Orientations

Today and yesterday were both orientations for our program.
Yesterday was orientation about families and rules, and today was for the university and its classes.

We didn't have to be at school until 2:30 yesterday, so we spent the morning talking to Imara and Samuel's son, Harold, about Costa Rica, Latin America, the Spanish language, and fruit. He is a professor of languages at the University, so we had a lot to talk about and he helped us with difficult or new words since he also knows English.
Through our conversation about fruit, we were able to try a whole bunch that we had never heard of before like the nance, granadilla, and I already forget the others because they have strange names.

We had spaghetti and chicken and empanadas de platano before going to school. We took the bus for the first time for 250 colones, which is 50 cents. Here, they don't even use cents because it's not worth anything. It's about 550 colones to a dollar, 1,000 colones to 2 dollars, etc. The smallest coin they have is a 10 colones coin, but they never have prices with decimal points because they do not have currency that small.

Costa Rica is not very pedestrian friendly. You are lucky if you find a crosswalk on the road and the pedestrians do not have the right of way. So, we were walking with our 70-year-old house mom Imara down across the street to the bus. She doesn't walk very quickly, but she's not afraid of stepping out in to traffic. She was laughing at us cause she would walk right out in front of cars like nothing.

Anyways, we got to UCR and had a really boring orientation where they just read us information they already sent to us in an e-mail. Afterwards, Imara's daughter Carla was able to take us back home in her car since she was off work at the University. When we got home, she said that North Americans have the bad habit of slamming car doors, so she asked us to shut them softly. She has a Yaris, like my sister Jessica, so I usually close her doors softly anyways. However, my definition of "softly" must be different, because I thought I shut it lightly. Judy, my housemate from Puerto Rico, knew though because she had the same custom of closing the door almost all the way and then gently patting it shut, so I'm sure one day I'll learn how to do that. I won't tell Carla about how my dad shuts car doors, she would think that there was an earth quake!

After dinner, we sat and talked in the kitchen and started telling jokes. Samuel had some about lawyers and mother-in-laws, but he didn't know about the dumb blonde jokes, so I told him some of those. I asked my professor why they weren't familiar with these types of jokes, and he thinks it might be because blondes here are known for their beauty.

Today, we had to wake up early to go to the University orientation. We met the professors and went on a tour of the campus. Judy and I did not have to take the placement exam to see what classes we would take because we are already in advanced classes. While the other students took their exams, we did our own tour of the campus and took lots of pictures. Then, the study abroad organization provided lunch for us which was chicken, fish, salad, potatoes, zucchini, and flan de higo for dessert.

We decided to go to the mall afterwards instead of going home so that we could have something to do before dinner. The mall only has a few name brand stores, like Tommy Hilfiger, and then the rest are all different. When you walk into the store, the workers say "buenas" to greet you and immediately ask if they can help you find anything. If you accept their help or tell them what you want, they act like your personal shopper and show you different outfits that you could make with the one piece of clothing. After setting you up in the dressing room, they keep coming back to ask how everything is going and ask to see the outfit on you to help you accessorize. I was surprised at this, because the stores look regular and have clothing costing $10-$50, so it's not like these are luxury stores. If you say "gracias" to them, the ticos don't say "de nada", or at least I haven't heard it yet. Instead, everyone so far has said "con gusto", which means "with pleasure". I feel like I'm at Chik'fil'a all the time with that expression. I ended up buying 2 pairs of "jelly" shoes that are silver because the rain wears at other shoes. Each pair only cost $10, or 5,700 colones. Throughout the stores, we could hear cheering for all the people watching the football games at the stores with TVs. They even had horns inside the mall, like my dad has to cheer at American football games. So I guess Colombia won against Uruguay and Brasil won over Chile.

We left the mall and started walking to the bus stop. In the middle of the street were people juggling and then holding out their hats for drivers to give money. Carla said these are called "maravilleros" because they are always doing "maravillas" for the drivers.

My feet were so tired from walking all day, that I sat on the patio in a rocking chair and put my feet up. Imara and Carla worked in the garden and took care of the dog and the cats. Carla brought in another granadilla to make juice with for us. So far, I haven't drank water here. With every meal we have fruit juices, or "frescos" from different fruits, or I have cafe con leche.

Tomorrow, we visit the volcano Irazú, the dam at Orosí, and Cartago which was the old capital of Costa Rica, so it's supposed to be like one of those old Spanish colonial towns. I can't wait to share about that!