estoy muy feliz =)

I am really enjoying myself here. I admit, the first few days were intimidating, but I think I´ve got the hang of this thing ... and I like it. I´ve moved into my first host family home, which I will be staying at until next monday, and I´ve started my spanish class. In the house, there is my host mother, who is incredibly nice, her husband, who is a little weird, and the grandmother. None of them speak english, but even if the husband could, I dont think I could understand him anyway. He´s one of those old people who could stare out the window for hours. Today, he put a plastic tarantula near the table to scare us while me and the other hostees were eating lunch. Haha! Speaking of the other hostees, I love them! There are two girls, Mara & Mariel, from Germany who stay in the room next to me. They are going to be volunteering in orphanages and schools in Costa Rica for 5 months. I´ve met many new friends who are among the nicest people I´ve ever met. They all made me feel really comfortable and at ease.

Right after I settled my things in my room, I had to go to the first day of clase de espanol. I´m in a private organization so the class is only open to those who are in the organization, with a maximum of 5 in each session. There was me, another girl from Germany, and a guy from Norway. The class was informative, but everything I already learned so I ended up going into the intermediate course. Woop woop! hah. That first night, Mara and Mariel introduced me to two other girls, another from Germany (Clara) and one from Kentucky ( Kathryn) who I will be living with during my volunteer project. We rented a chick flick, laughed, (and of course I almost cried) and then spent the night swapping intresting facts about our countries. It´s so sad how ignorant America is! Most people from other countries know multiple languages and are very knowledgable about the world..but us americans...we think that our country and our language is worth knowing about. Que lastima.

On tuesday, besides my morning class, I spent the entire day in bed because I had a high fever. I felt cold but my body was burning hot and sweaty. But after good rest, I guess I was much better because I was able to go to the bar with the girls that night. Haha. So I´m looking
at the coctail menu for something cheap but sounds good right... too bad I end up buying a non-alcoholic drink!! Haha. Oh well..guess it wasn´t meant to be.

Yesterday, after our morning classes and going to the internet cafe to call our parents, we planned on going to the movie theatres but it was too raining hard to go. Actually...it rains every single day. I think thats why I got sick. I was expecting nice tropical weather, but I guess tropical requires rain. I wish we could have gone to the movies because on wednesdays its only 2 american dollars! But instead Mara and I spent the night watching half of season 2 of FRIENDS
:)

Today, as we were on our way out of the house I had a blood nose! It was one of those that you think will never end. My poor host mother was probably thinking ¨this damn sickly american girl!¨ Haha. Kathryn, Mariel and I went to San Jose again to buy the bus tickets for our weekend trip. We don´t have school tomorrow because aug 15 is mothers day..and here in costa rica, its a national holiday! Talk about girl power! So friday morning through Sunday, we´re going to the coast where we finally get to experience the nice tropical weather, sandy beaches, exotic plants and animals....the Costa Rica that we´ve been waiting for! I´m so excited!

With that said, I´ve been really enjoying my time here. Well, everything but nighttime. I swear, I feel like an insomniac! I either can´t sleep or wake up every hour. I´ve even literally tried counting sheep. Haha! If it wasn´t for Snuggles and ¨my ninja¨ I don´t think sleep would ever be accomplished.

Oh! Kinda random but interesting -- my english got worse!! Wow..just to write that last sentence took me a while. First I had ¨gotten worse¨and then I put a ¨had¨ in front. Ayy...the combination of learning spanish so quickly and constantly breaking down my english for my German friends is messing up my own native language! I think in english, but I try to translate it in my head in spanish and then if i don´t know how, I try to learn. My spanish-english dictionary became my new right hand man. ( But you´re still my fave, Shellane! lol ) So if the grammar is off in these upcoming blogs, Im sorry! But at least my spanish is getting better! This other volunteer who stayed at my host family´s house said that if ¨you´re english is getting worse that means fluency in spanish is around the corner.¨