So far (2½ days in), it's going well. Friday was my last night of drinking which I celebrated by first drinking a lot of Nicaraguan rum at a bar with my wonderful co-students from the Media programme (MPCS), then going to an Asian party at my friends' house which has been dubbed 'The Party House'. Before Friday I was wondering how it would be to drink until midnight and then stop. As it turns out, I fell asleep on an extra bed at 11:30 pm so I never found out.

On Saturday I went to the mall with the 'party house' crew. Got a haircut. Bought a T-shirt. Then went to a large supermarket where I almost accepted free samples of both wine and whisky. Close call. 

In the evening, Diego from Ecuador (who not only is joining me for OcSober but is also a fellow CISV'er) and I tried out a Costa Rican non-alcoholic beer (or malt-based beverage, as they call it) called Kaiser. We got used to it pretty quickly and had a nice long night with a little bunch of people playing games in David's poolhouse and trying to stay quiet so his landlady wouldn't get mad.

On Sunday, Maj organised a triple-surprise party for three of our co-students who are born not on the same date, but on the same day. It became extremely chaotic for several reasons: Maj organised it for Saskia originally and didn't know about Elizabeth and Waan's birthdays being the same day. Then she expanded it to Elizabeth, but Elizabeth already knew about Saskia's surprise, just not that it was for her, too. Through an intricate web of deception, chaos and choir practice, we eventually managed to let Saskia see the birthday sign before we yelled surprise, and Saskia opened the door for Elizabeth and then closed it on her again while Elizabeth was saying happy birthday to her. We ended up having a very good time, and the Danish traditional cake-persons that Maj baked were a big hit.

Today, it's now almost 2 pm and I haven't gotten out of bed. This week is off for the MPCS class and I'm going to spend a good chunk of it not doing anything productive. The plan is to go and see sea turtles lay eggs in Tortuguero next weekend. 

Had Kaisers on Sunday too - starting to like them. Thinking about bringing them to school next week and doing a non-alcoholic beer-bong at lunch, just for the hell of it.

It's decided. I'm going to try observing OcSober, also known as Sober October. 

The first 6 weeks of university have been filled with alcohol here and there, and I don't think it's very good for me. So I am going to try (!) not drinking alcohol in the month of October. It's not about being better than anyone. It's not even about connecting more with those of my fellow students who don't drink. It's not about proving anything to anyone else, but proving to myself that I don't need alcohol, that I just like it. I drink once or twice a week normally and I think I have a quite good relationship to alcohol (especially seen from the perspective of a Danish (!) journalist (!) at college (!).

But what does it say about me that I'm seriously doubting I can pull this off? I'm feeling anxious about the potential defeat before I've even started.

Here are some things I will try to repeat to myself during the month. What if I end up as a journalist (or husband (!?)) in a strictly Muslim country? I'll have to abstain. Also, Muslims are much tougher going through Ramadan (especially when it falls on a summer month in Scandinavia). What about the CISV camps I've done in Sweden, Norway and the US (obviously, the greatest difference is that everyone around me didn't drink either)? 

For those of you who don't drink, this post must seem absolutely pathetic. Why should it be so difficult to abstain from drinking for a month? It's not like eternal celibacy, veganism, or other drastic life-changing decisions. I don't expect you to understand why I expect to find this really hard, but you have to know how much alcohol is a part of my cultures: Danish people drink earlier and more than most Europeans, journalists drink more than most professions, and college students drink more than ANYONE, especially when trying to shake together a multi-cultural group of people. 

There are also a bunch of social events coming up at UPEACE, and I have next week off from school. That's going to be a serious challenge.

Alcohol to me is a social thing that can be enjoyed over dinner, casually on a bench or at a crazy party - it doesn't mean getting drunk. And I already have one rule about alcohol; I am never the only one in the room drinking alcohol ("I never drink alone" is more catchy, but less concise).

I recommend that anyone from alcohol-drenched cultures like mine try this. If you want to try doing it with me, join the Facebook Event, and we can support each other. (If you already don't drink, it's not much fun.)

Wish me luck, and please support me.

(I actually thought Sober October was a pretty clever name and it fit my timing really well. As it turns out, so did a lot of other people. OcSober is a whole fundraising movement in Australia. I'm not affiliated with nor inspired by their concept.)

A lot of things have happened since I last posted. The most recent dramatic development was a death on campus. The head of the Environmental Peace Department, Dr. Mahmoud Hamid, sadly passed away from a sudden heart attack during class on Tuesday. The entire university was shocked, and the class he was teaching are still trying to figure out what to do until the next class starts. I personally didn't know him, but many of the staff, faculty and students are very sad these days.

More cheerful events have also happened. Last weekend I went on a 3-day trip to the lazy reggae-loving beach town of Cahuita on the Caribbean coast with three great guys: Tito from Barcelona, César from Mexico City and Gregorio from upstate New York. Here's a picture of the four of us at our hostel:

Generally we just had a nice relaxing time. Spent some time in the pool and at the beach, had some amazing chorizos and seafood, met up with other UPEACErs in town and just relaxed. I was supposed to do some reading for school but that never happened.

School's been really good. The Media, Peace and Conflict Studies programme is now in its first real course, Media In Conflict - Introduction. Our teacher is Álvaro Sierra, a Colombian journalist and academic who has lived in and reported from many different countries and conflict zones around the globe. Today he is the editor of Semana, Colombia's main newsweekly. He's very knowledgeable and a very nice guy even though our readings are sometimes unrealistically long.

This past weekend I went away again, but only for about 24 hours. My Belgian/U.S. friend Saskia's family has an apartment in a gated community near Tárcoles by the beach on the Pacific coast, and she kindly invited four of us (my Costa Rican roomie Álvaro, Norwegian/Polish Dobrawa, Elizabeth from Wisconsin and me) to come visit her. It was wonderful to relax in an air-conditioned apartment with an out-of-this-world view, three bathrooms, a coffee-maker with built-in grinder and several swimming pools. On the way to the place we stopped at a bridge to spot crocodiles - here's a pic I took over Dobrawa's shoulder:

Today I tried to give a little lunchtime session on the privacy settings in Facebook. Out of almost 200 students, 5 turned up but they were good students. I think I'll host one again soon and try to promote it a bit better.

Until next time, pura vida.

When I don't post here for a while, you should generally take it as a sign that I'm keeping myself busy with school and socialising. As is the case now. Went to a party last night at a very cool place near the university where they have a hot tub and a pool, and a bunch of us went in. Great party - I came home at 5 this morning.

This weekend is not about fun, though. To round up the last three weeks' Foundation Course, I have to write my first academic paper. It's only a 2,000 words essay but I'm still a bit intimidated. Haven't written essays in English since I studied at Concordia in 2008. It'll probably be fine, though.

Next week we start our actual MA programme. As you may know, I'm in the Media, Peace and Conflict Studies (MPCS) programme, and I'm glad that we are starting now. The first course is aptly named "The Role of the Media in Conflict - Prevention and Peace Building - Introduction". Thursday is the national day of Costa Rica, though, so we hope to get a four-day weekend. That may open up for some travelling, perhaps to the beach?

My father should be glad to hear that I play sports at least twice a week. On Mondays there's volleyball, and on Fridays, Ultimate Frisbee is becoming a big thing. I brought a disc and helped start it up, and people are loving it - such a fun sport. If it catches on, I might try to get it started in the local community (inspired by my first club, Hanoi Ultimate Club) as a way to let the local youth mix informally with all the international people from UPEACE.

Oh, and I moved. Love my new place. I can walk to town, my roomies are cool, and I started cooking much more and having friends over for dinner. Maybe I'll bake something tomorrow. Not having to choose between water pressure and hot water is great. I feel so clean now.


Some of you may have seen my Facebook status: "... just sent an application to the UN." The UN has a programme called Young Professionals Programme, and I applied for a position in Public Information. If they like my experience and application, I will take a test at UPEACE in December and perhaps qualify. 

Last thing; I made a group presentation on a conflict (mining in Costa Rica) with a great group of people. We used Prezi to make it, and you can see the Prezi itself here (without comments).

Wow, it's been almost a week since my last post. I have been very busy, reading for my classes (we're all going through the Foundation Course right now) and getting to know my fellow students. Over the weekend I attended three different potluck meals.

There are two primary things to share in this post.

Firstly, I've decided to move. The place I live now is a spacious, chill house with a large living room area and a full kitchen. But it's a bit far away from Ciudad Colón where all the other students live, and as long as I don't have a scooter or anything (keep an eye on this blog for more news on that), it's a hassle to get between home and the town. We're four people living in this area, and after fighting for our rights for some days, we managed to get the UPEACE school bus to come to our house which is great in the morning but only one of the afternoon buses goes there. 

The place I'm moving to is at my new pal Álvaro's house. It's in Ciudad Colón in a little gated community called Las Palmas. My new room will be a LOT smaller but the house is a lot neater and cleaner, and Bridgitt from Canada and Álvaro from Costa Rica who live there are very nice and cool people. (So are my current housemates by the way. Especially Gayatri from southern India is an amazing and generous cook and just loads of fun.) The new house has a few other advantages compared to my current house. It has hot water in the shower and in the faucets (and not an electric heater in the shower head), and it has an actual house number. Not that it matters much, but oddly, it comforts me.

Secondly, I have been stripped of my democratic rights. When I left Denmark, I decided to "emigrate" and not have a Danish postal address. This means that I can still receive my student grant (SU), I save 0,67% in (church) taxes, but I still pay income tax. To a system which I now have no influence on. That's right: I can't vote.

Maj and I have been talking to Martin Nielsen, the Danish honorary consul in Costa Rica, and because Maj kept an address in Denmark, she can vote. But I can't. 

WTF Denmark?

That's it for now. If you made it to this line, thanks for your patience and interest. Feel free to comment on my blog posts and ask questions.

Yesterday, a couple of people had the sympathetic idea of inviting everyone at school to go to a local bar in the nearby town of Piedades to have a few quiet beers on a Tuesday night.

Then some guy at the bar brought out party hats, plastic leis and whistles. Then this happened:

After a while, a local guy walked in. He was middle-aged and wearing a black hat, sunglasses and finger gloves. And even though we were all sure that he was Gaddafi (who had decided to escape to the only country without an army), he thought he was Michael Jackson:

Here are a bunch of pictures from our Orientation days at UPEACE.

And here's some video I took from my room with my lovely new camera:

I'm quite tired now. It's Saturday night, and I have just returned to my house after an afternoon in San José and watching an Argentinian movie without subtitles. Luckily, my American friend Elizabeth and I were accompanied by César from Mexico and Tito from Spain who willingly translated and explained what happened.

Wednesday was the first day of orientation at UPEACE. As overwhelming as it was to meet about 150 new people from all over the world, it has been three interesting, fun and exhausting days.

Since the last post, I have: taught some newbies to throw a frisbee, planted the seed for a local Peace Film Festival, bought a blazer for 10 colones (around 2 U.S. cents), partied, bought my lamp (but not yet a bulb, had a conversation in Vietnamese, spent a small fortune on taxis, tried both pizza places in Ciudad Colón, gone to see a Korean string quartet from Germany, witnessed an elementary school band and a samba group in the same day, eaten a bunch of rice and beans, and today I managed to hunt down an Asian store in San José where I could buy Vietnamese rice paper and fish sauce.

As a special service, I will elaborate on one (01) of the experiences mentioned above. Leave a comment and let me know which one tickles your curiosity.

I know, pretty lame headline, right? 

Today I had my first warm shower since I arrived. A short guy called Jorge arrived and fixed the electricity in the shower head so the heater worked. Here in Costa Rica, most showers heat the water directly in the shower head, and ours hadn't been working since I arrived last Thursday. So yeah, warm shower + new hair treatment + not outside in the rain = good hair day. Which was perfect because my UPEACE roomie Gayatri and I invited all the UPEACE students we "know" from Facebook to our place for a B.Y.O. party. We were somewhere between 10 and 15 people and we had a great time. Our house may not be smack in the middle of Ciudad Colón, but it's perfect for having a party: several comfortable couches, an icemaker in the fridge and lots of space. Tonight we met great people from Lebanon, Spain, USA, India/Italy, Denmark, Costa Rica and Kenya. Tomorrow, some of us will head to San José, the capital. To see the town and hopefully get me a lamp.

Friday I didn't really go grocery shopping. But today I thought I should check out the little convenience store five minutes from my house. So after I had been sitting in the living room with my laptop with something inane on the TV (that's right, I feel at home already), I decided to take a cold shower (since the shower head's built-in heater isn't fixed yet), shampoo my hair, put some anti-Jewish-genes-tropical-humidi-fro gunk in it and venture out. I made it to the store all right, and their selection of soaps and snacks was much larger than of any other group of products. After having picked up some Bimbo bread and some eggs in a bag, the sky opened. I have experienced tropic rain many times before, but having lived far from the Equator and having spent summers in the Middle East, the impact and wetness of every raindrop still impressed me. I would usually never admit to actively thinking of a Coldplay song, but as I walked home with my phone in a plastic bag in my pocket and my grocery bag getting heavier by the second, I couldn't help thinking of 'Every Teardrop is a Waterfall'. Welcome to the tropics.