It's called entrapment. The longer I went without writing on this blog, the larger and more insurmountable a task it became. Now I break the silence. 

Since November, a bunch of things happened. Most of it can be told in pictures and videos, so here goes.
At UPEACE, we have cultural nights/weeks, and back in November, our many African students hosted a huge show and party for the university and whoever was interested. Here are some pictures (click to go to the album) - a picture says more than a thousand words, so here are more than 42,000 words:

Around the same time, my American friend Ragan (no E), Canadian friend Atkilt and I cooperated on a project for our class on Media Ethics. The result was a little slideshow with pictures of two Colombian families that live and work in San José. Some came as refugees, some did not. They feel at home in Costa Rica but miss their homeland:

Shortly thereafter, I joined a very short (too short) trip to the northwest corner of Nicaragua. A group of UPEACE students drove to Isla Venezia, an almost deserted peninsula (I know) where this Canadian guy Kyle lives with his girlfriend Jessica in a house on the Pacific coast, doing open source wind turbines for private and public clients. I was at their amazing house for less than 24 hours but it was gorgeous there:

Another cultural night happened, the so-called M.A.P. Night (Middle East, Asia, Pacific). A tight-packed show with singing, poetry, great food and - especially - dances. After the show we had a short dance party:

On the 13th of December (Lucia Day), the few Nordic students (and one intern) at UPEACE (except for our Swedish student) hosted a nice little Nordic Christmas. The teaser/trailer looked like this:

I spent Christmas in Panama with Suroor, Elizabeth, Jennifer and Ricardo, and I already shared pictures from that trip. But I didn't share this video of José Augusto rolling my ten 50-cent cigars (the price, not the rapper) while chatting about his dad and their lives:

For the rest of my nice long break I mostly relaxed. But I did do one nice little Costarican trip with my Indian friends Bijal and Suroor (Gayatri, her sister Purnima, and her friend Jared joined us for part of it), and my Kurdish friends Sivan (from Israel/USA) and Hemn (Iraq/Australia). Elizabeth and her family guest starred, and we met a new friend, Sophia from Portugal/Switzerland (wow, so many /'s). We started in the mountain town of Monteverde but it was too cold for all the non-Scandinavians (read: everyone else than me), so we went south to Quepos and Manuel Antonio, a touristy but beautiful beach not far from Ciudad Colón (where we live).

Unfortunately, a Dutch woman travelling alone, was robbed of her hand luggage on the bus and lost everything (passport, cash, camera, phone numbers). So Sophia and the UPEACE group helped her out which brough Sophia into our crazy little crew. Somehow she seemed not to be judging us too much, so we all got along pretty well. (The Dutch woman is fine now, NOT thanks to the Dutch embassy.) Here are some pics:

All right, that brings us more or less up to speed. Oh, and I got a new haircut. Kind of a wide mohawk I had made in Panama. I'm removing it soon, though. Sick of it already.

Watch out for a post about my next/last semester and the challenges ahead.

And that's what you missed. On Glee.

Just so you can't say I didn't post anything in December, here are my pictures from my Christmas trip to Panama with my good friends Jennifer and Elizabeth (USA), Ricardo (Indonesia/Panama/Philippines) and Suroor (India), featuring Bryan and Seth (USA), Shannon (Costa Rica) and Pamela S. (Canada).

Hope you had a merry Christmas/Chanukkah and have a happy 2012! I promise to write more frequently in the new year.

(Click the Slideshow to go to the web album)