Just in Time

I finally got on my flight to Miami around 4 in the afternoon and barely made it! Right when I arrived in Miami I called Trevor…who was traveling with the group of us down to San Jose and he said that I just needed to get to the gate and meet the group and forget about my luggage. So that is exactly what I did! I was in the same area so I got to my gate pretty easily! I met up with my group and hit it off with some of the girls immediately…despite being so exhausted that I really wanted to be anti-social!  Luckily, the flight to San Jose was delayed around an hour that way me and the many others who had trouble flying made it just in time. I met Megan who my friend Brooke Tiley from CCU met randomly at a wedding and told me to get to know! We hit it off pretty quickly; she is very spirited, extroverted, and fun. We are going to be doing the environmental concentration together too…which will be really great! It is only going to be Megan, Josh, (maybe another girl named Leanna), and me in my concentration…which will be awesome because that means that we will get to do a lot of cool stuff and have a lot of personal attention in learning! My flight to San Jose was really great! I sat next to a lady who looked like she only spoke Spanish…and I wanted to try to speak to her a little, but I chickened out! The man on the other side of me was an older man with really long finger nails…quite the eccentric fellow. I was reading a book about Costa Rican culture and he kept giving me advice on what to expect! It was really funny! He ordered 2 beers and a bloody mary mix for the plane ride and when we were getting close he told me that he knew we were close because his second beer was almost gone. He said he has been visiting Costa Rica for about 10 years and used to have an apartment in San Jose. He gave me some good tips:

·         The Tico (Costa Rican) men are very forward and hit on pretty girls “like me” and that I should just ignore them.

·         Always bargain for a better price.

·         He also warned me about Tico time and how the Ticos never show up at the time you plan to do something…they are most always late J (They operate on their own time)

·         When we were off the plane, he even yelled at me one last tip: “Don’t exchange your money in the airport.

It was an interesting flight, but I made it to San Jose around 1 in the morning! Then once everyone else had their luggage they went out to get on the bus while me and the 5 others who didn’t get their luggage waited to ask them to find it and get it to us. Luckily, Trevor did all of the work for us! My bag was supposedly still in Ohio…it never made it out of that airport, where I waited all day! We got on the bus and got a snack and drove to the compound we were going to stay in the first night! Once we got there we grabbed out luggage and paired up into rooms for the night! I stayed with my friend Rene (who goes to Ceaderville University in Ohio) and Victoria (who is from Ohio)! It was a room full of Ohioians! Lol! We got to bed around 2am the first night in Costa Rica! What a day of travels!