Number Four

I have eaten rice and beans for every meal since I have arrived with my host family. This morning Deysi nos cocinó ----- pinto. We thought it was going to be something different and it ended up being rice and black beans with cilantro and a little bit of "salsa." Their salsa is like an oil infused with herbs, not the traditional salsa we think of. There was also bread and cheese and of course el café. The coffee is muy rico, I think I'm gong to have a problem when I return a los Estados Unidos.
Everyone here wakes up a la madrugada (at dawn). People were up and moving around at 5 am, the dogs were barking, roosters were crowing and so many motorcycles were being started. I'll need to invest in some ear plugs. Or play music all night.
We had our first meeting at the Instituto today and I just cannot get over how gorgeous the gardens are around the school. (Also the fruit, I can't say enough about how sweet and flavorful it is.) The meeting and test were a meeting and a test. Nothing too interesting happened. I want this to be an accurate reflection of my time here so I will say this, there have been the bad things in addition to the good. We've encountered a lot of racism against black people and the Nicaraguans. Los Ticos no les gustan a los Nicarguayanos. But it's easy to ignore or change the subject. The people here are always very polite.
In the afternoon we went to the small grocery store close to campus. I miss milk but I'm not sure whether it's pasteurized so I'm scared to try it. After that I returned to my house where we ate lunch (more rice and beans, but other things too. And the aguacate- an avocado- tan deliciosa!) afterwards some other students and I ventured into the neighboring town of Heredia. It's a busier and more commercial town and it's maybe a five minute bus ride depending on traffic. It felt like such a huge accomplishment venturing I to public transportation for the first time, and it made us all a little giddy to be out o. Our own. We hit up the mall where we browsed a bookstore for awhile before our movie started. The prices are pretty similar to those in the u tied states. Maybe a little cheaper. We saw identity thief in English (the one dubbed in Spanish was more expensive). For a little while we were allowed to forget that we were in Costa Rica. We got on up the bus home and then took a short taxi ride from there to our home where we had ham and cheese sandwiches and a little but of yuca for dinner.
Tomorrow we are off to una plantación de café en Cartago