Getting to Quepos

Jason, Kim and the boys picked me up to go to dinner and then take me to the airport. On the way out of the door, I got a call from a realtor asking about viewing the house the next morning. It’s as if she knew I was leaving. It was just weird.

The airport was fairly empty which I was very surprised about considering it was thanksgiving weekend. I guess the day after thanksgiving at night is not so bad. I walked right up to the counter to check in and the security line only took about 10 minutes to get through.

Arrived in LA around 11:30 pm. Had to go check-in to the TACA airline and was surprised to see a very long line. Apparently, there is a large demand to fly red eyes down south. Since I checked my luggage in Phoenix, I just had to go to the counter to get my seat. There was a TACA staff person walking around making sure people where in the correct line and when she saw that I had already checked all my luggage, she put me into the ‘first class’ line since I would require less service. I felt bad for jumping ahead of all of the other people. The plane took off around 1:30am and was full. I was able to sleep but it was very restless – could not get my body comfortable. They gave us headphones so I turned to one of the quieter stations to help keep me calm and put me to sleep.

Got into San Jose around 9am and customs was a breeze. Only two people were in line when I got there and the guy just stamped my passport and I went to get my luggage. My bags were then screened and I was free. The part that surprised me was that there was no indoor waiting area, only outdoors. The arriving and receiving areas were completely separated. This meant that I had to wait outside for 2 hours for Angela, another student at the same school I am attending, to arrive. I sat for a while to try and relax and get a feel for how things were moving. I found a free shuttle while I was trying to talk to a security guard located next to the local departures (located in a separate building). He was very nice but new no english so I took out my translator and tried the best I could – he was very patient. This is when I first really started to get nervous that I am in way over my head.

One thing that I found a little odd/funny was that the airport had papa johns, church’s chicken, etc. Just didn’t seem right.

Angela arrived a little early and we took the shuttle to the hotel. After lunch, we went back to the hotel lobby and did some homework. On the way back I realized that my lace broke on my right shoe. What a great start to the trip… While at the hotel, I called my dad and mom.

When we meet up with the bus we met another student named Dorothy from Canada. I am guessing that she is around 50 and is full of life. Kind of reminds me of an older Linda, my aunt. The first half of the trip went up and down very curvy roads and I got close to getting car sick. At the top of one mountain we were driving in the clouds. Traffic was bad due to large trucks driving slowly which led to drivers just passing them whenever they could. We ended up getting into Quepos around 6ish and then ran into a log jam. There are two bridges you have to pass to get into the city and each bridge is so narrow that police have to control which side can go. Luckily we were on the side that was being let through. The reason the bridges are so narrow is because they were built about 105 years ago for trains. To make them usable for cars, they just laid down metal slats. I looked over the side where the slats ended and there was pretty much nothing below them – not a pleasant feeling.

We dropped off Dorothy at a hotel and then Angela and I got let out at the Wide Mouth Frog hostel. I got a bed in a room that had 4 bunk beds and 3 people sleeping in there. The room only had ceiling fans but this ended up being enough to keep cool. We met three other people that are also going to be in the class – Katie from Boston, Ashleigh from Australia (male), and Sean from N. California. We went out to eat and got caught up. After dinner we went back to the hostel and Sean told me about how he was already applying for schools in South Korea by posting his resume online and having recruiters contacting him. I got to admit that I am already thinking of going to china, korea, or somewhere in asia.

Up to this point I was feeling even more like I had made the wrong choice to come here. I know no spanish while most of the others were fairly decent. I felt so out of place and started thinking that I should have gone to china. But after talking to Sean, I started to feel like I could make it.