This weekend was definitely one for the books! So many first to add and many things checked off my trip list and my bucket list! We left the city at about noon on Friday and began our 6 hour trip to the Caribbean coast. Buses here will always make me nervous but it is definitely well worth it. When we arrived in Puerto Viejo it was already dark but you wouldn't have known it from the temperature. As we got off the bus so did a group of other American students fr...

Well I just arrived back to my little place in the city after a wonderful weekend at the beach. Another weekend of firsts. For the first trip away from the city on our own we decided to not go too far away. The pacific coast is only about 2 hours away from Heredia. Two hours makes quite the difference. Being in the beach town was more of what I expected Costa Rica to be. Totally laid back and friendly. It did help however that most people there spoke English so ...

Well, I just finished my first weekend abroad! It was crazy how great new experiences can be. Friday afternoon we started the weekend by going to a neighboring town, Barva for a festival. I'm not sure what they were celebrating but the Ticos were all very excited about it. It could be almost be compared to Halloween for America. People have scary masks on everywhere. There's no candy though. Children carry around balloons on strings and hit eachother with them. T...

Where to start, probably with the obvious. Language, holy cow is this complicated! I am actually quite surprised with my own progress. Even with in the five days that I have lived here, communicating is getting easier. At least with Abuelita. I'm learning how much people use body language to describe what they are saying, and thank goodness they do. It makes understanding a lot easier. That and being completely exposed 24/7 is making learning this language must e...

Well today was my first day out about about in Costa Rica. After a slight miscommunications with my host grandmother, I conveyed to her that I would be wandering around the downtown area of heredia with some new amigos. She was all for it. She is very encouraging when it comes to me learning spanish and the way of life here in Costa Rica. Mi amiga nueva Tina thought we lived near eachother so we planned to go out and explore. Turns out we live on completely diff...