La llegada y mi familia tica

¡Hola a todos! I made it to Costa Rica safely and I'm currently safely in my house for the next month. I only slept about an hour last night so tonight's rest will be welcome. I had a connecting flight in Atlanta where I met up with my house mate, Jessica. She's the fellow NSE scholarship winner I happened to meet at an AP conference last year. The Lord continues to amaze me. 

After waiting at the San Jose airport for about 2.5 hours our bus took us to meet our host families. Our "madre tica" picked us up and made us feel comfortable in her home. We each have our own bedroom as bathroom and she and he daughters live on the second floor. (FYI: "Tico/a" is a common way to refer to the locals.) We had chicken, rice, black beans, carrots, potatoes, plantains and juice for lunch. Dinner was homemade empanadas and aguadulce (a mixture of sugar cane and milk and water, I believe). I'm posting a picture of the juice mainly because I had never heard of this fruit before. It's called a "cas" and it's supposedly a health food powerhouse. And some of you know how much that excites me! :) It tastes like a light citrus drink...muy sabroso. I'm writing this quickly so I apologize for errors. Editing will have to wait! Hasta pronto...