Aero: Kevin Urbaitis – Costa Rica 2015 – Life at Home

Aero: Kevin Urbaitis – Costa Rica 2015 – Life at Home
Creative Commons Image via The LEAF Project

Aero: Kevin Urbaitis – Costa Rica 2015 – Life at Home

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Kevin Urbaitis

My host family was one of my favorite parts about the whole entire trip to Costa Rica. From greeting them at the airport for the first time till hugging them goodbye outside the airport for the last time, they were the most accepting and loving family that an exchange student could dream of. Their home was beautiful and more than I could have ever imagined when thinking about the place I would be staying on my way to Costa Rica. Their family life was similar and different to that of my own back home in New York. Similarly the kids spent much of the day playing video games, which I am often accustomed to back home in the United States. They were very loving of one another and were an awesome family to be around every day. Their daily schedules seemed much less rigid than the average person’s in the United States. While the dad, Marco, had a pretty rigid and set schedule for work, everyone else’s was pretty laid back and relaxed. One thing that was different from my family compared to the host family was dinner. In my household dinner is always served at the same time every night and we eat together as a family. Within my host family, dinner was served whenever people were hungry and instead of together people would just eat whenever they were hungry. The exception to this was sometimes on the weekend or a special day, everyone would get together to have a big meal for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

ML@FLCC Costa Rica
2015 Flickr Gallery

Communication with the family was never a problem at all. While we tried to use Spanish as much as possible, both our host mother and her two sons were well versed in English. The host family was always understanding and caring to our needs during our time staying with them. I really developed a good bond with every member of my host family during my stay with them. I never once felt uncomfortable talking to them about anything and would usually find myself having long conversations with them about all sorts of things every night that I spent at their house. I think that my host family is a huge reason why my trip to Costa Rica was so enjoyable and comfortable, and I have nothing but good things to say about them and the time I spent living with them.

Kevin Urbaitis
LEAF Contributor