Hola, me llamo Brittany

Wow, what an adventure this has already been.  It started before I even left the state of CA.  After a great dinner party full of great conversation, delicious food, and tons of laughter with family and family friends, my parents took me to LAX for my 1:40 am departure.  Check-in went smoothly, hardly any wait.  And then the adventure began.  I had waited in line for an hour and a half at the security checkpoint and was almost at the point where you start filling the bins with your stuff (this wasn't a long line, there was just something awfully wrong with the conveyor belts and the people working them).  At this point, people are about to miss their flights and so all of a sudden people start taking down the barricades and rushing the checkpoint, cutting in front of sweet innocent people like the little Asian girl trying to get to Costa Rica.  There was pushing, shoving, and yelling in lots of different languages.  One guy in front of me raised his phone and yells, "I'm calling airport police! I'm calling 911!"  That fired me up.  I was like YEAH! You need to regulate! And I got the, "miss, you need to calm down" from one of the guys working the conveyor belt.  Haha, and I teamed up with a few people around me to prevent the crazies from pushing their way in front of us.  Anyway, eventually I made it through, with my carry-ons and all my limbs still intact.  

The flight was nice and easy.  I saw the sunrise over I dunno where but it was beautiful.  The clouds hung low and the darkened land was freckled with lights.  Such a cool feeling looking down on an area and seeing lights.  They're like little symbols of life, of civilization.  But a kind of civilization that gets to enjoy the untouched land around it too, unlike that place called Los Angeles.  So I slept for the most part and met a nice couple from Chicago on my flight from San Salvador to San Jose.  Immigration was a little weird, the lady was kind of sketched out by me but eventually stamped my passport and let me go through.  I arrived in San Jose around 10:00 and got outside by 11:00 and met this girl Amy who is SUPER nice and laughs a lot.  I like that in people.  When they just laugh and make you feel good about what you're saying.  It kind of signals that they're enjoying your company and because of that, we are now amigas :) We had to wait almost 4 hours at the airport for some other students in our program.  This girl Kacia, Amy, and I went upstairs to check out any kind of view there might be, and it turns out there was one :).  Amy and Kacia were so excited about the palm trees and I was so confused until I realized they go to school in South Dakota, which is now another place I want to visit.  We eventually piled into a bus to go to Universidad Veritas to meet our homestay families.  As soon as we started driving out of the airport, I decided I love it here.  The scenery is beautiful...that's the only way to put it. Here are Amy and Kacia at the airport. So stoked on the palm trees ;)

My homestay family has been nothing short of amazing so far.  They are so hospitable and friendly and really want me to have a great experience.  Senora Hilda y Senor Mario son los padres y tienen dos hijas, Bianca (22) y Carla (24).  Lo siento, empieza a hablar en ingles.  Senora Hilda told me to point to things and ask her how to say them and to only speak Spanish so I can have the best learning experience...so grateful for that!  We had pasta with mushroom cream sauce and salad for dinner, which we ate while watching the futbol game--two Costa Rican teams.  Doesn't USA play Costa Rica for the World Cup qualifying round?  Who would I cheer for?  Oh, and I took a freezing COLD shower.  That was fun...and to add to that, for some reason my eyes caught on fire and were stinging like crazy.  So I didn't know what to do in that situation but to just laugh it off and pretend like I was having a good time.  And as I'm writing this, I've realized that there are so many little things I want to share, like my lotion inevitably exploding in my pack, but there's just too much to tell...I'll wrap it up.

I got matched with another girl who lives in the house with me.  Her name is Lanna and she goes to ASU.  Super sweet.  And Vietnamese.  You know they did that on purpose.  Haha anyway we each have our own room and own bathroom so that's more than enough for me seeing as I shared a tiny dorm room with two other girls freshman year and then shared a room and bathroom with a psycho girl named Rosy Molina for two years ;) I'm so tired, I cannot keep writing but there's so much I want to tell! AhhHH! Buenas noches.