Around the World in 100 Years
Monday, January 31, 2005
So chalk up another great weekend the on the list of Jaime´s great weekends. Saturday we headed up to Monteverde. When I say up, I mean UP. The cloud forest was at the top of a mountain. No biggie, right? No, the road up there was quite similar to the roads around the mountain you see on Bugs Bunny. No guard rails, nothing standing between you and certain death. In some places these roads were barely wide enough for our vehicle. The bus driver didn´t seem all the concerned about hugging the mountain either. In some places people were passing us. There wasn´t enough room for one vehicle yet people were maneuvering around us at high rates of speed. You have to have some cojones f-in´grandes to be a bus driver on those mountain roads. And the people that pass said bus drivers? Well, I´ve talked to a few jealous elephants. Anyway, there we were, traveling up and up and up on the non-paved, pothole filled road (no one informed me that a sport bra or 6 would be helpful for this journey). For a little while I considered informing the bus driver that I had never heard of anyone actually reaching heaven via mini-bus and, if it´s all the same to him, could we just take the real road. I managed to hold my tongue.
Finally we reached the town of Monteverde, where we checked into our hotel, Hotel Don Taco. Yes, that´s right, Hotel Don Taco. I believe that´s a completely unoriginal and smartass name I would have come up with for a Mexican Hotel but there she stood. We ate some lunch and then piled back onto the Bus of Chestal Pain (that was actually printed on the bug catcher) and went to the reserve and walked around for a couple hours. The cloud forest was so cool!! Everything was completely green. Even the bark of the trees was covered in green moss. There were Tarzan vines everywhere too. I considered taking one for a spin but I knew that in the process of swinging from vine to vine I would almost certainly happen upon the pissed off, vine-colored snake. I didn´t want that to happen so once again, I refrained. I was all about restraint this weekend. We walked to the Continental Divide, which was high enough to see the whole world and then headed back.
The next day was why this trip was so damn cool, however. I know that I wrote on here that I was going to go on a zip line. I was wrong, I went on 11 of them. One was 450 feet in the air. You could look down on birds as you flew across them. They weren´t like those pansy ass Noah´s Ark zip lines either, these bitches were LONG. It was easily one of the coolest things a person can do in their life time. Unfortunately, after that it was time to hop back on the bus and head down the mountain. Ugh. I took about an hour and a half to go 35 km, which, I suppose, was better than the 2 hours it took us to do in on the way up. Oh well, it was worth it. Well, as much as I´d like to live in denial, I´m on the wrong side of an almost 4 day weekend. Time to go to Ecology class. Every time we finish a 4 week term of Spanish we get the next Monday off. Unfortunately that doesn´t go for our electives. Oh well, I ain´t gots nothin´ better ta do anywho. Peace.
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
I really don´t have that much to write about. My life here is insanely repetitive, which is alright I guess. Today I got to eat some Quiznos though. I was so freakin´ happy I smiled for like half an hour after I finished. Who would have thought that sandwiches would be one of the things I missed most? Seriously, instead of going through the hassle of preparing rice and beans and a various meat product, which may or may not be edible, just slap some turkey on some bread and let me go at er. It would have to be better than last night when they gave me a piece of roast beef and a spoon to eat it with. Naturally I couldn´t remember how to say fork so I just sat there vainly stabbing at my chunk of meat. I tried to cover of the sound of the spoon hitting the plate as it slid of repeatedly. I´m pretty sure they think I just don´t know how to eat. My large ass tells a different story.
Anyway, tonight I´m going to another $1.50 movie. Today I got a $4 haircut. Yes, my hair was ratty enough that I braved the language barrier to get a trim. The lady didn´t speak a word of English and, as we all know, my Spanish is horrible. I think it might be getting worse. I can´t seem to understand what anyone is saying to me. I also can´t seem to get out a thought. I´m pretty sure that´s the opposite of what is supposed to happen. I have my final exam tomorrow. That should go okay, it´s not the grammar part that I have trouble with, it´s the understanding/speaking part. Let´s discuss which is more important to my life in a Spanish speaking country. Hmmm...
If you can´t tell I´m hating Español a little bit right now. It´s such a gay language. They need to utilize the apostrophe s a little more, I think. La casa de Jaime....Isn´t it easier just to say Jaime´s house??? Look at that, 2 words compared to 4. Their books must be twice as long. Maybe that´s why books cost so much down here. I think I´m going to write a letter and explain my thoughts on the subject.
Okay, time for the movie. And yes mom, watching movies is the best way to prepare for a test. It sure beats the ¨studying¨we did in Austria. Well, not really...
Monday, January 24, 2005
We have a new update in the score. It now stands at Sun-2 Jaime-0.
This damn-near-the-equator sun is kicking my ass. There is no way to avoid getting sunburned, I'm pretty sure. Well, there is, get a tan. But there's no way to get a tan without getting sunburned first. For those of you who are coming down here, make sure you do some fake baking first. I'm serious. Sure, you can put on sunblock but there are places you're going to miss. Like the tops of your feet and the backs of your knees, for instance. *winces*
Anyway, this weekend was awesome. We were supposed to go to Puerto Viejo but since the weather isn't the greatest on the Caribbean side we went to Tamarindo instead. It's a huge tourist town so everyone spoke English. It was soooo nice to get a break. Spanish gives me a headache. The beaches there are unbelievable, the sand feels like silk under your feet. In the afternoon it feels like scorching hot silk. I pretty much just laid on the beach and read my book for the first day. The second day I walked around, took pictures and went swimming in the pool. Rough weekend, I know. We didn't have an itenerary so we could do whatever the hell we wanted. It was awesome. And HOT. Wonderfully, beautifully HOT. This was especially nice since San Jose is horribly cold. One of my friends knows someone who has lived down here for 4 years and he said that he's never seen it this cold. The Ticos are blaming it on cold air from the US. I know that you guys are sending it this way just to piss me off. Stop it.
Well, once again it's time for class. My ecology has to go an extra hour today because the wind knocked the lights out last week and we got to go home early. This is so gay.
Friday, January 21, 2005
Well, after having to run home during our break (it's over a mile to my house, ick) to get the millions of things that I managed to forget, I think I'm finally ready to leave for the sunny Pacific. At least it better be sunny, the constant cloudiness has not been doing much for my mood. Of course, neither did the random guy yelling "Puta" out the window at me as I was speed walking back the the school this morning. Now come on maje, was that necessary? I'm wearing a sweater and long pants...seriously.
Anyway, I'm definitely supposed to be looking up information on Che Guevara for my 10 minute presentation right now. I'm definitely not. We have to give another 10 minute no notes presentation as our final oral assigment. That's so gay. At least last time we could do it on whatever we wanted. This time we had to do it on an important figure in Latin America. I was debating doing Ricky Martin but I decided against it. His impact on the world was 99% negative, that's just depressing.
I brought my computer to school today so I just found some biographies and saved them. Everyone else has to write everything down. hahahahahaha. Yay for Nothern's laptop initiative and yay for my lack of ability to survive without it. The best part about this whole thing is that I'm going to make Cory lug it home while Megan, Miles and I head to the beach. Life is good. Or at least it will be in 35 minutes when I get out of this class and get some food. Hopefully there are no worms in the vegatables. That seems to happen a lot. This one girl found a worm in her chocolate bar. I'm not talking like nightcrawlers or anything, just little worms. So that makes it okay. Right? Alright, I'm starting to get paranoid that I will soon be incurring Alba's wrath. So instead of making loud clicky sounds typing I'll make less noise posting pictures. I am the master of not doing what I'm supposed to. Oh yes.
Thursday, January 20, 2005
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
Once again, there are a few things I forgot to mention on here. I told my parentals but I think that I should use this blog to ensure that the things that happen to me here never happen to you. I'mm talking about the eating of cow stomach. Yes, that's right, cow stomach. If you ever get offered mongoba run. Run away. It looks and feels like chunks of fat and looks like the bottom of an octupus's tentacle. EWWWWWWW. The bad thing is that I didn't know what it was until the next day. I only ate one piece of it though, I had some trouble getting it down. Wonder why.
In other news, it's still a bit chilly down here. Like 60 degrees and windy. Which is cold enough to warrant Smiley whipping out his winter jacket and scarf. I'm not kidding. I was sitting in the kitchen in my t-shirt and in he walks all decked out, apparently ready to go make a snowman or go skiing. These people down here would surely die if they were to venture anywhere north of the Mason Dixon line.
Ah crap, it's time for class. A little update on the test situation-I got an A-, which is waaaaaay better than I thought that I was going to do. It was actually the best in the class so now I look like a superstar. That's right, a Spanish superstar. Unfortunately I think that the teacher now thinks that I actually know some Spanish, which is quite untrue. On the bus the other day the tour guide was going around making everyone introduce themselves and I almost forgot how to say My name is Jaime and I am from Michigan. What? Didn't we learn that the first day of my first Spanish class? I guess I'm not good under pressure. Okay, it's really time for class now.
Monday, January 17, 2005
This country is so awesome!!! Well, parts of it are anyway. Parts that don´t include Zapote, San Pedro, or San Jose. Anyway, Saturday we went to see Volcan Poas. I should say try to see, I guess. I firmly believe that there are no volcanoes in this country. It´s all a hoax. They get innocent tourists to hike to places where they´re supposed to be able to see volcanoes and then.....nothing. It was very very rainy and very very windy on Saturday too, as I´m sure you can see from the pictures. After we hiked up to see the alleged volcano we went to La Paz Cataratas, which is a bunch of waterfalls. On the way down to the waterfalls there was a butterfly house (not a good as Schmetterling Haus but bigger) and a hummingbird garden. The hummingbirds were cool and the waterfalls were awesome. You could get really close to them (both the hummingbirds and the waterfalls). It could have been the perfect excursion but my poor disposition towards the end of the waterfall tour got in the way. I can be wet and be okay (and somehow I got 47 times wetter than everyone else). I can be cold and be okay. I cannot, however, be hungry and be okay, as most of you already know. I was staaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarving. At the last few waterfalls I was too busy scavenging for edible roots to even bother looking at the waterfalls.
The best part of the trip was the way there. We saw at least 15 rainbows and I´m not exaggerating. We even saw the end of a rainbow!!!!! No, there was no pot of gold. We kept stopping the vans and piling out to take pictures. I only posted one, I think. About the pictures, mom, if you´re trying to look at them on our ancient computer it´ll probably be quicker to just go buy a new one, get it set up, and connect it to the internet.
Sunday we went to Isla Tortuga. Turtle Island, for those of you who are Spanish impaired. It was soooooooooooo awesome!!!!! Isla Tortuga is an uninhabited island in the Pacific Ocean that you have to take a two hour boat ride to get there. It was a perfect day. About 90 degrees and sunny. I was in heaven. The island was beautiful. There was even a domesticated wild boar. I saw a lizard too. No one else saw the lizard and now they don´t believe in my lizard. I swear I saw a lizard. We were there for about 3 hours, chillin´out, maxin´, relaxin´all cool. Unfortunately, we had to leave at about 3:00. I was not ready to leave. But we had to so Cory and I decided to swim back to the boat. About 20 people had swam from the boat to shore. Two people were dumb enough to swim back the the boat. I was one of them. The waves were huge!!! And they were definitely not working with me. In fact, quite the opposite. Were talking waves that caused the boat driver to have to take a different route home. My arms were barely functioning by the time I got to the boat. Don´t think I´ll be doing that again. All in all, the worst part of my day was when I got slightly chilly as the sun was setting over the coastal hills and the spray from the ocean reached the upper deck of the boat. Yeah, that was the worst part of my day.
In other news, I got something other than Corn Flakes for breakfast this morning!!!! I kind of missed them, when I eat cereal is the only time that I get to drink any milk. My mom just fainted, I know it. Don´t worry mom, I´m sure all your years of enforced milk drinking has hardened my bones to the point where they can handle this brief deprivation. Well, I´m sure that I forgot to mention lots of stuff but I gots ta go, it´s time for Ecology class. I´ll try to post more pictures soon.
Friday, January 14, 2005
Ugh, it's test day. I'm pretty much not excited at all about it. We get out super early though and that I am quite excited about. Cory, Meghan and I are going to go into the city. I'm not sure what for, exactly. Just something to do, I guess. It's a gorgeous day too!! Apparently the niceness of the day got to Smiley, who was singing at the top of his lungs and dancing at 7:00 this morning. He made me dance with him to. To no music. Doesn't this kid understand that mornings are for watching TV and being crabby???
Last night was dance class. I know, me dancing sober is a crazy (and horrifying) thought. We're learning meringue an salsa right now. It was pretty fun, even though I suck. I suck a lot. I almost took out a couple people trying to perfect my spin with Miles. It was a night filled with apologizing. cory and I finally got the double spin action thing going. Oh yeah, that's right DOUBLE spin. I'm going to have to find me a salsa partner when I get home. And some salsa music. And some where to dance the salsa. Hmm....
Well, it's test time now. Wish me luck!
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
Just a quick one today.
I can't believe I forgot this before. Last Friday Cory, Meghan, Miles, Jordan, Dana and I were sitting at J and D's apartment. Miles busted out his bottle of Ron Cortez rum. Cool. Half an hour later it was gone and Miles, Meghan and Dana were on the plastered side of tipsy. This is when Miles said, and I quote
"The Incas never could finish off Ron Cortez but we just did it in half an hour"
This was followed by Meghan's
"Wow Miles, I think that was the most intelligent thing you've ever said" And she was serious.
For those of you that aren't history buffs...or more correctly those of you who don't know anything about history, please go look that one up and you'll understand why I sat there with an incredulous look on my face for, oh, about 15 minutes. This was followed by a long period of mocking laughter.
Just a quick shout out to Julie here. She quite obviously loves me more than any of my friends or family that are reading this blog because she is the only one who leaves me comments. If you're confused on how to do this, try clicking on "Leave a comment"
Back to class.
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
There's not too much new to report, other than I just fell asleep in my Marine Biology class. Turning the lights off so we can see the power point is not that great of an idea in a class that's held directly after lunch.
There are a few things that I somehow forgot to mention about the past week. Like the earthquake. It was totally minor and lasted less than a second but it was an earthquake nonetheless. It was at about 6:30 in the morning so I was just waking up and I had no idea what had just happened. I thought Smiley (Rodrigo, my Tico brother) had dropped something. Something very big. The houses here are made out of tissue paper so it doesn't take too much to make them shake. I got to experience my very first earthquake so that was cool.
I also saw a toucan. I don't know how I forgot to put that on here, I didn't forget to tell everyone I saw for 2 days after it happened. It was flying over the pool. I couldn't see it very well but you could definitely tell it was a toucan. Especially since Luis was there saying "Toucan, toucan, toucan, toucan, toucan". I was very excited. I'm not sure exactly why...
I don't think I ever mentioned last time that I never saw the volcano. It was too cloudy, which sucked. I'll have to make mom and Cherie go there when they come down.
You may think you've already heard this story but this time there's a better ending. The other day my Tico aunt asked me what I liked to eat for breakfast. Somehow she seemed to sense that I wasn't appreciating the 7 am bean sandwich. Since the only breakfast word I could think of was cereal, or in Spanish cereal, that's what I said. The next morning there was a little box of Corn Flakes waiting for me. Cool. Last night Smiley came up to tell me that him and "mom" were going to the grocery just to get me some Corn Flakes. What??? Anyway, they weren't lying. They came back with the biggest box of Corn Flakes I have ever seen. I'm not exaggerating when I saw that this bad boy is 2 1/2 feet tall. I laughed for like 5 minutes and they couldn't seem to figure out why. Somehow they took me only knowing the word for cereal as a declaration of my undying love for Corn Flakes. Those Ticos...
I suppose I should go get started on my homework. I have a 10 minute presentation tomorrow. Yes, that's right, 10 minutes. IN SPANISH. WITH NO NOTES. Aren't these people getting the fact that I don't know any Spanish?!?!?!
Monday, January 10, 2005
I guess I´ll have to make this post kind of snappy. I managed to remember that I have a class at 4 at about 2:45...unfortunately it´s a half hour walk back to campus from this little internet cafe.
Anyway, I had an amazing weekend. It can be summed up in one word: WET. We went to a huuuuuuuuge waterfall that looked like something out of a Disney cartoon. It was surrounded by rainforest on either side and you could swim in the river just down from the base of it. It was so incredibly gorgeous. Pictures can never do it justice. We swam there and climbed around on the rocks for a little while before we started the ascent back up to the top which was, by my best estimate, 810 miles from the bottom. Our soggy asses climbed back on the bus and we went a few more miles to La Fortuna, a little town where we ate lunch. Then, once again, we got back on the bus to go to our hotel. When they told us that we were all staying at a hotel I pictured a slightly crappier Holiday Inn, not paradise. This place was AMAZING. It was about 700 meters away from Volcan Arenal (or so I´m told). There aren´t rooms, there are seperate cabins, some with one bedroom, others with two. I roomed with 3 other girls. On the hotel grounds there are two pools, one ¨cold¨pool and another naturally fed hot pool. Both had waterslides. There was lots of trails to meander around. The best part was that it had an alligator farm!!!!! It wasn´t really a farm, I guess, they don´t milk the alligators or anything, they were in these big fenced in pools. More on the alligators to come.
After we checked in we hopped back on the bus (again) and went to the Baldi Hot Springs. I was in HEAVEN. The hot springs are these huge pools filled with naturally hot water. They had a bunch of different pools of varying temperatures. There was even one that was almost too hot for me, believe it or not. It was pretty funny, the only people that would even try the hot pool were Jordan, Miles and me. We all go to Northern. I guess it takes a lifetime of sitting in snowbanks to be able to sit in scalding water. We were there long enough to become completely pruney, very dehydrated and totally exhausted so we decided to hoof it back to the hotel because the bus wasn´t scheduled to go back for another hour or so. Oh, have I mentioned that it was POURING the entire time? Like the pouring that we experience at home for a maximum of 5 minutes at a time.
That night was pretty unremarkable. We went and ate some pizza (no rice or beans in sight!) and then headed to a club. Because I was the 3rd to last person out of about 50 to get their pizza I was STARVING and had to wolf it down in about 2 seconds. Yeah, I wasn´t feeling so hot. Cory and I stayed at the club for oh, about 11 seconds, and then decided to walk home. I´m a brave girl but walking down a deserted road in the middle of a rainforest at night is not something I care to do again. Everything I heard in the bushes I thought was a snake. And who knows, maybe it was... I went to bed pretty early, which is good, because I also got up super early.
The next morning Val, Kat and I woke up at about 7:30 and went to breakfast. We were the first people from our group to get up and that ended up working out very well for us. Luis, our program director and one of the coolest guys ever, came to breakfast a few minutes after we did Since we were the only people up and ready to go he bought us all ponchos (yep, still pouring) and took us on a tour of the joint. We went to see the alligators and crocodiles, which was really cool...until we saw the crocodile with the puppy in its mouth. Yes, that´s right, a puppy. It was dead so there was nothing we could do about it. The saddest part of the whole experience is that there was a female dog following us around the whole time. What if it was the puppy´s mom?? It almost had to be, there were no other dogs around. Later we found out that someone had thrown the puppy over the fence. What kind of person would you have to be to do that??? This was a about 8:30 and by 10:00 our crocodile/puppy story had reached epic status. I had about 28 people come up and try to tell me the story. They started out with ¨there´s this rumor...¨. I thought it was pretty funny. We swam in the hot pool for a couple hours more and then had to pack to go home. *sigh* More school... But that´s okay, I got home in time to watch the fourth quarter of the Vikings/Packers game (en español, of course).
YEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAAAAW!!!! SUCK IT FAVRE!
Oh crap, time to walk to class.
Friday, January 07, 2005
It's finally Friday!!! I know, I know, I've only been in classes for 3 days now but trying to figure out Spanish for 4 hours straight every morning tends to give one a headache. It's not too bad though, I understand about half of what is being said. I'm taking two electives too, thankfully in English, Introduction to Marine Biology and Introduction to Tropical Ecology. We get to go on two field trips for each of them. For the Marine Biology one we get to go to a turtle nesting grounds and snorkeling on a coral reef. Yep, life is tough here in Costa Rica. I'm not sure where we go for the Tropical Ecology one, that class doesn't start until next week.
This week I get to go to Volcan Arenal, or Arenal Volcano. It's a live volcano that has lava trickling down it constantly. They also have hot springs to go sit in, which I'm looking forward to very very much. I just this morning figured out how to get hot water in my shower so I appreciate hot water more than ever. There are optional field trips every weekend and I signed up for all of them. Why not? It will save me from the very difficult conversations that I have with my host family. After this morning's conversation I think I'm going to end up with Corn Flakes for breakfast every morning. They think that because I don't eat much it's because I don't like the food. I've never been an early morning breakfast sort of person though. This morning it was bean sandwiches. I'm not kidding. I really need to learn this language!!! I also have the chance to go to Cuba for 4 days if I want. It's only like $400. Mom....? Dad....? :) How often do you get a chance to go to Cuba though???? I'm going to go with probably not any time soon.
I finally made some friends. I can't believe it took me 2 days!! That's unusual. Anyway, they walk with me to school everyday and back at night, which is very good because the crime is horrific down here. Not bad crime, mostly theft. But enough where there are bars on every single house and guards in every store and some of the more expensive houses. Meghan and I are going to get manicures today. For 2000 colones. That's a FOUR DOLLAR manicure. That's so sweet!!! Well, it's time to go watch a movie for class. A Cuban movie. Man, it sure would be nice to go to Cuba...Mom....Dad....
Tuesday, January 04, 2005
Things seem to be going better. I found my host family´s house after my luggage was delivered promptly at 930 pm. (Grrrr....) They seem to be very nice. Unfortunately it´s extremely hard to communicate with them, you know, me not knowing the language and all. I´m at school right now where once again I´m assailed with the ¨why am I doing this again?¨ feeling. Everyone here seems to know someone else!!! I sure as hell don´t. It´s going to be hard to make friends if no one else is a loner like me. I´ll figure it out though, I´m sure. One girl was talking about her house mate. What the hell? I didn´t get no stinkin´ house mate!
I´m slightly out of the loop right now. I was told to be here at 830 so I arrived at 830. Makes sense, right? Well, apparently they were taking pictures at 8. Interesting. Now I have no idea where to go to take get my picture taken. That might be a good thing, I didn´t have a lot of time to get ready this morning. Elizabeth (my host mom) woke me up at 730 for a delicious breakfast of fried bananas and fried this other thing. Nothing like a blast of grease to wake you up in the morning! By the way, I´m using the term delicious very sarcastically. But I guess that´s what they eat here so eat it I shall. I will be returning to the states about 20 lbs heavier at this rate. My fried breakfast was followed by a cold shower. I kept thinking that maybe, just maybe, it would warm up. Nope!
It´s almost time for orientation so hopefully I´ll figure out what the hell is going on. I´m getting sick of the feeling that I have no idea what I´m doing. I think I´ll be having that feeling later when I´m trying to walk ¨home¨. I really don´t remember how to get there. Damn this is sucking right now. But I think that´s how it always goes.
Monday, January 03, 2005
Wow has the past day SUCKED. Murphy´s Law is without a doubt in effect where ever I go. So it goes like this:
My plane is scheduled to leave Milwaukee at 3:46 but it ended up being about 5 before we left. Left to fly to Chicago. It was a 19 minute flight. I waited in the airport for about 3 1/2 hours to fly to Chicago, a city that is an hour and a half drive from Milwaukee. Once I got into Chicago I realized that my plane was already supposed to be boarding so I made a mad dash from the E Concourse to the K Concourse. E to K in O´Hare...THAT´S LIKE NINE MILES. Anyway, so once I got to the right gate I found out that they had just transferred my flight to a different gate and it was going to be delayed for over an hour. Great. When we FINALLY got on our way to Miami I realized, once again, that I was barely going to make boarding for my next flight to San Jose. This time I had to do a full out sprint with my 50 lb shoulder bag. At least this time they had mile markers. After I had been walking/jogging for about 10 minutes I saw a sign that said E Concourse 18 Minutes. WHAT???? By this time the sweat was rolling down my face, as I was wearing two tanks tops, a sweatshirt, and a light jacket. But I made it just as they were about to close boarding, thank God, and that´s only because this flight had been delayed about an hour too. The whole way to San Jose, when I should have been sleeping, I was awake wondering how they would have been able to transfer my luggage fast enough. Valid worry. One bag made it, the other did not. Keep in mind the flight is already an hour late. After watching the luggage thinger for about 20 minutes desperately hopping that my gigantic green bag would make it´s appearance I realized that I would have to go stand in line with some other people and tell them I had lost my luggage. Please keep in mind that at this point it is 1:30 in the morning. After finally getting all my luggage stuff taken care of I walked right through customs, literally. It seems that the customs people had gone home for the night. There was absolutely no one there. Which is good, because I just read that they changed the visa requirements to 90 days instead of 180 and I sure as hell don´t have a visa. I think I´m going to be here for about 95 days. Anyway, with a growing sense of dread I walked out of the customs area to see....no one. The person that was supposed to meet me wasn´t there. There were, however, some skeevy looking taxi drivers willing to take me to my hotel, which I sure didn´t have. I think that was the worst feeling I´ve ever had. I managed to make my way up to the check-in area where this guy told me that I was better off just staying in the airport because it was night. So there I sat until about 6 in the morning. I figured that then I would be able to buy a phone card. Nope! The only place they sell those is in the gate area, which I needed a ticket to get in. How convenient.
At this point I´m so tired, hungry and dehydrated that I was seriously contemplating just hopping a plane for home. But that would be a big waste of time, money and effort so I decided to suck it up and come up with a plan. The plan is as follows: Pick a random hotel out of my Costa Rica book and get a taxi driver to bring me there. It worked out remarkably well, actually. I picked the Hotel La Gran Via, which was the first lucky thing to happen to me in what felt like decades. The front desk guy is my savior. I´m going to name my first child Willie after the Tico that saved my life. Within 10 minutes I had a room, a phone card, some colones and a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit. Unfortunately it was only 7 and I still didn´t have anyone to call that could really figure out what I´m supposed to do. So I called my dad and had him call my international affairs director at Northern when it got to late enough, who called me back right away and told me that he had contacted people at my school. The people from down here called me and just told me to take a taxi to my host family´s house. Finally, a real plan. Unfortunately, I have wait for my luggage, which won´t be delivered to my hotel until sometime between 4 and 8. Ugh!!! My host family is going to think I´m not coming and I can´t really call them because I don´t know nearly enough Spanish. Or any, really, as it turns out.
At about 9 I took a nap until 12, when I decided to get up and shower. How convenient that all my shower stuff was in my other bag. Along with all of my clean clothes. The bag I have is chock full of books and dirty laundry. Yuck. But I washed my hair with a tiny bar of soap in the shower with the 3 knobs all marked H and decided that, since I had some time to kill, I´d check out downtown San Jose, which the Hotel La Gran Via is located in the middle of. There are people EVERYWHERE. There´s a million shops, most of them for clothing, and people bustling around everywhere in a strange mingling of pedestrian traffic and vehicles. I didn´t want to go too far because I didn´t want to get lost and my feet have blisters on them from running through airports in heeled shoes. Fortunately this little internet cafe is right next to my hotel.
My first impressions of San Jose are suprisingly favorable. The ride in, which took about 20 minutes, was gorgeous, and the downtown area is run down looking but very clean and has just enough people running around to make you feel safe. Well, as safe as a blonde American who barely knows any Spanish walking around by herself can really feel anyway. But it´s time for me to go get some food and go back to the hotel to wait for my luggage. I´ll be so relieved when I finally get to my host family´s house. I start school at 8:30 tomorrow morning (where ever the hell the school is) so my life should take on some semblance of order by then. I hope. I can´t handle too much more of this.
Saturday, January 01, 2005
Currently I'm still in the Mill Town (Milwaukee for those of you who don't know the lingo), logging in my 67th hour of TV watching and 37th hour of beer drinking. Yes, I'm resuming this blog discussing beer drinking. I felt it was appropriate. But there won't be too much more of that happening once I leave. I actually have to study this time, horror of horrors. I did enough studying last semester to last me the rest of my life. Too bad my grades didn't reflect this. Oh well...
My flight leaves in about 14 hours but strangely I'm not even a little bit nervous. I suppose 4 consecutive nights of drinking will calm a girl's nerves. Or kill them. Whatever. They'll have plenty of time to recover. Not that you can really recover from being dead. Anyway, I suppose I should get back to my TV watching and beer drinking. Yuck. I mean that. Peace out!
