I can tell that we are gonna be friends

Everyone gets nervous for their first day of school right? Well, I was.

Although yesterday was technically our first day of school at Veritas University, us foreign exchange students spent the entire day in orientation. We had interviews for our placement into Spanish classes, took pictures for school IDs, toured the campus, learned about about classes offered, toured the rest of San José, ate at a Mexican restaurant - and yes I did mean to say Mexican, don't ask me why. We also recieved at least three lectures on safety in the city, one of them lasting around two hours. Safety is a big problem here, especially for us "gringos." No need to worry though, I think they've scared us into being relatively safe.

So today we started school. For real. Spanish classes are every day of the week from 8am to 12pm, for one month. After one month, we will move up to the next level of Spanish. There are 6 "levels" of Spanish classes here: Basic 1 and 2, Intermediate 1 and 2 and Advanced 1 and 2. Yesterday though, I placed into the class called Intermediate Conversation. It seems like platform 9 and 1/2 to me. This class is unlike any I've taken before, but from what I can tell it falls somewhere between Intermediate 2 and Advanced 1.

My class has no instructed grammar. I guess they expect us to know it already? I've been reviewing all afternoon. Anyway, the focus of the class is conversation, obviously. There will be no written tests, only oral presentations. We spent the entire four hours today (aside from one break) talking and listening, talking and listening. It was a lot. Even for me. The class seems daunting but I like Roxana, our teacher, quite a bit, so I think I'll stick it through. There are also only four students in my class. That is something UCLA certainly isn't familiar with. I suppose it is better for the language acquisition, but still, it's rather strange.

Tomorrow I start mi Clase de Fotografía. I'm pretty excited. More on that later though.

 

Oh and I almost forgot! You may think that Bon Jovi has been around for a while so they're shows are getting slow... well, think again! On Sunday, Bon Jovi put on a concert in the local soccer stadium.

 Kelsey and I went for her birthday and it was incredible! So many people. So many people who knew the words to every single song! We were entirely impressed.

¡Pura Vida!