My first full day in Heredia is complete, and I have already learned so much! From speaking with my host family to visiting the market to walking through the mall, Costa Rica has given me nothing but a good impression.

After arriving last night, my abuela and her cat, Ming, gave Lexi and I a warm welcome. The language barrier has definitely been difficult, but after talking to my abuela, I have already been able to pick up some Spanish! While my Spanish speaking is still not great, I am surprised at how much I can understand what others are saying.

Today, we walked through the central market in Heredia. The picture shown on the left is one of the many farm stands in the market, which offers a variety of local fruits and vegetables. One of the fruits offered there is passionfruit, which I had the chance to try for the first time today. At home, I work at a farmer’s market during the summer, so I expected to know what most of the produce was at the stands. However, I found several new foods that I had never heard of before including yucca, which is a plant used to help cure some illnesses, and yuca, which is a root vegetable.

We also had the chance to see Oxigeno Human Playground, Heredia’s mall. Contrary to the United States, malls are more popular than e-commerce in Costa Rica. The mall was much larger than I expected, and there were people everywhere! The most surprising thing was the amount of dogs in the mall. Since pets are not usually welcome in stores in the United States, I was not expecting to see so many people walking around the mall with their dogs. One woman even had three puppies with her!

Tomorrow, we will be visiting the Doka Coffee Estate. I can’t wait to see a different part of Costa Rica and learn more about how coffee is made!