Chapter 1

My journey from the three rivers of Pittsburgh to Tres Rios was not what one would call smooth. The flights themselves were fine, the one into San Jose was gorgeous even though we couldn’t see much as we landed. There were three other people from the US with me, we were second to last getting to AFS Costa Rica’s headquarters in San Jose. There we stayed in a hostel like room outfitted with bunkbeds and appropriately peculiar showers. Getting little to no sleep and then no coffee made for a groggy orientation day Saturday. Towards the end the 20 or so of us exchange students began to talk more through broken English and shared experiences. On Sunday two other students and I were driven to our host towns, after a few hours of bumbling through Spanish with an AFS volunteer I got to meet my host family. While I have unpacked many of my things I am still unsure of the way the house works and the small cultural differences I have yet to learn.

Chapter 2

Prologue