Costa Rica Day 2
Wheeeeeeee it's my birthday!
Today was long. We were up around 8-ish (which is 10 back home in Virginia, but I've been on a sleeping-till-noon schedule for a while) and on the road at 9:30. We went to a national park where there were monkeys, tropical birds, butterflies, jungle cats, and giant snakes. We also saw a lot of waterfalls. It was fun, but my legs were jello from all the walking up and down stairs. The entire country is mountains and hills! If I had known, I'd have started doing laps up and down the stairs at my house about a month ago. :P The good news is that I'll probably be in great shape by the time we leave.
We had a driver take us from San José to the park which was about an hour drive, and the same guy took us to the house (which was about a four hour drive plus lunch). The driving laws here apparently are just a suggestion. If someone is going slow in front of you, you can just drive over the solid lines in the middle of the road and pass them. If you don't feel like going all the way around the traffic circle, you just go in the opposite direction. No biggie. After a while, I decided that listening to music on my phone and closing my eyes would bring me the most solace, but the views that we saw were pretty.
Anyway, the house is fabulous. It's built into the side of a (monstrous) hill and has about four and a half levels. (The main level is split.) After trekking through the rainforest earlier, we weren't excited about the number of stairs, but we'll manage. :P The house has chefs who made us dinner tonight along with an awesome birthday cake. They spoke some English, but they opened up more to us once I broke out my rusty high school/college Spanish. The more that I practice here, the better it will be, but it's harder when I have to go back to speaking English to Alex and the rest of his family. If only we all spoke the same thing! :P
I feel SO much better tonight than I did yesterday or even this morning. I think I had some post-flight vertigo going on yesterday, or maybe I was still just anxious from flying so far away from home. This trip has been weighing heavily on my mind for some time now, so I'm doing my best to relax. It's actually been kind of a godsend for my phone to not work here because I get to choose when I interact with the outside world. Those smartphones will take us over!
Anyway, I'm going to crawl into bed soon. It's been a long day, and I need a lot of sleep.
Today was long. We were up around 8-ish (which is 10 back home in Virginia, but I've been on a sleeping-till-noon schedule for a while) and on the road at 9:30. We went to a national park where there were monkeys, tropical birds, butterflies, jungle cats, and giant snakes. We also saw a lot of waterfalls. It was fun, but my legs were jello from all the walking up and down stairs. The entire country is mountains and hills! If I had known, I'd have started doing laps up and down the stairs at my house about a month ago. :P The good news is that I'll probably be in great shape by the time we leave.
We had a driver take us from San José to the park which was about an hour drive, and the same guy took us to the house (which was about a four hour drive plus lunch). The driving laws here apparently are just a suggestion. If someone is going slow in front of you, you can just drive over the solid lines in the middle of the road and pass them. If you don't feel like going all the way around the traffic circle, you just go in the opposite direction. No biggie. After a while, I decided that listening to music on my phone and closing my eyes would bring me the most solace, but the views that we saw were pretty.
Anyway, the house is fabulous. It's built into the side of a (monstrous) hill and has about four and a half levels. (The main level is split.) After trekking through the rainforest earlier, we weren't excited about the number of stairs, but we'll manage. :P The house has chefs who made us dinner tonight along with an awesome birthday cake. They spoke some English, but they opened up more to us once I broke out my rusty high school/college Spanish. The more that I practice here, the better it will be, but it's harder when I have to go back to speaking English to Alex and the rest of his family. If only we all spoke the same thing! :P
I feel SO much better tonight than I did yesterday or even this morning. I think I had some post-flight vertigo going on yesterday, or maybe I was still just anxious from flying so far away from home. This trip has been weighing heavily on my mind for some time now, so I'm doing my best to relax. It's actually been kind of a godsend for my phone to not work here because I get to choose when I interact with the outside world. Those smartphones will take us over!
Anyway, I'm going to crawl into bed soon. It's been a long day, and I need a lot of sleep.