Welcome to Costa Rica!

¡Hola! I've been in Costa Rica for a couple of weeks now and it has been wonderful! I arrived on Thursday, June 19th and spent a week traveling with my friend, Sarah, from home. We stayed in San José for a few nights and spent four nights in Cahuita at the beach on the Caribbean side. In San José we went to a bar to see Costa Rica beat Italy in the World Cup, and the reaction of the ticos (Costa Ricans) was incredible! Everyone went wild with excitement and partied all day and night. In Cahuita, we were able to do a canoe tour and visit the sloth sanctuary, and even went zip lining! It was amazing.

My program through MLSA at the University of Costa Rica in San José started on Thursday, June 26th. I met my host family in the morning and each of my housemates as they arrived throughout the day. I'm living with a Costa Rican couple whose children are grown and out of the house, and there are three other girls from the U.S. and two German guys. Everyone is really nice and my host family has been nothing but kind and welcoming from the moment we met. We each have our own room, which is nice, and are provided with breakfast and dinner each day and three meals on the weekends. Costa Rican food is delicious! A typical meal consists of some sort of meat with rice, beans, salad, and "maduros" (fried plantains). They have "sodas" everywhere which are little restaurants where you can get a meal like that with a drink and it costs around 2,500-3,000 colones, so around five dollars. The exchange rate right now is around 550 colones per dollar, and things seem to cost pretty much the same as they would cost in the U.S.

Our first couple of days were spent touring the university, meeting other students in the program, and attending orientations to help prepare us for the program and for living in Costa Rica for the month. One thing I've had to get used to is using "usted" (the formal "you") with everyone instead of choosing between "tú" (the informal "you") or "usted" depending on who you're talking to. It felt very formal at first to use "usted" all the time but now I've pretty much gotten used to it. The climate has also been an adjustment for me coming from western Washington because it's definitely hotter and more humid here, but in general it hasn't been too bad and definitely more comfortable than a lot of places I could be in July! It's the rainy season so it often rains in the afternoons, but for the most part it's pretty nice for most of the day. Ticos in general have been super nice and welcoming, and so far my experience with Costa Rican culture has been great!

I'm taking two graduate level classes that are taught in Spanish by Costa Rican professors from the university, but where all of my classmates are from the U.S. The first class is from 8:00-10:20 and the second class goes from 10:35-12:50. I'm taking a class on techniques in teaching Spanish and one on Spanish linguistics. There are eight students in my techniques class and only five in my linguistics class, so you really get to know your classmates and your professors. My first class (Técnicas) so far has focused on different methods for teaching a foreign language, and we have readings to learn about the theory and homework such as preparing a lesson to teach to the class for this Thursday. My second class (Lingüística) has focused on learning the theory behind Spanish linguistics and the phonology and phonetics related to the Spanish of the Americas and of Spain. I love it! It's so interesting and the professor is really knowledgeable so we end up having interesting class discussions and I'm learning a lot. The campus is really beautiful, and it's just nice to get to use my Spanish all day and to be surrounded by people who are passionate about Spanish like me. I already know I will be sad to leave Costa Rica!

Here are some photos of the University of Costa Rica campus: