tres leches and salsa

So, I haven't exactly given a full account of what's been happening here, even though I'm having an absolutely fabulous time. I know I won't last long on this post cause I always get sleepy around 830 now instead of around 12, but I figure I should go ahead and try to share some Costa Rican adventures!!!
Last week, for the final fiesta we had with our host families, we all had to prepare a specific typical dessert. Mine, fortunately, turned out to be an unusual but incredibly delicious postre called tres leches, which is cake completely saturated in sweet milk, so that the whole dessert turns out more like a pudding. Having never had much baking talent, I struggled through the fairly simple recipe (and not just because I didn't know the words for baking pan, egg whites, or mix). Seriously, even though I used an electronic hand mixer to beat the batter, my arms grew fatigued quite quickly, and I ended up splattering some of the stuff on Norely's microwave and counter when I was trying to switch the mixer to the other hand. oops. However, after successfully separating yolks from whites with my bare hands, a surge of pride carried me through that and other minor mishaps of the afternoon. Of course, as it would turn out, my mom's aunt was a professional cook and happened to be hosting another girl. So, when they showed up with their perfectly iced, ginormous tres leches, Norely and I felt a little inadequate. But, all of our rather pitiful tres leches was devoured anyway. :)
We also took dance lessons for two days in salsa, merengue, Tico swing (it's actually called swing here) and bachata from this guy Javier. Quite a character. He was immaculate in his clackety, white, box-toed dancing shoes and wrinkle-free jeans, cuffed neatly at the heel. Every time he said "marca!", those white shoes would snap on the linoleum in perfect rhythm and precision while the sweat streamed down his face and back towards his smooth ponytail. We weren't quite as precise. In fact, as rather rhythmless gringos, it took two whole sessions for us to become comfortable with the simple one-two of merengue and bachata. And salsa--I actually think I was making decent improvement in salsa in the second session. The Tico swing and salsa are really fun to dance, but I don't really understand how to dance them with anybody else yet. Of course, I have to now test my newly acquired moves at a discoteca sometime soon...hmmm not sure quite how that's going to work out. Anyway, I'm going to attempt to post some more about dancing, Heredia, host families, and food a bit later. For now, it's past my Tico bedtime (about 930, since we wake up with the sun here around 630).