A Whole New World...Again

I made it to Costa Rica! And it was probably the easiest travel experience of my life. 1.5 hours to Fort Lauderdale and then about 2.5 from there to Costa Rica. Easy. I stayed in a hostel near the airport last night and then caught a bus this morning to Heredia (the city I will be calling home for the foreseeable future). The bus ride was about twenty minutes and when I got off I took a taxi for about 5 minutes to my hostel. There were a few minor confusions along the way, but that's expected.

Okay, this might not need to be said, but I'm going to anyway...Costa Rica is beautiful. I've only been here 24 hours, but I'm going to call that a fact. Heredia is surrounded by these gorgeous mountains and today the weather was perfect. I explored for a couple hours this afternoon and I think I saw most of the city. It's not really that big, which is a nice change from China. I visited my school (Intercultura) and met one of the other new teachers, who actually spent the past year in China teaching English...crazy right?! We walked around for a bit, chatted and checked out the Hipermas (Costa Rican Walmart). I definitely won't be lacking any comforts from home like I was in China. The local food is quite tasty as well. I enjoyed a delicious coffee this afternoon with lunch and had a beef casado (set meal) for dinner that had beef, fried plantains, rice, black beans and some kind of salad. It was awesome, cheap and filling.

It was definitely a great first day. Although, I did forget about all the little things you have to adjust to when you get to a new country, like the money. New money is always a little confusing at first. I have a lot to do to get settled and I start orientation the day after tomorrow so I'm going to be pretty busy for a while. But since I'm in Costa Rica, all of it will be an adventure!