Overthinking, worries, and reality

I had never flown alone before. On the flight down to Costa Rica, I was filled with many emotions.

Fear over whether I had remembered to pack everything in my suitcase, whether the people in my program would be nice, and what the culture shock would be like. Will I make friends? Will the locals see us as a burden?

Terrified and excited, I sat pondering these questions. How would this turn out?

Let me just start by saying that everything has gone well! Better than I could have hoped. Ever since the flight down, the days have been filled with pure happiness.

If you're considering going there alone like I did, know that it's worth it. I had butterflies in my stomach when I was deciding whether to accept the offer of admission.

Before I left, I came across a video of Tom Holland where he talked about those butterflies in your stomach. He said that instead of interpreting them as a warning sign, you should think of them as applause from within.

So, when everything in your body seemingly tries to talk you out of taking the plunge into something new, it's actually a sign that your body is urging you to do it!

It turned out to be the right choice for me. Leaving home and my loved ones behind for something completely new on the other side of the globe feels strange. The excitement was mixed with great fear.

After just six days, I’ve already made many good friends here. We’re a wonderfully diverse group. Some have already studied, traveled around Asia, and experienced adult life for a few years.
Then there are those who, like me, have just finished high school and aren’t quite sure what they’ve signed up for.

It's so much fun getting to meet people from different parts of Norway and Sweden. Through this program, I get to meet people I might never have met if I hadn't gone. It turns out that many of my fellow students are absolutely hilarious, with stories and interests I could listen to for hours.

As for the local people, I was very curious about how they felt about us coming. Would they be annoyed by the language barrier? Would they see us as intruders? Would we manage to have any positive interactions with them?

The answer is that this also turned out to go well. The people who live here are incredibly friendly and helpful. For example, my roommate's phone stopped working. We looked for repair shops and came across a small house a few minutes from the hotel.

A little worried that they might not speak English, we went into the shop. Both my roommates and I are a bit rusty when it comes to the Spanish we learned in high school. We were greeted by an older woman, who turned out to be the mother of the man who runs the workshop.

As expected, she couldn't understand English. How was this going to work? As always, it worked out fine. Both we and the woman in the shop had a good laugh at ourselves and each other.

With the help of a phone call and our good friend Google Translate, we managed to communicate and work out an arrangement. So, even if you don't speak fluent Spanish down here, it's still possible to understand one another through body language and various translation services.

Here, too, it's all about giving it a try! From what I've seen, the locals really appreciate it when you try to speak their native language.

While we were in the family's living room repairing the phone, the woman's granddaughter came in as well. From what little we understood, the granddaughter is learning English at school. So the grandmother wanted her to translate the Spanish for us.

Shy and humble, the granddaughter stood there grinning as she shook her head. The whole situation reminded me so much of my own grandmother, who would similarly ask me to translate what she said in Norwegian into English at the checkout while we were on vacation.

I think it is important to be aware of situations like this. It is easy to think that people who live on the other side of the world, with cultures and traditions completely different from our own, are different from us.

That they don't live the same lives as we do. At times, that's true, given the contrast between snow-covered Norway and sunny Costa Rica.

But even though the climate is different, the people who live here are not so different from us. The locals here are ordinary people, just like us. They have families filled with love, they too feel afraid to speak another language, and they show the same kindness as the people we admire back home.

This is important to keep in mind when traveling to another country. Because when you meet the locals with this mindset, you also catch glimpses of things that remind you of home.

In addition, you get to challenge any preconceptions you may have. So my advice is to try to meet and strike up conversations with locals, just as you would with your new fellow students.

We also managed to try surfing at the beach in Manuel Antonio. It truly is a dream come true!

We’ve gotten to know a group of people on the beach who have taught us how to surf, and one of them put on the song “Elektrisk” by Marcus & Martinus while laughing and dancing. Who would have thought that this Norwegian hit song would turn up on a beach in Costa Rica!

In the short week we've been here, I've experienced life exactly as I dreamed it would be before I left Norway. It's scary to travel somewhere completely new and unpredictable, but it turned out to be exactly what I needed!