I’d been on assignment at the Four Seasons Costa Rica when I headed south to take advantage of the prize I’d won at an Allianz-sponsored Tripatini event in NYC: a week of intensive Spanish classes at the Samara Language School (Instituto de Idiomas Intercultural) on the beach in Playa Samara. I’d forgotten much of the semester’s Spanish I’d taken in college, and I was looking forward to a quick refresher course. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get there in time for the first class, and I was…