¡Bienvenidos a Costa Rica!

January 7, 2017

Today marks the first day of my study abroad program, and I must say it has been one of the more overwhelming days for sure. Combine the emotions you had walking into your freshman year of college with a completely foreign country and a host mom you can barely understand, and you have my first day abroad.

When the plane began to land in CR, a thousand thoughts were running through my head including, “This place is unreal,” “I really hope this kind of turbulence is normal,” “Is that an ocean or a lake?” and last but not least, “There’s a colonial woman on the wing” — If you don’t understand that movie reference, you should definitely be looking it up.

Costa Rica is easily one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. We flew in surrounded by green, lush mountains. The people here are especially friendly, and did not hesitate to stare for uncomfortable amounts of time while four American girls made their way through the airport (glad I wasn’t alone).

My host mom said students in the past have called her ‘Mama Tica,’ so that is what I am going to call her. The first thing she did when I got here was make me a grilled cheese with ham. She knows I don’t speak a lot of Spanish, but is definitely forcing me to learn it since she doesn’t speak English. I have two roommates in the house whose names are Amanda and Milan. Amanda is really good at understanding Spanish, so she’s basically my translator as of now.

Taking a leap from living with three of your best friends to three strangers is definitely a hard adjustment. Right now I am hoping that each day becomes more comfortable so I can fully adjust to being so far away from my family and friends.

Tomorrow I plan to adventure with some friends from ISU during the day so we can get a feel for where we are living. For now, I need to catch up on all the sleep I haven’t had in the last 24 hours.

Buenas noches.