Life in Costa Rica

Buenos Días!

As of yesterday I have been in Costa Rica for two whole weeks… so crazy! And I only have six and a half left---this summer is going to go by so quickly! So many things have happened in these two weeks that I thought a blog would be the easiest way to keep everyone posted… I’m going try to not blabber too much and just some up a few highlights of my past week so as not to bore you with too much detail! Haha

Tuesday and Wednesday:

·      we stay late in the afternoon for our Latin American Theology class- its amazing! I’m learning so much and I really enjoy the professor.

·      We were afraid at first all our classes together would be an impossible amount of work but our professors talked and cut it down to a manageable level- Praise God! The last thing I want to do while trying to experience CR is hours of homework every night!

Thursday:

·      We watched “a ojos cerrados” for our class- a movie about Costa Rican life that is 100% Costa Rican made and really good! It was cool to make all the connections to life here.

·      Half our group went to the mall in Heredia (about 20 minutes from my house) to buy books for class and watch the new Pirates movie. It was super cheap even though it was in 3D (the subtitles shot out at us! Haha) and it was strange to think so many people here go to see a movie that isn’t even in their native language! It was neat to read the subtitles and see how it was translated- with all the pirate lingo it was pretty tricky!

Friday:

·      I spent the day with Montserrat (my 10 year old God-sister) and we had a blast playing cards, watching TV, and walking around the neighborhood.

·      Someone’s host mom arranged for us to have a bus to go to a club to dance. Only 3 of us girls went and 6 of the guys! It was really fun, even though we left at 9:20- the time I’m usually getting ready for bed here (I know I’m lame…) and didn’t get back until 3am. We all looked pretty foolish trying to dance to the Latin music and but we all tried our best. I danced one on one with each of the guys plus a Costa Rican that came with us and a 50 something man who was there with his family! I definitely learned a lot from them but since the songs never ended it got a little awkward! Luckily the boys were watching me and came to my rescue! The dancing was fast paced and by the end of the night even all of us were dripping sweat and having a blast! It was a great work out!

Saturday:

·      Went with 5 other students into San Jose (the capital) to visit some cultural sites for one of our classes. It was off and on raining all afternoon (like it does every afternoon!) so it was kind of “glumpy” as one of my friends named it (because it was gloomy and we were grumpy). None of us really like the big city- we much more prefer Heredia or our little San Rafael.

·      I had an actively hot shower- the first since I got to my host-house! It was the most beautiful surprise! J

Sunday:

·      A few of us helped planting small trees and flowers as well as putting in a little path in our local park. It looks great, even though we weren’t able to go all the way around the park like they wanted. It was a classic Costa Rican venture- Jessie and I got there at 8 and didn’t get started until 9- when others finally showed up. It was organized well enough but we didn’t have very many shovels so we were often slowed down, which really doesn’t matter to a Costa Rican, whose slogan is “tranquilla!” which basically means chill/don’t worry. A great reminder for me! :)

·      At night we watched the Costa Rica-Cuba soccer game- CR WON! It was 5-0 and my host dad was flipping out at every goal! Haha

I’m really enjoying the people here and making some friends from our trip. My host parents continue to take fantastic care of me and are overall really interesting people! I’m getting lots of sleep (except for Friday night…) and am actually a little bit ahead on my homework after a weekend without Internet access to distract me!

I hope everything is going as well with you all in the States! :)

All my love,

Emma