And We're Off!

I made it! After eight hours of traveling, we finally arrived in San Jose around 2:30 in the afternoon. I traveled on a group flight with other USAC students, but only two of us were going to Heredia; the others were going to either Puntarenas (on the Pacific coast) or San Ramon (which is pretty close to Heredia), so for a while we were worried that we were in the wrong group flight! But everything worked out and our host families were waiting for us when we arrived. After spending two minutes in the car I can already say that Costa Rican drivers are crazy!  They swerve all over the place and not a minute goes by without someone honking at someone else. I'm glad I won't have to be doing any driving while I'm here!

My family is amazing and so nice! My host mother's name is Marianela (Nela), her husband is Jefat, and they have a 17 year old son named James. Nela's mother also lives here. I spent yesterday getting to know them. So far I know that Nela LOVES cats, so my billions of pictures of mis gatos come in handy because she loves looking at them. She's also a great cook and loves to keep feeding me! Jefat and James both speak English pretty well, so that's nice for me when I can't think of the words in Spanish. They're both pretty funny and James loves playing video games on the computer. I don't know much about Nela's mother because she hasn't been here too much. They also have an adorable dog named Minnie who I love!

Today we had our orientation and I met the other USAC students that I'll be studying with. There's only 13 of us, which I like because it gives us all a chance to get to know each other. I really like everyone so far; there are students from all over the country with all different backgrounds. One of the guys is even from England! After the orientation we had one hour to kill before our host mothers came to pick us up from the university, so we decided to walk around downtown Heredia. We ended up going to a bar near the campus, but right after we got there it starting POURING rain! I have never seen such heavy rain in my life, and we learned the hard way that umbrellas are an absolute necesity here. It was still raining when we had to return to the univeristy, so we asked the bartenders for garbage bags to use as temporary umbrellas...stupid Americans! The streets of Heredia were insane today because there is a huge soccer game tonight between the Heredian team and another Costa Rican city, and Heredia hasn't won against them in 17 years. I think they might be playing for some kind of championship as well, so everyone had Heredia flags and were waving them out windows and honking. I think we are going to watch the game later tonight on the TV.

So far I'm loving Costa Rica! The people are so nice and it is so beautiful here. I love the mountains that surround us. I'm especially excited for this weekend because we are going on a field trip. On Friday we tour a coffee plantation and we're also going to hike an active volcano! Then, we head to Punta Leona for Saturday and Sunday to see the beach! Can't wait!

Hasta Luego