Day one:
Started the day off by spending 5 1/2 hours in the airport in Washington DC waiting to leave. Arrived at the airport at 12:30am and left at 6am. Traveled to Miami where we changed planes before continuing on to Costa Rica. The flights were uneventful, although we did get to watch "The Blind Side" twice. It was a great movie for those of you who have not seen it yet. Once we touched down in Costa Rica, where the weather was beautiful, we proceeded to spend the next 45 minutes trying to locate the half of our luggage that did not arrive. We left DC with two pieces of luggage, and arrived in Costa Rica with only one piece. This means that Bob and I have clothes because we shared the suitcase that actually made it, but Jacob only has the clothes on his back. For those of you that know our son....this is not good! Even worse is the fact that in his luggage was the blow dryer and flat iron. We still have not received his luggage, so hopefully it will arrive tomorrow. If not...we will be clothes shopping.
Once we finally filled out all necessary papers to make a claim on our lost luggage...we proceeded to customs so we could leave. While the people here are extremely friendly....they speak very little English, including the customs people who are trying to stamp all of your passports to let you into the country.Once we survived customs, we proceeded to a money exchange kiosk, where again they spoke little English, to exchange some of our American dollars into colognes...which excited Jacob to no end! :-) We then went to Alamo to get our car rental, which was supposed to be at the airport, only to have the man tell us that a bus would be there shortly to take us to the main office. For those of you who are Seinfeld fans...rememeber the episode where Jerry went to pick up a car rental and Elaine was with him and once he got there they didn't have his reservation, therefore they didn't have a car for him, and he went through the process of explaining to them exactly what a reservation actually was? IF so, then you have a good idea of how the next hour plus went for us!
Now we are in need of a taxi to take us to our hotel 15 miles away...remember that they speak very little English here.....so after the Alamo bus driver started our drive back to the airport so we could find other means of transportation, he proceeded to pull off the side of the road (Side note.....they drive VERY FAST and very reckless here, running right up on the back of the car in front of then, cutting other cars off, swerving in and out of traffic, so maybe not having a car is a blessing in disguise!) to flag down a taxi on the corner. We transfer into the taxi, after negotiating a price with a driver who knew three words of English, and proceeded on to the hotel. I am trying to figure out how we are going to get around for the rest of our vacation so I started to inquire from the taxi driver what he charges.....all of which is transpiring in Spanish because he knows only three words of English. So, Jake and I are in the back seat talking in Spanish with the driver, while Bob is in the front seat....totally confused, but very impressed! Friendly though the taxi driver was....we won't be using him for the duration of our visit.
We then arrive at the hotel, pay the taxi driver, and thank him. He was very gracious, wished us well, and said goodbye, but not before teaching Jacob a new hand shake/finger snap/fist bump goodbye. The hotel is beautiful! There is a huge pool, and the people here are very friendly. Their English? Not so good. Of course by now....our Spanish is impoving tremendously! This is where our day takes a turn for the better. Once we arrive at the counter, to a very friendly check in people, the manager comes up to say hello as the girl is checking us in. He then upgrades us to a larger room, without us even thinking to ask him too, to make our stay more enjoyable, since we are staying here for a week. We went from a one bedroom with three single beds to a two bedroom with one massive king sized bed in one bedroom and two full sized beds in the other bedroom....see attached pictures. Once they have checked us in, the bell boy drives us across the property, in a golf cart, to our room, before returning to the front desk to retrieve what is now our only piece of luggage. To say the least....that was a long 3 minutes waiting for our luggage to show up in our room.....which it did. So if yoy are keeping track, we have managed to hang onto one piece of luggage all the way to our hotel room!
Once we settle in, we then go up to the restaurant where I have a delicious meal of meat lasagna with homemade pasta and a salad, Bob has a spaghetti dish with bacon (who'd of thought) and Jacob attempted to eat their fried pizza (Which did not wow him, but which Bob and I both thought tasted very good) before returning to our room where I immediately fell asleep and Jake went swimming with Bob.
Now, everyone else is asleep....remember it has been a very long day.....and I am blogging and posting pictures for all of our family and friends.
More to come tomorrow as day two starts in what we hope will be a very exciting journey into San Jose.
Talk to you soon!
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