It's a Small World After All

You are welcome for that.  Don't hate me too much if you sing that the rest of the day.

The flight down was great, but I was flying business class... they take really good care of you there.  They bring the food out to you in courses and everything... but you aren't here to read about business class.

Ok, one more thing... but its relevant...  The other nice thing about business class is that you are the first people off the plane.  So you get to immigration first, so that went quickly and smoothly.  They let me in the country and everything.  THEN they had tagged our bags, so they were the first off the plane.  SO I went through customs quickly too.  The only good and bad thing about that is that I was about the first person through, so I didn't have anyone else to follow.  I had been instructed to take Taxis Aeropuertos.  They basically greeted us at the door and asked if we needed a taxi.  I said, yes... (They were the only people in the area before we actually exited the airport.)  I told them the neighborhood and gave them a card with the address.  My driver then loaded us in the car and off we went.  I must admit driving through a new city in the dark I had a few thoughts of I hope I just didn't walk into getting myself kidnapped.... but I didn't.  (I landed about 7:30 and it was totally dark.  The sun comes up about 5:20 AM and sets at about 6:00 PM, so my first view of San Jose was in the dark.)

One of the exciting things about San Jose is they don't really use street addresses.  (I think people use post office boxes to get their mail.)  They give distances from land marks.  For example, the house I'm staying at is 50 meters East and 50 meters south from the Plaza Cristal.  That's fine if you are from here... but I'm sure it will lead to some adventures.  My taxi driver even had to try more than one street then call the house to find my host family's house.  But I got here fine.

Because the taxi driver called, Jorge, the dad, came out to meet me and get my luggage.  Isabel, the mom, had me sit in the living room and chat with her, in Spanish.  I think partly to try to make me comfortable, and probably to gauge my level of Spanish a bit.  I was pretty pleased with the fact I could converse at all after not using Spanish much for two years.  I'm sure it was broken... but at least she could understand.  Of course she is used to having students who are learning Spanish in their house.  They said this morning that they have had around 200 students stay with them... that's really pretty wild.

There is another students staying here and Isabel talked about him a lot.  (He was out at a movie with their son, Mauricio who lives here too.)  It turns out he is from Texas. Mark, not Mauricio.  She acted like I might know him or know some people in common... of course their is no way this is the case, right?  Well I was about to go to bed when Mark came home.  It turns out that I don't know him.  BUT his son goes to ACU.  He used to be a Church of Christ youth minister (He now teaches elementary school and is working on bilingual certification) and we know several people in common.  It's a Small World Moment #1.

To be honest I didn't get a lot of sleep.  Between being in a new place, being a bit nervous about what I've gotten myself into, and still having a bit of trouble getting over jetlag... I was awake off and on all night.  The bed is comfortable, so I can't blame it on that.  Ah well I survived today fine.

This morning I went to school with Mark.  It has been a real blessing to have him show me the ropes.  We got to school just before 8.  They don't open the gates until 8 exactly.  I went in and got my registration materials.  There were a bunch of us that were newbies that had to take an oral test so they could place us.  We sat around and chatted while we were waiting.  There is a couple from Austin, TX, Jenee and Eric.  Jenee is particularly outgoing and friendly.  Sarah is an organic chemistry professor from New Orleans.  David just finished graduate work in Clinical Psychology and starts his job in September in Portland, OR.  Rob is a music teacher from New York.  Gene is a superintendent from Texas who is an ACU grad (weird).  There is a doctor and his wife and their 4 or 5 children, a grandmother with two grandsons, Simone is a college student from Portland, OR who goes to school in Wisconsin.  Then there is a big group of college students from West Virginia, I haven't really talked to them.  There professor was really nice.  I didn't talk to him, but he invited another college student who was alone and the two teenage grandsons to join there group as he showed them around the neighborhood.  OK... enough of that but it is a pretty diverse group.

After we all took our tests, Mark (he was just there studying) took David, Rob, Jenee, Eric and I to the mall nearby to show us where we could change money.  We also got some lunch there.  I had rice and chicken.  Rice and beans feature heavily in the meals here. We sat outside on a balcony in a cool breeze listening to lots of cars but we could see palm trees and the mountains so it was pretty sweet.  We found that David knows a guy that grew up one door down from Jenee in this tiny town in Northern California.  (As I said we were having lots of Small World moments.)

When we went back to the Institute.  They had our classes assigned.  David, Rob, Simone and I are in Intermediate 2.  I was pretty pleased with that.  That's about the highest I would rate my skills, although I've been reminded that they are still terribly weak. (I thought I might be in the upper in of basic... its nearly impossible for me to rate my own Spanish skills because I know how much I can't say.)   But there are only the advanced classes after that, so I was pretty proud.  And I was pretty excited to already know 2 of the others in my class.  (I didn't meet Simone until class.)

Those of us who went to lunch and Sarah (she had had class in the morning too... She's doing 6 hours a day because she's only here for a week), sat around on the patio and talked until class time.  We've decided that we are glad that we have some people who are not college students.  Mark is kind of sad, because he's leaving on Thursday and he didn't have a cool crowd like ours to hang out it.

Then it was time for class.  Our teacher is Hazel.  She is very nice and patient.  I don't know how they tell in a 5 to 10 min conversation, but I would say the four of us are reasonably similar in skill level.   Its like they do this professionally or something. We spend some time just conversing, we told about things like our families, why we wanted to learn Spanish, etc.  We described some pictures.  We reviewed the present tense some.  We review ser and estar (the two to be verbs in Spanish.)  In a four hour class we had one break, but it was hard to believe how fast it went, especially since I was exhausted by this point.  We ended class by playing a pretty competitive game of Go Fish to review/ learn some vocabulary.  We didn't finish... but it was funny how serious we got to taking it.  (Simone and I tied with 6 sets each.)

It rains here pretty much every afternoon.  We had quite the thunderstorm when we were in class.

After class several of us went to get something to drink (Mark, David, Jenee, Eric, Sarah and I).  Mark and I decided to walk home... its between two and three miles which isn't too bad.

When we got home I found out Uruguay tied in their first match in Copa America.  (You know, the important things).  Then we had dinner.  Isabel is an excellent cook.  I didn't do much talking at dinner, I was having a hard time keeping my eyes open.  And frankly was way too tired to keep up enough to add something.  I understood most of the time, but wasn't quick enough to actually say something. Jorge and I talked for a bit after dinner.  We watch a bit of the Mexico-Chile match... but I was going to fall asleep sitting there... so I came up to update my blog while the first 24 hours were fresh in my mind.  I'm going to proof-read this maybe... and go to bed.

OH one more thing to comment on that I found funny... I expected to see some restaurants and such the same here... some fast food is everywhere and this is a major city.  BUT the first fast food place I saw in the airport was Quiznos... there is actually one near the school.  And I saw more than one Payless ShoeSource and I saw a True Value Hardware... so there you go.