So The Adventure Begins...

Yesterday was so full of emotion for me. Full of fear, unknown, sadness to leave my family, but most of all, excitement. The combo of all those things had me literally shaking as we pulled up to the airport. Mom and Dad treated me to a yummy lunch before parting ways. There were a couple tears shed by all three of us, and then I was well on my way. I've never flown before so I had this feeling of "little fish in a big sea". As I checked my baggage, I could feel the skin on my kneecaps shaking, wondering if it was visible through my leggings? Ha! The whole process through Detroit Metro took a matter of five minutes, tops, and then I just waited. During the last hour of my three hour layover in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, I got to meet Niki's friend, Jil (totally awesome by the way!) who will be traveling with us for a couple weeks. Jil is originally from Toronto but had been living in Korea for a few years teaching English.

About half way through our flight, we hit some pretty intense turbulence. This was only about my tenth time on an airplane compared to Jil's probably hundredth, so with the first jolt, I just kinda held my breathe and observed, wondering if this was normal. Nope...definitely not. It continued for what seemed like minutes, when in reality only about thirty seconds along with people screaming and Jil repeating "We're ok, we're ok, right? Yea we're ok!" And me replying hopefully, "Uh yea, yup we're oookay!" The pilot comes over the speaker to a silent and very startled plane of passengers and explains that we had just hit the tip of a thunderstorm that hadn't come up on the radar. People were crying, one girl was puking, and Jil and I just looked at each other and did what comes natural when you don't know what else to do, LAUGH! :) The flight finished out fairly smoothly for the most part and the cabin burst out in applause as our landing gear brought us to a hault.

From there on out, we were distracted by our arrival into San Jose. We hit up the first ATM where we took out money in their currency here, colones. It was weird to type in 50,000 into an ATM machine even though that's only about $100 USD. A little red cab, roughly stick shifted down the hilly highways to drop us off at our first hostel.

We stood outside a gated front door with a blacklight lighting the entry and rang the doorbell. Mind you, its now 2:45am, I felt like people of the underground railroad knocking and asking to be let in in the wee hours of the night for lodging. It's cool how everything is so open here and "outdoors". Windows, doors, everything supplies the building with a breeze. A young girl, our age, in a full length patterned beach dress greets us at the gate and let's us in. "You girls must be in the group of five with the Canadian! I'm Canadian too." As she shows us into the building, I'm instantly soaking it in. This place is a total hippy hangout and I love it! Very artsy, eclectic, and laid back. Colored lights and chalkboard doors with funny messages on them and squeaky wood floors. Total hippy dorm feel.

She walked us into the little lobby room where she hands us a stack of mismatched linens. A towel, a flat sheet, a fitted sheet and a pillowcase. They were actually very clean. "Our dryer is broken so all we have are big sheets, so you might just have to tuck them under the mattress." Haha. She showed us around., the kitchen the commons area and the bedrooms. We quietly snuck into our room which has four bunk beds and all girls. I feel like I'm in Girl Scout camp again. Backpacks and travel toiletries bags sprawled everywhere and our window wide open with a cool breeze coming in. Niki, Erin, and Nicki woke up to greet us, ask about our flight and soon we were tucked into our beds for a good nights sleep after a long day of traveling. Niki popped back in her ear plugs, we killed the lamp, and I soon drifted off to the sounds of cars, a rooster, rustling palm leaves, and a windchime outside our breezy window. Goodnight Costa Rica! :) ❤