Our plans for Costa Rica: Learn Spanish, travel and meet my family

With Ursula, I have traveled before – to Mongolia and to Florence. Now we are heading to Costa Rica to brush up our Spanish, to travel and to meet my family. Our adventure starts in the Easter Week, or as it is called in Spanish, die the Semana Santa.

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Crossing the big pond – a long, long journey

In Zurich we catch the tram at 5 AM. At the airport we buy some chocolate. The Kosovo Albanian shop-keeper loves to hear me say “falemers” and “s’ka problem” and gives us some red Lindt chocolate balls on top of the pralinés we bought. Our Iberia plane leaves safely and takes us south along the Swiss Alps – what a gorgeous view. We change planes in Madrid. We take off with a view of the Pyrenés.

We then have to sit patiently in our window seats for eleven hours crossing the big pond. We land safely at 3:30 local time in San José.

Jorge takes us to santo Domingo de Heredia, a suburb of San José, where we will stay for four weeks. Of course, Jorge offers us an excursion for tomorrow. May be next week, Jorge.

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A friendly welcome by our homestay family

The family of Charo gives us a hearty welcome. Only Bony, the little teckle, is not happy to see new guests and barks and barks, but he stops after one day and accepts us to be part of the family. We find two rooms with small bath rooms facing a courtyard with a nice garden.

We go shopping with Charo to get a first overview of the area. We enjoy dinner, and then, we are extremely tired. 22 hours ago we have started our journey.  I fall into my comfy bed and sleep deeply into the next morning, here in Costa Rica.

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Wednesday – discovering our new home town

After a good breakfast with fresh tropical fruits we have a chat with José and Charo. Then we head off to discover our new small town. We find many nice shops, bakeries (we buy empañadas), a stationary shop (we buy cuadernos quadraticos or notebooks), a super market (Pali, we buy water, tea and biscuits) and a bank (no money exchange without a passport). In a super market we try to remember the names for the vegetables such as pepino for cucumber. There is a church surrounded by a garden with tropical plants (Iglesia de Nuestra Señora del Rosario).

Nearby is a small city park in the very center of Santo Domingo – the palm trees are bending under the wind.

In front of the Basilica de Santo Domingo de Guzmán is a food market.

We buy bananas and a mango.

The basilica is being adorned for the service and procession tonight. It will be the “Santa Misa y Procesión solemnel dedicada a Jesú atado a la columna.” This is Maria, ready for the procession.

We look forward to some of the services and processions of the Semana Santa.