This marks the first in a series of daily journals that will be written by members of the SRU women's soccer team and staff during their nine-day trip to Costa Rica. This entry, written by head coach Jessica Griggs, details Monday, Aug. 5.

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Pura Vida!

We arrived in Costa Rica tonight after a smooth travel day. The team has already started bonding and we can't wait to continue to become close during the trip. Some of our bonding will include linking up with mentor-mentee family trees (a tradition in the SRU women's soccer program), having cell phone free meals and rotating flight/bus/dinner seats to become close with all members of the team.

We were greeted in Costa Rica by the wonderful staff of Costa Rica Soccer Tours and chartered to our amazing hotel for dinner. All of the food is so fresh! We then received a presentation to review the itinerary, learn about the culture by competing in small groups with a cultural quiz and hearing more about the local schools and organizations we will be helping. We also learned more about how much soccer influences the people of this country and found out which fields we will experience and the teams we will be playing against.

While there will be a language barrier to overcome, we learned that most importantly you can always greet someone and respond with "pura vida!". Costa Rica is known to have the happiest people and we are so excited to have this experience!

We'll check back tomorrow after our first full day in this beautiful country!

- Jessica Griggs, SRU head soccer coach