23 days!

Yes, I know it's a little early to start a blog, but I have nothing better to do right now. I'm at 23 days before I embark on this trip, and it's been exactly one week since school got out. I've been trying to figure out ways to keep myself occupied (read: not obsess about this trip) with limited success. This is my latest attempt...

So, just to give an overview, I'll be leaving on a red-eye Saturday, July 4th. Once I land, I go immediately to my new host family's house. In fact, I recently found out some info about them and wrote back to the housing coordinator asking for a different living situation. I had been placed with a woman, her son and daughter-in-law, their three-year-old daughter, a son who occasionally visits, and also her ex-husband who sometimes drops in. This situation sounded a little weird to me. I told her that a kid or two would be cool as it'd be helpful for me to have conversations with kids AND adults, but this situation isn't exactly what I was looking for. I'll hear back from her in the next few days...

Back to the program...anyway, classes will start on Monday. I'm still kind of up in the air with regard to whether I want to do four five-day-a-week classes at four hours each, or four four-day-a-week five hour classes (which would make for longer weekends). I think right now I'm leaning toward the latter so that I can have more travel time. Even though I have my entire last week for travel alone, I'd like to be able to hit as many spots as I can for as long as possible. Either way, I feel like I'll be picking up the language wherever I am so long as I don't get lazy and seek out conversations with English speakers.

Another cool aspect of this program is that after class, there are Latin cooking and dance classes, as well as conversation classes that are all included in the program. At the end of the day, I go home to my "family" and enjoy a typical Costa Rican dinner and time with my hosts.

For the past couple of weeks, I've been studying up on Costa Rican slang, travel sites, and researching popular destinations online. I have my "Lonely Planet" guidebook that I've read most of...now I just need to get on that plane!

I could go on and on about the program, but instead, here is the website:

www.learn-spanish.com

CRLA is just one of several Spanish schools in Costa Rica, but for many reasons, it's the one I decided to go with. Check it out for yourself and I think you'll understand why!