Jeremiah & Hannah's Blog: A Rich Coast Indeed

It’s safe to say I’m in love with Costa Rica! After seeing the coast and driving through some of the most beautiful scenery I’ve ever seen, I have fallen in love! Honestly, I knew it was going to be a beautiful country, but you can’t quite grasp it until you see it yourself. Now, I spend most of my time in San Jose, which is a big city, and while I wouldn’t necessarily call it beautiful, I definitely love experiencing life here.

So why did I leave the city you ask? Well the program that I came to Costa Rica with, ISA, includes planned excursions in their program cost. So I had just barely wrapped up my first week of classes and fifteen minutes later I was on the road to Playa Tamarindo, on the Northwest coast of Costa Rica! The drive was 5-6 hours of beautiful scenery. Completely green, deep gorges, rivers, small towns… Did I say green? We arrived to our hotel just as the sun was setting. We stayed in a very nice resort right on the beach so it was great views, and I shared my huge room with only one other person. That night ISA provided us dinner at the hotel and brought in traditional CR dancers to perform for us. On Saturday I spent the morning with a few friends walking on the beach, walking through town, and swimming. The water was warm! I guess since it’s closer to the Equator? But I was expecting cold since it’s the Pacific, so it was a very welcome surprise. In the afternoon I opted to do a Catamaran Cruise/Snorkeling excursion. A few of my friends were doing it as well and it was worth the cost for sure. While I am being conscience of my spending and not just going crazy I am also thinking, “When I am 40 years old, am I going to think, man that was a lot of money or am I going to think, what an amazing experience!” So we took a nice long catamaran ride out to a quiet cove and went snorkeling, swimming, and paddle boarding. While snorkeling I saw tons of different types of fish and a huge school of fish. It was so cool! I could’ve spent a whole day in that cove exploring and swimming around. When we headed back on the Catamaran we caught most of the sunset, which was amazing. The beauty of this place really made me admire God even more than usual. Truly, in a place so beautiful I couldn’t help but think about how He created it all and how truly fantastic His creation is. Saturday night my friends and I grabbed dinner (I had a delicious Passionfruit smoothie) and then went dancing! That was quite fun. Sunday morning we spent our last few hours on the beach before heading back home.

More observations:

· They don’t put toilet paper in the toilet… Everything goes in a trashcan right beside it! Weird and hard to get used to!
· I found two (thankfully dead!) cockroaches in my room in one day…
· Not sure if I mentioned this last time, but Costa Ricans are called “Ticos” or “Ticas.”
· I might get a roommate! There is another girl from my program who is looking for a new host family so we may be getting her here! Not certain yet, so I’ll keep you updated! I realized once I found out that she might be joining us that I actually like being the only student at my home. I think that’s a little selfish of me! But I’ll be happy with whatever happens.
· Still no new baby! But I found out the names they’re thinking of are Marcello, Nick, and Mike! I thought the last two were interesting because they are very American! I think she is leaning toward Marcello anyway, but her mom doesn’t like Marcello so I think that’s bothering a little bit. We’ll see what happens!
I have been using my GoPro and compiling clips into a video of my trip so that at the end I'll have one video of all of my experiences! So far it's looking really good!
· Classes are going well so far! In “Intro to PT” we are learning Basic Anatomy, which has been a really good refresher and it seems like it’s going to be a great hands on class! In Spanish class I am getting quite a bit of homework, and I have my first presentation tomorrow and test on Friday. But I’m learning a lot!
· I bought a gym membership! I was really missing exercise and there is a gym a short walk from my house. It was a little bit expensive for a month, but I figured my health was worth it since I don’t have very much control over my food intake here! It’s been great so far!
· I’ve said amazing, awesome, or great probably way too many times in this post. So I apologize for that!
Recently been thinking more about why it was in God’s plan for me to be here in Costa Rica. Can I make a positive impact on other people’s lives? What can I learn about Him in my own life while I’m here?

I continue to get closer to my host family. They are so wonderful and helpful! I know that I am improving very quickly with my listening skills in Spanish, but I definitely still have a lot of room for improvement in the speaking part! My host mom already asked me if I would come back to visit at some point after I go home! I think I’ll plan on it.

My family (Mom, Dad, Emily, and Jeremiah) comes in four days!! I barely left them but I’m still so excited to have them here! Also, I just found out yesterday that we get Monday off of school for “El Dia de Las Culturas” formerly Columbus Day. That means I can spend the whole day with them instead of being stuck in school! Yay!! Can’t wait to explore some more of Costa Rica with them and to show them my new home!

Pura Vida