El primer dia

Hola a mi familia y amigos!

I thought the day would never come but it finally did. This morning I left for Costa Rica and after a good 12 hours of travelling from airport to airport and into a van to go to the hostel for the night-I’m pooped.

The flights went well. We stopped in Miami and had a short layover that was the perfect amount of time. I managed to get one last American food fix-a Wendy’s burger and fries-yum! I travelled with two girls from my program which I really liked; we sat together for all the flights and were able to keep each other company. We met up with three more girls from my program in the Miami airport and set off for San Jose. We arrived at the teeny San Jose airport at around 1:25pm. Customs and immigration was a breeze-just a mighty slow one. My back was killing me by the end but with the Ticos’ (Costa Ricans) “pura vida” attitude that life is good, it was hard to be negative.

Ana and Maria (the program guides) met us right outside the exit to the airport with signs which was nice and easy. They greeted us with hugs and sent us to a small van where we proceeded to load eight people’s luggage on top and cram inside. From there, we set off on our 45 minute ride to San Isidro to stay in the hostel for the night. The streets were crazy. If you think American drivers and roads are bad, you aint seen nothing yet. The roads were narrow and steep and there were no street signs. The houses were lime green, red, orange, yellow and most had gates instead of garages. It was so different from home but I liked it. People were out walking everywhere and EVERY person we waved to waved back with a smile on their face. The people here are SO nice. It’s crazy.   

After settling into our hostel rooms (there are four of us to a room-don’t worry they’re gender sorted J ) we headed off for a walk down the street. There were eight of us- the rest of the group hadn’t arrived yet as there is seventeen students total on the trip. We walked down the road and stumbled upon a piece of land with a small river with sets of small rapids. We walked onto the property to take pictures and were met by a Tico hombre (man). We spoke to him in Spanish and let him know we wanted to take pictures (we were told to check out this place by the hostel owner). We began exploring when the owner, Ernesto, came up to us and started chatting away in Spanish. We tried to talk to him (all our Spanish is a little rusty) and he ended up giving us a tour of his land. It was absolutely gorgeous. There were trees and hills all surrounded by a small meandering river. He told us to walk across the river on rocks so I followed him-everyone else decided to stay back. It was so much fun-I tripped 3 times in that one hour period but it was so much fun.

We were met by Ernesto’s relatives who proceeded to give us all free beer and chat with us for a good hour. One was a doctor that had studied in the U.S. It was crazy to be having conversations in Spanish with these people that we had just met, but they were so friendly. I guess that’s just the Costa Rican culture. I think I can get used to this pura vida.

Hasta luego! (Until later!)

Love, Kristin