Finally!

I was walking back from a promising yoga studio I had found in the suffocating heat (my tica mom has been telling me how hot it is for the last several days, and only today did I agree with her) when, all of a sudden, I felt rain. It was so unexpected that I began to laugh, and I smiled all the way home as I was drenched, and even when my tica mom looked horrified on my behalf for having gotten so wet. This event, to me, summed up a lot of my trip, and thereby (finally) inspired my first blog entry.


I have been meaning to keep a blog, as I promised I would, but my first hurdle was having to name it. That stopped me dead in my tracks from setting it up before leaving. Once I finally got here, I was really excited to tell everyone about my living situation, the only catch was I didn’t have Internet. I honestly have no idea what people did before Internet in order to socialize when they had to move to a new place, especially if they weren’t in school or it was summer, and I ended up furiously writing cards for a few days, then e-mails (saved to Word document), and then just listening to music and doing every possibly exercise I could think of that fit in my room. Of course I had all my coursework to entertain me, as we took a history, culture, literature and grammar class before the semester started, but I’m not sure how much that really helped. Being only a second year, with only one university Spanish class to my name, I struggled a bit more than the rest, who all couldn’t get over how easy the classes were for them. I say ‘for them’ because I swore off literature and history classes for a reason…At any rate, thank goodness those are over and done with and only lasted a month. That dark time, with no Internet and intensive classes I didn’t want to be taking, is now over, and I ended up learning a lot from the experience.

I have gotten ahead of myself…I am in Costa Rica for a language immersion program that began at the end of January and ends after the semester is over in early July, or possibly later with an internship. All of us in the program are UC students, and we took part of an ‘intensive language program’ for the month of July, which included the four classes I previously mentioned (which combine to equal 2 classes on my transcript), living with a host family and going on mini-vacations (paseos) to get to know Costa Rica. We are all studying in the University of Costa Rica in San José for a semester, which began on Monday the 8th. So much has happened during this time, but it seems like things are just getting started.

What happened today seems to happen a lot to me: random, unexpected things happen, and really make me happy to be here. Usually, those events are proceeded by me hating San José with all of my being and counting the days until I escape, so it was nice that today was already a good day.

Adjusting has been hard, and I know I’m still not fully adjusted. Everything is different: I can’t find any of the buildings I need to find or the things I need to buy, having a different mom with her not always so amusing quirks is tiring, living in the city is making my asthma flare up, figuring out the bus system is sometimes harder than just walking the whole way, being forced into a group of people (just like in high school) is still challenging for me, and eating food that is only flavored with massive amounts of sugar or salt makes me sick. But, sometimes different is also good. Here, I am more outgoing than I have ever been at home, as I feel slightly safe behind the language barrier as opposed to insecure, and the people are so much more friendly. I got a vacation invitation from someone I haven’t even known a month, and everyone kisses (cheek to cheek) to say hello and goodbye. I feel awkward now NOT kissing someone, and I love that everyone can be so physically close! The dancing is also wonderful, and concerts here are extremely cheap or free.

So, San José has been quite the experience so far. I’ve loved practically every minute outside the city, but I’m still figuring out how to love this city. That’s okay, though, because every time I’m really angry about being stuck in the city, it gives me a little something, like a nearby yoga studio, a new friend just from riding the bus, a friendly choir or rain on an extremely hot day, to remind me that it’s not that bad after all, at least not today.