Journey To Costa Rica

4:30 am: Head off the the airport, safe journey to Dulles courtesy of dad the chauffeur
6:00am: Through the gate, waiting to board.
7:15am: On way to Newark Airport! Sat next to a granola crunching, socks and sandals wearing fellow who looked like he hadnt bathed in weeks, but nice enough, only 45 minute to NJ.

8:25 am: Power walking on the moving walkways to my connecting flight, made it! Got stuck next to a span of satan 2 year old by the name of Reagan.... God help her mother. That little terror kicked and screamed the whole 5 hours, hence the no sleep and very grumpy disposition on arrival to San Jose.

1:30pm Costa Rica time (1 hour behind east coast U.S.A): Finally land in San Jose, grab my bags, and jump in a taxi with my new roomie, Jeni, on our way to the host family.

The driver asked us if we had an address, which we kind of did (100 meters north and 800 meters west of the Ciudad Colon cemetery :) He needed a little extra help so we gave him our host mother's cell phone number and they hashed out the details. The people here are so nice!!! A New York cabbie would have dropped us off at the cemetery and hit the gas.

A brief tour around our new home to meet the extended family and other UPEACE students living with them. Fruit trees everywhere, plenty of dogs, a cat named Fuffi, and two cows!

For dinner, black beans and rice (there were pieces of banana from the tree out front in the  beans, they had absorbed the bean juices and taken on their color, not weird or unpleasant tasting, but certainly unexpected!) A little mixed salad and.... fish! Not a big fan of fish but it was fried in these little nugget things and actually didnt taste too fishy, if I had something to dip them in to really drown out the taste of fish I probably would have eaten them all. Note to self, stock up on snacks and hoard them in my room.... I have a feeling there is a lot of fish in my future..

Pictures to follow tomorrow :)

Next three days, orientation!