"Leche con cafe"

For breakfast this morning I had scrambled eggs, toast, OJ, and coffee. I took too long to get ready and didn't scoot out the door until 7:50 or so, and it takes about 10 minutes for me to get to school, walking. I got to school and headed to my 8 am class, the one I have been dreading the most, International Political Economy. Politics and Economics are two of my least favorite subjects to discuss, basically because I don't know much about either of them. It's not that I don't care, but topics in those areas are just a bit more difficult for me to understand than something in the health care field, for example. Anyway, I used the walk to school to prepare myself and took some time to pray about it, and I decided to keep an open mind and view this class not as an obstacle, but as an opportunity for me to learn more about things that I really should know about and be able to talk about. The professor's name is Carlos, and he is a pretty cool guy. I forgot to mention, the class is in Spanish. Can you understand my fear now? Not only would I be discussing and learning about things I really didn't know much about, but I would also be doing so in Spanish. I can barely talk about these things in English! Anyway, Carlos speaks slower so that we all understand, and he explains things in a way that we are able to understand. He is very animated when he speaks and is very passionate about it! I think it will be very interesting to see things from his point of view. He explained to us that he would teach and offer his opinions from the perspective of a professor of economics.

About halfway through the class, we took a 20 minute break and walked down the street to get some coffee. We had a brief discussion about the cafe here, and another student, who I will call T, made a very accurate observation. I noticed the first morning I was here, when my mother asked if I wanted coffee and I said YES, that when she made the coffee for me, the glass was about 3/4 full with MILK, and the other 1/4 was coffee, instead of the other way around like I normally have it. Today, in the cafe, when the lady prepared each of our cups, she did the same thing, and T made the statement that here in Costa Rica, we don't have cafe con leche, but we have "leche con cafe!"

We returned to class and ended around 10:40, earlier than planned! He gave us a copy of a text that we need to read for next week...20 pages of "Las Economias Latinoamericanas, 1950-1990." BUT, since the class is taught in Spanish, the readings are in Spanish too. Que lastima! I began reading some of it earlier, and it took me multiple times to get through the first paragraph, since there are a few words I have to look up and since the sentence structure in Spanish is quite different sometimes. I'm going to TRY to do 4-5 pages a day, but it could get ugly really quickly.

I spent some more time doing homework for my other classes, mostly some reading. I took a great nap today too. It has been cloudy and rainy here today, so it was a nice day to have to be lazy. For lunch I had "pescado" or fish, fried, with lime juice squeezed on top. I normally don't like fish, but it was DELICIOUS with the lime juice! Maybe this is something normal that we actually do back home but I just didn't know about it! It was served with rice, of course, and some sort of wonderful vegetable stir fry. I thought I may lose weight when I got down here, but I think I was unfortunately terribly mistaken. I am going to have to get a good exercise routine down so that I can keep the weight gain down with all this INCREDIBLY delicious food here!

I have spent most of the day studying for my classes next week. We have a field trip this weekend to the jungle, and then there are fiestas Sunday and Monday for the big festival going on right now, so I want to get my work done! I am going to try to read some more for my IPE class.

Tomorrow, I have class at 8 am, Survey of Latin American Literature, and then at 1:30, Gerardo and I are going to the hospital to talk with someone there about my internship. I am just trying to check out all of the possibilities so I can decide what works best for me! Then tomorrow evening, I have the Latin American dance class for 2 hours, which I am VERY excited about! Then I won't look like a silly gringa when I am out and about in town.

Buenas noches!