My first week in Costa Rica!

I have been in Costa Rica for officially one week!! It’s been great so far. First of all, the flights into Costa Rica were so easy. We had no delays or long periods of waiting at all. It was great. The flights in total were about 5 hours. So great. When we got there, our program director Jorge took us all out for ice cream at POPS. We drove to Santa Ana from the airport and then met our host families. Jess and I live together with our host mom, Elieth. She is really nice, she speaks no English and she is pretty easy to communicate with in Spanish. She is an amazing cook! AMAZING. So far I have enjoyed every meal, I always come away from meals feeling very full but so satisfied. The food here is incredible. For breakfast we have different fruits, either papaya, banana, pineapple, strawberry and usually toast and of course, café. The coffee is so great here, I love it. I feel so spoiled with all this fruit!

Like I said, I live with Jess in Elieth’s house. Our rooms are right across the hall from one another. This is a picture of me in my room. Elieth does our laundry every day! Again, sooo spoiled! We don’t have any wireless at my house but I’ll be on every few days because other people have wireless at their host houses.

Anyway, last week we hiked in the mountains for a day. We saw several bugs and unique flowers. When we were driving back down from the mountains we saw a Boa Constrictor on the side of the road. It was awesome! The hike was really fun too. We were literally walking down the side of the mountain, climbing under barbed wire and making up our own paths in the forest. We spent the afternoon at Don Jorge’s other house, the one in the mountains. We had lunch there, which was of course wonderful. And coffee. The view from the mountains was amazing as well.

I’m enjoying my group a lot. There are eleven of us, 9 girls and 2 boys. We went to a bar in Santa Ana last week, Bar Amigos! That was really fun.

Friday through Sunday was spent at the Double Tree resort in Puntarenas. It was amazing, like paradise. The resort was our way to relax, enjoy the sun, the beach and just have fun. It was all inclusive, so room, food and drinks. We swam a lot through the days, in the ocean and the pool. One pool at the resort had a swim up bar, which was really neat. At night we went dancing after dinner which was super fun. I got slightly burnt this weekend, but it’s turned into a tan by now.

In Puntareanas, we also had our first taste of a Costa Rican specialty, a Churchil. It’s a dessert, like a combination between icecream and a snowcone. It’s very sweet, but so good.

Yesterday, a group of us went to San Jose to explore. We had lunch there and walked around, shopping and exploring. Went to some parks and figured out how to work the bus system.

This is our first full week of classes. I had a advanced conversation class today, that is only with 2 other students. I also had the Latin dance class, which is a blast. This weekend we are going to Manuel Antonio National Park. Pura Vida mis amigos!