Week 2 has started!

What a busy day! It started with TOTAL INTIMIDATION!!!! This week the tico students (Costa Rican) came back to school. So I walked around the corner and saw none of my friends but total strangers, and felt like they were all looking at me. It is one things to start up a conversation with someone from the States, but we all felt like highschool freshman all over again. I have no clue how to interact with them. In orientation they made it sound so easy to meet Ticos, but I think it will be much harder. We waited for our Spanish profesora for 30 minutes and were about to leave when she showed up :( She was quite sick though, but still came to class to cough all over us, I mean teach is. We told her that we needed to leave early to go to the Gold museum for our project, so she let us leave at 10:30 rather than 12 which was AWESOME!!

Hope, Rachel form Iowa, and I walked downtown and went to the museum. It was really interesting. They have tons of pre-Columbian gold, which is obviously, very old. After this, we needed to get lunch but could not find one real restaurant where we were, only American chains. So we sadly walked into the crowded Subway. Once we were finally at the front of the line, we realized that we had forgotten the word for most of the toppings and got very nervous about ordering. We did it with some extra help and time, then ate lunch together. We even passed some of our new friends in the street, which made it feel a bit more like home where you know people.

We were walking to the bus stop when a young Tico, maybe 20, walks up from behind us and starts walking next to me. He proceeds to say, "It is my pleasure ladies, I love you so very very much!". Hope told me that I actually laughed out loud, but then he just fell back behind us and disappeared. After this, Hope dropped a coin and the bus stop, and a man picked it up and told us, "Merry Christmas and Feliz New Year, I love you and to you I do not say good bye, I like see you later. Bye bye". We could not help but laugh. We were warned about the "machismo" of the men, like in other Latin American cultures, but it really is harmless. It is funny to see how they act so differently. They mean no harm, and just say what is on their mind. I thought it was so funny how they tried to speak English and had to come up to talk to us. I am sure we were not hard to find though. Three blonds walking in downtown San José do not exactly blend in.

We rode the bus home, then I headed to art class. My teacher is so great!! We drew our first assignment and he gives us such freedom to draw and make mistakes, and only helps when you ask. He may come around and give you guidance, but he is very big on finding your own style and technique. It was hard at first, but I must admit, I was VERY impressed with my self, especially for my first drawing. (hopefully you can tell, but it is a teapot and an apple)

I had a break then headed to my next class. Once again my Peace and democracy teacher was amazing. We got him to tell about himself for the first hour of class, then we just asked questions about Costa Rica and he rattled off such detailed answers. We talked about everything form Nicaragua, to the new stadium that China built in CR (check it out, interesting story), Shakira, Mountains, the port that China is going to build in CR that hold 66 huge ships that can not even fit through the canal, the "eco-friendleness" of Costa Rica and the health care. I have never been in a class for two hours and wanted to stay longer, but this guy makes it happen.

The bus driver/assistane.travel agent Victor brought me home to another wonderful meal by Cecillia. She had Tony's on the table and I went to town with it. Next I had great conversations with both Cecillia and Herbert. When I asked them their opinions about the Costa Rican healthcare system (caja costarricense de seguro social) FYI, neither hesitated one minute before they said how great it was. We talked about it for so long. If you have an accident, get sick, or whatever, you pay nothing!! You pay a bit for prescriptions I think, but his daughter brought him his cough syrup prescription and it cost him 2000 Colones (about $4). they went on and on about it and how they liked it so much. I asked them if the richer people liked it too, and the said primarily yes, but they were able to also buy private insurance on top of it?? Not sure why, but they said most of the people liked it. It seems like such a great idea. Even though the political liberal side has all but become invisible in CR, they still have many things that we would call "liberal". They have many government owned organizations, like health, communications, and tons of others, and also their focus on the environment. I want to ask Mr. Clark (mi favorito) sobre estos, and I will get back to you all!

Sorry this was so long, but I figure that if you are reading this, you really care about me and want to know what is going on, so there you go!

Hasta Mañana!