San Jose, Costa Rica
6/3/19
Today is my host dad’s birthday. Since my host parents never take days off (besides Sundays), my host mom asked my housemate and I to pick up a birthday cake on the way home from school to celebrate when they got home from work (they own a local auto repair shop). We picked up the cake, blew up some balloons, and wrote notes on them for him. My host parents invited friends over for dinner: a husband, wife and their two kids. The son was younger, but the daughter was close to my age. They told me they were originally from Mexico and they were very nice. I was surprised with my ability to interact with them in Spanish. I feel like my Spanish has drastically improved, despite the hard days. Our guests seemed to appreciate that I tried my best to communicate with them too. I feel like if you do not try to overcome the language barrier, it is just awkward and there is not much opportunity for improvement. So, I am glad that I put myself out there and tried my best. The husband/father of the family had brought over a keyboard and he played a few songs for all of us. We all sung happy birthday to my host dad and conversed with each other for hours. It was a nice evening that I will remember for a long time.