Monday & Tuesday

Monday at school they had a big cake for all of the June birthdays so I was sliced up a large piece of delicious cake. Everything here is less sweet and often is filled with fruit or has fruit on top. I have tasted very few things here that I have not enjoyed. I was not a huge fan of heart of the palm, but I think some things require an acquired taste.

For supper monday evening my host mom made sea food soup. It had clams, oysters, shrimp, crab, octopus, and possibly something else that I missed. It was delicious! We eat a lot of rice here, but I really enjoy it. My host mom never makes rice alone. For breakfast we commonly have pinto which it rice with beans and eggs, and then my lunch I will have a sort of fried rice as a side to something else, and for supper we often have rice with something else. However, she mixes it up and we have tortillas a lot too. She is a very good cook. This was my lunch yesterday, it was a sort of chicken quesadilla with a pinto of tomatoes and onions and a light dressing, and cooked cauliflower and broccoli with those little corn on the cobs as salad. We always enjoy opening our lunch boxes and trying to figure out what we are eating. I know this is a lot about food, but that's what we do here. We have breakfast, then cafécita about 10 am, than lunch, than cafécita between 4 -5 pm, and supper between 6-7. We eat a lot of small meals, and with all the miles and hills I walk everyday I am surprisingly hungry. I often do not notice it because I am warm and don´t realize how hungry I am until we start eating.

I am studying while my host sister is watching Zootopia.

 I have now been with my family for over a week, and everything is beginning to feel more familiar and comfortable. Today I left for school a little late and had to walk very rapidly to school, which means that I was drenched in sweat when I arrived, thankfully most of us show up like this, and I am beginning to not be bothered by wet clothes. After school we explored a bit as I needed to replace my stolen umbrella, and we found a couple good shops close by. I am enjoying school, and my host family, but it is hard to balance homework, and doing other things. Thankfully my professor doesn't give us hard homework and she is very relaxed, but I have to remind myself that I am here to learn.

The hot water heater got fixed today, so now we do not have to turn it on and off when we need it. It now remains on and doesn't make noise. It heats the water as you use it, and the water surprisingly can get very hot. My host sister proudly showed me the new heater. We ended the night with soccer, gymnastics, and some Costa Rican hamburgers. That is not what my host mom called them, but they were hamburgers in a tortilla, with a salad of cabbage and tomatoes, topped by condiments out of the squeeze packages that everything comes in here. They were delicious as well! :)