At the moment I am in San Jose, lying upstairs in my own bedroom on one side of the city. I'm living in a neighborhood called Curribata, 2 doors down from Chris and within a 20-minute walk of our language school (ICADS) and most other students. We are studying Spanish for 4 hours every day in the mornings in intensive conversational language classes -- basically like 4 hours of talking with 3 other students (Angela and 2 older guys from Canada and London are in my group) and a Costa Rican teacher. It's actually great fun, and at the end of the morning I feel saturated and tired but more fluent, every day.

My host parents are 2 grandparents named Hilda and Jose. They are extremely Catholic... I am surrounded by little statues and saints and relics. I am also half-convinced there's a ghost living upstairs here, for various reasons... but I don't feel too concerned about it. It's interesting. I like Hilda and Jose very much. They have had many, many foreign students live with them before, and are very good at making patient conversation.

I have been adjusting to the different paces of life in different parts of the country... the first week was extra relaxed, even for Costa Rican standards, since it was Semana Santa (Holy Week) and everyone was off work and beached most every day. However, the pace and attitude towards life is very different in Nosara (where we will be living) than in San Jose, the city where we are now. Besides being a surfing town (which means the attitude of the citizens towards most things in life is how it sounds... pretty easy going) and in a rural area, Nosara is so small that most people know each other, at least by association... similar to St. Mary's. San Jose is a fairly big, fairly dangerous city... it is so busy, and the houses are more or less fortresses, they are locked up so securely... with jail-like fences and locks everywhere. The in-country adjustment from Holy Week in Nosara to Spanish class in San Jose has been interesting... and I think I will be very glad to be back in Nosara, as valuable as this Spanish class experience is proving to be.

I must go work on mi tarea! Hasta luego!