COSTA RICA, here I am!

Costa Rican beauty the second we get there!

You guessed it, its gorgeous here.  So we landed from our 3.5 hour flight and of course, this rainbow was there to greet us - I took it as a good omen.  It was a 1 hour ride from the airport to our houses, we were all exhausted and starving because our first plane was delayed an hour and our second we had to run to in order to make on time.  I could write pages and pages about what we have been doing here, but I am going to try to keep it to one page a day.  Get ready for a Costa Rican adventure!



The first day after we had our placement tests, we went to the bank to exchange money, learned all the good places to eat lunch (and ate lunch) and then had a short orientation to living with a host family and the tico (Costa Rican) culture.  The current exchange rate is about 500 colones to 1 dollar, which is actually rather easy to compute when shopping as long as you can multiply by 2.

Colones (local currency)

The second day we had a more substantial class.  We were assigned to classes according to ability, but the classrooms are very small and classes only consist of 1 to 4 people each.  Its intimate, but good for learning and especially convenient for lots of questions about the language and the culture.  In the afternoon we were lucky enough to make it to downtown San Jose and do a scavenger hunt.  The hunt itself wasn't that fun, but it was kind of convenience to be forced to practice asking people for directions - little did I know how handy this would be.  I'm sure you're thinking, how hard could it be? worse comes to worse just mapquest it or ask someone. I would tell you that 99% of streets don't have names, and if they do no one knows them.  Also, they only use landmarks, measurements of blocks and meters, and pointing to tell you how to get places.  About 25% of the time, the measurements they give are wrong, too much or too little.  Usually more of the latter which makes me constantly worry that I already passed my destination.

Day three we went to a museum.  It was all about the history of San Jose and the ancient times. To be honest I don't remember too much but I have the pictures to remember it by for later.  Later in the day we all decided to find somewhere to hang out and a local restaurant/bar was having karaoke night so we decided to go.  It was fun, we didn't stay out late but its nice to interact with the ticos outside of school.

Our mask maker!

On the fourth day I got my first sunburn.  We sat in the sun during lunchtime and my arms burned a little.  This is nothing compared to my burn in a couple days.  After class, we went to visit a local Nicaraguan community of "pobres" to play with the children and bring them juice and cookies.  They were ecstatic to have us there and I was surprised to see so many of my classmates so into playing with the kids.

Day five (does it feel like time is starting to fly to you too?!) its finally Friday!  We had our weekly test in our classes and I think I did fine.  After class we got a bus to a workshop of a local mask maker.  Probably the most adorable man I have met here thus far.  He said the masks are like a second family to him and he refuses to sell them because he wouldn't sell family.  He even gave one away to the winner of a game we played but first he asked her where it was going and then kissed it goodbye.

Today, day six, we went to the Orosi Valley.  Everywhere the "naturaleza" is so pretty.  We made a few stops on the way to the main rest/photo area.  Once we got there we spent about an hour just sitting around talking quietly, admiring the view, and enjoying the most perfect weather.  The view was gorgeous.  This is also when I got sunburned - every stop we went to was 10 or 15 minutes to take pictures, but no one told us we were going to be at this one for so long otherwise I would have put on the SPF 30 sunscreen I brought with me.  Live and learn I guess. When we got back to Curridabat, a couple of us decided to go back to downtown San Jose to pick up a few last minute things for our trip tomorrow.  What trip is that you ask? I guess you will have to wait and see. Talk to you again in a week!

Orosi Valley (Me, Liz, RJ)

-a