learnt:

You can put 4 international law students in a taxi, it does not mean any of them will have researched where they are meant to be going.

If you fall asleep after every paragraph on war crimes you will probably have some nasty dreams.

Tequila makes me happy, but then significantly less happy.