First Few Days in Tica Land

Sorry it has taken me so long to update this, I don’t have internet access on my laptop at home and I’ve been so busy with orientation the past few days. Plus, if I wanted to go somewhere to use the internet I would most definitely get lost! I’m at Kristin’s now, her family was kind of enough to let me borrow their internet J These past few days have been good, although overwhelming with all the Spanish. It’s hard to wake up in the morning and start thinking in Spanish right away! My host mom is so nice, she talks slowly and she can tell immediately when I don’t understand something and she figures out a different way to say it for me. My host sister speaks English so sometimes she helps translate when I don’t understand but she’s only home in the evenings so I don’t see her very often. The little girls, who I also call my sisters, although technically I think they would be my host nieces, talk so quickly I can’t understand! The youngest is so cute though, she holds my hand every time we are walking down the street.

          Kristin and I live close which is great because we get to spend time together outside of school, and I can’t get anywhere without her!!  J There aren’t any street signs here, so we’ve been trying to memorize where to turn by the store signs. We have been figuring out that there are multiples of each store so our strategy doesn’t always work. Two days ago Kristin and I got lost for an hour trying to find our way home from school, my family laughed when we told them the story.

Kristin, Hillary, Sydney and I decided to walk around “las fiestas” last night, San Ramon is in the middle of The Festival of the Saints so there is a lot going on around town. We stopped at a store to ask about buying a sim card for our cell phones, and the lady in the store was talking so fast we couldn’t understand a word she said. As if we weren’t embarrassed enough, she started talking louder thinking we couldn’t hear her! Everyone in the store was laughing at us but we were laughing at ourselves too, the whole thing was pretty funny and embarrassing- we left without the sim card… The four of us went out for dinner and the restaurant was near closing time so they apparently didn’t have very much food left. The waitress recommended “arroz con pollo” so we all ordered that with passion fruit juice. During our meal it started storming with thunder, lightning and a TON of rain. It was extremely loud and every time lightning struck the four of us jumped, while everyone else stared at us. I didn’t think it was possible to have more rain than Washington/Oregon. The power went out during dinner but came back on quickly, it scared me because there’s no way we would have made it home without any street lights -it’s hard enough during the day!

I hope all is well with everyone, ¡chao!