The students have arrived!

All of the students arrived on Thursday (and one on Friday) with all of their luggage--thank goodness! They met their Tica moms and seemed to have a good first experience with food and families. Of course, their first priority was to get "plugged in" and say hi to friends and families.

Yesterday we began with an orientation of San Jose and the program, took placement tests (written and oral) in Spanish, had lunch at a local restaurant, and had a downtown walking tour of San Jose. The restaurants are typically very small, but meals are great. I got the casado (means married), which is the "blue plate special" in CR. You get rice and black beans, salad (usually some sort of pickled cabbage and carrots), fried plantains, choice of fish, chicken, beef, or pork, and then an interesting mix of some sort of soft yellow fruit (don't know its name yet) and ground beef. All for 1700 colones--or about $3.00. Wonderful food on a budget!

I didn't take pics of downtown San Jose. We were a large group of gringos--so obvious that one student heard someone call out "field trip" when we were walking. Public displays of cameras might target us as easy marks. I'll try to post some later. The buildings in downtown SJ are sandwiched on either side of a 6-block pedestrian mall of shops, and large beautiful parks are everywhere. The streets were crowded since the children are not back in school yet, but our hosts told us that SJ is like this everyday. Not the most picturesque city I've ever been in, but there are some beautiful old buildings, and the people are fascinating.

After our walkabout, we returned to Mesoamerica to have a birthday party for the young man who was delayed by the storms in New Jersey and who had arrived while we were out. I've posted some pics of his birthday party and some of our students enjoying the large lounge at Meso. The Tico families came to walk or drive the students back home, and the kids were making plans for grocery shopping and nightly activities as I left for home.

Today, I'm meeting some for lunch at the mall, and we'll decide what to do afterwards--maybe take in a Saturday market or take in the local "culture" at the Hiper Mas (a Walmart, basically). Tomorrow we take a day trip to Cartago, Orosi, and Volcan Irazu (just like the coffee shop in Burlington, which is owned by a Costa Rican family). Small world.

I've put up a picture of the front of my apartment, and will post pictures of our real field trip when we get back.

Chao!