Back in Costa Rica Again!

I woke up at 4am in MI to catch a 6:30am plane from Detroit to Atlanta.  I met Rachel, Taylor and Allison at the gate. We all sat by each other on the plane. They played a couple episodes of How I Met Your Mother on the plane TVs! I was so happy! Taylor saw that I was reading The Host and we got to talking about books. She has read all the awesome young adult sci-fi fiction books that Ali and I have read, which was really cool--I've never met anyone besides Ali and I who has read The Uglies series and it's one of the best series I have ever read!  That flight went by super fast. We then had an 8 hour layover in Atlanta. It wasn't that bad. Atlanta is the biggest airport in the world so there was plenty to do and see. We met Rhane (pronounced Rain) on the subway. We didn't know it was him, but as I glanced around, I realized he was wearing the exact same shirt that I own from CMU--my Eta Alpha Epsilon shirt. (Eta is a co-ed academic fraternity for health professions students). So I just HAD to ask, "Are you Rhane?" and it was him! He didn't recognize us, either. Good thing he was wearing that shirt! We were headed down to the luggage claim, because they wouldn't connect my bag automatically to the San Jose plane since the layover was so long, so I had to leave security, grab my bag, recheck it and go back through security. Luckily the others went with me because Rachel and Taylor's bags ended up on the carousel too--and the people in Detroit didn't say anything to them about having to recheck their luggage. Allison and Rhane's bags went through, though. So it was odd. But everyone who works at that airport is so nice--must be that southern hospitality. Eventually, 2 more girls showed up at the gate in Atlanta, Cecily and Sheylan. I don't think Sheylan was part of the Facebook ISL group, so there are more people on this trip than I thought. The San Jose plane left Atlanta at 5:30pm and it was 4 hours long. It went by pretty fast. I was allowed to keep the seat 38E that I selected online but the other girls were moved, so I sat in between 2 strangers. They were part of a church mission group going down to Costa Rica to fix up some elementary schools. They were from North Carolina and there were many of them on the plane. The young girl who sat to my right I chatted to quite a bit. Their guide sat on my left and she was quite funny. When we neared San Jose, it was already nighttime and the city lights were beautifully woven in between the mountains/volcanoes. There was lightning off in the distance, which was cool to see. Then the thunder rumbled the plane! It was actually really cool, not scary. Thunder experienced from a plane--that's a first. And as I looked out the window, all I could think was "Wow, I'm back in Costa Rica, well imagine that." After we got through customs, our team leader Luis was waiting for us. He is really nice and short and chipper. He is the Costa Rican version of my philosophy professor. We took a bus 30 min away to our hotel and checked in. Rachel and I chose to room together. We got in around 10:30pm. The hotel cook had a small buffet waiting for us of chicken, vegetables, mashed potatoes, pineapple "applesauce" and some mango juice. It was quite good! The hotel is set up like a courtyard, and in the middle of the courtyard is literally a tropical oasis with a pool and palm trees and cute little places to sit, I'll have to take pictures in the morning. Rachel and I unpacked and went to bed. Buenos noches!