Blogs from Heredia, Heredia, Costa Rica, Central America Caribbean - page 3

Costa Rica – Jeff After a very comfortable (in comparison to the chicken buses in Nicaragua) eight hour bus ride from Rivas, Nicaragua to San Jose, Costa Rica we had crossed our first border. We immediately went to a familiar hostel in Heredia and reserved a room and headed to Barva to see my host family. We surprised my host parents as they were expecting us the following week-but the welcome the family offered made us feel like we were home. The weekend was full of family birthday parties. My host brother’s wife had a small get together at a local bar with some local live music. The rest of the Tico siblings joined in on the festivities that night as well as some aunts and uncles. Inevitability, Erin and I were asked to dance several ... read more

It has been yet another eventful week here in the magical Costa Rica! On Friday I took advantage of a free day and headed to the beach with my friend Helen. We got up at 6:00am and took a two hour bus from San Jose to a beach called Punta Leona, about twenty minutes north of Jaco. When we arrived we found a little place for breakfast called Soda Nimar which had the best gallo pinto and jugo de piña I've had yet! After breakfast we called a cab to drive us to the beach and we ended up venturing through this gorgeous jungle on a little dirt road and winding up at this small, pretty much empty beach called Playa Blanca. It wasn't the beach we had intended to visit but we were pleased with ... read more

Today I explored the city of Heredia with a fellow student, Shayla. We walked to the center of town and allowed ourselves to get lost. We ended up in Heredia's one hundred year-old cemetery. It was absolutely beautiful. The graves had been kept clean and were adorned with statues, flowers, and plants. Some of the tombs were made of lava rock, some of stone, some of marble, some of tile, and some were just simple crosses in the ground. Then we found our way to two of the town's churches. We also went through the market and bought agua de pipa (a fresh coconut) and had chicken empanadas and pineapple juice for lunch. We met a really nice older gentleman named Fernando and I talked to him for a while about studying in Heredia. I'm taking ... read more

ayyyyy its been a while but I thought since its tuesday, a happy night for me (because i don't have hardly any homework), I should go ahead and update all my many readers about me life once more. These past few weeks have really flown by! Can you believe its been almost 7 weeks?? Like next next saturday, it will have been 2 months! Ahh i don't wanna think about it because I know i'm not gonna wanna leave! I mean lets be honest there are alot of things that wear on me now (like having to take a taxi everywhere ) and i ALOT of things I miss about the US (like getting water for free eveywhere you go) but i living here is so fun and my spanish is getting better poco a poco, ... read more

Ah low! So i have officially been in Costa Rica for three weeks now. SO how am I feeling? Pretty good, i think the dreaded "culture shock" is supposed to be hitting me soon but I'm thinkin about just ducking and trying to miss the whole thing. Maybe it only gets some and not others. I mean is it even real? I don't know, maybe after another week i will have been here a month and by then ( or at leats thats what everyone keeps saying) my spanish is supposed to be alot better or i'm supposed to be understanding alot more or some such and then when I find out I still don't understand and can't speak well, I'll have the "shock". But i'll just keep you posted k? Nothing too interesting happened this ... read more

Well don't get used to me writing everyday but I thought i might as well because I have to time. Well today was good. Mi mama made me eggs with bits of ham in it this morning and i'm getting used to drinking coffee without alot of sugar.. :) This morning mis padres went to church, not mass but church! But i stayed behind because noone thought i would get much out of the sermon.. haha. This afternoon i met another ISEP (thats the program i'm traveling with) student! Her name is Paola and she was really nice. I can't help be jealous of the fact that she already knows Spanish because she lives in San Diego but grew up in Mexico. She, her mom, the mom's two grandsons, and I walked to the university (about ... read more