Where to start, where to start....I suppose wherever I left off. I met everyone else in my exchange group on Monday when we went to our first day of orientation at the Universidad Nacional. Turns out that a girl from Tennessee, Ellie, is living with a host family right across the street from me, which is great, because we can ride the bus to classes together. There are 16 students from the States, only one of which is a guy, and all are basically from the mid-west to west coast. Anyway, Monday really wasn't too interesting, it was basically four hours of a review of the program's rules etc. and then a break for lunch, followed by yet 3 more hours of do's and dont's. Now I know sitting and simply listening doesn't sound too intense, but when its in another language and one needs to maintain focus for so long it gets quite exhausting mentally. After I got home my host mom Nini took me by bus to the plaza to watch a Polish dance group perform (see picture). Then we walked all the way home. So that night I think I fell asleep at 8:30! And woke up at 5. It's acutally been great because I don't have an alarm clock but I've still been able to wake up on my own around 6 everyday. Oh, and during this long lecture we learned about Costa Rican customs, one of them being very important when it comes to personal hygiene. Apparently Costa Ricans associate body odor with sickliness and they strongly despise it. Our advisor told us that an exchange student actually ended up being dismissed from the college a few years ago because his B.O. was so bad that the school officials deemed it a threat to the classes. Their reasoning (or lack thereof) was that, with Costa Rica being a tropical environment where skin diseases are prevalent, such uncleanliness is unacceptable. And I know you may be thinking that this story was lost in translation, but it was told to us in both Spanish and then English as well...and to think I was trying to keep the showering to a minimum so as not to seem like a picky American!!
Tuesday we took an aptitude exam in the morning and registered for classes in the afternoon, which fortunately worked out depite the chaos of it all. We were given a 1/2 inch thick packet of mere course titles to go by. We had not yet received the results of our placement exams so we didn't know what level we were at, and even if we'd known that we didn't have the levels of the classes. So basically it was eenie meenie minie mo for the greater part of the afternoon. All of the classes are taught in Spanish - so far, my schedule consists of: Colonial and Modern Costa Rican Literature, History of the Americas, Ethics and Philosophy, Spanish Language and Costa Rican Culture, and Dance Appreciation (hey, I have to enjoy myself a little in between all the translation of textbooks). Anyway, after getting the class thing sorted out one and a half hours late, me and another exhcange student Eric from CA took the bus back to our neighborhood. By that time it was dark out and when I got home I apparently found out that my host mom had called Ellie's mom (our neighboring exhange student host family) in a panic asking if I went home with Ellie or if she knew where I was. After Ellie explained the tedious class selection process I guess everything was okay. Still, I feel bad for not being able to call and let her know that I wasn't somewhere in a head in a sidestreet alley. Which brings me to cell phones. It's pretty liberating not to have the thing on me all the time, and also pretty sad that our culture is so reliant upon constant communication and immediate connection with anything and everything that exists around us. I've found here that (although there are exceptions, as a variety of youth are fairy "Americanized", technologically speaking) there is a stong emphasis on retaining social connections, but in a much more personal sense. The families here truly value the time they spend with each other, and house visits are prevelant over brief guilty "I haven't talked to you in ages so I better call quick to make myself feel better" phone calls. A few close friends get together to play soccer or walk around the neighborhoods, instead of sitting in the house and IMing a dozen others. It's definitely quality over quantity it comes to time, and that's just fine by me.

Today (Wednesday) we walked around Heredia (my city) and took the bus into San Jose. It was raining "pelos de gato" - literal translation being "cat hairs" - but basically that means just spitting/misting. San Jose has your typical big-city feel, minus the tall buildings and plus many stray unneutered dogs. We stood out like a sore thumb. 16 pale American kids used to cooler climates, sweating in our tank tops, when many people walked by with wool scarves and tall boots that we use in Vermont for warmth (as opposed to their role in "fashion" here). Clutching our bags in front of us and taking on the form of an owl as we constantly monitored who was around all 360 degrees of our space (as we were told to do in our 7 hour Spanish lecture) basically was an invitation to the "bad people" of San Jose, as if we were expecting to be confronted and hand our bags over without second thought. Nevertheless, our walk through the city was a success and the only thing we had to worry about following us was a cute little mut who showed up like a traveling garden gnome in many of my pictures (like the mural one). That's all for now!