"Your English is Really Good."

Standing in the Quepos bus station, waiting for the bus to San Jose. 

"Excuse me, do you know which bus goes to San Jose?"
"Yes, it will arrive in fifteen minutes," I reply to the girl wearing a large backpack.
 "Oh, thanks," she smiles back at me.  "You're English is really good."
"Thanks," I say... taken by surprise.
"Where did you learn English?" she asks.

This was the point where the theatrical part of me decided it would be more fun to play along than to explain myself.  I mean, I never lied... just gave vague enough answers that the girl was able to construct her own story...

"I lived in the US for a really long time," I explain.
"Oh, cool!  But you live here, now?"
"Yes."
"And you're going to San Jose for the holidays?"
"Actually, I'm visiting my family in the US.  They live there."

The conversation continued like this until we got on the bus.  There, she told her friends she was traveling with that I was from Costa Rica, but lived in the US and now I was teaching here. 

Amused at the situation I had gotten into, I wondered if any Ticos around me knew enough English to hear them and wonder why my Spanish didn't sound local. 

When we arrived at the bus stop half way, the girl's friend asked me if I could help her buy ice cream.  She couldn't tell which flavor was which, so I helped her. 

We parted ways in San Jose, the odd little play closing.  A little surprised at that adventure and thoroughly amused, I walked into the city thinking about how far I had come in the last five and a half months. 

And I just have to add: does my English really sound that weird that someone's first guess is that I must not be a native English speaker?  Was it using words like "it will arrive" instead of "it will get here" that caused her to believe I must be an ELL?  Is it speaking slowly and clearly that made me sound a little weird?

I guess that is what happens when you really start learning a second language; your first language becomes a little less normal and you become part of a new culture. A culture of the in-between.