City and School Life

I live in a fairly nice neighborhood. It's probably comparable to the American middle class. Although no matter what part of town you live in, you protect your house with maximum security. My house has a spiked fence surrounding the entire perimeter. The gate door has two locks and there is also a bolted door to the house. It's common to see houses adorned with thick, circular barbed wire on fences, too. There are little guard houses at many neighborhood street corners, too. For some reason (maybe the heat?) the guards sit in the street in an office chair pretty much 24/7. The family says nothing dangerous has happened in their neighborhood for years...let's keep it that way :)

I've mostly been taking the bus to class. It takes about 10 minutes to get to the University by bus and it costs 200 dollars - haha just kidding, 200 colones, or the equivalence of about 40 cents. Yesterday, I decided to be brave and try walking to class. It was really hot but I made it to class with time to spare. History class is fairly boring. It's pretty much 100 minutes of lecture. We have to write a research paper in 3 weeks about one specific topic...mine is about the strengthening of the democracy. The book we use for reference is full of ridiculous, unfamiliar words! It is hard to understand and reminds me of "reading the fine print" or "the language of lawyers" or something. Writing class is sweet. We're going over a lot of basic grammar and structure which is good for me because I have literally not written anything in Spanish (besides a few paragraphs here and there) since junior year high school. Culture class is going to be great - the professor has a lively and funny personality. We'll end up doing group presentations on a Costa Rican cultural topic.

Seven of us went to San Jose today after class to buy tickets to Puerto Viejo. It's a popular Caribbean beach where you can sleep in hammocks for 5 bucks a night (if you're into that kind of thing). I think I'll try it for one night. The 4 hour bus ride costs 8 bucks. Not too shabby. This picture is at El Parque Central with La Iglesia de Cartago behind us.





Haha Mario from the airport just called to check in on me. He is so far the most stereotypical Tico I have yet to meet. He asks how I'm doing, how my family in the U.S. is doing, how my classes are, how I like Costa Rica, etc. He said, "When Andrew's happy, Mario's happy. When Andy's sad, Mario's sad." He's a very nice guy.

Apparently I haven't showered enough because the dad here said, "With all respect, I've noticed you don't shower every day (I think I'm 4/6 for days showering). Is this normal for Americans?" That's when I found out you should shower every single day in Costa Rica. Ticos do it in the morning, but I think I'll be showering every night from now on (sleeping in a little longer = better).

Pictures!!

This is my room :)


Some paintings by Yamileth, the mom:








The front of the house!


The living/dining room


The kitchen

There are absolutely no plastic or paper utensils/dishes. Everything is glass. A Tico family must produce 20% of the trash that an American family produces.

The first look at the patio. This area is covered by a roof.


This area has no roof, and grass for the floor!


A dolphin fountain, too.


The bathroom is nice. No shower curtains...or anything! Just hop on in.


And lastly, the garage. It has the same tile floor as the rest of the house. All the houses are like this. You can barely squeeze a car in there.
Ciao!
(First person to find the Imperial logo wins. haha)