Day 5

"Legislative Assembly"

Bueno, hola a todos, hoy ha sido un día muy interesante y lucrativo! We had to be at the bus for 7:30 am and head towards Central Avenue to visit the Central Market and the artisans market to shop and look at all the different customs that are made in the country. Many of the stores were not open when we arrived but the ones that were open had a lot of amazing items in them. The way central market is set-up is generally like a maze. You are constantly walking and turning and after a while you might not know how to find the ext. Thankfully we have a tour guide that knows how to go in and out of the market. Some of the students bought merchandise from the stores and got a really great deal on them! Once we exited the market, we walked around downtown San Jose to see all of the different stores that were around and surprisingly there are a lot of U.S. operated business surrounding the downtown area of San Jose. Some include, but not limited to: McDonalds, Levi, Clothing stores, etc. After viewing the various stores that San Jose had to offer, we visited an famous building where President Obama was just recently at a few days ago.

Once we finished our tour of downtown San Jose, we walked to the Congress building where we had an lecture on how political structures are set-up in Costa Rica. The structure of the government is similar to the system we have in the United States in that it is divided into three branches: executive, legislative, and judicial. The Constitution established the separation of powers between these three branches similar to the United States checks and balances concept. Administrative divisions in Costa Rica consist of 7 provinces including San Jose, Alajuela, Heredia, Cartago, Guanacaste, Puntarenas, and Limon. These provinces (similar to U.S. states) are then further divided up into different cantones (similar to U.S. counties). San Jose is the largest with 20 cantons, Alajuela with 15, Heredia with 10, Cartago with 8, Guancaste with 11, Puntarenas with 11 and Limon with 6. The cantons in turn are divided into territories headed by a Municipal government. There are 81 Municipal governments in Costa Rica. The municipalities are run by a mayor (alcalde) who are elected by popular vote and appointed by the Municipal Council (Consejo Municipal). Main control of the country, however, lies in the hands of the central government.There is what is considered a fourth branch of governments called the Supreme Tribunal of Elections. This sector controls all aspects of the elections and is even given power to control security forces for periods around election time. So, after the speech about how the Costa Rican government is ran, we were all astonished that it is almost ran the same way. The only difference is that they have several parties running, instead of the traditional two we have. Lastly, we got to talk with a past congress president who gave us a lot of insight on what improvements he would like to see with Costa Rica.

Our next trip was to the souvenir shop. There were a lot of fascinating things at the shop and I even bought a few things to bring to mi familia. At the souvenir shop we also ate lunch. We were served these big and juicy burgers that had great flavor. Once we finished eating and souvenir shopping, we took a tour of the facility with the owner and he showed us the process of how the souvenirs are made. There is a lot of work involved when making souvenirs in Costa Rica and the hard work from the employees pays off because they have a lot of nice things.

The last trip of the day consisted of touring the bubble gum factory. We got to see firsthand the entire process of how bubble gum is created and what steps are necessary to ensure the quality is impeccable. We even got to take a whole bag for ourselves!

So thats all I did today, stay tuned to day 6!