A Culture Smack to the face

Wow. Those three letters can hardly explain what I'm feeling my first day here in Costa Rica. I want to take pictures of everything. Things that are common day here are beyond fascinating to me. Nothing I could have ever done would have fully prepared me for the smack in the face I've felt all day by the culture and lifestyle here. It's a completely different world, and I feel like I've lived my whole life in a very giant (though pleasant) bubble.

The View from one of my windows. You can't see it very well, but there's mountains in the background.

The view from another window!

The view from my bed :)

My host family is very sweet and have hosted exchange students for years so they know what they're doing. Which is VERY good because I don't have the slightest clue what I'm doing...It's been really overwhelming to try and adjust so quickly to something so out of my comfort zone and so completely new to me. I find myself asking, "is this going to effect me in five years?" and nearly every time the answer is no so I move on. I'm really glad that my Mom engraved that in my brain before I left for this adventure.

This morning I woke up at 5 am because the sun was completely up and the world outside my room was busy with their day already. It was crazy to wake up to the sound of the traffic outside my window and the monkey's in the distance. I never would have thought Heredia would be as noisy as it is! All the houses have three gates that you have to go through to even get to the front door and all the houses have bars around the windows which is really different but it does help in making me feel safer. My house has two lemon trees in the yard which I think is so cool! We're also surrounded by mountains so it's a really beautiful view from my room. The food here has been good so far. My host mom made me eggs this morning and also had cereal poured for me, coffee, papaya, toast, and juice. It was crazy the amount of food, and all of it was just for me!

I start my classes Monday. And I found out that I have the exact some classes as someone else, Josie, in my group so we're going to get lost together trying to find everything and what not. I have class every day of the week sadly, but Friday's I only have one class and my classes are really spread out the other days. Me and some of the other USAC students are going to try and organize some volunteering trips along with trips to San Jose and the beach.

I don't know what the plans are for the rest of the weekend. But, I'm going to get a local cell phone for $20 so that I can contact everyone who's here while I'm here and meet up with them for trips and what not. I can't believe how cheap some things are here! But other things that you would expect to be cheap are outrageous!

The plugs at my host family's home don't have three prongs so I can only charge my lap top at school. Let's hope that the battery makes it until Monday...I'll try and post again tomorrow once I find out what I'm doing.

Off to the next adventure!
Until then,
♥SEJ