Primera imprecion

Hola a todos y a todas.

After a very tiring flight from Brussels via Madrid and Guatemala-City, I finally arrived in San-Jose. I didn't have a clue about the time difference, but now I know we are 8 hours behind Belgian time here and although I thought I had to go through a jet-lag almost every weekend to go to work on monday, this was much worse. It took me at least 3 or 4 days to adapt to the time.
At the San-Jose airport, Leonel was waiting for Isabel (a very nice girl from Munich) and me to take us to our guest family. My Tica family is brilliant. I have 4 Tico brothers, Jose-Pablo (5), Josue (10), Eduardo (17) and Edgar (20).

My Tica mum, Marta, is a housekeeper and my Tico dad, Edgar, has three jobs thus is working like a dog. He never comes home before 10 pm and works 7 days a week! Anyway, they are all so nice, especially towards me. We live in a very quiet and secure area called Santa-Marta and the street where we live is guarded by a guide who operates a barrier day and night to let cars in and out. I am really really spoiled and I feel like very awkward sometimes, when I am told to sit down and everything is served for me, even before my brothers are being served. My room is very nice too and I have a private bathroom. The food Marta makes is gorgeous and I feel like I am not exactly going to loose weight here. They are so friendly and patient with me talking a lot to me, too, which is not so bad for my Spanish.

The Spanish here in Costa Rica is very different from the Spanish they speak in Spain and it was quite hard to understand in the beginning, but I feel I am almost getting there now. Of course, the teachers in the school are quite easy to understand, cos they make the effort of speaking clearly, but it is different with Tico family members. After the oral test we had to do on our first day here, they put me in a group with Isabel (another girl than the one from the airport but also German) and we took of with irregular verbs in the past tenses straight away. Of course, I didn't remember those because I am not like the person to study thimgs by heart, I just want to learn by practising. So, it was obvious that the level was to high for me and hence I changed class after the break. I then was in a group with Sara, Julia, Marius and Yannick and surprise surprise, they are all German! After a few days it was clear that the level in that class was a bit low so Maricela took me apart and said that if I would catch up with the past tenses I could go to another class. So, ahorita, I am in a class with Thomas from Germany, Michael form the US and Linda from Holland. Our teacher is called Abraham and he is a very nice and funny bloke. Most of the time we are just chatting away and just ocasionnaly running through some grammatics and doing some exercises. Last week, we were talking about what cartoon characters are called in different languages for at least 45 minutes. So now I know Mickey Mouse is called el raton Miguelito in Spanish. Very useful, yep, and it was good fun!

Although I should not judge as I have not seen a lot of it, San-Jose does not seem like a very nice city to me. There is too many people, too many cars (they call them carros instead of coches here) and hence too many polution. The Coca=Cola bus terminal is supposed to be one of the dodgy areas in S.J. but we went there last Thursday to take a bus and it seemed quite ok. I have never felt unsafe so far in Costa Rica and I think all the stories you hear and read about tourist being robbed and stabbed in broad daylight are a bit exagerated, but, they could of course happen, you never know. Yesterday, we went for a walk on the Avenida Central and it is very hectic. There is no cars but there is heaps of shops, restaurants, pubs and tons of people as well. The climate is very mild, I have never worn a sweater so far but as we are at the peak of the raining season now, there is quite some rain although it is not as bad as I had expected it to be. The costas have a warmer climate and a very humid one as well. It is recomended to stay out of the sun between 10 am and 2 pm.

Okay, ahorita tengo que irme porque la escuela va a cerrar en unos minutos!

Take care everyone, will write some more very soon, promised!

Luego