First Day of School

Today was the first day of school at Veritas. I had oatmeal, bread, and coffee for breakfast. It took 15 minutes to walk to school. Classes were supposed to start at 8 am, but a big group of American students (and 1 Canadian) all found each other (we're the only white people) and tried to find our classroom. But no one knew where we were supposed to go and we were just walking around, so of course all of the Ticos (Costa Ricans) stared. We finally found it 15 minutes late.

Then, we took our pictures for our Veritas student ID and took our oral evaluation/placement test. I got placed into Intermediate 2, which is what I expected. Bethany is also in the same class. Overall, there are about 25 foreign exchange students there this month. There should be less than 10 students in each class. I have class Monday-Friday from 8 am - noon. We took a tour of the campus today. There are 1800 students at Veritas, so it's pretty tiny. We also had orientation and talked about money, host families, and security. I found out more information about the excursions, too. There's no set schedule, it's just whatever the students want to do. This weekend, for $120, we are going to Puerto Viejo, which is a beach. We are going to go snorkeling there, too. :)

Every Tuesday and Thursday night there are free dance lessons at the school. I'm going to go! We're going to learn salsa, merengue... Should be fun. And, every Thursday for $5, you can rent a bike and go with the school on a bike tour around downtown San Jose. I want to do that once, too.

My first day of school at Veritas! Left to Right: Me, Chelsea, Evan, Rachael, and Grace.

After orientation, me and a group of 7 other American students went to a pizzaria and ate lunch. I had pepperoni pizza and a pineapple smoothie. The pineapple is so good here! Now, I'm at the house and going to take a nap. It's really hot today and the heat just makes me tired. Siesta time!

After my nap (which was totally awesome...), my friends and I went to the school again to walk around and to find out our class schedule and classmates. I also signed up for the bike tour through San Jose and I converted more US dollars to calones. It's always intimidating speaking with Ticos in Spanish. I know I'm butchering a ton of words, but they can still understand what I'm saying.

We just ate dinner with Argelis, Elias, Sarita (not Sarasita.. oops), and Osael. Osael, Sarita, Crisia, and Mario have been living here for a couple years. They are studying architecture at Veritas. Crisia and Mario just got here tonight because they were on break. Everyone seems really nice. Anyways, for dinner we had rice, cucumber and tomato salad, lemonade (finally something other than tea!!), platanos, and a bean/potato soup. It was good! After dinner, Bethany, Argelis, Elias and I talked for about an hour in Spanish. It's really good practice for us. They said that we're pretty good at speaking Spanish. I can tell already that being here for a month will REALLY improve my Spanish. Bethany and I said that starting tomorrow, we will try to only speak Spanish to each other and our friends. We'll see how that goes.. :)

We talked about politics and how they're different here than in the US, and Argelis and Elias were really interested in Obama and how the Americans like him as president. Costa Rica has a corrida de toros, too, like they do in Spain and Mexico, where they kill the bull. But it's only in December and they don't kill the bull here. Instead, people run with the bull in a plaza! Don't worry mom, I won't run with the bulls! I want to come back here in December for the festivals. They have a huge festival during December with the bull runs, fesitval of lights, dancing, horses, etc. It sounds fun.