Bienvenidos a Costa Rica!

Hola! Technically this is my second day in Costa Rica, but seeing as all I did yesterday was sleep and eat, I'm counting today as my first.  Flying into Costa Rica was super exciting, and even though it was dark what I could see through the open window (I had an aisle seat so the view wasn't that good) was absolutely gorgeous. There was a lightening storm over the volcano that looked amazing. Since I was only in the second row of the plane I was one of the first ones off, and my bag came pretty fast, so I was the first through customs. They had a security guard escort us through the terminal all the way to customs.

taxis outside the airport

When I came out of the airport, I learned that I apparently can't see. I missed the sign with my name on it and had a few minutes of panicking, especially since I couldn't figure out how to call a Costa Rican phone number. Then, while I was attempting to ask a taxi driver how to dial a phone number, ALBERTO came up to me and asked "Maximo Nivel" to which I replied YES! Maximo Nivel is the local volunteer program that I'm working with. I figured out pretty quick that Alberto didn't speak a word of English, but I understood his "tres mas" to mean that we had to wait for a few more people. We finally found said people (they missed the name sign too) and loaded up on a bus with a new guy (this one spoke English pretty well). We drove around and dropped the other people off at their host families, and I found out I was last, which scared me at first, but the I was really grateful for being last because it meant the driver guy was invited inside for breakfast and he was able to translate for me. My host family doesn't speak any English except for the son Herrson (hair-sone) who knows about as much English as I do Spanish. After the meal however, my translator left, and I escaped up to the room I had been given and passed out.
At about 10, Herrson came up and invited me to church with them, which I politely declined and went back to sleep. About 12, I woke up to the sound of lunch being made, so I went downstairs. This was when I met the man who I think is the abuelo (grandfather) of the family. The food wasn't quite ready yet, so he took me in the back room and showed me his birds.  The mad raises canaries and he was feeding the little baby chicks. They were so adorable. He showed me some that were 15 days old, then pulled out some 8 day old chicks, finally some eggs. There was a whole menagerie of canaries.

After an amazing lunch of chicken soup and rice and beans, I went back upstairs (where I don't have to struggle to understand what the family is saying) and fell back asleep. I didn't get much sleep last night since I was on a plane and had major adrenaline in me. When next I woke up, dinner was ready. So I went downstairs and was relieved to find that there were four other girls that had arrived while I was asleep, all of which spoke English. There is Orla from Texas, Mercedes, Crystal, and Marisol from L.A., and Holly who is originally from Japan, but also from Texas. So I got to speak English a bit.  After dinner, I went upstairs and passed the time chatting with the girls from L.A. until it was time for bed.

This morning, I decided to take a shower, and let me tell you, I am sincerely missing water pressure. With the shower in the apartment thing, the more pressure you use, the colder the water, so I turned my water down until it was nice and hot, but it didn't have much pressure. So then breakfast was egg, rice, beans, and fried plantanos. Since the L.A. girls and I were new to Costa Rica, Marina (host mom) took us on the bus to the Maximo Nivel office. So here I am taking full advantage of the access to a computer and the internet and waiting for my orientation to start at 4:00.