Spending time with your host family and the first week of classes

Hello all :)

So, I think we all know that a big part of studying abroad is living with a host family (at least in Spanish-speaking countries it is, some other countries don't always offer a host family option for housing). Since I've been here, I've spent a decent amount of time with my family in the evenings. It's not uncommon for mi hermana tica (Costa Rican sister) and her husband and son to come over for dinner at night, so I've gotten to know them more or less as well as I know the rest of my family.

On Wednesday I didn't have class until 6 p.m. so my host mom, hermana tica (who from now on I'll refer to as Stefanie, because that is her name), Jose (Stefanie's husband), and Anthony (Stefanie's son) went up to the mountains to explore. We walked around and hiked by a gorgeous river. I'll post the pictures later today. It was gorgeous, just like everything else in this country, and a lot of fun. My host mom was hilarious when we were getting ready to leave. She kept telling me how cold it was going to be in the mountains and that I should bring a coat. I saw her dig out mittens, a hat, and a scarf, so I assumed that it was actually going to be chilly, so I wore a sweater and put on a light coat that I had brought. We drove up to the river and when I got out of the car, I was amazed. It was so comfortable. I couldn't believe how much of a fuss had been made about how cold it was going to be. It felt like a warm autumn afternoon in Wisconsin. I instantly took off my coat and my family couldn't believe that I wasn't cold. I had to re-explain to them that weather like this is perfect to me.

It just goes to show how big of a difference it is to live in north-eastern Wisconsin vs. Central Costa Rica.

So yeah, that was my big adventure with my host family this week. They also introduced me to the Colombian version of Ugly Betty (Soy Betty, la Fea), which is probably way funnier as a Spanish telenovela than an English dramady, but I haven't watched the English version enough to know. (I would like to update this post by saying that the Colombian version came first, in case it was implied otherwise. I knew that, but apparently the way that I wrote it was confusing or misguiding.)

But I think it's important to tell you about my first week of classes with locals, because I have quite a story to tell about my first class.

So on Monday, I show up at the school around 1:30 so that I would have plenty of time to find my classroom before my first class, Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Public Relations, started at 2. Instead of handing out paper schedules, the school posts the classes, organized by department, on big whiteboards in the hallways. Janiva helped me figure out the board and find my classroom. So I sat outside the room and ate my lunch until the professor arrived at 2:05 (typically tico). Then, in a moment of panic, I saw the professor write a different name on the board than was in the information I had written down. I turned to the student next to me and asked if this was intro to public relations, and she said no. After taking the time to tell myself to relax, I got up and went to the classrooms on either side of mine. Neither were Intro to the Theory and Practice of Public Relations. Finally, I went back to the boards and asked one of the people who was in charge of helping students with scheduling problems what the deal was. He told me that my class had been moved to 6-9 p.m. on Mondays. All I could think was "what is going on and why didn't Janiva know this?" So I went to her office and she came back to the tables with me and asked the same questions and they told her the same thing so we talked to the woman in charge of scheduling. Turns out we had been looking at the wrong course number (BRP-002 instead of BRP-003). Of course by the time we finally got to the right room, it was around 2:30 and the professor asked why I was so late. Janiva had to explain, in front of the entire class, why I was late and that I am an international student from the States, which was just slightly horrifying, for three reasons.

1.) I am an international student from the U.S. so coming in late for the reason I did makes me look incredibly silly,

2.) I am rarely late for anything, especially class,

3.) The last thing I need is to draw more attention to myself or to give a bad first impression to my professors.

Luckily, my professor was really cool about it. He understood the situation, and I hadn't really missed much. He just wanted me to make sure that I know that his class is run on gringo time (people from the U.S. are called gringos and gringas. It's not considered derogatory, it's just slang), not tico time so being late isn't acceptable from now on. Which I am fine with. I'm a pretty prompt person.

So yeah, that was my first day of class. Great way to start it off, right? My other two classes this week were no where near as eventful. Yoga on Wednesday night and Marketing on Thursday morning went smoothly. Hopefully, the rest of my semester will go just as well.

Tonight we are going dancing again as a farewell to the winter break students. One of Costa Rica's best salsa bands (according to Janiva) is going to be playing in Heredia so we are going to go listen to them and dance. We leave early tomorrow morning for Arenal Volcano and La Fortuna Waterfall, which is going to be so much fun, but it will be weird to not have the winter break students there (except for Mark, who will be here until next weekend).

See you later!
Pura Vida.