Hard to believe that today was only my second day of school but my first day of class. I´m in a group with two other girls and the professora, y es todo. It makes it difficult to hide from the teacher when there are only three people in your class! We begin class at 8:00am, have a 20 minute break at 10:00 and then break for lunch at noon. After lunch we have ¨cultural time¨ where we have a choice of taking various classes in cooking, dance, Costa Rican history, etc.

Today we took a huge excursion to San Jose where we were formally introduced to the capital city and went to the main museum of history. At this museum they had a hugely impressive butterfly garden with 20 different types of butterflies. Unfortunately I chose this day to NOT bring my camera, but take my word for it --- it was impressive. In a few weeks we´re going to have an excursion to a butterfly farm which is close to the school. This evening I´m meeting a few other classmates for dinner at an Italian restaurant (their choice, not mine. I´m against Italian food in Costa Rica just for the record). After four hours of being forced into conversation in Spanish by our instructor (who is very nice) my head is swimming. I am trying to hang out with the two girls who speak way better Spanish than myself so that I can grow, but it gets exhausting. I can´t even imagine what I´ll be feeling after 6 more weeks of this! I like it though, I love speaking Spanish and I´m thoroughly exhilirated by the claim they make that by the end of the seven weeks we´ll move up an entire level in Spanish (I´m intermediate now, and hopefully will be advanced when I am through). Just an update, more pictures will follow...and I won´t leave without my camera again!!!