I have arrived

Today, I woke up at 3AM in Bloomington and now I am laying on my bed in San Jose. I cannot believe how far I have gone today...its crazy. The flight to Houston was quick and smooth while the flight to San Jose had lots of turbulence! Getting through the airport in San Jose was a breeze when we fly into the US we have to go through customs and immigration before we can even enter the normal airport, here I had to walk through the airport until I found the immigration line. I waited at the airport for quite awhile because so many kids were flying in for the program today. After about 45 minutes we finally left for our host families. I have an amazing family! Clarisa is my mama tica, she is the grandma of the house  and does most of the cooking, cleaning and laundry. We are only suppose to get laundry service once a week but she does it all the time. She gave me a big hug and kisses when I arrived. Claudia is Clarisa's daughter and she is about 25, maybe a little older. Claudia has two children Indiana and I don't know her son's name yet, he is at his dad's this weekend. I got to me Indiana today, she is 5! She was just in my room as I am writing this and we had a good half hour conversation. I learned about her friends, what she likes to do for her birthday. I can understand her okay...everyone speaks very quickly down here but Claudia speaks English and Clarisa knows some. I brought a big picture book of Minnesota for the family and Clarisa loved it. She and Claudia were surprised when I told them we are known as the land of 10,000 lakes...especially when I said we have much more than that. Clarisa's niece actually studied in the University of Minnesota a while back so there are some ties! She said, the winters are unbearably cold!  

I got here at about 4PM and we ate lunch and boy was I hungry. The food was actually really good, rice with some onions mixed in, steak with tomatoes and peppers on top, salad, steamed broccoli and carrots, with rice pudding for dessert. I said I wouldn't each much because I'd eaten lunch at the airport in Houston but the food was so good. I am a picky eater and I made a bet with myself to just eat what is put in front of me. Aye was it good! They told us that we will only be eating natural here even though many Costa Ricans eat Americanized food. No pop in the house either only water, lemonade and coffee. I cannot wait to try their coffee. Tonight Claudia, Alejandro AJ (the other two guys living here) and I are going out for coffee and to eat it should be an interesting and exciting experience. We all have varying levels of Spanish, Alejandro grew up in Miami and his parents spoke Spanish so he is basically fluent. AJ knows almost no Spanish and has kind of holed up because of it, hopefully we can break him out of his shell.

The neighborhood here seems really really safe. I found the "Special Pharmacy" and its just like a Walgreens. Tonight Alejandro, Claudia and I went to an outdoor mall. It was EXTREMELY compact but really cool. I can't wait to explore these places more.

Another strange thing for me...its 6:30PM and its dark out. They don't have daylight savings here because they are practically on the equator, the sun generally rises at 6AM and sets at 6PM everyday all year round.  

Well, I've just kind of rambled here...so much to say and I haven't really processed it all yet! More organized posts will follow i'm sure.