By Cailin Hodgins Guentz, San José
There's so much to plan for once you've made the excellent decision to study abroad, especially in regards to packing. It's essential to strike the balance between packing light and having enough clothes to get by. This struggle becomes all the more complicated if you, like me, are plus size. It feels weird writing a blog about being plus sized. I wear a size 14/16 or XL and find that I can shop in both the women's department and plus size department in most US stores. While clothes shopping can be a little annoying, I can generally find well fitting clothes. So in packing for my study abroad trip, I didn't really think twice about packing just the bare minimum, and planned to buy more clothes in Costa Rica. That was a bad choice. Learn from my mistake, even if you're not plus size in the US, you still could be in Latin America. Plus sizes or "tallas grandes" start at about size 10/12 here. Also consider that most of the clothing here runs a bit short and is meant to be tight. Most stores don't have a plus size department, but some have a smattering of racks in larger sizes. It's not much help to ask the staff if they sell tallas grandes, because they will say yes every time, including at stores that don't sell anything larger than an 8. It happened to me, more than once. The joys of living in an indirect society.
My final bit of advice for plus size ladies studying abroad is to take fashion risks! In Costa Rica especially, people are generally much more body positive. You will see other plus size women in the streets rocking super skinny jeans, crop tops and everything else you could possible imagine. If you're used to hiding in your clothes, now would be a good time to try something new. No one is going to call you our for not having the right body type. And people will probably be staring at you anyways. Why not be fierce?
Cailin Hodgins Guentz is the Spring 2015 CEA MOJO Blogger in San José, Costa Rica. She is currently a Senior at University of Wisconsin - La Crosse.