¡Hola!

The garden at my school

My room

I've been in Costa Rica a week now, and I can already tell that six weeks is not long enough! There's so much I want to do while I'm here. Luckily, I got my class schedule and my Mondays and Wednesdays are completely free, so me and some other students can do a lot of things that are somewhat close by on those days, or take a long weekend to go somewhere a bit further, like the beach. We want to go ziplining, visit a coffee plantation, take dance classes, go shopping, see a performance at the Teatro Nacional, go hiking, and watch movies in Spanish (we're all feeling Pirates 4!). I also plan on buying a Spanish translation of a book I've read in English to read at nights.

The whole group

We've done a TON since I last posted. I took a placement test that made me feel a lot better about my Spanish because I could do almost all of it. However, being able to pick the correct verb tense out of two choices is much different than putting together whole sentences to talk! haha After that, we walked around San Joaquin so we could see where the bank, post office, etc. is and where other students live. Unfortunately, no one lives near me, so I have to either walk by myself or, if it's dark, take a taxi. But it's fine. We also went into Heredia (the next town over) to a club called FoFos with one of the student's hermanatica (host sister--Costa Ricans are called ticos or ticas, and hermana is the word for sister for you non-Spanish people) It was really fun to interact with locals our own age. It's less intimidating to talk to them, and they are often able to help more because they know a little bit of English.

The next day, we explored Heredia more. It's my favorite because it's not as huge and busy as San Jose, but there's more to do than there is in San Joaquin. AND the bus there is only 160 colones (like less than 50 cents). In Heredia, we went to a dance class, and it was SO much fun! Our teacher is going to meet us at a club next Friday so we can practice. We were all dead when we left though. I got home and slept for about 3 hours, woke up to eat dinner, and went back to bed. haha.

Iglesia de Ujarras

La Basilica de Nuestra Senora de
Los Angeles

Yesterday, we visited another city close by--Cartago. It used to be the capital. We went to several churches that were very interesting. The first was Iglesia de San Jose de Orosi. It's very old, and has a museum attached with old tools used for the sacraments. We also went to ruins of the second church that was built in the country: Iglesia de Ujarras. There was a playground there, so we stayed for a while to relax. We also tried a fruit called cas off of some trees there. The next church was La Basilica de Nuestra Senora de Los Angeles. It was huge and so pretty! It was a mix of Arabic, Byzantine, and romantic styles. There was a place downstairs with little charms of body parts. People put them there when they were cured by some miracle. It was kind of weird, but very interesting. Finally, we went to ruins of another church: La iglesia Parroquial de Santiago Apostol. It was destroyed by an earthquake and made completely of volcano rock.

Delicious, right!?

A few culture comments: The food is delicious, but they serve so much! It's considered rude to leave food on your plate, so it's an interesting predicament. My mamatica doesn't serve me too much because she's had many students in the past and understands though. Also, all the food is so fresh. My mamatica and I went to the feria this morning (pretty much a farmer's market spanning like 5 blocks. It was huge, and so cheap. Also, there is so much English music here. It's all they play in the buses and bars. It's an interesting mixture of songs though, ranging from old songs like Total Eclipse of the Heart and Bye Bye Bye to new ones like S&M. There's a neighbor across the street that plays Lil Wayne every single day. Once, I heard a Spanish song that I knew. It was very exciting! Also, I learned that they sing very serious and depressing songs for karoke rather than fun and silly songs like we usually do in the US. I guess that's all for now, I have to head to school!

Adios!