When I arrived at my homestay I was incredibly nervous. My host mom didn't speak too much English and my Spanish was even worse but, after only 3 days I've improved a lot! My Spanish is slowly coming back to me and my host mom is extremely patient and kind. Surprisingly, not many people in San Jose speak English. Not nearly as many people as I was expecting at least. I'm up for the challenge.
At first, I was worried about coming to Costa Rica as a vegetarian but, its no problem at all! My host mom cooks delicious meat-less meals for me and in every restaurant there are vegetarian options... Success!
The other 16 students in the program are amazing. I can see myself becoming great friends with all of them over the course of these three months, mostly because we all love to explore. As a group, we are in the midst of planning trips every weekend to different parts of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Panama.
So far, the ICDS staff has taken all of us to a small resort for orientation, a national park and inactive volcanoe called Poas, a farm with cows (where I milked one), the cloud forest, and of course to ULatina, the university I will be studying at. The entire trip has been wonderful. All the locations we visited were beautiful and we really had a lot of fun. I've already learned a lot about the Costa Rican environment and culture..... and I haven't even started classes yet.
Now for the not so perfect part of the trip: As for the whole being thousands of miles away from my family and friends part, well of course I miss them. Honestly though I haven't had much time to dwell on it. I've constantly been taking part in group activities and trips so the only time I begin to think about home is when I am alone in my bed at night and that's not even bad because I pass out quickly from exhaustion. The trick is to stay busy! So to be honest, so far the trip is relatively perfect.
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