PURA VIDA!

Mackenzie and I on orientation day! 

     Hola from San Jose! I feel like I have so much to talk about! I am absolutely in love with life here in Costa Rica. Everyone in the country lives by the saying "Pura Vida!" meaning, "Pure Life." And something could never be so true about such a large population! Time doesn't exist here, and by that I mean that life is never experienced by a time frame. There are no clocks in any of the classrooms, and rarely any where on campus. The local's live on "Tico Time," which is just extremely laid back, and no one is ever in a rush. 

Drinking a pipa!

     Classes here a not as 'strict' as classes back in Michigan. On my first day of class this week, which I was extremely nervous for, we spent the first TWO HOURS getting to know each other in the class. Let me remind you, my class only have five people in it, including myself. There was no complaining here. Each day we start off class with casual conversation, about what we did the previous day, how we are enjoying our host families, the city, etc! For the first month of this semester I am taking Advanced Spanish for Health Professions. Luckily, my room mate {Mackenzie} is in my class, so we are reluctant to study together and struggle through the course, which is taught entirely in Spanish! Now, when I say struggle, I mean that our Spanish is not as good as we want it to be, but being surrounded by the language has surely brought more confidence to us in speaking! It's only been a week and I already feel my spoken Spanish becoming better and better each day. 
     This first week of classes has been no where close to as stressful as classes back home, and I couldn't even come close to expressing my happiness about that! Although, it's only been 1 week, and we have our midterm this Friday! It's crazy to think about, time is already flying by so incredibly fast. 

Sunset on the beach!

     Over the weekend, I went on my first excursion here in Costa Rica. I traveled six hours by bus to get to Tamarindo Beach! The locals here call it "Tamagringo," because of it's high rate of tourist attraction. When we finally arrived in Tamarindo, around 7 o'clock pm, we were assigned our rooms at the hotel and had some time to change our clothes and freshen up. We then walked around the town as a group and then ventured off on our own for dinner. The next morning we woke up early for breakfast and headed down to the beach! It is really an amazing town, only quite a bit more expensive because of it's tourist attraction. 
     When people say that the sun is different in Costa Rica, they are NOT lying. I am proud to say that I left the beach with only a few small burn spots! I applied SPF 50 all day long! What is cool about the Pacific coast, especially Tamarindo, is that it has perfect surfing conditions! I spent all of my Saturday learning how to surf, and I am extremely happy that I caught on so quickly. It was a successful day of surfing for sure! The nightlife in Tamarindo is exciting and extremely lively! 
     The bus ride back from Tamarindo took less that it did to get there, thankfully, but not by much. It was an extremely unusual bus ride though. There was several people, whom were not a part of my program catching a ride back to San Jose. We stopped abruptly on the side of a busy street in SJ, and a man stood up, said adios chicos! and jumped off the bus. No one knows who he was, or where he came from! Strange! 

PURA VIDA AMIGOS!