One more day to Costa Rica!

My bags are packed and sitting at my front door, which may cause some difficulties seeing as my last bar of soap is somewhere in my suitcase, and I still have 32 hours before I officially leave for Costa Rica. I guess you could say I'm ready to go. But very nervous at the same time.
Last October I visited UNCW's main campus for the first time, although I'd been a student at the university since that May.  My classes were all at the UNCW Extension program in Jacksonville, NC.  It was exciting to visit the School of Education and see all they had to offer. I passed that day, while exploring the building, a large display about a Summer Study Abroad to Costa Rica.  I remember my friend and I studied it for a long time, both remarking on how amazing the experience could be.  I went home and talked with my husband about the opportunity and I believe he was more excited than I was.  Through his encouragement, I decided that I would take part in this experience.  My husband is a Marine, and his job will be moving us soon to southern California, where the demographics of schools will be tilted toward hispanic children.  I hope that this experience will better prepare me for the students I will be teaching in the near future.  It is so important that a teacher considers the point of view of his/her students.  This program, Walking in the Shoes of Your English Language Learner, will allow me not only to consider an alternate point of view, but to be placed in their position.  I believe the next 3 weeks will change my teaching and change how I will be able to assist my future students.  I am thankful to have this opportunity to improve myself and, in the process, improve the quality of the education of the students I will one day teach. 
This experience brings around many emotions; I am thankful, hopeful, and ready to go.  But, as I said before, I am also nervous. I will soon be in a place I've never been, living in a house with people I will barely know, and surrounded by people who speak a language I don't understand.  Yes, I am nervous.  But also very excited. All those points are frightening, but exciting as well.  This trip will be my first out of the country, I will see things with my own two eyes that I've only observed on television or in a book.  I will be meeting new people who have had a life different from my own.  I will gain so much by becoming part of their household. As for the language difference, it will allow me to become immersed in a language I have wanted to learn for many years.  I've taken spanish courses in high school and college but never gained the confidence to use what was presented to me.  For the next 3 weeks, I will have no choice! The Language Immersion will all but force me to use what I already know and what I am learning in my classes. 
Tonight I am nervous, excited, eager, worried, anxious, thankful, hopeful, and ready to go!