Underestimating the Sun

Week of February 10th

This week was my first week of classes! After having an eight week break, I was pretty ready to have a set schedule for a semester. This week was sort of a "try-out" week where we got to sign up for a bunch of classes and add and drop them as we needed to. I think by now my classes are pretty set (hopefully). This week was probably the hardest week I've had so far.  It was a week where I saw a not-so-nice side of the college-aged ticos. The classes here at UNA are very much based off of group projects which I was somewhat looking forward to because that would give me even more exposure to Spanish and with people my own age. However, every time we went to form our groups nobody wanted to be in a group with any of us Americans. In one of my classes there were 2 other girls from my group. There was a 45 minute fight going on between everyone in the class over who had to work with us while the three of us just sat in the back of the class. Little did any of them know that we are all excellent students who worked very hard to be here. We all decided that that class was not for us and went to drop it immediately after.  Due to this not fun week, we made numerous runs to Pops, our favorite ice cream place. Seriously, the employees know us now :)

Other than the stress of the first week of school, my week was really good. Every day I came home for lunch and vented to my host mom and sister about the mean kids at school and then I hung out with friends in the evenings. We went out for pizza one night and the mall for some retail therapy.

One really awesome thing I did this week was getting involved with a volunteer opportunity. A bunch of people from my group and I are now a part of an organization called Proyecto Jovenes Embajadores. Through this organization, we will be helping teenagers between the ages of 12 and 17 in many different ways. It's basically a group of students who all want to play soccer. But in order to play soccer they are required to do community service and take English classes.  So that's where the volunteers come in.  Three to four times a month one of my friends who is also an education major and I will be in our own classroom teaching English.  I am SO excited about this. We have a lot of girls in our group which is really good for this program because right now they only have boys. The reason for this is because they have only had male volunteers and so the girls all dropped out. Hopefully we will be able to get the girls involved again. The guys who started this program took us all out to dinner and we figured out our schedules and he gave us the lesson plans for each week. I'm so happy I have the opportunity to volunteer with such an awesome organization while I'm here.

Once this crazy week was over, we headed straight for the beach. Friday morning at 9AM we got on our first bus from Heredia to San Jose. From there we really had no idea what we were doing which was kind of scary but mostly just really funny. We just walked around until we found where the cabs line up. We all got into a cab and told them to take us to the bus station where the bus leaves for Jaco, Costa Rica. He dropped us off and we bought our bus tickets (for only $4!). We had to wait around for about two hours so a couple of my friends and I walked around to find a snack. Of course, we ended up in an ice cream shop before 11 AM. Not surprising at all. We finally got on the bus and were headed for the beach! It seemed like every other minute the temperature inside the bus rose. It was so hot by the time we got there. In Jaco, it is 100 degrees every single day. AND extremely humid. Great combination. When we got off the bus, we really didn't know where we were going yet again. But, we asked for directions and found our hostel without any problems other than the fact that we were dripping sweat. We walked in, set our stuff down, got some lunch at Subway, and headed to the beach. It was only about a 2 minute walk. The beach in Jaco is really pretty. The sand is really dark and the water is beautiful. There were a lot palm trees too. This beach was really not crowded at all which was really nice.

We were there until the sun set.

Day two at the beach was a day of much regret. We went out there around 11 AM and were there until around 4. Little did any of us know we were being burned. Really badly. We put on sunscreen in the morning and re-applied a couple times but apparently that is not good enough for the Costa Rican sun. We walked back in much pain and covered ourselves in aloe. So a note to all my family coming to visit: Do not underestimate the sun here. It is intense.

For dinner, a group of four of us went to a taco place. I got fish tacos with a coconut sauce. They were so good and so tropical. After dinner we went to a gelato place (YUM) and then went home and hung out in the pool for the remainder of the night.

Aside from the crazy sunburns we got, beach weekend #1 was definitely a success :)

Heredia: Week One

I can't believe I've already been living in Heredia for a week! This week was part two of our orientation so the majority of the week was spent with our group.

Sunday 2/2:
Sunday was the first day that we didn't have anything on our calendar to do and it was soooo nice. We all just hung out with our host families and got to know everyone. At the orientation in Monteverde, they taught us that Ticos rise with the sun (around 5:30 or 6 am).  They told us to be respectful of that and to try to follow suit. My mom told me that she wanted me to sleep in, but I set my alarm for 8 so that I wouldn't sleep in too much. I got up, took a shower, and was ready for the day by 9. When I came downstairs my entire family was still in their PJ's just lounging around. So Sunday's are do-nothing-in-your-PJ's days. Noted. Once my parents were ready for the day (around 2 pm), we went and voted because today was the presidential elections for Costa Rica. The streets were super crowded with people! 

After we voted, we went on a walk around Heredia and they showed me how to get to my school, Central Park, and other important places in the city. I live super close to everything which is really nice. I am about a 7 minute walk from the main campus while some of my friends are a 45 minute walk or 20 minute bus ride. After we walked around, we picked up a pizza for lunch (yay a taste of home) and went back home. After lunch my parents took my to the mall to buy a plan for my Costa Rican phone because my mom forbade me to leave my house without a phone. The mall is really nice there and has a movie theater too. Movies are only a couple dollars here! I learned from the very first day that my family eats very tiny dinners. They really don't even call it dinner. Whenever they call me to come eat they say "Lauren, cafecito!", meaning coffee. So for "dinner" we usually have a cup of coffee and something super small like some bread, or an empanada. It's also very strange to drink coffee at night. But the coffee here has much less caffeine than in the US (and tastes much better) so it's okay to drink it at any time of day.

Monday 2/3:
I may have turned 20 today but my entire group felt like we were in 5th grade again. We had to be at the university early in the morning and all of our moms walked us to school. When we were about to start the day, our mommies gave us a snack they packed for us and kissed us goodbye. During a break in the day, we had apple juice and graham crackers. After the day at school ended, we waited outside of the school for our moms to pick us up. Not the typical day of a 20 year old!
On this day we scheduled our classes which was incredibly stressful. So much emailing happened in that room. We have new amigos ticos this week and they all helped us out which was nice. We got to eat lunch on campus which was pretty good. However, when we were standing in line we saw all of these options like spaghetti and cheeseburgers and we were all so excited because we had been craving those foods! Well it turned out that we prepaid for the food and were given the generic meal: rice and beans. The disappointment. After lunch we went back into the room to schedule and surprise!! My host parents walked in with a cake for me and everyone sang happy birthday! It was such a nice surprise and so sweet of my family! 

Later that night, our group met up to go out to the bars to celebrate. We were all so tired from last week in Monteverde so we were all home and in bed by 10:30. It was still a fun night with the group though!

Tuesday 2/4:
Today was a very long day. We got to school early again (this time we got to walk by ourselves) and we split up into groups. We each got paired with an amigo tico to take us on a tour of Heredia. We saw so many cool places that are around town. 

It is actually a pretty easy city to navigate. Unless you're like a girl in my group named Amy who is so directionally challenged that on her walk home from school she got so lost that she walked around for 3 hours before she made it home when her walk is about 20 minutes. But if that's not you, then it's very easy! We walked for 5 hours. And it's not that big of a city. I'm still not sure how it ended up being 5 hours. 

After that exhausting day, I walked home and my mom gave me a huge bowl of freshly cut fruit. So delicious! After I get home from school, I usually hang out with my little brother. He is so nice and funny and loves to chat which is really good for me! I watch him play video games while he asks me about my day and then we watch a movie or some tv. All of the movies and tv shows are American and are dubbed in Spanish. Watching them really helps with my listening and it's nice because if I have already seen them in English, it's easier to follow.

Wednesday 2/5:
Today was an even longer day than yesterday. We went to Barva which is a neighboring town for the day and were with two other study abroad groups. We did a bunch of weird activities and told us a lot of things to help keep us safe and stuff like that. It was very tiring. At the end of all of the chats we had, we went into a field and a girl played the guitar and sang songs while the sun set. We had an incredible view of the city lights of San Jose and you could see so many stars. It sounds pretty amazing right? It was, until we sat on a red ant farm. Now we all have welts on our legs.

Thursday 2/6:
Today guess what we did! More orientation! More chats about safety! They have been very creative in telling us the same things over and over again though. After our 23408th round of talks, we began the visa process. This was not fun. We had to fill out all of these forms asking so many questions and they were all in Spanish which made it rather difficult. After the forms were finally complete, we had to go to the bank. We had to make two separate deposits of money into the same account. And it had to be on two different transactions. That was also fun to try to figure out in Spanish. They just sent us in there alone to take care of it. I guess we have to learn someday.

Friday 2/7:
Last day of orientation!!! Today we went to San Jose for the day. We took the bus which was about 30 minutes. We all split up into small groups so "we wouldn't draw attention" to ourselves. We walked around and saw a lot of the city which was really fun. The city is so beautiful. There are so many cool buildings and parks. 

We all met up at el Teatro Nacional and had a tour of that beautiful building. 

We then had lunch right outside which was sooo good. We had been talking all day about how much we wanted cheese and guess what we had for lunch! Lasagna!! After lunch we went to another part of San Jose (the dangerous part). It really didn't seem that dangerous but apparently all of the sketchy stuff happens at night. We took a bus to a park which was really pretty. However, my small group for the day and our amigo tico, Esteban, had other plans. During our tour it came up that Esteban had never ever had a frosty from Wendy's. So obviously we felt obligated to introduce him to the world of frosty's. We walked to Wendy's and even ordered fries for him to dip into the frosty so that he could get the full American experience. 

After that long day in San Jose, we all went home. I just hung out with the fam tonight.

These two weeks of orientation have been really fun but extremely exhausting too. I'm ready for a relaxing weekend!

Dance Recital and Family Farewells

On Thursday, we had our normal Spanish class and after that we had a dance class. We learned a traditional Costa Rican dance that we performed for our families on Friday night at the family farewell party. They dressed us in the traditional wear from head to toe. It was really fun and interesting to learn about such an important part of the culture there. My host mom even teared up watching us perform because it meant so much to her. 

We then ate more rice and beans and had a dance party, even though the only ones who danced were the Americans.

On Saturday morning, we woke up early to leave Monteverde for Heredia where we will be staying the remainder of the semester.  The drive was terrible because they crammed all of us on a teeny tiny bus and the roads are super windy and bumpy. 

When we arrived in Heredia, we immediately went to our school UNA and all of our families were there. That was a surprise none of us were ready for.  We had just been on a bus for 4 hours, all felt carsick, and were all starving and... oh hello family! We did a couple activities to sort of beak the ice and then we all headed our separate ways.  My family took me out to lunch and then we went home and I got a nice house tour.  This house is much bigger and nicer than my house in Monteverde.  I really really like it.  I have a cute little room. 

My family here is great! I have a mom, dad, sister and brother. My siblings are super nice and love to talk to me and help me with my Spanish.  I also have two golden retrievers and two cats! SO excited about that because I miss my dog so much.  

It's been a crazy week with two different families but I am looking forward to the rest of the adventures I will have!