Day Two - Vida es Rico

What a long, but amazing day! I promised myself that I would write a blog entry each night to recap the days events, but I don't know if that will be enough! As I sit here at the keyboard, I'm already finding it hard to remember every detail of the day...but I'll try.

Sleep was rough. I'm happy to have a bed and a pillow, but the cacophony of sounds from the night kept me tossing and turning. Needless to say, I woke up pretty tired.

After a quick shower, I went downstairs with Kelly and had my first Costa Rican breakfast - fresh bananas, pineapples, and toast and jelly. The pineapple was absolutely amazing, but the highlight of the meal was the Costa Rican coffee. You hear people say that this stuff is to die for, and let me tell you, they're not lying. It's a strong flavor, but so much more deep than your typical cup of Folgers. I can already say I'm going to miss the cafe when I'm back stateside.

Breakfast completed, we headed off to our first day of classes at CPI. Check out the campuses at www.cpi-edu.com. When we got to campus, we had to take our entrance exam to find which classes would be best for us. It was a multiple choice test, and I went with my classic theory of the answer is always C. Definitely landed in Spanish 101 - exactly where I needed to be.

We headed upstairs after the test to start our first classes. I have three other people in my class with me - a couple from Montreal and an older woman who barely can say burrito. I find myself explaining what our maestra is saying to her because our maestra does not speak very much English. We spent much of the day just pointing at things and getting the Spanish words for them. There's a lot of information coming my way, but I can already tell some of it is sinking in.

Classes are 4 hours long, but we do get a coffee break at 10:00. Seems pretty nice to have even more of the glorious coffee, but it gets even better, CPI also provides fresh fruit! Watermelon, mango and more pineapple were on the menu today. Super  sweet and mucho delicioso.

After break we had two more hours of class and I was assigned my first homework of the trip. I needed to practice my alphabet and create some dialogues for some pictures. I feel like I'm back at Lincoln Middle School in my first Spanish class, but hey, it's Costa Rica, and I'm having fun.

Kelly is taking an extra hour and a half of Spanish conversation in the afternoon, so I have some free time to myself. Luckily the school has wireless and I was able to surf the net and find some helpful resources - verb conjugation and dictionary - for my disposal. The school also has some ping pong tables and Foosball tables set up, so another student and I played a few matches.

On the slate for this afternoon was a walking tour in Heredia. There was about 10 of us who hopped a bus and went to the center of the city. There we found bustling streets and crowded markets. One of my favorite stops along our tour was the fruit stand in the market. Our guide, Chris, shared some of the more exotic fruits on the stand. My two favorites were guanabana and momon chino. Guanabana was like a pineapple with super sweet white flesh, and the momon chino looked like a strawberry with a lot of hairs all over it. Both were very rico.

After the market we wandered the streets of Heredia. There seems to be little to no traffic laws - or at least the Costa Ricans really don't pay attention to them. You have to be careful crossing the street...the drivers won't stop! Dodging cars aside, our stop in Heredia was really nice.

We came home around 6:00 pm, and finally were able to meet our host mother Flora. Flora is extremely warm and welcoming - just like any grandmother should be. She had already prepared dinner for us - roasted squash, rice, garbanzo bean salad, and to top it all off, sweet plantains covered with queso. The meal was to die for! Such simple food is making me realize how easy it can be to eat well back home. I can't wait to get back in the kitchen and make my Costa Rican comida. Oh, one more thing, Flora had tres leches for dessert. Do I have to come back?

Pura vida,
Casey