First Impressions

The weather being hot already at eight in the morning, seeing monkeys out the kitchen windows, taking a field trip to a rainforest, writing this from a hammock…this must be Costa Rica J

Haha, its not all fun and games, but so far this semester abroad is shaping up to look very awesome!! I got to the Center we are staying at Tuesday, and our days are so packed! Every day starts out early with breakfast at 7, students having to be there at 6 if their group is scheduled for helping with kitchen setup. My group, or pandilla as they call it here, had that this week, so it was an even earlier morning for us. It was fun though, I got to speak Spanish with the kitchen ladies, Manella and Carment, and they are very fun! I am looking forward to getting to know them more. The food here is exactly like my Grandparents said it would be: a LOT of rice and beans. Pretty much rice and beans at every meal. There is other stuff too, like chicken, beef, veggies, fruit, salad, etc. but there is usually rice at every meal. They really like Italian food here too though, so I have had Costa Rican pizza and lasagna. Different, but good.

A view of our dormitories from below

Classes are looking very interesting, we have had intros to all of our classes now and I think it is going to be a very interesting semester. My classes are Natural Resource Management, Tropical Ecology, Economics, and Spanish Culture and Language. I think the Language portion of the class is going to difficult but hopefully rewarding, because most of it involving just taking together in Spanish. I have realized that while I can have a short conversation, my vocabulary is really lacking. So, I’m working on that. I’m going to try and keep a journal in Spanish, and there are a bunch of students here who really want to learn as well so I have been able to have many conversations. I’m hopeful, but its going to take a lot of work to get better. As for the other classes, they are going to be really cool, there is a lot of hands on work and I am really excited about that. So far we have already had a field trip to Tirimbina, a national park that is a rain forest. There, we collected data on the benefits of keeping some trees in a pasture rather than just clear cutting all of it, learned about the ecosystems of the rain forest and how some of them are changing because of human interaction, and visited the Dole banana plantation. It sounds like we have a field trip almost once a week, so that will be awesome!

Taking a break from collecting data to climb a tree

Dole banana plantation - Fact: they aren't trees, they are herbs!

As I was saying earlier, the day starts out pretty early, and its also pretty scheduled. We have class and lectures sometimes till 9 at night. Oh! That’s something that’s different about Costa Rica, the sun goes down at about 7pm, so everyone here goes to bed early. When its 10, it feels like 12. That didn’t take too much adjusting to since I am a morning person to begin with, but it just is yet another thing that makes Costa Rica different. Anyway, yes, so hopefully I will be able to find some down time among all the scheduling. Since we are outside so often, I’m not terribly worried that I will go crazy, but it will be an adjustment. Just like cold showers J They aren’t too terrible, I’ve just learned that you have to take them during the day when you are hot so then it actually feels good.

The people here seem pretty cool so far. Our professors are either native Costa Ricans or have lived here for a long time. So, they are all very knowledgeable about what is going on in the environment in Costa Rica. The students are cool too. Some of them are very different than me, it was a bit of a culture shock just getting used to the group. Don’t get me wrong, they are all awesome in their own way, but hardly any of them sing or play an instrument, and that is like complete opposite of me. I miss my violin a lot L I know that it was probably a wise decision not to bring it, the weather here is soooo muggy, but there is violin in some popular Costa Rican songs and it makes me really want to play. There is a guitar here for us to play, and the one of the only other people that plays is one of my roommates, so that will work our well. I have 3 roommates by the way, I hope we all get along well. So far it is working out well.