Trip of a Lifetime provided a great chance for me to expand my mind, this meaningful trip was the best trip in my life. I applied for Trip of a Lifetime because I wanted to see how big was this world and how other people lived under different culture.

When I was chosen to be one of the participant I felt really surprised and excited, I can visit a new country that I didn’t know anything about it. Once I arrived to the kickoff celebration and looked at the wonderful building, I knew there was my beginning of this trip. I started packing up before going to the trip, however, I became very scared because I will meet many new face and English was my second language. I was bring fear to my trip destination—Costa Rica.

After we arrived to San Jose, we went on a bus and listened to the rules from counselors. I remembered one of the rules was trying to be “Pura Vida” and I had no idea what was that. When we reached the hotel, counselors picked a roommate for us. I was very lucky because my roommate was a nice person and we always helped each others. We have dinner in the hotel and boys are sitting together, we talked a lot and built a relationship very fast. Our relationship liked brothers, we always played in a group and I enjoyed the time with them. All my fear before the trip was disappeared because I got a lot of new friends. They taught me how to live in United States and pronounced English better. I felt thankful to them cause I learnt a lot from them. We went to the pool everyday and talked a lot when we enjoyed the hot spring. I will never forget they taught me how to dance during the July Fourth celebration party, we were having fun when we watched the firework and dance. Beside making new friends, I tried a lot of new things including kayak, water rafting, surfing. Trying new things explored myself that I can learn how Costa Rican respect and enjoyed the nature. You can feel the nature is a treasure from the god, animals were friendly appeared near to us. Everything in Costa Rica were amazing that I am fell in love with the nature and felt no pressure there.

“Pura Vida” was the main lifestyle in Costa Rica, it means pure life. Costa Rican didn’t have any pressure and plan for everyday, they were free to decide what they were going to do in a day. They try to make everything become easy and simple. Once I felt Pura Vida was in the Coco Beach, we went on a ship and sailed for six hours. We are sitting on a chair, holding a fruit drink and looking at the sky turned blue to red. The wind kept blowing us and we felt really comfort on the ship. That feeling was priceless cause we cannot find the same feeling in other country. I can definitely feel their culture and the way to view life.

Time went very fast, days passed one by one and we ended our twenty-six days trip in Costa Rica. We were bringing our sad emotion to the airport, looking at each others last face and saying goodbye to everyone. When I sat in the airplane and looked out of the window, I started realizing that the trip was ended, but it means other journey was started. Leaving Costa Rica become a power for me that to go to Costa Rica again. I would like to visitCosta Rica in the future.