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settling in
Its been 8 days since my arrival in Costa Rica and have finally settled into a comfortable routine. The first few days, while incredible, were also stressful. Some lessons learned:
- Prepare some spanish phrases before meeting your homestay family.
- Learn the public transportation system immediately. We got lost on the first day of school due to the fact that neglected to pay careful attention to the bus route. For someone who gets lost in her hometown, I shouldn’t have taken for granted that I’d be able to find my way home in San Jose!
- Exchange money for the local currency at the airport. For the first few days of the program, many of us were struggling to find eateries that would accept dollars since we forgot to get colones before arriving and didn’t know where the banks were!
- Be able to quickly understand the Spanish numbers - financial transactions are confusing and stressful otherwise. It’s never good to to frustrate the cashier by not paying enough money and then not being able to communicate the confusion in spanish.
Now that a week has passed, I feel very comfortable speaking in Spanish with my homestay family (a week of Spanish lessons for 4 hours a day makes a big difference!), navigating the public transportation system, interacting with cashiers, and even going on running through San Jose. Running has proved to be a wonderful way to become better acquainted with the neighborhood, in addition to releasing all the stress built up from a long day of school.
One of the highlights of the week was cooking with our family. Vera (our mom) makes delicious corn tortillas, so after having a delicious breakfast of corn tortillas with gallos pintos, I begged her to show us how to make them for dinner. We pressed the tortillas while she fried plantains and chicken. As usual, rice and beans were also included in the meal!
Our delicious dinner. We are treated to meals like this every night!
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