Not for the faint of heart....

First off, I apologize for skipping a day of blogging. I could tell that Iara was very upset ;) Yesterday was a bit nuts, and I didn't exactly have time to blog. The day started out normally. I went to cooking class after school (we made some awesome veggie-meat mix to put in homemade tortillas) and then walked home before our usual Wednesday night outing to the mall and movie theater (Wednesday nights movies here are cheaper). After my short nap at home, I headed back to school on one of the main routes I take. However, the end of the street was blocked off by police officers and people were milling about. I figured there had been a car accident, so I turned around and took a parallel side road instead. When I got back to school, I asked if anyone knew what was up. Turns out there was a break-in/shooting at a the shoe store on that street. Yeah. Talk about freaky! This road is literally 5 blocks from school and on my usual route! Needless to say, I spent most of the night at the mall and watching Transfomers 3 worrying about dying on my way to school the next morning. I prayed a lot last night for comfort and safety, and God, in all His goodness, gave me an incredible sense of peace this morning. I walked to school without fear or incident. As a side note, I also starred in the movie Homeward Bound today (and we all know how much I loved that movie...), as I walked to school with a pack of homeless dogs. No joke. I walked like five blocks weaving in an out of a dog-gang. That honestly scared me more than the shooting...Anyways, back to the crazy story, I found out today that this was not some random robbery. It turns out that the three men entered into the house/store when it was closed and didn't actually rob it. Killing the three women within was likely premeditated because they  had silencers on the guns. Clearly, this was some sort of revenge, not just a random act of violence that happened during a robbery. Therefore, since I'm pretty sure I haven't ticked off any Ticos, I'm not too worried about my safety ;) Still, I was a bit shook up. This kind of thing never happens in San Joaquin.
On the bright side, I tried something new and super good last night at the mall. I ate a dessert called "arroz con leche" or "rice with milk." It basically tastes like rice pudding, but it comes in all sorts of flavors. I had a cone of it filled with vanilla-oreo and cappicino flavored rice-milk. It was delicious! Also, Hannah and I shared some of that amazing popcorn again last night. Food-wise, the day was a success!