UCR (Universidad de Costa Rica)

Campus:

First day of school was muy aburrido. It basically was an information session and placement testing. I didn’t have to take the test since I am a grad student. Nice. The campus isn’t too large and is easy to navigate. Another bonus is the cheap food. My familia Tica provides breakfast and dinner, so lunch is on my own. I literally can have a massive plate of food for $2-3. It’s craziness! But the funny part is $2 = 1000 colones. I literally have a 10,000 piece of money in my possession. Love it. Today I had a massive sandwich for about $2.50. It the states it would have easily cost me $5-6. Funny food note: all of the meat was called jamon (ham). But there was jamon pavo (turkey ham), jamon cerdo (pork ham), jamon pollo (chicken ham). I know that the pavo wasn't ham at all, so I think that jamon might be the tico way of saying lunchmeat.


Today was the second day of school, which was a huge improvement. I have two classes that are 2 hours and 20 minutes each. The first is Advanced Composition with Alejandra (Ale) in the Facultad de Letras (Humanities Building). There are about 12 of us in the class, including my friends Gina and Katie. Today was a lot of basic stuff and get-to-know-you activities. Ale is really nice and funny. Plus, she doesn’t give homework on the weekends.
Facultad de Letras


I then had Latinamerican Culture with Adriana. She’s more business than Ale, but is still really personable. I am looking forward to this class because there’s going to be movies, and we might take excursions. I know next to nothing about Tico culture, so this should be beyond useful. This class is in La Casita, which is a house next door to the university that MLSA owns.
La Casita

Familia Tica

My familia is really simpatica. There is a mom and three sons (all with American names): Marlon (as in Brando!), Kenneth and Allan. I’ve met Allan and Kenneth, who I guesstimate are early 20s. Kenneth goes to the school that we go to, so he helped us get there our first day.

At first I was surprised by the houses here. They generally have a garage with a fence instead of a door, and the fence has barbed wire over it. Our house has neither, as we have a garage door. The house itself is cute. When you first walk in, there’s a living room. Next to that is the bathroom (hot water scarce) and Wendy’s (my companera from Hawaii) and my rooms. My room has a window that opens into the garage. Not the best view, but better than no window! There’s a small kitchen and then and upstairs (which I haven’t seen).


A huge culture shock is the agua. They don’t have hot water from the faucet. Seriously. To shower, I turn on the faucet that heats up the cold water (it is a crazy apparatus that can start on fire…pic below) and get wet. Then, I turn it off while I lather up and shampoo. Turn back on to rinse. Off to condition. Back on to rinse. Wow. That was a lot of work without any relaxation. Steve, you could never handle this shower!


The casa is in Sabanilla. On a map, the easiest way to find it is to look for the cemetery that is a few blocks away. It’s funny about the lack of addresses here. I wanted to verify the (semi)address in case my husband wanted to send me something. The mom, her friend, and Kenneth all argued about what the address should be. When I asked Kenneth how in the world the mail process functions here, he replied, “Un milagro” (a miracle).

Que horror!

Well, I made it to Costa Rica, but the journey was anything but smooth. The first flight from O’hare to Miami went off without a hitch. However, Miami to San José was a nightmare. We boarded the flight on time, but then we just sat on the tarmac for about 30 minutes, not moving. It was hot as an oven! Finally, the captain came on and informed us that there was something wrong with the air conditioner and we needed to head back to the gate. However, there wasn’t a free gate available, so we had to wait. Once we got to a gate (about 30 minutes later), they said that we had to disembark. We sat in the airport for a while until they finally told us that the part that they needed was available, but someone had to come and install it.

In the meantime, I was freaking out because I was supposed to catch an MLSA bus from the airport at 5. No way was I making that! Luckily, I noticed two girls with MLSA packets. I went over and chatted with them. I immediately felt better because at least then I wouldn’t be alone in whatever awaited me.
We finally got on the plane….only to sit more. There wasn’t a gate crew to help us depart. Eventually one came and we were on our way…about three hours late! We arrived at SJO after a pretty smooth flight. Once there, we found out that the bus had waited for us. Yay! There were about 15 people or so that arrived on my flight, so we got to take the bus. I still don’t know how many other people there are in the program, however. Of the ones on the bus with me, it appeared that the majority were undergrads. I wish that I could have seen something through the windows, but all I saw was dark! It felt so late, but it was only 8 p.m.

My “madre” was waiting for me, along with another student. Wendy (the student) is from Hawaii, but studies in Alabama. She is super bubbly and friendly. My madre is the same. We were laughing and chatting like old friends. Additionally, there are two sons that live here, Alan and Kenneth. Funny that they have American names 

More to come on the house and the familia…I have internet (Hallelujah!.

Ya hay cambios?!?!?

I hope that this isn't a sign of things to come. I just received another email from the program, this one telling me that my host family has changed. Yikes! I hope that this family is as good (or better!) than the original. Wifi would be excellent :)
My new "madre" is named Antonieta.

I tried finding the house on google maps, but it wasn't that simple. Looking in my guidebook, I learned why. In San Jose, the streets don't really have names. Inside, they rely on landmarks and things like, "50 meters south of the school, 100 meters west." 100 meters = one city block. Confusing, no? Back to my casa...the address is close to a bank, so I googled that and picked the one in the Sabanilla neighborhood. If I picked the right one, it appears that my casa is super close to the school. Score!

Detalles

Today I received an e-mail with the last minute details about my stay in Costa Rica, including my host family. I am a bit confused because it lists the street, but not the building number. It does, however, say that it is a two story yellow house. My senora's name is Eugenia.

I also found out that I will have a few excursions around San Jose to museum and the like. We also are going to the city of Cartago, which is 15 miles away from San Jose.

The e-mail made my trip seem real. I am getting really nervous! I know that once I am there everything will be supermegaguay, but the anticipation is killing me!!!