My First Day

I feel like a fish out of water. Or rather, a desert mouse stuck in a bunch of water - it is really humid here!

My journey began yesterday with a short flight from Phoenix, AZ to Denver, CO. After a two and a half hour layover, I was then on a plane to San Jose, Costa Rica! Thankfully the flights went well and both were a couple minutes ahead of time.

Goodbye Phoenix!

The plane that began the journey...

Then I was driven (with two other girls from NAU, Carol and Kaitlyn) to my host family. So far I am the only one (of three) at the host house right now; one girl had flight delays and another is having trouble with her passport.

My first glimpse of San Jose

The beautiful mountains

I spent most of today just settling in. My host family is very nice and very patient with my lack of understanding what they say. They have 12 fish and three birds - two parakeets and a parrot. I think the parrot's name is Lolita because every once in a while it will call that name out. It is very overwhelming to not understand most of what is being said around you as well as being placed in a new environment, but I'm hoping a good night's sleep will help with that.

The view from my room. You an see the bathroom ahead and there is another room to my right.

My room

The parakeets

The parrot

View from the window

View down the road

Oh! And one of my host family's neighbors (the community is very friendly here) is Catholic so they took me to church today. The church is so close that you can see it from the window outside my room! I did not understand much of the mass - all I learned today is that God is love (or Dios es amor), but I am still glad that I got the opportunity to participate in something familiar.

What I ate today:

For breakfast (desayuno) - Toast with pineapple jam, which was delicious, and pineapple (piña). Apparently, tostada means 'toast' and not a flat form of taco.

For lunch (almuerzo) - This is typically the biggest meal of the day. I had soup (sopa) that had rice, noodles, chicken, carrots and potato (it might actually be yuca) in it. I also had what I would call Shepherd's pie in America - mashed potatoes, mushrooms, cheese and meat in a sort of casserole. My host family called it pastel de yuca which means "cake of yuca". Yuca is a tuber that is very similar to a potato, except perhaps more starchy. Which explains why I though it was mashed potatoes on top. It is super delicious though. And of course, I had the typical rice and beans as well (arroz y frijoles). And I had a yummy drink they called refresco, which is generic, sort of like 'soda' would be in the United States. I'm not sure what the refresco was - some sort of juice or juice drink with a tropical flavor. I'll have to find out sometime.

For dinner (cena) - Leftovers from lunch. Yum.