Sunday, March 8, 2015

The Start of a Four Month Adventure


Here’s a scenario: Imagine a small arrival area situated outside of the San Jose airport. It’s overflowed with local taxi drivers, yelling to get the attention of tourists, creating a paparazzi feel. With the blazing sun, cool breeze, and moderate humidity, the temperature is just above uncomfortable.
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This was the environment I was stuck in for a good 5+ hours while I waited for the other Elon abroad-ers to finally arrive! 
Eventually… or should I say finally, ISA, the study abroad program I am with, decided that it would be best to drop me off to my new home.

On the bus ride over, I was hoping, from the outside, that I looked super calm and collected. However, unbeknownst to ISA, I was completely freaking out! 
My roommates hadn't arrived yet which meant that I was going to meet my host family all by myself. *Cue the Celine Dion song*

When we arrived at my host family’s neighborhood, Barrio Cordoba, I stepped out to see a couple waiting for me. 
They immediately rushed over, gave me warm hugs, told me to call them “mama tica and papa tico”, and took my things.

I could tell that I was going to love them already.

But here’s the kicker…
They then proceeded to tell me “oh, no hablamos ingles” and “hablas espanol, sí?

Wait, what?
You don’t speak any English?!
*Sigh*

All I thought was, "well, at least this will be great practice for me".
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Since that day, my Spanish has slightly improved. I understand most of what they are saying and they patiently give me time to process and respond (usually in broken Spanish but hey, what can ya do, I’m just a beginner).

Also, my roommates did end up arriving! (Although some of them arrived around 4 AM, which was not a pleasant experience, from what I heard.) 

As of my feelings of them so far, here is the good and the not so bad: 
The good: all four of us get along really easily, we're all in love with our host fam, we have similar eating habits/sleeping schedules, and, surprisingly, none of them mind (or have commented) when I play my random mix of music in our living area. 
The not so bad: even while being the great new roommates that they are, my time with them makes me think of and partly compare them with my suitemates back at Elon. You could say I'm really missing my "Alpha Pack/Girls of danK" a lot these days. 

On the bright side, when I do finally get to see my old suitemates again next fall, i'll now have another group of awesome people (my CR roomies) to add to the Elon mix.
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A week has already gone by and I have plenty of stories to tell...
But I’ll save them for the next blog post!

1 comment:

  1. I always say, "be careful what you wish for..." Haha. I am really happy (and envious) that you getting the full emergence with Spanish. You will come back to the states thinking in Spanish. Muy afortunado!

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