Fresh fruit and dance class!

First two days of class have been great!! We have class from 10:45 - 1:45 and a 20 minute break after the first hour. It's so great, but very hard to concentrate for the whole time. Since I'm not fluent, I have to listen very very closely to every word she says, just to get the gist of the conversation. It's so easy to zone out temporarily due to Spanish overload. But I'm learning. And we've had a decent amount of homework so far. I like the homework though. Es necesario para practicar el español. (It's necessary in order to practice my Spanish.)

It's a good 30 minute walk to class. The walk there in the morning isn't so bad because it's all down hill. But that means the walk back is all uphill and they are some decent sized hills...maybe mountains. I'll have to sacar una foto (take a picture).

Yesterday, we had a tour of Heredia, the city I'm living in, after class. We went downtown and saw the oldest church in Heredia that hasn't been destroyed by terremotos (earthquakes) and the central park:




















In the parque central, there was a fountain sent to Costa Rica from France, recognizing it's first sewer system. The things we take advatnage of...
We ended the tour part with a scavenger hunt for frutas in the Mercado de Heredia. It was so cool walking through the market seeing the different foods, spices, herbs, etc...all fresh:














After the tour we went to a cafe to try all the fruits we had gotten, and different postres (pastries) from the cafe. We met up with the students from the first session, who were staying for two and got to know them a little better than we had in the morning at class. The guy's from Summer 1 had just gotten back from a massage. Here, you can get 2 hours of massage, acupressure, reflexology, and a couple other things for 20 dollars!! The girls from Summer 2 are going next week!

Today we had dance class con Carlitos my host brother!! It was so great, but I was sweating so much by the end of it. We learned merengue, salsa, cumbia, y bolero. He said he was going to take my roommate and I out to a discoteca to practice sometime this week or next. I'm super excited! It was so much fun just practicing, so I can't wait to go out because apparently the latinamericano boys really know how to dance here :)

It's Different in Costa Rica...
1. Pedestrians DO NOT have the right of way. If you think this, you will probably get hit by a car.
2. You can't flush toilet paper down the toilet...bad idea.
3. The sun is fully risen by 6 and is starts setting between 5 and 5:30.
4. Lunch is served around 2:30 in the afternoon.
5. Girls greet each other with a kiss on the right cheek, and some guys greet girls like this as well.
6. Only gay ticos (Costa Ricans) wear shorts to class.

There's more, but I can't think of them right now. I'll continue to add.

Un beso y abrazo!