By 9:30am Jennnylee and I were in Lanamme already working on our Ruta 27 Project. On Friday we were calculating slopes and today we calculated slope direction using Surfer. This task was a bit more complicated than the last but luckily, we’re both quick learners and once we set up a rhythm we were able to finish calculating slope direction for all 76km of the route by the end of the day.
We also went out to eat lunch with another intern working at Lanamme. She is a geology student from Germany and really cool to talk to because she has traveled so many places. She’s working on a very similar project to ours so if we run into any issues we have one more person to discuss work with. Paulo and his colleague also ate with us and we all enjoyed a great lunch break together.
After I finished calculating slopes for the day I decided to go to the nearest pharmacy before heading home because I was coming down with a cold. For the whole day I had an annoying cough and I couldn’t wait to get rid of it. I was a bit worried about going because I wasn’t carrying around my raincoat during the rainy season and because my Costa Rican phone wasn’t working properly. I felt uncomfortable at the idea of me roaming the streets of a big city with no means of communication but then I remembered that I had downloaded offline maps so it wasn’t like I was going to get lost or anything, so I decided that I could handle a quick stop to the pharmacy. I thought it was going to be like Walgreen's where you can pick out which Robitussin you want and quickly pay, but it wasn’t. I had to wait for my number to be called, tell a lady my symptoms, wait for her to get back to me, and wait in another line to pay. Maybe all pharmacy stores are like this, but this was my first time and I wasn’t a fan of the lengthy process. I am now eternally grateful for stores like Walmart and Walgreen's that carry over the counter medicine. Living in America everything is very fast paced but in Costa Rica things move a bit slower and that can be a little frustrating at times. I think having patience is key when traveling abroad anywhere and I will continue to exercise my patience while I’m here.