Thursday, Februrary 3

Today was a really weird day. I'm not sure where my motivation and ability to focus went, but they did a very good job of evading me all day. This morning we went to the US Embassy to hear from some officials there about the “US perspective on Latin America-US relations.” The discussion was pretty interesting, and it was good to hear the US side of things. It made me think that maybe there really is something positive that comes out of our foreign policies.

In order to get to the embassy I had to take the bus to central San Jose, and I prayed all the way to the bus stop that I would run into another LASP student in order to avoid getting lost in the city. When I got to the end of the block I saw 4 other LASPers standing there waiting for the bus, so we stuck together and made it to the meeting place as a group. Once everyone got there, all 40 or so of us trekked across San Jose extremely inconspicuously until we got on another bus to go to the embassy. Then we all piled off the bus and were told to take everything metal out of our backpacks. Imagine 40 ignorant US citizens pulling forks, spoons, knives, and keys out of their backpacks in the middle of the sidewalk next to a huge line of Costa Ricans waiting in line to get their visas. Feel awkward? Welcome to my reality. I felt like a second grader going on my first ever field trip, and I had to laugh.

It was weird walking into the embassy and feeling like I was in this highly classified US government building. We had to wear badges that said “escort required” and there were people standing at every corner watching us walk through the halls. They ushered us all into an auditorium where we talked about the role of the US embassy and a few economic policies between the US and Costa Rica. When the topic of free trade and CAFTA/TLC (the policy that Ruben talked about earlier this week) came up, our group had a lot of questions and I felt like the poor guy who was talking to us had no idea what he was getting himself into when he signed up to speak today. But it was a really good conversation.

We ended up spending too much time at the embassy and had to take taxis in order to arrive at ICADS on time. For some reason everyone I rode with in the taxi was really tired and I spent the ride cramming for my Spanish quiz. Apparently I should have just stuck with what I already knew because the quiz wasn't exactly my shining moment. Oh well...there was really just one part I messed up...I was thinking about it too much. We corrected the part I did poorly on right before our break, and as a form of coping with the less-than-desirable quiz score and being worn out from our eventful morning I downed two cups of coffee before returning to class. It was the most delicious coffee I have ever tasted, and the caffeine did wonders for the rest of my day.

After Spanish class Haleigh and I went on a quest to find some ingredients to make a few desserts for her host dad's birthday this weekend. We stopped at two stores and apparently lost track of time, because when we left it was starting to get dark out. I didn't want my family to to worry about me arriving home so late, so we took another taxi home. I'm pretty sure we overpaid both of our taxi drivers today, but I guess it was worth it to get where we needed to be. All of my worries were unnecessary because when I got home I was the only one here besides Tony who didn't seem too concerned with what time I was arriving.

I got to spend some time talking to Emily which was really great, and when my mamá got home she and Tony and I ate dinner together. Later in the evening Monica got home and so she and I shared about our days and I decided to call it a night. It's going to take a while to fall asleep after all of that caffeine intake this afternoon, but hopefully I'll be able to manage and be well-rested for a productive day tomorrow.