Yaaayyy I am finally at a computer. These first few days have been incredible, and we have only been in San Jose so far! We toured the city yesterday and it is definitely a crowded, busy city. The buildings are gorgeous and the parks have amazing types of trees and flowers. Something that I noticed was that the city is very dirty, which is surprising for such an eco-friendly country. But the views from every spot in the city are beautiful, as it is surrounded by mountains. We saw the rich areas and the poor areas, but the surprising thing is that every single house has a fence around it and bars on the windows. Apparently the design of the fence and bars is a sign of status for the household. We ate rice and beans for lunch at a restaurant in the city, which is Costa Rica's typical dish. There are 27 kids on this trip, and it has been amazing meeting all of them so far... This group is so nice and so much fun and I have a great feeling that we are all going to have an amazing time together! Abbey, Lindsay, and I met our host family the first night, and they are the sweetest people! We are staying with Carmen and Fernando, who have children and grandchildren in the U.S. They have a cute house near the university which enables us to walk to the university and back every day. They speak very little English and we speak only a little Spanish so it is interesting haha... But I am now finally able to use the Spanish I learned for 7 years! Last night they took us to Hollywood video, which they own and to McDonald's for ice cream, and it was fun trying to converse with them. It was gorgeous and hot in the morning, and it poured from 3:00 pm onwards last night, so they weren't kidding about the rainy season. We had class today which consisted of traveling to the offices of a company called Cinde that specializes in encouraging foreign investment. We learned a lot about the economy and heard some interesting facts about Costa Rica, and I am curious to see how the country continues to grow over the next few years. During our break time today we decided that we are going to go surfing on our off day next Wednesday and bungee jumping on one of the last days in the trip! I seriously can't wait! Well, we are off to the bars tonight! I will try to post some pictures today but I have no idea if this will work. To everyone at home, I miss you all!