My 42-hour day

The following are entries in my journal as I made my trip to Costa Rica

8/23 - 11:25 p.m. - Sacramento airport

I stared at the escalator, rising infinitely skyward, as if it were something out of the twilight zone, eerie and mysterious. I hardly hesitated, knowing that what lay ahead was a gateway to something I´ve desired for more than a year and a half. Still, as I gave my dad a final strong squeeze, my mind did a double-take. Was this really happening? I´m not sure what was going through my dad´s head as we both walked away, but it may have been a similar disbelief as we alternated turning our backs, then loking over our shoulders at just the right time as if we were in a predictable Hollywood movie.
Then I was gone, out of sight with the ever-so-fun security check ahead of me, which I passed through smoothly. Now I sit at the gate, quietly contemplating, feeling much less burdened after leaving my bags in the hands of the somewhat-trusted airport employees. The exchange that was preceeded by a scene that included myself and my dad zipping open my luggage to reassemble the contents until the heavier of the two bags weighed in at 50.0 pounds. I´m curious to compare myself with the rest of the students to determine if I appear overpacked. And now, with about 10 minutes to board, I wait.

8/24 - 6:37 a.m. Houston time, 4:37 my time - Houston airport

A smooth flight, although sleepless. Mostly normal except for the very untalkative woman next to me who clipped her boyfriends´hangnails in his sleep. I met a fellow USAC student at the terminal for the flight to San Jose, Costa Rica, but she´s studying in Heredia. Need to find the money exchange and get some Colones, the curency of Costa Rica.

8/24 - 7:30 a.m. Houston time, 5:30 my time - Houston airport

I just exchanged 12 U.S. bills totalling $200 and recieved 68 Costa Rican bills totaling 88,000 Colones. The stack is about a half inch thick! It barely fits in my wallet and my wallet surely will not fold in half like it should. Luckily, unfolded it fits perfectly in my money stash thing I have for traveling. The exchange rate is about 500 Colones to the dollar. This will be interesting. I met two more guys from USAC who are studying in Puntarenas, JJ and Tommy. Kinda immature, all they talk about is partying, but they seem pretty cool.

8/24 - 12:00 p.m. Costa Rican time, 11:00 my time - San Jose airport, Costa Rica

I´m now waiting on the curb with a hord of other USAC students to be picked up by the bus that will take us to Puntarenas. The flight was great. I sat next to another student studying in Puntarenas, Matt. We share a lot of the same ambitions for our time here in Costa Rica. He also worked as a river raft guide which is awesome. Hopefully we can raft some of the rivers here. We saw many of them from the plane. They looked big but the crazy part is that they are brown. I guess I could deal if the rapids were sweet and the scenery gorgeous, which I´m sure they are. The view from the plane was stunning. The tops of the forest was thick and incredibly green. The whole country appears green and the surf from the plane looks tempting. We also saw one of the volcanoes as we approached the airport, but couldn´t figure out which one it is. I was in awe.

After landing we made our way to customs. The line wasn´t too long and I met Nate, another student, while we waited. I passed through without any problem. My luggage came out of the baggage claim in great condition as well. As I made my way to the door of the airport which was crowded with taxi drivers asking if we needed a fare, I prepared myself for the wall of humidity to hit me. Then it didn´t. It´s a little humid, but actually quite nice in San Jose. I may want more T-shirts than I packed. We´ll see. I think Puntarenas is supposed to be more humid. I´ve met a whole bunch of students, and their names already escape me in part. I met Danin, who has so much curly hair that he holds it back with what looks like an oversized fabric hairband, and his friends who are strong Spanish speakers but have a very American accent when they speak it. They lived in Spain last year through USAC. They seem like really cool guys.

That´s the last entry in my journal, but my day kept going. Two full-sized, very nice American-type travel buses picked us up from the airport and we rode to Puntarenas. I was lucky to get on the bus that arrived second. The first was full but ours was less than half full and I had two seats to strech out on. The road is a very popular route of transportation. It was only two lanes but very smooth and well-kept without much traffic. The scenery was beautiful and green, intermittent with poverty-level houses. I almost dozed off a few times, but not quite. I borrowed a Costa Rican tour book from one of the students and read it for most of the trip. It was fascinating.

We arrived in San Jose 2 hours later though I was so preoccupied I didn´t look at my watch. It was probably around 3:30 or so. As I got off the bus it was a whole lot more humid than in San Jose. I can rest assured that I packed appropriately. We got off the bus and just stood around, not knowing what to do. Slowly but surely, families began to arrive and claim their students. We all had name tags and they would walk through the group of us standing on the sidewalk with our bags and stare at our names and eventually pick one of us to take home. I felt a little like a puppy at the pound, expectantly awaiting new owners. Of course we are already preassigned, so it wan´t like they were just picking us because they liked us.

"Save the best for last" comes to mind when I describe my family. Out of about 65 students, I was one of 3 remaining when my host mom, Norma, came to pick me up with her adorable 2-year old granddaughter Anahi. I haven´t taken many photos, but I will post some soon. After cramming my bags into the very small trunk of the car at about 4:30, Norma drove me to a school where her 20 year old son José works so I could meet him. We hit it off right away (not like you may be thinking, though he is pretty cute, lol. Don´t worry, he´s very taken by his girlfriend of 3 years who I met later and think I will be great friends with). He surfs and he and his friends can teach me. Score! He was very surprised by my ability to speak Spanish.

Ok well this entry is getting incredibly long, so I´ll wrap it up. We went to the house, which is quite nice. I have my own room which is spacious with a lot of storage space, quite a relief for me. They have a new computer with internet, a very nice surprise. I spent quite a bit of time playing with Anahi who I think has fallen in love with me. I didn´t get a chance for the nap I really wanted. We ate dinner when José came home (The food here isn´t usually spicy, another surprise) and I unpacked.
Later we went out for a few drinks and dancing which was an experience worthy of another blog entry later. When all was said and done, José and I came home at about 3:30 and passed out cold at about 4 a.m., 3 a.m. my time. 42 hours with very little sleep. QUÉ DÍA!