It's in central America, bordering to Panama and Nicaragua. San Jose is the capital. As other central American countries, Costa Rica used be a Spanish colony and became independent in 1821. Its population is slightly above 4,000,000. It's famous for a rich nature, rain forest and a country which eliminate armed force in '50s. The currency is "Colon" which originates from Spanish explorer "Christopher Columbus". People are formally called "Costa Rican" but its nickname is "Tico". Isn't it cute??
Explaining Costa Rica from Wikipedia might sound a bit boring....:)) so I will present it from what I have observed for past 2 months!
Ticos are latinos! They love music, dance and very relaxed people I should say. They love and are proud of their country. I love when people say "Tranquilo (be calm/be quiet)" for me when I am rush into something or out of control :)). Maybe this is something we don't have in Japan....?
People like music and it is always filled with music. Why I can say it is that my area where I live (it's down town of Ciudad Colon) is so! It's always with music with speakers....indeed....like right now.
Spanish, but Costa Rican Spanish! They say "con mucho gusto" for almost anything which I heard that other Spanish speakers rarely say.
They rarely use "Tu" but always use "Usted". I have never heard of my host mother calling her husband "Tu" but "always Usted". "Tu" is "you" in English but informal "you". "Usted" is formal "you". ummm I don't think English has this notion....? In German, it's like "Du" and "Sie". In Japanese......??? maybe "Kimi" and "Anata"!???
They sometimes pronounce "R" like English "R" which is interesting to me because I thought Spanish "R" is always "rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr" when it comes to double "R"!
They also put "-imo"(ummm was it "-ito"? now I am confused! Correct me if I am wrong) at the end of the word which is close to what Spain Spanish people say "Midorita" (close to "small Midori"...)!
And most importantly, (this affects me the most) they speak super allegro!
They eat a lot of......
-Rice (a bit harder than the Japanese one)
-Furijoles=Beans (beans themselves in the rice or mashed beans with/out bean skin. I love this bean paste without the skin)
-Meat (Beef, Chicken, Pork...)
I was a bit terrified of eating meat everyday(!?!?) but no need to worry, this country faces both Pacific and Caribbean, we still can get sea food :))
It is still rainy season right now, they say that dry season starts sometime in December. When I arrived in CR in August, we had rain almost everyday at almost same time like 1-2pm. It's like "A LOT", so-called "squall". It sometimes gets cold, and I regretted that I didn't bring warm clothes with me....Well, the rain is decreasing a little by little. Now we sometimes have full-sunny-day :)) Can't wait for the Dry season swimming in Caribbean!
As I said above that this country has rich nature, the government preserves them, as well. It has rich natural forests, volcano and beautiful sea....
Here is my favourite bird "Tucan". It's the symbol bird of the country.....
I will update as I found more interesting things :)
Entry: Midori
