Nature & knowledge

This was my girlfriend's idea: Let's go to a beautiful place and learn a beautiful language. My idea: Let's go to a beautiful place. Like most ideas we have, she liked hers more. So we chose Costa Rica - and this school - based on Internet research, which indicated the country was the perfect place to learn Spanish because Ticos - as Costa Ricans are known - are enchanting and tolerant people who love Americans who want to experience their magnificent country even if they are incapable of asking where the "banos" are.

Our "padre" and "madre" greeted us at the airport in San Jose. They even kissed us on both cheeks. We hopped in their pickup truck - men in front, women in back - and we rode about 20 minutes to their home in Heredia, an upper-working-class

town. It is a little like Gloucester, if you substitute coffee fields for the ocean. The car ride featured a conversation in which my girlfriend and I took turns saying, "No habla espanol," and our hosts replied, "No hablo ingles." It was cordial.

When we got to their house, it seemed clear that their children - Rebecca, Raquel, and Jonathan - spoke no ingles, either. There were plenty of awkward silences. We looked at one another a lot. This was, of course, the reason why we had come to Costa Rica: to be immersed in a culture and in a family where little ingles was spoken. Then we caught the kids watching "The Simpsons" in ingles. The kids laughed at the correct times. One day a cousin came over. I said, "Hola." He said, "How ya doin'?"

Aside from the language scam, our family was wonderful. The best moments of the trip were with them, especially because our madre cooked in a very serious way - breakfasts with fruits I had never heard of and will never be able to pronounce, elaborate dinners with chicken in sauces that were tangy and original. When she saw how much I loved plantains, she made them every night.