Homestay: First Week

The first week at my homestay in San Pedro (San José) has been flying by.  We are kept really busy with classes, so I have barely even had time to think about writing down what I've been doing.  Here is what I remember:

Thursday we met our spanish teachers and had our first 5 hour spanish class.  My mama tica took me to school like I was in kindergarden so I could figure out the bus system.  Everyday that I go to the Costa Rican Language Academy for classes, I attempt to engage my mind for 5 straight hours of class with 4 other classmates.  The good news is our teacher is adorable and very tolerant.  We have a paper or presentation due basically every other day because the class is only two and a half weeks long.  To make things better though, we found out the we get free dance classes and 2 'excursions' (see description of Sunday) if we want.

Friday was full of classes again.  We figured out how to walk to OET (Organization for Tropical Studies in spanish) and it only took us 25 minutes or so.  OET is where we have all of our research, ethnobiology, and pubic health classes along with 'journal clubs' where we have student led discussions of articles.  CRLA, where we have our spanish classes, is too far to walk, so we take a bus there.  Friday we went to both places.  Buses cost less than 50 cents each way, so it's a great way of transportation, but things start to get unsafe around dusk.  We have to leave OET/CRLA by 5:30 ish to get home for dinner before it gets dark.  My mama tica cooks me DELICIOUS dinners every night.  I wish she could cook for me all the time.  Here's a picture of my room.  It's really nice to have my own space/bathroom.  It'll be hard to go back to living in bunks!

Saturday was once again full of classes.  Big surprise.  Luckily, we finished before dinner and I was able to write my spanish essay in time to go to a sports bar and have an Imperial while watching fútbol.  People are crazy about soccer here, which is awesome.

Sunday, we chose to do one of the excursions offered by the CRLA.  Six of my friends and I took a boat to Tortuga Island to hang out on the beach for a day.  We had to leave at 6 in the morning to drive to the coast.  On the way there, we met a really nice Welch guy.  His friend was sick, so he had come alone, and it turned out that he spent the day with us.  With his dreamy english accent, he described how he was training to be an actor and had been in Costa Rica for the month helping baby turtles hatch and return to the sea.  Seriously?  Who is this guy?  Anyways, the trip was fun, and they fed us like royalty (like they do everywhere we go).  Unfortunately, the water was murky because it has been raining so much, so we didn't get to go snorkeling, but we played beach soccer with some 'ticos' to make up for it.

Monday we had classes again, obviously.  At night though, we decided to go out San Pedro style and we got most of the people in our program to go to a club called El Cuartel.  It was a nice club and it got really packed as the night went on.  Also, there ended up being live music, which was good.  The only downside was that it was, in my opinion, in an interesting (shady) part of town.  Also interesting was learning how to use cabs here.  Cabs are the safest way to get around at night, but they are not necessarily efficient if you're a confused American.  For example, we all live in different places, but we share cabs to save money.  Only problem is, we don't have addresses.  We gave the driver a description of the house we wanted to pick someone up at and hoped he could find it.  The few times we've taken cabs though, the driver has had to call the house, ask for directions, then drive in circles for a bit waiting for the person.  God do I miss cell phones.  It made planning SO easy.  From now on, we know to bring with us the "address", phone number, and name of the family we are trying to find.  My opinion is that someone should really tell the ticos about GPS.

After our night out, I woke up this morning at the normal 6:30 a.m. and had spanish classes.  We had the day off of OET classes today, so my friends and I took the opportunity to go to our second dance class.  So far I've learned the basic merengue step along with some 4 or 5 other moves.  The teacher is the stereotypical enthusiastic latino man who is an absurdly good dancer.  He's so good that he can even make it seem like I know what the word 'bailar' means!

On the agenda for the week: Jade museum and InBio conservancy.  This weekend we're either going whitewater rafting, zip-lining through the canopies, or hanging out at a hot springs at a volcano.  TBA!