Homestay!

Today we got the information about our homestays!!! How exciting!

I guess first I should paint a really basic picture of Puntarenas, the town we'll be living in, as I understand it now from research and the insight of other USAC-ers. Puntarenas is in the northwestern part of Costa Rica, it is a small beach town, and it is actually a peninsula! From what other people from the program have said, you can walk to the beach just by going a couple of blocks east or west, no matter where you are. Kristin and I have a map that shows us sort of where our school will be, but they do not do addresses down there like we do here, so we're not really sure exactly where on the peninsula we'll be yet. The address that I was given, translated from Spanish, is "In front of the Parrot Cabins". Hopefully that will make more sense when I'm there than it does right now.. regardless, sounds good to me! :)

The family I'm living with has a stay-at-home mother, a father (I'm pretty sure?), and a 25-year-old daughter. They have no pets (dodged a bullet there), and they like to visit different beaches on the weekends (wooo!). They also are very accomodating to vegetarian needs, which is sweet, since I'm one of those. Because this particular family is so good about accomodating to vegetarians, I will also be living with another USAC student who I'm assuming is vegetarian as well. The host family has two free rooms and we're taking them! The other student is named Jennifer and she goes to Clemson, in South Carolina, but that's about all I know so far.

I don't know if Kristin will want to post about her host family on her own, so all I will say is that she is living with a mother and father and a 14-year-old daughter. The 14-y-o will be so lucky to have such a fun pseudo-sister. :) Speaking of Kristin being awesome, the layout and fancy features of this blog are all her skillz. I have the blog knowledge of a caveman.

So... awesome!! :) Now that I know who I will be living with, it feels a lot more real. I can't believe it's only 15 days away and then we're gone for 4 months of Spanish, travel, adventure, and warm weather. I always used to get really nervous before major events like this, but I'm feeling really good about it this time. Of course I have some anxiety and I am nervous about overcoming the challenges and the flatout exhaustion from the culture shock that we will experience, but I'm really optimistic about it. It will be such an amazing experience, and this is the only time I'll ever be able to do something like this, so I'm excited to make it count!

I guess my only real fear that I'm super super nervous about is that my incredibly, ridiculously slow recovery from mono will affect the trip in negative ways, but I've been doing my best to be really boring over break and just sleep tons and tons, so maybe, just maybe, it will FINALLY go away? 6 months is enough, thanks!

That's all for now I suppose... happy holidays and enjoy the vacation! :)