Overall, my home stay is amazing. The house itself is gorgeous, in addition to the fact that I have my own room. Honestly, the entire set up of the house is very similar to my life in the United States. My mama tica (it's what we all call our host moms- Tico/Tica is basically a slang term for someone from Costa Rica), Denia has been great so far. She's very welcoming and treats me like one of her own- especially in terms of her trying to set me up with a Tico while I'm here. She's so candid and hilarious. I'm really happy where I ended up in terms of my home stay. Also I have a puppy tico as well, so that also makes life pretty awesome.
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| Name: Gatsby, Haircut: Unfortunate |
The Spanish classes have also been going fairly well. Originally, I somehow ended up in a level lower than I should have been. But after speaking with my professor and the director of the language academy, I was put in a class that was more suited to my level. So there was an unfortunate amount of stress and boredom associated with those first few days of class. But now I'm in a level more suited for my level of Spanish, I'm enjoying the classes a lot more, and I actually am learning a lot. My spanish has already improved within the span of a week, which has been fantastic. I also catch myself thinking to myself in Spanish as well, which is also a great sign of improvement.
Additionally, the language academy hosts different cultural activities after classes which are also a lot of fun. So far, I've learned some basic salsa moves (but only from the guy's perspective because there were too many girls to guys that day). But the fact that I actually learned a few dance moves is an obstacle in itself. Tomorrow I'm going to be participating in a cooking class that I'm really excited for. It should be a lot of fun!
I have had to get used to city living again though. The first couple days were filled with the stress of understanding the bus system here in Costa Rica. Busses here are run by private companies. So there's really no predicting when the bus will actually arrive or how comfortable it will be. Also shout out to the people who manage to do their make up on the busses in the morning. You are astounding individuals, as I can barely manage to sit in the seat. But at least the bus is super cheap. It works out that at most it will cost around 50 cents for one bus ride to school or back to my neighborhood.
We've also had a chance to explore parts of the city that we haven't seen before. Of course, we also returned to the climbing gym, and are planning on returning this week. The night life here is also kind of interesting. In most cases, most Ticos go out for one or two drinks and then call it good for the night, which is not necessarily the culture in the United States. Some of the night life is clearly catered to foreigners (such as ourselves), but some of it is clearly more Tico. We've unfortunately seen a lot of the stuff catered to foreigners (but shout out to the Costa Rican Beer Factory, because that was delicious and had great beer), so hopefully we'll see more of the more authentic stuff as our home stay continues.
I apologize for the lack of pictures in this blog post, but I normally don't carry around my phone or camera for safety purposes. I'll attempt to take some pictures of San Pedro/elsewhere soon. My friends and I are also possibly planning on going to the beach this weekend, which should also be a lot of fun. Essentially, I'm looking at this home stay as a break from school, even though I do have work for my spanish class. Staying in a house to be doted on is definitely what the doctor ordered based on the first part of the semester.
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