Costa Rica Day 2

May 24, 2013 (our internet is down so I'm a day behind) 

Well today was a bit slower since all we had was orientation at the school. Jasmia (my roommate from U of M) and I woke up around 8 and both got ready. We said we didn’t want to seem like lazy Americans even though we knew we didn’t have to be ready until later :) 

We went into the kitchen and Leticia already had breakfast started. Bless her heart, she always explains what the food is and how to eat it but I can’t understand her yet. It’s a really good thing I’m not a picky eater because I’ll basically eat anything in front of me without knowing what it is. Yesterday at dinner she told her niece to tell me “how great it is that I eat everything” haha. Thanks to my mom for instilling that in me at an early age! She asked me in Spanish if I wanted to eat in the kitchen or at the dining room table, which surprisingly I understood. It may be because she pointed and only said “here or there” but it’s a start! 

I’m not sure what the exact name of the dish was called, but it was 2 small corn tortillas with a piece of melted cheese in the middle. I saw her cooking it on the stove so I managed to put two and two together. I read in my book on Costa Rica that they typically like plain cheese and to us Americans it doesn’t have much taste compared to our cheeses. It was in fact pretty plain, but it went great with the cup of coffee and fresh bananas she put on the table. Once I finished my first one, Leticia immediately brought me another. Breakfast was pretty relaxing since we didn’t have anywhere to be until the afternoon which I took advantage of today since most of our days from here on our will consist of us being at the school at 8 am.

After breakfast, we had quite a lot of free time. Still not being familiar with the area, we decided to just relax until we had to be at the school in the afternoon. After such a busy semester and few weeks leading up to the trip, I can’t tell you all how weird it is for me to have all of this free time! I took some pictures of around the house and got online for a bit. Here are the pictures of the house!

Right when you walk in the house 

Kitchen 

My bedroom

The living room, my favorite spot! The table on the right is where we have all of our meals 

And the best part, the view from the living room! 

Around lunch, Leticia had what seemed to be a cleaning lady over doing some housework. I think they were also friends because she stayed for lunch too. For lunch, we had chicken with carrots, rice and beans (which in Costa Rica is at almost every meal) and a salad. I’m almost certain that anything Leticia cooks I’ll like. It was very delicious and seemed really healthy. I’m pretty sure I’ll be eating a lot healthier on this trip than I ever have before. I managed to snap a picture on my phone of this one!

After lunch, we headed to the school for our orientation. I wasn’t expecting the school to be as far as it was. Leticia drove us today and it took us about 10-15 minutes to get there. Leticia’s niece, Tericita (not sure on the spelling) told us that it will probably be best for us to take the bus to school everyday. There’s a bus stop one block from our house and the fare is pretty cheap, about 250 colones which is about 50 cents in the US. I’m still trying to get the hang of the currency. Here's a picture of what it looks like. I love the monkeys on it! 

When we got to the school, the first thing I noticed was how bright all of the buildings were and all the plants and trees around the grounds. We have an official tour tomorrow so I’m excited to see more of the campus. Jasmia and I were the first ones from the U of M group to get there so we met all sorts of other students. I'd say there's about 40 of us total. Most of them were from small schools in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas and Arizona. The orientation was only about an hour and a half and they gave us lots of pretty useful tips about the city and what to expect during our time here. They then told us to get in groups by the neighborhoods we are in so if we want to coordinate getting to school together or hanging out we can knows whose fairly close.

After the orientation, we came back to the house and for some reason I was super tired. Leticia must have been able to tell I was sleepy because as soon as I got in my room she came and brought me a big cup of coffee :) I’m starting to get obsessed with whatever this coffee is. It’s so different than in the states. It’s much sweeter and doesn’t bother to drink it black, which I can never do at home.

Then came the afternoon rain. It was really nice though since we didn’t have anything planned and the rain sounds really cool on our roof. Jasmia and I just laid around the house and both eventually took naps. I went out and read my book on Costa Rica in the living room where the rain is extra loud. I could easily get use to reading a book and relaxing out there while it’s raining :) We’ve come to find out the wi-fi doesn’t work while it’s raining so we had lots time on our hands.

For dinner, we had turkey and rice with beans and tortilla chips. Muy bueno! During dinner, Leticia got her Spanish-English dictionary out and was trying to ask us questions about our majors, if we had brothers and sisters etc. It was sweet how she was taking the time to look up everything. We also had an English-Spanish dictionary so we were all sitting there for about an hour or so after dinner with our dictionaries trying to communicate. I think we did pretty good! Periodically we would giggle at each other’s translations of things. While we were doing this, the doorbell rang and someone delivered a fruit basket and guess who it was from? My parents! Leticia beamed when she saw it and came and showed us the card. I tried my best translating it for her and she gave me a kiss on the cheek and said muchas gracias several times. So Mom and Dad, good work :) she loved it!