Piropos on Valentines Day

Happy Valentine’s Day, or Feliz Dia de San Valentin as it is called here in Costa Rica.

Today was a great Galentine’s day with my entire group, even though we had our first Spanish exam this morning. Earlier in the week when we weren’t studying, we had an afternoon where we made Valentine’s Day cards for our host families, each other, our center directors, and friendly ticos and ticas. In Spanish, the term “piropo” refers to compliment, usually verbally given, so our Valentine’s Day cards were our version of piropos. After handing our piropos out, our center directors also gave us some delicious chocolate, which was the perfect treat after the exam.

Our day didn’t end with compliments and candy though, for after our exam our Spanish teacher took us on an adventure to the Children’s Museum in San Jose. The building where the museum is housed was formerly a prison, but is now designed to educate kids about science, Costa Rica, and everything you can imagine. Everything is interactive, and my favorite exhibit was about electricity – we all linked hands with the first and last person placing their palms on a metal disc so that we could feel the current. It was pretty strong! After leaving the museum, we had a nice lunch of casado, the traditional meal here in Costa Rica.

During lunch, I asked everyone what was their favorite part about living and learning in Costa Rica. The food was definitely at the top of the list as well as how friendly the people are. Host families have also been a huge part in letting us all come to love Costa Rica, and I definitely feel like my experience so far would be less fun without a host family. I think that our small group has really come to love our small town outside of San Jose as well as the beautiful country of Costa Rica. Personally, I knew how much everyone had fallen in love with this experience the moment we shared our first group meal together in downtown San Jose.

xoxo,

Sydney