My first day in Costa Rica consisted of eating amazing food, gaining a great understanding to the culture and geography of Heredia and quickly getting used to the humidity here! We were able to visit some of the main landmarks of Heredia and really learn a lot about Costa Rican culture, which were definitely different from my expectations.

Before coming to Costa Rica, I imagined the country to be very rural and filled with wildlife, but I was surprised to see how city like the town of Heredia is. Within just a few miles I spotted about four colleges and several chain restaurants and stores. I was expecting to see many more local businesses and was definitely surprised to see a lot of American chains, even some written in English! In addition, The roads were well paved and filled with cars, taxis and buses all day long, which reminded me a lot of American cities.

Despite the downtown city vibe of Heredia, the houses here are much closer to my expectations. They are small and close together, which doesn’t surprise me because the Ticos seem much closer to the people in their communities than us Americans are. They are also very colorful and they add to the cultural beauty of Costa Rica! Something I was not expecting about the Costa Rican homes is that most of them are tightly secured with many gates in front of their homes. I was surprised to see this because the communities are very safe, but we later learned that the gates are just for safety reasons and not out of fear of danger.

Overall, as someone who speaks absolutely no Spanish, I was surprised at how easily I was able to understand my surroundings and be able to interpret some of the Spanish signs and phrases. I had a great first day learning about the Tico lifestyle and Heredia as a city, and I can’t wait to learn more these next two weeks!