Costa Rica

Wow. There's just so much, I don't know where to begin. Ok, how about the beginning?

My entire life I have suffered with motion sickness. I get sick in the car, and everything bigger than that. In fact, the bigger the vehicle, the sicker I get. Needless to say, I hate to fly. Fortunately, I heard from a coworker, a few years ago, that ginger helps. I went straight to GNC and got a big bottle and it really does help. I usually still get sick when flying, but only during the descent.

I have never left the country before, except a short jaunt into Canada when I was 10. I had a 4 hr layover in Denver, followed by a 5 hr ride to San Jose. I never got sick. Not once. Not even a little bit. This made the whole trip start out so great. I was in a wonderful mood.

Sara was waiting at the airport for me, and I was so happy to see her. All the way to their house I kept saying "I'm not in the states anymore!" San Jose, and all of it's suburbs is in a big, roundish valley that is ringed with mountains. It was all freeway driving at first, and then little cities and villages. I have to say that C.R. has lush, beautiful green trees and grasses, of many kinds. There was a lot of traffic, and the people drive like they drive in Europe, from what I hear. And yet, the whole time I was there I saw no accidents.

It was just terrific to see Sara again. She and Simon had just been here a month before, but I can usually count on seeing them only once, or twice, a year, so this was a real treat. When we got to their house (beautiful!!) Malachi ran straight for me and I was thrilled to see him and John. Simon was still sleeping. We had a great breakfast of different pastries and lots of fresh fruit. (If you have plans to never go to C.R., or anywhere tropical, go for the produce. GREAT!!!!)

Simon got up and the 5 of us just hung out for a while, then Nana had to go take a nap. I went down on the red eye. We had a nice, relaxing day at their house and it was the best way to start my trip!

Monday Sara & I went to the grocery store. It was beautiful. So nice, and so clean. It was very much like Byerly's. It was odd to see that the store was very much Costa Rican. All of the employees were Tico's (C.R. are called Tico pronounced tee-koe), and it was Spanish all around us. Sara is very good at speaking C.R. Spanish. But, most of the products came from the states. John said we had to play a game that night. They had a new one they just love. Sara took me to an old monastery that's been converted to a restaurant. It was very, very nice and the food was great. We sat at a table that was up against the glass wall, and my fear of heights thing popped up. Sara & John are at 3300 ft on the mountain, and the monastery was another 2000 ft up. It was right on the edge and you could see the whole valley. I felt like I was being tipped towards the wall and was a little freaked out, but not for long. The view was spectacular, and the food was very good. Unfortunately, we couldn't get any pictures. It was too dark and even when Sara suppressed her flash, it still wasn't any good. I meant to go back up to take pics, but just forgot. (I'm very good at that!) We went back to their house and played Ticket To Ride, and I could have played all night. Very fun game!!

It was a great start to my trip. I'll post more later. Still recovering from the trip home, and need to take a nap. Sorry, don't mean to be cryptic, but you'll just have to read more later on.