A quick introduction: Christina is my traveling buddy. We met at one of the meet and great sessions from the school prior to the trip. We decided we both wanted to spend a few extra days in Costa Rica and get to taken advantage of this opportunity to its fullest, rather than just doing what the school has to offer.

We arrived in San Jose, Costa Rica around a little before 2pm our time (which is a little before 12pm Costa Rican time) on Saturday the 27^th. I have friend named Sara I met during my college program with Disney who said she’d love to have us stay with her when we arrived. However Sara was surprised with a trip to Ecuador from her uncle a week before we arrive. Sara’s mom and best friend Valleria (Val, who also did the Disney Program with Sara and I) have been taking care of us since. Sara also has a brother named Martin who we met once we got to the house. Sara’s mom is so sweet, but me not knowing much of Spanish makes communication more of an interpretative song and dance for Sara’s mom when Val and Martin are not around.  But when we are at the house we use google translator.

As soon as we got off the plane we were hungry. So we stopped for our first meal in Costa Rica. We wanted typical Costa Rican food, which I’m sure sounded strange when we told Val that. If someone came to America and wanted a typical American dish, I’m not sure what I would offer…. A hot dog at a baseball park? Or a practice version of Thanksgiving? Anyways, we had some sort of rice with chicken and vegetables in a cream sauce lasagna style meal (like a casserole really) and chulupas they were both really good!

Christina really wanted to go shopping, so Val said she would take us to the mall. Sara had cautioned us that prices are much more expensive over here compared to the US. But there’s plenty of sales at the moment since it’s near the back to school time. However everything was really expensive, and the same as we have in the US. But it was fun to go see it, and experience it so we now know.

A lesson we learned at the mall was actually quite valuable to our trip. In Costa Rica their currency is colonies. And we mastered the conversion level of colonies compared to American dollars. 500 colonies is equal to 1 American dollar. Which to me looks like .500 = $1, so we found a shirt which was listed as 14.50 colonies. Without knowing the conversion I thought the shirt was $14.50 (American), nope it is really 29 colonies (and that’s with a 50% off sale). I hope this makes as much sense as it can in words. Needless to say being about to buy the same shirt back in the states for $18-20 we realized Sara was very right.

We came back to the house after the mall, and it was only almost 5:00pm over here. Yet from all the flying and little sleep we were already tired. So Sara’s mom made dinner at home for us. I have also gifted Sara’s mom with the nic-name of Madre de Sara, Olga (Mother of Sara, Olga). I thought it was much more fun than Senora Mejia or Senora Olga…

Yesterday was our big adventure day. Christina and I wanted to do zip-lining while we are here. We found a combo tour that did white water rafting and zip lining. So we signed up and were ready to go! There was only 2 other people in our tour group for the day. Their names were Miguel and Miguel, they were father and son. They both spoke Spanish and fluent English, they live in Arizona and were visited because (senior) Miguel was visiting his in-laws w/ his wife and son here. By the end of the day we were making jokes about Older Miguel being our uncle, and giving younger Miguel tips as what were and were not good pick-up lines.

Rafting this time was much much different than when I was 10 and did it. The guy who booked our tour Ricardo, came with another group for just rafting and rode in our boast since there was more room. Ricardo made me look like a pro, he fell out of the raft like three times. I didn’t fall out, only because I figured out how to cling to the rope on the side of the raft whenever we went through the rapids. Half way through we stopped had a snack of pineapple & watermelon. The pineapple here is our favorite, so Christina and I loved snack time. Even now you see the look of fear in my face in all the pictures I’m glad I did it, and actually started to enjoy it.

After the rafting we had lunch. This time the “typical Costa Rican plate” as Val calls it. Rice, some sort of beans, a small salad, a meat, and if you’re lucky a plantain. Ours had all that plus a small macaroni salad, along with blackberry juice to drink.

Once we finished lunch we were off to the zip-line. At first I wasn’t so sure about it. But the staff started us on the closer to the ground, and less distance ones first (definitely help boost my confidence).  After the first one I was totally into it. It was really fun, and a great way to see the rainforest (especially with less hiking). We saw a sloth in the wild! It was so much fun!

After we came back to Sara’s where madre de Sara Olga made us another awesome dinner!!!! She likes to cook completely organic, and doesn’t own a microwave. Everything is awesome that comes out of her kitchen! When we come back from school she said Sara and I can watch how she cooks.

Today we started class at 5:00pm Costa Rica time. So we repacked everything and cleaned up Sara’s room. Val took us around town a little more and for lunch before we headed to class. We went to one of the grocery stores here to get some snacks. I had some really fun pictures, but at dinner my camera decided to delete everything from today. We bought coconuts that are sold like juice boxes! We can’t wait to drink them!

We got to the hotel around 3:00pm and met the other classmates. We unpacked and settled into our room before dinner. We all had dinner tonight at the hotel as a group which was nice to get to know everyone a little bit better. Also to get to hear about everyone’s adventure over here. Christina and I really enjoyed our two extra days to go off and explore around with Val and Olga. But now we’re ready to start to learn and observe Costa Rica!