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Published: January 20th 2009
Hope all of you are staying warm in the nasty Iowa weather! I've heard it has been in the negatives! It is not as warm as I thought it would be here yet, but my tico mother (tico is the word for native Costa Ricans) said January is the transition month between their "winter" and summer, so it will start getting really warm in February and March. Although my suitcase barely made the weight limit in the airport, I don't think I packed as many clothes as I thought I did!
Classes started on Tuesday and are going well so far! (For those of you who don't know, all of my classes are in Spanish.) My Latin American Literature teacher is from Cuba. She is very nice, expressive, and enunciates each word so she is easy to comprehend. My Advanced Oral and Written teacher is also very nice;he is my favorite so far. I think most of the teachers know we are still learning Spanish so they speak slower and enunciate more than they would with other ticos. Our house is within walking distance to the university so my roommate and I walk to class everyday. We take a
bus home however because our tico mother doesn't think it is safe to walk after 5. Our house is close to several places so my roommate and I try walk as much as we can; especially because they feed us soooo much! We walked to the store today, which is like the "Walmart" of Costa Rica; however, it is not that cheap! Foods from the US are almost double the price here, so we try to buy local brands, but they come in smaller packages or are hard to find.
Monday night a bunch of us international students went to El Cuartel, a local bar that is popular on Monday nights. Ladies get in free and they have a live band, which was really good, but it was also very crowded. On Thursdays most people go to Castros, where they have salsa dancing on Thursdays. So Wednesday night our tico sister and mother gave us dancing lessons for the Salsa and the Merengue, so we would look like we knew what we were doing. It was definitely a funny sight! We didn't make it to Castros this Thursday, but definitely another week! Friday we left for Monteverde, Costa Rica
to see a cloud forest and go zip lining.
While we were getting on the bus to leave two students were robbed. You never know what to expect in a foreign country! It definitely made us all more aware of our belongings and surroundings. Luckily it wasn't me! On the way to Monteverde we came across a snake, monkeys, and a sloth. I was in the back of the bus so I didn't get pictures, so I hope other students did! Zip lining was definitely an awesome and thrilling experience! I'm glad I'm not scared of heights! Our hotel was a little rustic, but was a lot of fun. They had a discoteca, which is like a bar with music and strobe lights. It was a good chance to get to know the other students from the states better. There was a cheese factory within walking distance to the hotel, so we all stopped there to get ice cream. On Sunday we went to the cloud forest. It was like a rain forest but there were several clouds. We were so high up in the mountains that we were getting hit by the clouds and we could see the
Pacific Ocean. I will post pictures! The rest of the day we drove back to San Jose. We were all very tired and ready to get home to our host families.
Well that's it for last week!
Emily
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