Hola!  Two days of school down, and I'm still alive.  Of course, as I write this, it's raining/lightning-ing/thundering so hard that I might just die of a fear-induced heart attack.  If it was raining this hard in Albany right now, we'd definitely lose power.  But here?  I dunno.  They must have transformers of titanium or something.

So, for my school routine.  School starts at 830, so I wake up at 630 and get myself as presentable as I can with limited clothes and the limited consciousness available to me at this hour.  This means I exit my cozy bedroom haven at about 7AM.  Eunice (who is *awesome*) has coffee, hot milk, and breakfast ready, and we chat for a bit while we eat.  I leave the house around 745 to walk the two blocks to the bus stop.  I'm lucky because I only need two keys to get out of/into the house, one for each gate.  One of my classmates has 7 keys!

Anyhoo, I hop on the bus which costs 225 colones.  There are approximately 500 colones to 1 USD, so the bus to and from school is less than $1.  Traffic is messy.  Yesterday morning, I was certain that the bus driver was trying to kill us all.  I don't know how to describe the way people drive here.  I've never been to New York, but I imagine that drivers in San Jose make New York drivers look like Oregon drivers.  It's some of the craziest stuff I've ever seen, like, maneuvers you wouldn't even imagine anyone dreaming of doing, and then you just think, "Why?  Why are they doing that?"

With traffic, the bus ride takes 10-15 minutes and the stop for the university is about 6 blocks from the main university entrance.  From the main entrance, oh, I don't know, it's about another 6 block equivalent to the "building" that my classes are in.  I put that in quotes because it's really like a big house.  The Casa de Idiomas.  The Casa de Idiomas is at the NW corner of campus.  And right across the super busy street from that is. . .  a Hooters restaurant.  How charming, yes?

I have 3 classes.  A 3-hour language class daily, a 2.5-hour culture class Tuesdays and Thursdays, and a 3-hour "culture in action" class Mondays which is pretty much a guided tour of various places around San Jose.  I took a few photos during that class yesterday, but my tica sister (from whom I borrow the camera cord) is on-call at the hospital, and I don't know where the cord is.  I'll have to post them later.

I don't know if I mentioned that the people here call themselves "ticos".  Also, did I mention that Angie is a surgery intern?  A lot of people here are really educated.

Like any college campus, nearby are tons of shops: little restaurants called "sodas", and places like bookstores/school supplies stores, copy shops (no one here has a printer), internet cafes, and a few clothes shops.  I haven't been into the clothes shops, but a couple of the other girls say that things are twice as expensive here as they are in the states.

On long days, school's out at 330, short days (Wed/Fri) 1130.  My bus ride home is the same story:  walk to the stop, catch the bus, get off, walk home.  I'm just glad I get to do some walking, because 3-hour classes are literally a pain in the bum.

I haven't done much of what one would consider "fun" stuff, although I guess that's pretty objective.  I've walked up and down the streets near school during breaks and after school a bit, just to see what's around.  I haven't gone to any bars yet, but we have a no drinking policy Sun-Thurs, so there's not much point in that.  My host family is really awesome, and I like being a homebody here as much as I like it at my own home.  Besides that, I want to keep in mind why I'm here:  to complete an entire 3 semesters of language classes in 6 weeks!  Also, it's only my second day of school after all!

Tomorrow a group of us plan to dink around a mall, so we'll see how that goes.  I told my host mom about our plans and she says, "Wear your bag in front of you, not in back.  People get robbed there."  Oh.  Ok.  I imagine she means something along the lines of pickpocketed, because I can't think that someone would actually mug someone else in the morning in a crowded mall.  I had to buy a new backpack today because I only brought a messenger bag and it was killing my shoulder and knee.  The new pack has some of the most complicated zippers I have ever seen.  Have fun trying to get into my backpack pickpocketers.  Little do you know that the important stuff is in my money belt.

This weekend we have a class excursion to Tortuguero.  It looks pretty awesome on that website, but Eunice says that two days is too short of a time.  Keril says that it's a 5-hour drive, so I'll be happy to get there without getting super car-sick.  Also, we leave San Jose at 550AM which kind of totally blows.  Ah well.  It will be fun.  Right?

Last night I was on my computer and I logged off at what I thought was 10PM (per my computer).  I went to plug in my iPod, and my iPod said it was 11PM.  I had forgotten to set the time ahead on my computer.  So, I'm super tired right now.  I reset the time on my computer, but for some reason it keeps switching back, and I don't know why.  It's weirding me out.  Also, all of this thinking/working/trying to talk in another language pretty much zombifies my brains.  I'm going to bed.  Yeah, it's only 830PM.  What of it?

Besos de San Jose!



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UPDATE:  Ok, so my photos are lagging in time a bit from the posts they go with.  Meh.

The Casa de Idiomas where I have my classes

The view from my bus stop on the way to school, looking west

The view from my bus stop looking east