Day 1 blog - Meet Hope :)

Having woken up at 2:30am this morning has made Day 1 quite a long one, but no major negatives to speak of. When we arrived the weather was amazing - just the right temperature, amount of clouds and slight breeze, perhaps around 70 degrees. We were immediately met by Dr. Eliecer Vargas of CATIE, who has taken complete and wonderful care of us since our arrival. Though there wasn't a single sign of rain earlier in the day, the mists quickly rolled in and began misting and raining lightly throughout the class's first lesson with Eliecer about Costa Rican historical background. So without fail, the rain came out to say hello to us on our first day abroad, but didn't damper anything by any means. Good thing we warned them about this to every extent beforehand! Everyone seemed to be well prepared and in good spirits.
Their excitement before and after arriving have been really nice to be around. This group of students is grateful for this amazing opportunity and seem to be getting to know each other quickly. They also each completed their StrengthsQuest assessment before coming, and will be able to explore, develop and apply their own strengths while taking the time the understand those around them as well. I'm anxious to see how each of their strengths begin to play out as the trip progresses, and how they will come to use them to accomplish their group projects throughout the course.

Our hotel is very cute and quaint, and of course equipped with the most lush plants and flowers. It is a small hotel with only a few units that all face one central atrium with a pool. For the most part, it seems that we outnumber the other guests here. For dinner tonight we ate at a streetside diner, or Soda Patia. This adventure could have also been called, "The night we almost died" due to the crazy amounts of traffic, traffic which does NOT slow down for pedestrians and I'm not even certain follow any kind of speed limit other than the pre-ordained governors installed by the car manufacturers! Either way, I had to throw that in there, but not as the title of this posting :).

- hope