My first few days in Costa Rica!!!

Hola!!
I have arrived in Costa Rica! My plane got in around noon and it was 80 degrees in San Jose. I met up with the other USAC study abroad students (about 30 of us). Then we boarded a coach bus to Puntarenas. The bus ride was supposed to be 2 hours but it ended up taking 4 and ½!! The roads here are tiny and mostly dirt and all through mountains with crazy sharp turns and we had about 5 near accidents and then one real accident! Our bus hit another bus on one of the sharp turns and cracked our windshield. Both buses stopped in the middle of the tiny road and stopped traffic for over an hour! But the crazy thing was that no one even cared. People weren’t even annoyed or bothered. People from the cars being held up got out of their car and started talking to other people. Some tourists got out and took pictures. I was exhausted though with 2 hours of sleep the night before and then about an hour of sleep on the plane.

Oh the plane!! I ended up in the same row as another study abroad student! She was really cool, from Washington, and it turns out that she studied abroad here in Costa Rica her freshmen year too and loved it so much that she had to come back for another semester! So it was cool because I got to talk to her and ask questions and she made me feel less nervous.

So once we finally got to Puntarenas (around 8pm) by host mom picked me up from the USAC school and took me to her house. The house is bigger than I thought. 3 bedrooms. 2 bathrooms. Living room. Kitchen and 2 cool outdoor-type rooms with no roofs. But it’s all on one floor and kinda all squeezed together. Oh…and there cockroaches!! Grossssss. I almost freaked out when I saw one for the first time, but I didn’t haha. There’s also lizard-type things everywhere. I saw two larger ones today walking around (about a foot long) and I’ve seen tiny ones crawling on the walls of the house! Yup…this is definitely different than the US.

Oh, and it’s MAD hot here! You basically sweat non-stop. But I’m already getting some color just from walking around today for a few hours! I’m going to run in the mornings when it’s not so hot and humid and sunny and there aren’t as many people out.

What else… my host family is pretty cool. My mom is Ceci who is in her 60s and has lived in Puntarenas her whole life! It’s hard to understand her Spanish sometimes because she has a quiet voice and talks fast but I haven’t been doing too bad! And hopefully with some time Spanish will come more natural to me. Her 16 year old nephew lives with us too and he’s super nice and showed me around town a little bit but isn’t in the house much because he has a lot of friends and his aunt says he’s “too cool” to stay in the house haha.

Ceci showed me all around town today. Oh and by the way, EVERYTHING is within walking distance. We went to the bank and the grocery store. She showed me the calle principal (main street) which was really exciting and lively. There were a lot of people out shopping and just walking around. There’s an election in February for president and we actually ran into one of the candidates who was walking around and videotaping greeting everyone and talking about the changes he wanted to make. And he shook my hand!!

Things here are WAY different. The houses are have fences/gate things up in front of them. They all have an outdoor type room in the front where people will sit doing nothing for hours. Everyone is super friendly. Everyone says Holaaa or Adios or Buenas Dias on the street when you pass them. The streets have no names and the houses have no numbers so it’s a little tricky with directions but I am a girl which automatically gives me a good sense of direction and I’m sure I’ll be fine.

The food is delicious. So far I’ve eaten a lot of melón (cantelope) and frescos which is a juicy type drink that is wonderful and refreshing. For breakfast I had eggs but they had spices and flavor to them which made them tasty. For lunch we had bisteak (flank steak) which was marinated and then frijulos (beans) con arroz (rice) and plantanos fritos (fried bananas.) and Ceci is cooking dinner now so we’ll see what’s in store.

Anyhow, I think this post is long enough even though I could go on for pages describing EVERYthing! I’ll post pictures as soon as possible and if the internet connection Is good at my school.
Hasta luego!