First few days and the flight

Hey everyone!

I hope this works! I just wanted to let everyone know how everything has been going these first few days!

I got to the airport in Minneapolis at about 5 am and my flight left at 6:30 am. I sat next to the nicest old couple who said they would adopt me on the flight to Houston so I wouldn't feel sad about leaving my family. They also bestowed their blessing on me so that I would have safe travels. We arrived at Houston at around 9:40. It was 48 degrees there which a though was AMAZING until I got on my next flight to Costa Rica and arrived in 82 degrees and sunny! That flight was long but I got to fly over the ocean! When we flew over Central America all I could see was mountains and trees. There was steam coming out of several volcanoes and also out of the rain forest. The landscape was totally different than anything I have ever seen!

I landed in San Jose Costa Rica at about 3:45. It was total confusion and total chaos at the airport in San Jose. Luckily we (by we i mean Hannah who also goes to Gustavus)  had made a friend who was a Spanish major in college who was also going to my program. We found the Representative for the program and she got us a taxi which took us to the hotel.

The hotel is very nice. However, it is lacking a pool. I am in a hotel room with Hannah and another friend Lindsey who is from Indiana. We have been learning about the city and the people here. Today we had our first classes. We were sent out with a map to the local market. We were assigned an exotic fruit to find in the market. Mine was called a palmito and is from the inside of a palm tree. After we found our fruits we went to our first classes about flowers and fruits. They set up a huge table with all of the exotic foods for us to try. After that we went out to a big group dinner and drinks. I am now sitting in my room with several friends who are playing guitar and singing us a song.

Tomorrow we are going to museums. On Wednesday we leave for the Pacific Ocean! We will be there for two weeks. We will be sleeping in tents and going on boats! That is pretty much all I know about it right now but I should be able to write to everyone and let them know how the ocean is!

Also, I got a sun tan today :-)