Exploring Heredia

Today was an excellent day here in Costa Rica!  I had my first solo adventure on the bus today in order to get to and from my first class!  It was a super short class today from 8am-10am, but a very good one.  We basically just spent the time talking about ourselves and getting to know one another.  Class tomorrow and for the rest of the summer will be longer than today and will last until 12 or 1 each day.  Since it was a short day, some compañeras de clase and I went to explore the city close to the University.  We walked around for about an hour just looking at all the shops and just taking in the incredible scenery.  Here's a picture, but  pictures could never measure up to seeing it in person.

After our little exploration of the city, I went back home and took a much needed siesta.  When i woke up, I went downstairs where my host sister Elena was working on a project for her English class.  She has a presentation tomorrow on Volleyball, so I helped her translate some sentences and helped with her pronunciation.  It was so much fun, and she also helped me a lot with my Spanish pronunciations.  Like "cada" and "cara"  Both involve tongue movements that we Americans aren't used to.  Anyway, I feel like my spanish has already improved after only being here 48 hours.  I hope that is a good sign of how much I will improve by the end of this experience!

Day 1- Check!

My first 24 hours here have been a success. I didn't get in until around 8:00pm last night, so there wasn't much to do except eat a light dinner and pass out because of my severe lack of sleep.  This morning, I woke up wide awake at 5:30am and almost freaked out because I thought I must have slept through my alarm set for 7am.  You might say that I was a little surprised to see my room full of bright sunshine so early in the morning.  Even though I felt very awake, I made myself go back to sleep for an hour. 

Today was my first day of school at the Universidad Nacional, so my host mom took me to school.  Since I live in Barva, (about a mile and a half north of the university) I take a bus every day to school.  The bus charges 160 colones, which seems like a lot but only amounts to about .30 cents.  Luckily, there are a few other students that live in the same area, so we decided to meet tomorrow and ride together. 

The first thing we did today was to take our Spanish placement test.  It included about 4 pages front and back of multiple choice questions, 3 short essay questions, and a short interview.  I did much better than I thought I would and was placed in the intermedio class!  (The same class as the other UT student who has taken several upper division Spanish classes) I was very pleasantly surprised.   My real classes begin tomorrow with Professora Merityell at 8am...which actually doesn't seem so early here since it is so stinking bright.

Next, we took a tour of the Campus and the surrounding area.  I haven't taken any pictures yet, because I'm just trying to soak it all in, but I will soon, I promise! The area is pretty cool, but drivers here are CRAZY.  They drive on both sides of the road with no care for what they're about to hit.  The drive from the airport to my house was enough time for me to realize that I don't enjoy riding in the car with a Tico driver.  On the buses, you don't notice the recklessness as much, so that won't bother me. 


My host family is so so nice.  Tonight after dinner, (which I will talk about in a bit) they gave me a tour of the house and then we stood and talked Elena's room for a long time about things to do in Heredia and about the culture and people of Costa Rica in general.  I love it!  AND, I think that Elena is my new favorite person.  She is 10 years old and oh so adorable.  She's learning to speak English, so we will give each other lessons. :)  Also, my host house has so many more luxuries than I was expecting.  Since I only had Guatemala to compare with, I was a little blown away.

 1.  Wi-Fi in my room... I definitely was not expecting that. 

My bed & closet

2.  My own mini apartment set apart from the rest of the house.  It's small, but awesome.

My closet and desk

3.  Drinkable water from the faucet.  This may not seem like such an exciting thing, but you go brush your teeth from a water bottle for a month, and you'll understand my excitement.
 
4.  A comfortable bed- It's ten times more comfortable than my bed at home.

5.  Breathtaking views just outside my doorway.  But really.

View from my doorway.  Picture doesn't do it justice.

6.  An adorable French Poodle named either "Puffy" or "Poofy"  I really can't tell. 



I'm sure there are more, but that's all I have for the moment. 



The food so far has been excellent.   I told my host abuela that the only thing I absolutely will not eat is onions, and so far she has been really good about not putting any in my meals. Apparently onions go in practically everything, so I told her that if they were very small that it would be ok.  (Which, if you know me, means that I will have to be brave and at least try to eat the onions). 

One thing that has really surprised me is the Tico's attitute toward the climate.  This is their invierno (winter)  and they actually think it is a little chilly even though it has been in the 80's.  Nowhere has air conditioning, but it has not been a problem in my room since it gets cooler at night.  Another interesting thing is that there is hardly any barrier between the inside and the outside.   My host family leaves their back door open all day long, and my room has windows that don't really close. haha.  It's kind of scary to think of what could come into my room in the middle of the night.  I haven't had any terrifying bug experiences yet, but I'm sure there will be a few.  Also, many of the buildings on campus have plastic covering on windows that they only put down at night.  In the US, we spend so much money keeping the outside out and the air conditioning in. 

This entry turned out quite a bit longer than I expected.  I think I'm going to have to stop myself from posting so often, or else I will bore everybody to death.  Even if noone else reads it, this is pretty much my trip journal.  I'll probably print them out when I get back and make them into some kind of memory book for myself.  There are just so many new and exciting things to say that I probably won't be able to stop myself.  :)  Oh well.  ¡Pura Vida!

I made it!

I'm here!  AND, I have wi-fi in my room!  Right now, I'm wishing I were staying longer than 6 weeks.  I'll fully update later, but just wanted everyone to know I arrived safely. :)

Airport Stress

In a perfect world, I would be in Costa Rica right now.  Unfortunately, airports always seem to have something going wrong.  As I type, I am sitting in Dallas- Forth Worth International Airport.  It is 2pm, and my flight isn't for another 2 and a half hours.  BUT, I am very very glad that I am getting to Costa Rica today.

You see....This morning, I got to the airport at 5:45am... 2 hours before my first flight.  When I got to the check in counter, I was informed that my first flight was delayed due to "crew rest."  I mean, really?  So anyways, this delay meant that I would not be able to catch my connection to Costa Rica.  The next thing out of the airline woman's mouth were the words, "The earliest we can get you there is tomorrow."  I almost freaked out right there.  Then, she started looking and came to the conclusion that the only way I could get there tonight was if I were to drive to Atlanta and catch a 5pm flight to Costa Rica.  I then called my uncle who lives in Atlanta to see if he could possibly take me to the airport so I could leave my car at his house.  Now, my uncle flies all the time for his job, so he got online and said that there were other options and that I shouldn't drive to Atlanta.

I basically stood around for an hour while my uncle talked to the airline folks on the phone.  Apparently he's much more forceful than I am, because he somehow managed to get me a flight out.  And here I am...in Dallas listening to horrible elevator music waiting for my next flight.  I wish I could say that my stress ended there, but I still had the problem of needing to inform my host mom of when to pick me up.  I was supposed to get into Costa Rica at 1:30pm...I will now be getting there around 7:30pm.  For some reason, the people at ISEP don't like for us to call our host families directly.  I tried and tried to get a response from the coordinators via email, but finally broke down and dialed the cell number of my host mother about an hour ago.  It was amazing to finally hear a voice on the other end of the line, but I was super nervous to try and speak in Spanish to her.  Fortunately, she knew enough English, and I knew enough Spanish to have a comprehensible conversation.  Anyway,  everything seems to be running smoothly now, and I hope that it will continue to do so for the rest of the day at least. :)

The Countdown is on!

My trip to Costa Rica is getting incredibly close!  At this moment, the countdown is 3 days 8 hours.  I, unfortunately, have a ridiculous amount of things to do before I leave on Sunday morning.  First and foremost, there is the whole packing issue.  I have always despised packing, and I usually put it off until the last possible moment.  For this trip, however, I actually made a list. (I know, right?) Now that I have everything on my list purchased and spread throughout my room, the only thing left is to put it into my suitcase...a feat not to be underestimated.  Hopefully, I won't forget anything too vital, but if I do, I'm sure I'll be able to find it in Costa Rica.  The other big thing on my to-do list is my "Campus France" part of my French visa application.  It'll be interesting trying to get everything in on time and without too many problems.  I've also been meaning to brush up on my Spanish.  I'm hopeful that it will all come back to me once I get into a groove of speaking it.  I'm sure I'll throw some French in every once in a while and feel completely stupid. But hey, what's new?

I

The part of my trip that I am most excited about is getting to live with a host family.  I had a great experience in Guatemala with my host family, so I'm hoping this will be the same.  The family is made up of my host mom, Vera, her daughter, Nuria, and her nine year old granddaughter, Elena.  I received this adorable picture of the grandmother and granddaughter about a week ago.  They're cute, right!  I'm also really excited about getting to know the other students in the program.  One of the girls going started a facebook group, and it's been pretty neat hearing about all the different backgrounds and interests.  I seriously cannot wait. 


My biggest worry is that these six weeks will go by way too quickly.  I hope that I can soak it all in and appreciate every moment, the good and the not so good. :)  Like the Ticos say,  ¡Pura Vida!